Principles of Human Resources - Essay Example

Principles of Human Resources Table of Contents Introduction 2 Planning prior to Recruitment and Recruitment 3 Do we really need them and if so how many? 4 What skill sets and types of people do we need? 5 What will make us attractive to potential employees? 6 Flexibility – for them / for us 6 Where will we attract potential employees from? 8 Advertising approaches 8 How will we know if potential employees are likely to succeed at the job? 9 Selection methods 9 If interviews, then what kind of interviews will be best 10 What must we do to comply with the law? 10 Criteria for selection 10 Communication 11 Conclusion 11 Reference 12 Introduction Workforce is one of the vital resources for an organisation; hence the companies pay extra attention for selection and retention of its human resource. With changing business environment people have ample opportunity to sift their job and this has resulted in a unique problem of high turnover rate. An organisation makes ample investment in recruitment and selection of appropriate person for the job. Later on, cost is also incurred in induction and training of these newly joined people. Therefore, when these employees leave the company, all these investments go in vain. Apart from these costs, until the organisation recruit a new substitute for the vacant position, production process suffers and results in loss of production. Hence, this loss in production also adds up with the cost of employee turnover. Majority of the companies have to face similar situation; hence the managers are always in process to develop such recruitment policies that can attract and retain potential employees in the organisation. In the given project, the approach to be followed by Northern Foods Limited for resolving its problem related to recruitment and selection will be compared with the recruitment and selection policy followed Starbucks. Planning prior to Recruitment and Recruitment Recruitment can be defined as “an ensemble of activities of planning and monitoring for finding and attracting suitable applicants for jobs in the organisation” (Deb, 2006, p.146). Therefore, through the recruitment process, companies attract the potential employees for the jobs prevailing in the organisation. These suitable candidates can be recruited either from the external sources or the internal sources can also be used. However, both these recruitment approaches have their own advantages as well as disadvantages. After considering the prevailing organisational culture Helen Right may opt for both the recruitment approaches. At present the company has an employee base of 100 people; thus the management can ask the existing employees to forward name of some of their known people who are interested to work in this company and possess required skills (Kleiman, 2003, p.124). The old employees who are not at present working in the company can also be informed regarding job vacancy in NFL. So, these are some of the internal recruitment tactics that can be suggested by Helen Right. Apart from these, advertisement can be published in local newspaper and on company’s website about the recruitment to be held soon. Starbucks, being one of the well known employers in international market, the company has a low employee turnover rate. It has been awarded as one of the best 100 companies to work with in 2010 (Starbucks, 2010). The company follows both internal as well as external recruitment policies to make a pool of potential candidate. Starbucks follows fair policies in the recruitment process so for the management it does not matter much that whether a candidate has been recruited through internal source or external source; it’s the quality that actual matters (Starbucks, 2010). Another major issue is whether NFL should stick to traditional full shift strategy or the company should incorporate per time shift. This decision matters a lot for the candidate while they select a company to work with. As compared to fulltime shift, per time shifts are more flexible. There are many people who prefer to work in a company on per time basis so that they can develop a balance between their job and other activities. Even the female and teenage candidates are more interested to work in per time shifts. Several renounced companies like Starbucks also hires per time employees and provide them benefits like medical insurance, stock option and retirement packages (Builder, 2008). As the pay scale is lower for the per time employees, by introducing per time shift Helen Right can reduce the total cost incurred on employment and thus the operating cost may reduce. Do we really need them and if so how many? If NFL decides to introduce per time shifts in the company, then it has to employ more than 30 employees. This is because the par time employees will have comparatively smaller working hours. The question is what should be the ratio between the fulltime employees and the per time employees. Though, labour rate is low for the per time employees but as the company has to higher more than 30 employees so total number of employees will increase that may result in high cost of operation. Again, the rate of turnover may be higher for the per time employees as compared to the permanent employees. Therefore, Helen Right has to trade-off between cost and stability of the employees. While hiring the per time employees, company has the same two recruitment approaches: internal approach and external approach. Generally, the fulltime employees receive several benefits from the organisation which are not offered to the per time employees. However, with time his concept has changed a lot. For example Starbucks offers a lot many benefits to