Chermae A.

Dacumos
Critique Paper BA211 HRM

Journal of HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Employee recruitment outsourcing in Bangladesh: An ethical dilemma
Maksuda Hossain

The article for critique gives an in-depth discussion of Employee recruitment

outsourcing in Bangladesh and its implications as an ethical dilemma. Essentially, the
article begins the discourse on how outsourcing began in Bangladesh. It was not
known when Human Resource Outsourcing was initiated in Bangladesh, but it was
assumed that they started it during the year of 2005. We live in the era dominated by
information technology and the information is treated as gold mine. The country
emerged as one of the top five destinations for freelancing of IT services. Bangladesh
is in an advantageous position and the country should not miss the chance to
increase its international market share. Bangladesh attracted global attention
because of its achievements in economic and social sectors. The country made
progress despite corruption, nepotism, infrastructural problems, and negative
politics. Bangladesh has one of the highest numbers of population in the world. The
people are potentially creative minded that IT-enabled business can take advantage
of.
With Human Resource Management as an emerging area of specialization,
employee recruitment outsourcing has become a trend nowadays. Although it not
often talked about, companies practice this to reduce costs. However, does it really
reduce costs without sacrificing productivity and employees’ welfare?
The journal article was long and precise. It was able to dissect the harmful
consequences of recruitment and selection outsourcing both on the organization,
employees, and the country as well. The author cited sources such as the survey
report by Society of Human Resource Management and a list of HRO challenges as a
review of literature. In here it highlighted some of the most widely discussed
negative impacts from recruitment and selection outsourcing such as: quality of
work, inability to choose a right vendor, sudden cost fluctuation, changed company
culture, loss of jobs and poor salary structure, and employee poaching. It also tested
hypotheses about job security of outsourced employees, sweat shop problems,
mediocre quality of service, extent of employee poaching, and long run effect of
recruitment outsourcing to national economy.
The issue of recruitment and selection outsourcing in Bangladesh is still in its
pupilage. In large organizations, it is a common practice to have outsourced the
operational elements of delivering HR services. Considering that recruitment and
selection is the most demanding HR outsourcing service in Bangladesh, it is divided
into 3 classes namely headhunting, recruitment of non-managerial level employees,
and recruitment of lower-level employee. Poaching is also used by the vendors to
reach the talented candidates, especially high-tech employees from the competitors.
Considering that the concept of HRO is still in its infancy, most of the challenges
are generated through poor policy making. They still have no proper understanding
yet in the mind of both service takers and providers. Quality service providers are
also unavailable and good service providers are taking advantage of it. Although
outsourcing offers many advantages, it does come with a certain amount of risk. It is
found that many firms take people from third party without proper planning, after
few months downsize them, again after few months undertake new recruitment. To
avoid such a costly hazard the firm should analyze its resources, infrastructure,
expertise, technology, security and track record.