Selection and Training Methods of LVMH - Case Study Example

?THE RECRUITMENT, SELECTION AND TRAINING METHODS OF LVMH INTRODUCTION Human resource is considered the capital asset of the organization and therefore, importance of this discipline’s management needs no assertion. Moreover, incremental importance associated with recruitment, training and selection of employees in the organization is also an accepted fact as product of these functions are to take organization forward to success; or even otherwise. Hence, underlying chapter develops in detail the introductory referencing for undertaking the assessment of mentioned factors in context to LVMH. The chapter also discusses the rationale, aims and objectives, methodology and limitation pertaining to the project. 1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Importance of human resource management is gaining increased acceptance with every passing day. Main factors working behind this increased importance is acceptance of the cost associated with human resource while the most important being the level of competence of human resource that drives business across road of success. Human resource management function is a continuous process and can be divided into two broad domains of pre-employment and post employment functions. Former category can be declared to addressing the factors that are concerned with candidate and employee dealing before one assumes job responsibilities in full whereas the latter one constitutes with employee management in stage next to assuming the job. However, training remains part of both categories. Recruitment, selection and training are among the most important part of the human resource function. These functions are endorsed with additional responsibility as they incur costs for greater pool and benefit is to be reaped for organization from selected ones only. Hence, the procedures employed are required to be most efficient and effective in order to attain cost minimization as well as benefit maximization for the organizations. LVMH, acronym for Moet Hennessy - Louis Vuitton, has 100,000 employees worldwide and approximately 70% of mentioned number is outside the land of origin (France) (LVMH, n.d.); hence, diverse employee base characterizes the LVMS. In order to take entire diverse employees on shared platform of commitment to shared values of LVMH, LVMH has to undertake into consideration the large number of factors in recruitment, selection as well as in training process. Moreover, despite the slow growth of world economy that has affected the consumption trends showing shift in the overall buying behavior with increased price sensitivity; LVMH has managed to increase the revenues by 19% with 9% organic growth (LVMH, 2012) and each business group is moving in positive direction with net revenue for the 2012 increased by approximately 12% (LVMH, 2012) as compared to 2011. These factors also refer the success of HRM function centrally that provided business with employees competent enough to successful employ the strategic vision of the LVMH. Hence, these distinguishing factors form the basis for exploration of the recruitment, selection and training factors in context of LVMH. 1.2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The project entitled “The recruitment, Selection and Training for LVMH” as the name implies is intended to explore the mentioned HR functions of the LVMH. Project will develop assessment of the programs and procedures pertaining to recruitment, selection and training of employees at LVMH. The going over of procedures that result in the proficient employee base for the LVMS will offer much insight to organization. 1.3. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE The purpose of the underlying study is examination of the mentioned functions of the human resource at LVMH. This study will fulfill the purpose of highlighting the procedures adopted at large conglomerates such as LVMH for developing employee base paving way for the success and growth of organization. Hence, the project has rationale of the study to explore the best practices that can serve other organization striving to develop the capital (employee) asset for organization. 1.4. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF STUDY The aim and objective that underlying research will fulfill include: Exploration of the recruitment procedure and the technicalities that lead to the development of pool of competent human resource for the LVMH. In addition to this, it will also identify practices adopted for the systematic pool development that also offers cost benefit to organization. Adhering to the importance of the selection of employees among the pool of recruits, the study will identify the selection procedures in the employment process of LVMH. In addition, the objective of the study is also to explore the synergies developed in procedures for selecting employees for different business units of LVMH. Final factor that constitutes objective to be fulfilled by this project is the training procedures of LVMH planned to align the selected employee with the practices in LVMH. The overall objective that underlying project is aimed to execute remains the identification of strengths of the factors understudy that plays crucial role in success of organization in diversified and global context. Moreover, the study will also identify the discrepancies in the procedures and hence provide room for improvement. 