Human Resources Manager Interview - Coursework Example

Human Resource Manager Interview Human Resources Manager Interview Goes Here al Affiliation Goes Here Human resource management is a challenging profession. This essay introduces the reader to Kate Kested, a human resources manager for a busy satellite call center in Ohio. Ms. Kested gives real life examples of how a human resources manager needs to be good at time management, people management, and benefits management. The human resources manager can not be everyone’s friend. The manager in this essay hires, counsels, and dismisses employees. She has recognized a valuable asset to her company (working mothers) and has gone to bat for this segment of the workforce. As human resources manager Ms. Kested deals with unique situations every day. She helps keep the workforce diverse by including workers from throughout the community. Ms. Kested explains that hiring using qualifications as the determining factor has kept the workforce diverse and in line with equal opportunity directives. Human Resources manager interview Introduction My interview with Kate Kested was conducted via teleconference. A family friend put me in contact with Ms. Kested. She gave a half-hour time slot in her busy schedule for this interview. She sounded sharp, witty, and definitely like a ‘people person’. The interview began at 6:30 PM on November 8th 2007. Ms. Kested is the Human Resource Manager for a call center satellite location in Ohio. The company she works for runs five satellite centers in Ohio and one in Nebraska. She is a member of a six person team of human resource managers (one at each location). They teleconference once per week and all spend one day a month at the headquarters location in Columbus, Ohio. Additional teleconferences are held as needed for new customer roll outs and rules/regulations changes in the call center industry. Background Ms. Kested is a college graduate who majored in Business Administration. Her people skills landed her the job of human resources manager at her current company. She is an Army Veteran with thirteen years of experience supervising soldiers. Her official title is Human Resources Manager. Occasionally she is required to substitute for the call center manager when that person is out of town or on vacation. She has additional duties that include substituting when a campaign manager is absent. The campaign manager’s position is a direct supervision job supervising up to twenty people at a time. Her company compensates her with $52,000 per year, full medical and dental coverage, employee stock option plan, and death and disability insurance. She also receives commissions on products she sells while substituting for campaign managers. Job Responsibilities Ms. Kested spends most of her time as benefits administrator for her satellite site. She also processes applications for employment, interviews candidates, and matches candidates with job positions available. Due to the nature of the call center industry turnover is high and is on the top of Ms. Kested’s list to correct. She sees her position as a ‘job matcher’ putting the right people in the right places. Good job matching has lowered the turnover rate at her satellite location. Time management is a big issue with Ms. Kested. She says “there are just not enough hours in the day to accomplish all that needs to be done.” She manages her time using a time-line calendar for projects, setting specific hours for interviewing potential candidates, and setting specific hours for employee appointments. She also has dedicated time to answer messages and make calls. Ms. Kested spends about ten hours a day at her job and enforces a “no weekend hours” policy unless the “place is burning down”. She values time with her family and balances work and family for that reason. Communication is a key to success for Human Resource Managers. Ms. Kested uses everything available to keep open lines of communication with the main office, call center manager, campaign managers, and CSR’s (call center representatives). She uses email, telephone, and the company’s website to keep everyone up to date on human resource issues. She strives to answer questions, return calls, and answer emails within 24 hours of receipt. As stated earlier, a big part of Ms. Kested’s job is matching people with jobs. She receives applications for employment daily, and because of high turnover, interviews potential CSR’s daily. Ms. Kested also deals with disgruntled employees and managers. She functions as ‘problem solver’ sometimes handling problems that have nothing to do with human resources management. Ms. Kested sees her job as managing human resources saying “that employees are the resource that is most important to this company’s success.” Although competitive call centers have higher turnover rates Ms. Kested still puts employee retention as the most important task at hand. Working in a call center is a tough job. CSR’s making cold calls all day, get yelled at, sworn at, and rarely praised by those they call. Ms. Kested’s hardest job is dealing with disgruntled employees and those not suited for the job. She follows a ‘counsel, counsel, dismiss policy where she counsels an employee two times before considering dismissal. There are employees that are dismissed after one counseling and others who have been in her office numerous times. “Each employee is a unique individual, we have rules but we are flexible as well.” She counsels employees using what she termed the ‘one minute manager’ approach where she spends 15 seconds telling the employee what they done wrong and 45 seconds building up that same employee. CSR’s at her location know that a counseling with her will be brief and to the point. Her least favorite job is dismissing an employee as most CSR’s really need their jobs. “I was sure that when I implemented the one minute manager approach with the “counsel, counsel, dismiss” policy that employees would hate me, but I seldom come in the front door because I have to walk through the call center. It is only about 50 ft. to my office but it can take up to ten minutes for me to get there…everyone wants my attention.” One of the questions asked during this interview was about affirmative action. Ms. Kested’s answer was a surprising one. She explained that a person hired under affirmative action will always wonder whether they were hired because of their minority status or their qualifications for the job. “When I interview and hire it is based upon that person’s qualifications for the job. Interviewing and hiring done correctly produces a diverse work force.” Ms. Kested explained that she has been successful and that the employee ratios (Equal Opportunity) at her call center reflect the racial makeup of her community. Ms. Kested credits her time in a leadership position in the Army with making her a good judge of people regardless of race. “Discrimination in the Army is an absolute no, no! When the bullets start flying they don’t stop in midair to see if the soldier is black, white, or male or female. Bullets are the great