Small enterprises/Flexibility, trust and freedom !

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Theoretical Framework

The purpose of this part is to provide the theoretical framework to the topic; academic articles and hard book copies related to the purpose of the thesis are presented. All the different aspect of the thesis is presented; recruitment, generations and the white-collar business.

Recruitment

For a Human Resources department, recruitment is one of the most important subject and activities that they engage in, this since it is their job to identify and attract potential employees to the organization (Hurrell, as cited in Barber,1989, p5). Furthermore, it is discussed that recruitment refers to the action of generating a talent pool for a certain position within the organization, but the success within the determination stage of applicants, strongly depends on the quality of applicants that are generated during the recruitment process (Hurrell, 2016).
What can be generalized is that not all processes look the same, where some recruitment activities are internal whilst the more normal recruitment processes are outward-facing, that require contact with the external environment (Hurrell, 2016). The external recruitment process refers to the scenario where organizations search to attract potential employees for a position from the external labor market, rather than within the organization (Heery, & Noon, 2008). Hurrell, (2016) continues to argue that the outward-facing recruitment process may and may not contain the desired and needed skills, which applies especially for those positions that require specialist skills. Baker (2014) argues that if organizations’ are struggling to retain their quality employees and at the same time recruit quality workers to replace the former employees, they are facing a great struggle or will soon do so. In a modern workplace, it is of great importance to realize that being a genuine employer of choice to potential employees is the most tactile approach to remain competitive in a climate where change and uncertainty is of quick changes (Baker, 2014).
Furthermore, according to Kaempf (2018), the labor market is undergoing rapid hasty changes, that are driven by technological changes and digital transformations. Kaempf (2018), continues by expressing that these changes are occurring on research and development levels but also in knowledge work. Barber, (1998, as cited in Jaidi, Van Hooft and Arends, 2011), states that graduates with a higher-level education have several job quest options since they are exposed to recruitment practices of different organizations. Furthermore, Jaidi, Van Hooft and Arends, (2011), argues that as a consequence of the exposure, these graduates receive many job options and offers, and they get to pick their favored employer. The recruiters, thus the organizations, need to gain a better understanding for the job pursuit and choice processes of the graduates in order to improve the recruitment strategies (Jaidi, Van Hooft and Arends, 2011).
Jaidi, Van Hooft and Arends (2011), developed a stage process to explain the traditional recruitment processes of how potential recruits search for vacancies.

1. In the eyes of the potential employees, the first recruiting stage consists of substantial research in order to gather information about several job options and opportunities, where little or no contact between the parties are exchanged (Jaidi, Van Hooft and Arends, 2011).
2. The second stage that the job seekers are entering is the one where they become applicants, where they meet potential employers of the organizations’ through job interviews and pursuing job offers or rejections (Jaidi, Van Hooft and Arends, 2011).
3. The third stage follows by the third and last stage is when the seekers are taking the final choice of accepting or rejecting the job offer (Jaidi, Van Hooft and Arends, 2011).

Attraction and retention

Attraction and retention are the main purposes of the recruitment process and at this time, it becomes more and more difficult for organizations to attract and retain new employees because of the diversity in job roles and of the plurality of new methods of attraction (Blacksmith & Poeppelman, 2014). The main purpose of recruitment is to attract enough people that matches with a specific position requirement, so that the recruiters can find the perfect person to fill in the vacant position (Muscalu, 2015). According to Blacksmith & Poeppelman (2014), the digital age is a major factor for this challenge, it appears that the recruitment changed a lot within the past years and e-recruitment is becoming one of its main tools. Organizations need to find and attract new individuals on the labor market that fit the organization and would contribute to its further expansion (Osoian & Zaharie, 2014). This has direct interconnection with the achievements of an organization on the market and with the business competitiveness (Osoian & Zaharie, 2014).
As mentioned, organizations need to have a large pool of applicants in order to have the possibility to find the best person to join the organization (Sidorcuka & Chesnovicka, 2017). Furthermore, companies need to understand their potential applicants as candidate’s values, motivation and attitude (Sidorcuka & Chesnovicka, 2017).
According to Baker (2014), attracting and retaining talent refer to the practice of how to become a genuine employer of potential employees’ choice, meaning being an “employer of choice”. Furthermore, Baker (2014) argues that being a genuine employer to attract and retain talent means organization’s need to develop their workplace culture that is reflecting the changing needs and the interests of both individual and organization. Morgan (2014), argues that the past way of attracting people with money is no longer relevant since individuals seek for flexible working hours, flexible working environments, to engage in meaningful work and other possibilities aside from just getting a paycheck. What is found in recent years is that there is a skill-short marketplace pushing employers to adopt an employer of choice strategy, offering a variety of employee benefits as an effort to attract and retain quality staff (Baker, 2014). Näppä, Farshid and Foster (2014), share the view that potential employees’ perception and fit with the organization could play a much bigger and far more important role than wage, incentives and other benefits.
Morgan, (2014) argues that the changes in employee work are creating an evolution that organizations need to meet, and the author offers a figure to describe the differences from past worker perceptions to the modern ones.
Putzier, & Baker (2010), continue by arguing that when an organization is not able to retain their quality employee, they not only loose the productivity of their current employee due to job searching and lack of motivation, but also they would save costs on recruitment, advertisements, time for candidate reviews and a general loss of time. Furthermore, the authors argue that this creates a needed picture for employers to understand the weight of developing a retention philosophy to retain their quality employee that they spend time on recruiting to their organization (Putzier, & Baker, 2010