1.5. DEFINITION OF TERMS The aspects that form the basis of the study are among most important pillars for the human resource function of the business. The criticality of the recruitment, training and selection in HR function is evident from the fact that these functions deliver human resource to organization that takes business towards the defined vision. Hence, success of the organization is dependent on the success of these functions in generating passionate and efficient employees. In addition to this, since LVMH has expanded businesses in six geographical segments worldwide along with different products (LVMH, 2012); hence, the diversity calls for the greater attention to understudy factors to provide business with competent human resource. In order to understand in the detail the function, each of the factors is discussed in detail below: RECRUITMENT Simply stating, recruitment is the process of developing pool of potential candidates for the particular job. It is concerned with attracting large number of applicants for the particular job among which the best suited candidate can be selected. Aswathappa (2005) states the formal definition for the recruitment method as a procedure of drawing the capable candidates for employment with procedure beginning with seeking applicants for particular job and ending once a reasonable pool of suiting the job requirement has been established for selection. Generally, recruitment process follows given below flow of activities: (Aswathappa, 2005) Broadly there are two forms of recruitment: internal recruitment and external recruitment. Former refers to recruiting employee from existing human resource base for the particular job by giving promotions etc. Internal recruitment is usually considered, though not always, for positions where critical organizational information is required to be shared with employee and hence level of confidence on the employee conduct is mandatory such as finance department etc. While the external recruitment is developing applicant pool from the candidates unrelated to organization. Both forms have respective benefits and disadvantages and hence the selection of the methodology is based on organizations’ discretion (Werner & DeSimone, 2011). However, given below factors affect recruitment procedures: (Aswathappa, 2005) SELECTION General meaning for selection refers to picking the most suited among the available options. Similarly, the selection process for employees refers to identifying right candidate for the particular job and hence ensuring the placement of right candidate on the right job. Employee selection process, therefore, is the segregation of qualifying applicants from the pool for the particular job (Gitman and McDaniel, 2009). The purpose describes procedure including the interviewing and evaluating candidate with respect to specific criteria considered necessary for the particular job. The selection of an employee for a job is the resulting step of selection procedure. The selection procedure includes evaluation activities ranging from simple evaluation to complex activities and procedures depending upon the organizational as well as position’s requirement. The selection process hence, follows given below procedure: (Gitman and McDaniel, 2009) The selection of employees for the particular job is also affected by large number of factors varying from organization to organization. For instance, selection of employees has to account the equal employment opportunity, quota for disabled etc. Moreover, the factor of diverse employee base also plays an important role in the selection of employees for particular jobs (Gibson, 2004). TRAINING Once the employee has been selected from the pool based on certain criteria for the particular job, the employee is then required to be brought on same frequency as to other employees. For the purpose every employee (mostly) is given an initial training. The scope and tenure of the training process varies from the position to position as well as from organization. The formal definition for the employee training process refers to activities or an environment that increase employees’ skills and knowledge in particular dimension to improve job performance (Bartlett, 2001). Employee training is an ongoing process that begins from the day of hiring and continuous the point of relationship between employee and organization. Training process constitutes of variation from formal to informal arrangements. Moreover, other categorization includes on-job and off-the-job trainings with each category having its own further segregations depending upon the need of tasks assigned as well as the overall job duty (Jacobs & Park, 2009). The employee training is considered an organizational investment in employee development that increases efficiency of employee performance. The training and development procedure includes following steps: (Gitman and McDaniel, 2009) Throughout the training process employees’ feedback is collected in order to appraise the procedure and integrate further development (Tai, 2006). JOINING LIFE CYCLE Already noted earlier the HRM function of the business can be categorized as activities before the employee assumes full fledge responsibility in the organization and activities post assumption. Moreover, it was also noted that the training remains the part of both categories i.e. pre employment and post employment (Rothwell, Hohne, & King, 2012). Hence, based on the category of the pre-employment or more appropriate to state would be pre-full fledge responsibility assumption, candidate turning into employees pass through the following life cycle: (Brown, 2011) Depict-able from the above image; the association and relationship of the candidate and employee results in the greater engagement of candidate with organization over the passage of time (Garavan, 2010). Hence, organization has to entertain and address the larger number of pool to explore the required right candidate. Highlighting this critical aspect will be hence studied in the project in context to the LVMH. 1.6. RESEARCH METHOD The research methodology refers to the scientific approach for conducting research. The methodology forming the backbone of the research provides sequentially defined postulates