the per time employees. Management consider both these type of employees as “partners” of the company. In North America, Starbucks employed 11,000 fulltime employees where as 60,000 per time employees (Hammers, 2003). As compared to NFL, Starbucks is a large company hence it can afford high percentage of per time employees in the work force but NFL may not be able to digest such high risk. As a result at the initial level, out of 30 fulltime employees at least 15 should be on fulltime basis. With time the company can introduce required change in the employee structure to introduce required change in the operational cost. What skill sets and types of people do we need? While recruiting the employees, management pays special attention towards the skills required to fulfil job responsibility. At present Helen Right has to recruit candidates who will be part of the new production facility for relishes. Therefore, while recruiting the employees care should be taken that each candidate possesses required understanding about relishes and has an interested to build ones career in fast food industry. Starbucks pays special attention that each of the candidates should have love for coffee. Because of high degree of interest in the coffee, the candidate takes special attention in his or her job. This not just improves performance of the candidates but they also feel highly motivated while conducting their job responsibilities. The company’s philosophy is to hire such candidates who enjoy their performance and for them work is just an extension of themselves (Thompson, n.d.). Once the candidate it selected in Starbucks, he or she receives a short term induction training where basic information about the job responsibility along with required information about coffee is conveyed to the candidate. Later on, the employee receives ‘on job’ training while conducting his/her job responsibility. On time to time basis management arranges different training for the employees so that they can gain required skills. Similarly, Helen Right should also coin out the basis criteria which the candidates must possess before he or she join the company. Most importantly, the candidate should have the desire to continue in this industry and to make ones career. What will make us attractive to potential employees? Flexibility – for them / for us A number of factors in the organisation have had adverse impact on employees. This has not only destroyed the company’s image as a good employer but has also posed difficulty in retaining employees. In many organisations “HR-based” (Eurofound, 2009, p.1) flexibility is introduced in order to motivate employees and make the company attractive towards potential employees. This can be used as instrument for both purposes (Eurofound, 2009, p.1). By introducing this flexibility, employees can choose a particular shift according to his or her convenience. This could succeed in attracting people who are engaged in other activities. Students who have to attend classes may choose to take up a night shift. This policy would also help to attract women employees who have various barriers in terms of adjusting with the work schedules in organisations. This policy has also been practiced in the company called Starbucks. The company was able to gain the confidence of numerous employees by the introduction of this policy. However, it must be ensured that the working hour should be kept fixed. Employees should not suffer any kind of salary cuts. Such a step could lead to a number of strikes and work stoppages as happened in Starbucks (Libcom.org, 2010). Introduction of flexible work schedules could benefit Northern Foods Limited (NFL). The company can make use of the flexibility of working hours and introduce overtime and “performance-related pay schemes” (Eurofound, 2009, p.1). Many of the organisations have used high operational flexibility and have gained significantly in terms of labour productivity. On the contrary establishments working on moderately flexible and long working hours have shown lower labour productivity. That is why it is suggested that NFL should allow its employees to choose their work schedules according to their convenience, keeping the number of hours fixed (Eurofound, 2009, p.2). Where will we attract potential employees from? Advertising approaches The company should advertise for recruitment via various media. The main purpose should be attracting the attention of the mass and audience and change their perspective about the company. The company may use the online facility for recruitment of employees. This would help the organisation face challenges of keeping track of the place where the candidates are coming from. The advantage of online advertising over the traditional modes of the same is that it is completely measurable and gives a number of tracking opportunities. “Search engine marketing” (HERC, 2009, p.2) and job sites are two most prominent sources for hiring candidates. Thus companies using the system would know the place where the hires would come from. This is quite contrary to the way in which Starbucks hires. The reason is that Starbucks is a well known company with a good reputation. It uses its already established company image to attract employees. But NFL does not have a favourable image. It requires working on its image in order to attract employees. The first step would be to assign someone in the company who would be responsible for measuring and keeping track of the recruitment advertising. The company should also use the applicant tracking system or the site vendor. It should review the costs associated with each candidate and the hiring cost per candidate. This would allow the company to know the sources