The Strategic HRM Diagnostic Model (Stone, 2002:26) attempts to provide Human Resource Managers with an analytical framework designed to assist in the prediction and prevention of possible problems. The approach encourages HR managers to be pro-active, and to consider the nature of the internal and external environments before pursuing a particular course of action (Stone, 2002:25). The influences of the environments span all activities of Human Resource Management and this essay explores those that have significance for two HR activities in particular. The two of which are employee recruitment and employee selection.
An organisation has extremely little, to no, control over its external environment, the aspects of which are too numerous to list. The external environment influences HRM practices, thus influencing HR activities, both directly and indirectly. In other words, an aspect of the organisation’s external environment may directly affect the processes of employee recruitment and selection through influencing HRM practices, but at the same time it will influence the organisation’s internal environment, hence affecting the processes through strategic alignment.
One major external environmental influence may be politics. The state of politics may affect the processes of employee recruitment and selection in various ways. For example, political instability has had a dramatic influence on the practices of employee recruitment in Algeria (Mellahi & Wood, 1996). This study addresses the impact the civil war has had on recruitment practices, among other things. An interesting discovery was that the lengthy political crisis led small and medium sized firms away from ‘rationalistic’, strategically driv ...