for the smooth conduct of the study (Saunders, Thornhill, and Lewis, 2009). Well defined research methodology benefits in dual as aspects; first, the scientifically designed research approach leads to comprehensive research while on the other hand, it also benefits following researcher to explore the areas unattended in the presented research (Saunders, Thornhill, and Lewis, 2009). The research methodology applied for the given research has two dimensions as mentioned below: SECONDARY RESEARCH For meeting the objective of comprehensiveness of the study, secondary research method is employed. Secondary sources of data and information include already developed literature on the HR functions understudy for in depth understanding of the factors and their contribution in overall human resource management. Referred sources include researches from research journals, academic and professional sources etc with authenticity gauged. In addition, the secondary research will also refer to the researches with specificity to organization understudy to explore information related to factors apart from the information provided by the organization and members. This will benefit research in mitigating the biasness limitation. PRIMARY RESEARCH Primary research refers to the information being collected for the first time and is considered crude as has not been treated with any analysis led technique for results. The primary research is developed for the specific study, hence, provides more concrete information for research. The primary research methodology of survey will be employed for the underlying research aimed at exploring specific data for LVMH. The survey will be based on the set of question presented before the survey participants revealing information with respect to the recruitment, selection and training procedures in LYMH. 1.7. LIMITATIONS The extensive study conducted for the recruitment, selection and training methodologies adopted at LVMH will develop comprehensive understanding of the methodologies and factors playing role in successful conduct of HRM functions. However, the study will be facing with following limitations: The discussion being bound within the scope of the LVMH will face the generalize-ability limitation with respect to geographical, cultural and sector-based application. Hence, the insight developed cannot be replicated in other organizations in similar fashion. Despite application of primary and secondary methodologies for the development of comprehensive information base, still certain factor remain untraceable from the researcher reach. Organizations do not always facilitate entire information for the factor of confidentiality and hence the results are subject to biasness with respect to information provided. The primary research being collected from the organizational members is subject to limitation of being incorrect or limited information, if any, provided by organizational members hence leading to bias results and interpretations. The trio functions understudy form broad domains in themselves; therefore, the study due to time and resource limitations will be constrained for the comprehensiveness for each domain. 1.8. CONCLUSION Importance of human resource function needs no assertion. Moreover, incremental importance associated with recruitment, training and selection of employees in the organization is also an accepted fact as product of these functions is to take organization forward. The project, herein, develops ground for assessment of the stated factors for LVMH for being among the globally diversified organization. The chapter upon addressing the introduction to the factors understudy while along stating the aims and objectives also entails the details relating to purpose of the study, methodology and limitations pertaining to the project results. References Aswathappa, K. (2005). Human resource and personnel management. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Bartlett, K. R. (2001). The relationship between training and organizational commitment: A study in the health care field. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 12(4), 335-352. Brown, J. (2011). The complete guide to recruitment: a step by step approach to selecting. Philadelphia: Kogan Page. Garavan, T. N. (2010). Human Resource Development: Theory and Practice. Journal of European Industrial Training, 34(6), 579-581. Gibson, S. K. (2004). Social learning (cognitive) theory and implications for human resource development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 6(2), 193-210. Gitman, L., and McDaniel, C. (2009). The future of business: the essentials. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning Jacobs, R. L., & Park, Y. (2009). A proposed conceptual framework of workplace learning: Implications for theory development and research in human resource development. Human Resource Development Review, 8(2), 133-150. LVMH. (2012). LVMH: translation of the French financial documents 2012. Retrieved February 16, 2013, from http://www.lvmh.com/uploads/assets/Com-fi/Documents/en/Results/2012/Documents_financiers_LVMH_2012_VA.pdf LVMH. (n.d.). LVMH Group. Retrieved February 16, 2013, from http://www.lvmh.com/the-group/lvmh-group Maylor, H., and Blackman, K. (2005). Research Business & Management. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Rothwell, W. J., Hohne, C. K., & King, S. B. (2012). Human performance improvement. New York: Routledge. Saunders, M., Thornhill, A., and Lewis, P. (2009). Research Method for Business Students. London: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Tai, W.T. (2006). Effects of training framing, general self-efficacy and training motivation on trainees’ training effectiveness. Personnel Review, 35(1), 51-65. Werner, J. M., & DeSimone, R. L. (2011). Human resource development. Ohio: South-Western Pub. Read More