which are performing better. The company must also look at optimising the investments involved in recruitment advertising by shifting the budget to the sources which are providing better return on investment (HERC, 2009, p.2). It is obvious that the company would not be able to find potential candidates easily as it does not have a favourable image as an employer. That is why it should focus on reaching out to such candidates who have been looking for jobs keenly. The most effective way to attract talent would be to regain the company’s image. Since the company is not regarded as a favourable one for employment as there are no amenities or shops nearby, it should try and pick up candidates from the same locality. People coming from long distances would not be keen to work in the company. But people who have been staying in the vicinity would not require those amenities. Besides that it would also save much of their expense on travelling. How will we know if potential employees are likely to succeed at the job? Selection methods Effective methods of selection are essential to determine how successfully an employee would perform in the organisation. The employee screening and selection finds most prominence in his organisation as it is not considered suitable for working. The selection procedure should consist of a thorough analysis of the job and its requirements. Employees should be chosen only if they meet the specific criteria. It is also important that the job description be properly conveyed to the employees to make them completely aware of what is expected of them. It must be ensured that there are no counterproductive behaviour and employee thefts during the selection procedure. The procedure should be based on selecting only those candidates who are extremely willing to work in the organisation. Candidates must not be forced to join the company. There should not any kind of terms and conditions to be abided by the employees (Congress of the United States Office of Technology Assessment, 1990, p.11). If interviews, then what kind of interviews will be best The interview should be conducted in a way to bring out the amount of willingness and craving for the employee for the job. The place of residence is what the company must focus on. If the candidate is found to be staying in a distant location he should not be considered to be potential one. It should be ensured that the candidate is keen on taking up the job after describing the complete nature of the job to him. It must also be ensured that the employees are flexible working in shifts and do not have any kind of constraints doing the same. What must we do to comply with the law? Criteria for selection The interviewer must make a thorough analysis of the personality of the candidate. The selection must be based on the confidence and honesty in the answers. The education standards should be set which has to be met by the candidates. He must also be up to the professional standard of the organisation. Although the organisation does not make for a favourable employer, yet it must not alter the standard set by the company. There should also be enough documentation for validating the candidates. Each candidate should maintain such documentation as prescribed by the company. The selection should not be based on any other criteria than the knowledge, skills and ability of the candidates. Employees recruited on other criteria like references would be likely to have adverse effect on the company. During career progression also, the candidates should be properly screened and evaluated before they are sent to the next level (IPAC, 1978, p.10). Further, employers must also look for the candidate’s passion for the job, as was the case in Starbucks. Starbucks chose only those candidates who were found to have passion for coffee and would enjoy the working environment. Communication The requirement in the organisation must be conveyed to the employees in the proper manner. There must not be any communication gap between the employees and the employer. Also the use of third person in the course of interview should be completely prohibited. This would lead to miscommunications and biasness in the selection of candidates. Conclusion Northern Foods Limited (NFL) is in the process to expand its business and to set a new production facility. For this expansion, the company has to hire new employees but from last few years high rate of employee turnover is a major concern for the management. Therefore, to overcome this problem and to take care of selection and recruitment process, Helen Right has been appointed. While developing the strategy of recruitment for the company, the policies followed by Starbucks has been taken into consideration. Starbucks is one of the best employees in international market. NFL should introduce the required flexibility and contemporary management tactics that are used by Starbuck. By introducing such required changes, Helen Right may succeed in developing a highly productive and stable workforce in NFL. Reference Builder, C. 2008. Companies That Give Benefits to Part-Timers. [Online]. Available at: http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2008/12/22/companies-that-give-benefits-to-part-timers/ [Accessed on November 24, 2010]. Congress of the United States Office of Technology Assessment. 1990. The Use of Integrity Tests for Pre-Employment Screening. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.fas.org/ota/reports/9042.pdf. [Accessed on November 24, 2010]. Deb, T. 2006. Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management. Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. Eurofound. 2009. 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