Download (1157Kb) - E-Ait

4.3.1.2. Hiring schemes.
The issue of hiring and recruitment has been challenging enough for libraries. Tanzania
public university libraries are not isolated from such challenges. The changing environment
calls for Tanzania public university libraries to forecast the need for the future and
incorporate this in hiring schemes. Some challenges suggested by Cribb include such
questions as; do we hire for today‟s needs or tomorrow‟s How can we hire for the future
needs of the library How do we go about providing human resource development for the
needs of the organisation as a whole, not just for the specific jobs people perform These
issues are not confined to libraries. Many other organisations are also trying to deal with
these challenges, see (Cribb, 2005, p.7)
As Peter Drucker put forward that the most valuable asset of a 21st century institution will be
its knowledge workers and their productivity, libraries need to switch from hiring for skills
mode. Increased competition demands strategic thinkers. Attributes are outweighing skills in
the knowledge economy. It is possible to train in skills, but no school can provide training for
attributes. You can train someone to be a classifier or a cataloguer or computer specialist, but
how do you train for learning agility Studies done in Australia libraries and presented in the
report “Preparing for demographic change” emphasise the importance of library staff being
“strategic thinkers” in other words being able to see and understand the „big picture‟ and the
environment within which libraries operate. Other attributes considered essential for the
library workforce include: being multi-skilled, from diverse backgrounds, have good
interpersonal skills and being committed to lifelong learning, more suggestions can be found
in (Cribb, 2005).
Even though knowledge sharing allows sharing of experts and reuse of valuable information,
Tanzania public university libraries need to have a recruiting and hiring strategy that is
targeted to fill short and long term human capital needs and, specifically, to fill gaps
identified through its workforce planning efforts. One way to achieve this is to ensure that
recruiting and hiring programs are overseen and proved to be fair and unbiased based on the
demographic profiling maintained by libraries over time. Successful recruiting and hiring
programs will ensure that training and hiring is based on what those who are selected know
and not who they know.
55