Coca-Cola Recruitment and Selection - Essay Example

Strategic Human Resource Management Strategic Human Resource Management Human resource management is defined as the process by which employees are hired and developed by an organization with the primary aim of making them more valuable to the organization. Human resource management carries out different roles within the organization. The primary roles of the HRM include recruitment, performance evaluation, wage and salary management, performance evaluation, and employee dispute resolution. The human resource management department is expected to have qualities such as ability to negotiate, industry knowledge and leadership skills for them to accomplish their role in the organization. This paper will discuss the human resource management within the Coca-Cola Company. It will analyze in detail their recruitment and selection procedures, and their training and development program. Coca-Cola is an international beverage manufacturer that was started in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton (The Coca-Cola Company, 2015, retrieved from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/history/ ). It manufacturers more than 500 brands and has managed to expand into about 200 countries and serves 1.6 billion people daily (The Coca-Cola Company, 2015, retrieved from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/history/ ). The company’s success has occurred due to their devoted employees. Their human resource management department is very effective in terms of ensuring that the employees work to the standards set by the company. Coca-Cola’s success is grounded in the policies and cultures that have been developed by their HRM (Bell, 2004, p.176). Coca-Cola Recruitment and Selection Literature review and methodology Recruitment refers to any activity that an organization carries out in an aim to identify and attract potential employees (Still, 2006, p. 12). The main aim of the recruitment exercise is to attract qualified applicants to an available vacancy. Selection is the process of choosing the best applicant and offering them the job. It involves different forms of interviews, exercises, presentations and can also include a psychometric test. This paper will source information on recruitment and selection from the Coca-Cola’s website, written literature and interviews with employees working for the company. Results Coca-Cola values this role of the organization since it creates the first contact between them and their employee. For them to attract the best employees, the company advertises any vacancies on newspapers, their website, and other employer-employee platforms. The company website being the major and first-hand vacancy advertiser has an easy to use portal where interested people can see the available jobs and read their detailed descriptions (The Coca-Cola Company, 2013, retrieved from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/careers/applicant-help). The company has registered and is active on various social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, and MySpace (The Coca-Cola Company, 2015, retrieved from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/careers/career-areas). They use these platforms to advertise for vacancies and hence are able to easily reach potential employees. All the vacancies in the organization are advertised in national and local print media and online media. This ensures that the advertisement reaches more people and thus increasing chances of getting the best employee from the labor market. Each of the vacancies advertised explains in detail the location of the job, its description, its minimum requirements, remuneration and how to apply for the vacancy (The Coca-Cola Company, 2015, retrieved from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/careers/career-opportunities-with-coca-cola-china ). The detailed form of vacancy advertisement helps to filter the people who apply for the job. Therefore, a larger percentage of the applicants meet all the qualifications of the vacancy and more so understand and are ready for the job. The HRM of coca cola also prioritizes referrals. They consult other successful companies on where to find employees of their expected quality. Another internal recruitment strategy that Coca-Cola has adopted is offering internships (Coca-Cola, 2014, retrieved from http://careers.cokecce.com/en/graduates/job-search/application/ ). They offer internship vacancies to graduates from colleges and universities. After initiating them into the job environment, the company then selects the best interns for job vacancies. The other interns also become options in case the company requires employees in that field in the future. The company organizes campus events and job fairs, and they get to link up with potential future employees Having made the vacancies known to the potential employees, the company then starts off its selection process. The selection process is crucial and requires a lot of care. It has a major impact on the company’s productivity and employee relations. At this stage, Coca-Cola aims at choosing the best applicant from the many qualified applicants. Their selection criterion is flexible, and the adopted criterion depends on the vacancy. All the applicants are expected to present their resumes and cv-s. The selection team scrutinizes these documents and comes up with a list of the applicants to invite for an interview. This activity serves as a preliminary interview. In various occasions, the selection team can make phone calls to the applicants to verify the details on the application documents. The selection team invites the remaining applicants for an employment interview. The team discusses the kind of questions to ask depending on the requirements of the available vacancy. Formal in-depth conversations between the selection team and the applicant enable the selection team analyze the applicants worth and quality. In order to have the best employee, the applicants are subjected to structured, unstructured, behavioral and stress interviews. These interviews bring to surface the applicant’s personality, as well as their professional qualifications. After the interview, the selection team picks the best applicants and does ahead to verify