Communications and Media

Corporate organizations have traditionally been sourcing manpower through recruitment of new hires. Thus, when a job vacancy occurs in the firms hierarchy, the normal tendency is to advertise and look for people from the job market. As soon as the new hire qualifies, he or she is taken in and occupies the vacated position. For some organizations, this process has been the recruitment system for a long time. A new focus on human resources management however, encouraged human resource experts to look beyond and determine whether improvements in the existing hiring processes can provide more value to the company itself as well as bring more motivation to its human capital.

The Internal Recruitment Advantage
Thus, the birth of internal job posting, which is described as a process of identifying equally qualified people from within the organization to fill up new or vacated or soon-to-be-vacated position or positions in the hierarchy. Personnel movements in the organizations, whether the vertical or lateral types, come as a result of resignations, retirements, promotions, terminations or expansion, resulting in net vacancies in the frontlines.        
For a number of human resource managers, internal job positing or internal job recruitment is one strategy to address the motivational and morale issues in the organizational hierarchy. The process involves the identification, selection and training of company employees before external sourcing of new qualified people to fill up net vacancies in the organization. HR experts believe that when organizations initially give attention to its own people for corporate promotions, there is widespread optimism and hope of harnessing local talents and human capital to occupy managerial and leadership positions later. (Bennis  Nanus 1986) For some companies, this is manifested by the conceptualization and implementation of some form of Management Development Programs (MDPs) for new line officers and Executive Development Program (EDPs) for top management positions.

For some experts, internal job recruitment has the advantage of strengthening the organization through the learning and growth approach of the balanced scorecard (Kaplan  Norton, 2004).  Senge (1994) further strengthens this proposition as he advocated the concept of the learning organization where systems thinking includes team spiritedness, interconnectedness creating new organizational energy along the way. Here, the change needed come as a shift of the mind towards re-creating themselves continually expanding its capability to create its future. A high performance profile here is inevitable. (Corcoran, et al. 1995)
   
Internal job recruitment is expected to change the way employees think of their social contract with the organization. Here, employees feel secured and appreciated and their potentials recognized. Thus, behaviors change from a form of indifference to organizational responsiveness. Likewise, quality of decision-making is raised to a higher level benefitting the organization through better forms of efficiency and effectiveness. The values created here give substance to the organization brand and employees take first notice of this corporate value. (Davidson, 2002 p. 208)  
   
Clearly, the motivational drive created by this new systems thinking in human resources management help evolve a new crop of managers that have fully adjusted to the   cultural uniqueness of the organization. Training and development costs are reduced to the minimum considering the inherent competence of internal recruits. Thus, internal recruits are likely to adjust fully well to the new reconfigured organization, thus reducing the tensions created by the required personal and cultural adjustments from the traditional recruitment process. (Tropman, 2001)

Mechanism of Change    
The Human Resources Management (HRM) component of the organization initiates the policy change from the traditional to the emerging recruitment system. However, the various components of the organization participate in the identification and selection processes by designating new potential candidates for promotions from its ranks.  The policy change is expected to bear the imprimatur and approval of top management and even the shareholders who are likely to appreciate the new manpower hiring policies.

Financing the Change    
For an organization wanting to change to the internal recruitment system, the cost of change is relatively minimal considering the familiarity and adjusted nature of the internal recruit to the organizational processes. (Ott  Shafritz, 1991) However, the cost factor is expected to be incurred in the areas of displacements. This is referred to as the series of vacancies occurring as a result of employees filling up the net vacancies created by the job posting system until the net vacancy results at the frontline or entry-level position. Here, the cost is the imputed adjustment that results to a slowdown of operations as a consequence of transfers of personnel.  Compared to the traditional external recruitment system, the imputed cost is borne only by the vacant position and does not affect the other positions as there are no transfers occurring.            

Enforcement Effects, Significance  Inherency
The enforcement of these new policy guidelines begins at the top management levels indicating its adherence to the tenets of the learning organization and as means of providing career paths to employees. The employees themselves are expected to be actively participating in the internal job posting as opportunities are created for them.    

Internal job posting is one of the many effective and workable solutions to the career issues expected by workers and employees. Aside from providing a strong motivation as partners in business, the employees are benefitted by a policy directive that firmly believes in their capacity to change, to improve and to positively affect the lives of others as well. Here, the policy on initially looking for qualified people within the confines of the organization, identifying, selecting and training is one positive means of providing importance to the human capital components. (Berg, 2005)