equalizer!” Ms. Kested considers the 8:30 AM to 2:45 PM workers the most valuable employees. Most of the people working those hours are young mothers who arrive after getting their kids off to school and leave to be home when their children get there. It was a hard sell to senior management who wanted more 8 to 4:30 employees. By embracing this group of employees the call center has a dedicated workforce. This group of employees has the lowest turnover rate, and the highest performance rate. Ms. Kested has several individuals that work directly with her. These individuals include a ‘trainer’, a quality assurance technician, and a secretary. All these individuals are critical to the operation of the organization. These positions are ‘experience only, positions. These employees don’t have higher than a high school diploma but have critical on the job training that makes them valuable to the company. One of the most important jobs that Ms. Kested has is as payroll officer. Her secretary functions as payroll clerk. Ms. Kested combines benefits administration with payroll operations. If something is wrong on an employee’s wage statement it is most likely a benefits mistake or an hours recorded mistake. Ms. Kested tries to avoid pay problems by educating new employees when they still belong to the trainer. An hour of new employee’s training is devoted to payroll and benefits. New employees fill out paperwork and are shown how to ‘clock in’ and ‘clock out’. If an employee forgets to clock in or out then it will result in an error on their wage statement and paycheck. Ms. Kested requires employees that have a wage error to fill out an error report and have his/her time sheet verified by their campaign manager. The campaign manager will verify that the employee did indeed work the hours claimed and sign the report. Instead of paying the employee immediately Ms. Kested posts the error and correction on the employee’s next pay check. This causes some employees to become angry. But, few corrections are requested because the employees know that it will not be immediately paid. Ms. Kested controls employee behavior by being having rules and consistency in applying them. She encourages her direct subordinates to be consistent as well. Ms. Kested’s company has located her call center in an area with a high population of illegal immigrants. Her call center requires Spanish speaking CSR’s to call Spanish speaking customers. Ms. Kested says her greatest challenge is processing Spanish speaking potential employees. She must verify the work status of many of the employees. This is made very hard because many illegals have forged documents that resemble the real documents required for employment. She told of an applicant who graduated from the local high school and came in to apply for a job. The applicant spoke flawless English and Spanish. But when asked for her social security card and state identification card the applicant stated that she lost them. When she did produce the documents the middle name on the paperwork did not match the middle name on the job application. Although she felt sorry for this person company policy requires Ms. Kested to report the discrepancies to local law enforcement, which is what she did. She never saw that person again. Another major challenge for Ms. Kested is maintaining diversity in the workplace without alienating any employee. There are several work shifts available for employees to chose from. Most of the employees that work dayshift (8 to 4:30) are older adults. Most employees that work the 8:30 to 2:45 shift are young mothers. Night shift (3:30 to 12:00) is made up of mostly students. College students typically work until midnight while high school students work until 9PM. Ms. Kested said that the high school employees cause the most problems for management and human resources. When the students come to work they are beginning their hours while older workers are coming to the end of their day. These two groups don’t mix so well and Ms. Kested often counsels at least one or two high school students a day while counseling day shift employees who swear they are going to quit because of the high school kids. Most of the time a high school kid finds themselves in Ms. Kested’s office they are told to go home, come back tomorrow and try again. That approach satisfies the older workers while letting the younger workers know that they are valued employees and will get another chance. Ms. Kested works closely with the center manager and campaign managers. She believes that all the managers are a team that needs to get the job done. Campaign managers keep the Human Resources department informed about what type of workers they need. Human Resource’s job is to find, qualify, and hire the employees that the other managers need to accomplish assigned tasks. Another valuable team is made up of the other individuals that work in the Human Resources Department. Ms. Kested says her job would be pretty much unbearable without her secretary, employee trainer, and quality assurance technician. Her secretary serves as a buffer between employees and Ms. Kested. Oftentimes and angry employee will show up at Human Resources and her secretary will have them sit until they calm down, let Ms. Kested know they are there, and then usher them into her office. For safety and security Ms. Kested always has one of her staff sit in on discussions with employees. At least once a week Ms. Kested’s staff meets with campaign managers and the center manager to make sure that Human Resources is appropriately supporting the mission statement of the center. It is this direct contact with managers that allows the Human Resources Department to make changes in training, hire those that require special skills, and dismiss those unsuited to work in a call center environment. Conclusion Human resource management is a tough job. Managers in this position are tasked with hiring, counseling, firing and benefits coordination. The human resources manager needs to be an individual that is good at time management and a ‘people’ person. The manager needs to be able to interact with a diverse workforce while maintaining the standards set by the company they work for. This interview showed that the human resources manager needs to be creative as well as a self-starter. A typical human resources manager works more than 40 hours per week (in this case 50 hours). The success of this (Kate Kested) manager can be attributed to the rules she has made for herself. She set strict work hours vs. home and family hours. This human resources manager combines real world experience (The Army) with advanced schooling (bachelors degree) to accomplish her job. References American Psychological Association (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Kested, Kate. Human Resource Manager, Interactive Teleservices Call Center Operations. ITC Corporation. Home Office: New Philadelphia, Ohio Society for Human Resource Management. 2007. HR Knowledge Center. HR Basics. Retrieved November 8, 2007 from http://www.shrm.org/hrresources/basic_published Read More