all the information provided by the candidate. Coca-Cola approaches the candidate’s referees in person or through phone calls and are able to verify the applicant’s information. The final stage is the selection decision. The team evaluates the applicants who passed all the selection stages and chooses the best. The selected applicant is then offered the job and starts working for the company or starts a training program. Recommendation and Conclusion The recruitment and selection process used by Coca-Cola is effective. Their careful evaluation of the applicants enables them select the best applicants and eventually have the best workforce. However, they should come up with a modern online selection criterion. Such a new technology will enable them fetch labor from different parts of the world and also interview those who cannot make it to one on one interview. Coca-Cola Training and Development Literature review and methodology Training and development of employees is a responsibility of the HRM. The main of the training and development exercise is to perfect and advance the performance of employees or a group of employees in an organization (Wilson, 2006, p. 45). It also refers to the process of imparting certain skill, knowledge and ability into an employee. Training and development help the employee in both their current jobs and in their future jobs and responsibilities. It helps an employee alter their behavior, attitude, and thinking and in turn increase their probability of attaining set goals. This paper will source information on Training and development from the Coca-Cola’s website, written literature and interviews with employees working for the company. Results Coca-Cola invests a lot of funds and time for them to improve the value of the employees. All their training exercises are aimed at achieving employee competence and improvement of performance (The Coca-Cola Company, 2015, retrieved from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/associate-training>). During training, the senior and more experienced employees are the major tool of action. They are expected to train the new employees on taking on tasks and also help them adopt the culture of the organization (Coca-Cola, 2015, retrieved from http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/about-us/employment-our-people.html). The training program can also be done by specialists from outside the company. In such cases, the training is documented and communicated to other employees in the future. After training is completed, the employee’s performance is evaluated so as to gauge the effectiveness of the results. This helps the company improve their training strategies. Coca-Cola repeats this training process of new employees, and it is improved depending on the job requirements. Development is aimed at making the employee reason soundly, and improves their ability to understand and interpret knowledge (The Coca-Cola Company, 2015, retrieved from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/associate-training>). Coca-Cola helps its employees develop in a variety of ways. Each method used is tailored to meet the company’s performance expectations. They organize instructor-led training classes whereby the employees are trained in areas such as leadership and marketing. Unlike many companies, Coca-Cola has managed to design and internal E-learning system whereby the employees share core knowledge. Through this platform, the employees gain new skills and hence better their performance ability. The company organizes different workshops whereby the employees interact with specialists and fellow employees. Through workshops, the employee gains new skills and help improve one another. Coca-Cola offers just-in-time training and development on certain critical skills. It helps their employees tackle new challenges. Coca cola links up its reward and recognition program with the development programs. This ensures that employees are motivated to develop their careers so that they can be rewarded. The Coca-Cola University helps improve its employees by offering chances of furthering studies and learning new courses. The university offers eLearning and classroom learning and thus ensures that the employees can access education regardless of their working state and hours. The company offers funds to help their employees pursue higher learning. This education program helps the Coca-Cola employees better their skills and in turn the company benefits by having a highly qualified work force who deliver the expected results Recommendation and Conclusion Coca-Cola strategies of training and development are effective and have helped better their employees. Their high value for improving employees have enabled them possesses the best employees and is the reason as to why they dominate the food and beverage industry. However, the company should emphasize more on senior employees training the junior employees rather than looking for external trainers. This will help create working unity and also instill a spirit of teamwork. It will also save on the high costs of training incurred and hence increase the company’s profitability. Bibliography Bell, L. (2004). The story of Coca-Cola. A+. North Mankato, Minn Coca-Cola. 2014. Your Application | Coca-Cola Enterprises Careers. (February 25, 2015) Coca-Cola. 2015. Employee Engagement: Training and Development: About Us - Coca-Cola GB. (February 25, 2015) Still, D. J. 2006. High impact hiring: How to interview and select outstanding employees. Management Development Systems. Coeur dAlene, Idaho The Coca-Cola Company. 2013. Careers: Applicant Help: The Coca-Cola Company. Retrieved from http://www.coca-colacompany.com/careers/applicant-help (February 25, 2015) The Coca-Cola Company. 2014. Employee Training - The Coca-Cola Company: The Coca-Cola Company. February 25, 2015) The Coca-Cola Company. 2015. Career Opportunities with Coca-Cola China: The Coca-Cola Company. (February 25, 2015) The Coca-Cola Company. 2015. Careers at The Coca-Cola Company: The Coca-Cola Company. (February 25, 2015) The Coca-Cola Company. 2015. History- Overview: The Coca-Cola Company. (February 25, 2015) Wilson, J. P. 2006. Human resource development: Learning & training for individuals & organizations. Kogan Page. London . Read More