Extending boundaries of human resource concepts and practices: An innovative recruitment method for Indigenous Australians in remote regions

Abstract

Australian Indigenous people continue to experience low economic independence and acknowledged social dislocations believed to be underpinned by unattractive levels of participation in the labour market. Recent legal developments provide foundation for mining operators, the Australian governments, and Indigenous traditional owners to negotiate land-use agreements that feature commitment to deliver greater training and employment prospects for Aboriginal people. However, aspirations of Australian Indigenous people, who are deficient in written English expression, to obtain entry to new mainstream jobs are seriously curbed when confronted with recruitment processes requiring competencies in English reading and writing skills. In this paper is reported an assessment of an innovative recruitment process, devoid of the need to demonstrate English literacy skills, for Indigenous people seeking mainstream jobs in the mining sector. The relative features of the scheme are discussed in the context of a multinational mining company operating in northern Australia.

Employer brand management, organizational prestige and employees' word‐of‐mouth referrals in Taiwan

“…To identify potential applicants and to persuade them to apply for jobs, organizations use an array of recruitment practices (Burt et al. ; Cable and Yu ; Collins and Han ; Collins and Stevens ; Pearson and Daff ). Word‐of‐mouth is suggested by previous studies to be an efficient external recruitment information source to organizational attractiveness (Cable and Turban ; Collins and Stevens ; Van Hoye and Lievens , ).…”

“…In highly competitive labor markets, attracting and retaining superior talent has become increasingly crucial to building sustainable competitive advantage (Collings, Scullion and Vaiman ; Cooke ; Uen, Ahlstrom, Chen and Tseng 2012) especially with respect to those hard‐to‐fill positions (Baum and Kabst ; Lawler ; Ployhart ; Wilden and Lings ). Recruitment thus plays a key role in bringing needed talent into the organization as well as ensuring that its human resources base remains deep and sufficient (Pearson and Daff ; Scullion, Caligiuri and Collings ; Wilden and Lings ; Yu and Egri ).…”

“…To attract talent, organizations must put significant and sustained effort in recruitment practices to build and develop efficient labor sources (Pearson and Daff ; Townsend ; Yu and Egri ). The source through which potential applicants might find employment information is one of the key factors that influence good potential applicants' decisions (Rynes and Cable ; Zottoli and Wanous ).…”

Promoting perceived insider status of indigenous employees

“…If a critical mass is not reached, the few indigenous employees can feel isolated (Rerden and Guerin, 2015). One reason that a critical mass of indigenous employees is seldom reached is that this workforce is disadvantaged by conventional recruitment processes requiring submission of a resume and passing job interviews (Ewing et al, 2017;Gray et al, 2012;Pearson and Daff, 2011). Passive recruitment, where positions are advertised in the media or online, is often not successful in indigenous contexts.…”

“…In this sense, providing jobs to indigenous people and maintaining good relationships with indigenous communities favor social acceptability (Owen, 2016; Russell, 2013; Sammartino et al , 2003). However, while progress is being made, measures to integrate indigenous employees to the workforce still do not yield the expected results, as many qualified indigenous people remain unemployed (Biddle et al , 2009; Kalb et al , 2014; Parkins et al , 2006; Pearson and Daff, 2011, 2013).…”