Employer branding

A definition of employer branding is: ‘a targeted, long-term strategy to manage the awareness and perceptions of employees, potential employees, and related stakeholders with regards to a particular firm’ (Näppä, Farshid, & Foster, 2014, as cited in Sullivan, 2004).
According to Baron (2016), employer branding is the process where organizations market themselves in order to show what they offer to their employees, both existing and potential ones. Jain & Bhatt (2014), argue that employer branding consists of different dimensions that contribute to strengthen the company brand and that the employer brand might differ across the different dimensions by age, sex and experiences. Furthermore, these dimensions may not be observed by potential employees as they might search for information relating to experience, trust, career possibilities, work climate amongst others as they need to make sure of substitutes such as brand signals (Jain & Bhatt, 2014 as cited in Weiber and Adler, 1995).
Wilkinson & Johnstone, (2016) continue by emphasizing on the fact that employer branding has gained an increased importance for Human Relation in relation to competition in the labor markets. Jain & Bhatt (2014), argue that globalization and liberalization has had a great impact on the labor market and competition has therefore increased, pushing organizations to constantly increase the hunting for talent. The authors continue by stating that this is a result of hiring and retaining talent in the organization has become important for continued growth of the organization (Jain & Bhatt, 2014). Furthermore, Human Relation makes use of employer branding as the organization has developed different approaches to attract potential employees since corporate image has become an increasingly important subject since this is also communicated out to the market, meaning paying customers (Wilkinson & Johnstone, 2016).
As Stahl, Björkman, Farndale, Morris, Paauwe & Stiles (2012) state, employer branding is going to be used in a greater volume as the generation of Baby Boomers, individuals born between 1946 and 1965 (Murray, 2016) exit the workforce and companies need to attract and retain new qualified talent from the Generation Z. In order to answer to this need, organizations have developed employer branding methods with the purpose of becoming an employer of choice; having a good employer brand secure the durability of the organization as the organization gains a strong position in a very competitive labor market (Alshathry, Clarke & Goodman, 2017).
Lloyd, (2002) said that it was first adopted by the Human Resources department as a strategy to keep a healthy talent pool; it refers to knowledge and perception about a company as an employer, an image of the company as “an attractive place to work” (Maxwell & Knox, 2009). In order to reach the status of desirability, a company needs to have its Employer Brand Equity as high by both applicants as well as employees from the company (within and outside the company); it is important to have a minimum gap between what the company offers and delivers as benefits (Sengupta, Bamel & Singh, 2015).
Backhaus & Tikoo (2004), explain that the employer branding concept is used to create two principal assets which are the brand associations and brand loyalty; employer branding associations promote the employer image to attract potentials employees (outside the company) and employer branding impacts organization culture and culture identity for employer loyalty (existing employees within the company)

Abstract
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction 
1.1. Background
1.2. Problem discussion
1.3. Purpose
1.4. Research questions
1.5. Delimitations
1.6. Definitions
2. Theoretical Framework 
2.1. Recruitment
2.2. Generations
2.3. White Collar
3. Methodology 
3.1. Research Methodology
3.2. Method
4. Empirical findings 
4.1. An overview of the characteristics belonging to Generation Z
5. Analysis
5.1. Small enterprises/Flexibility, trust and freedom !
5.2. Values/ Organizational fit
5.3. Work/private life environmental factors
5.4. Digital natives
6. Conclusion 
7. Discussion
7.1. Limitation
7.2. Future research
References
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