Human Resource Management - Article Example

Running Head: Human Resource Management Human Resource Management [Institute’s Human Resource Management Article “Hiring Employees, With Help or Without THE CHALLENGE To make the high-quality hires that Mr. Sims needs to continue building his business — without the benefit of a human resources manager. THE BACKGROUND Mr. Sims acquired the Puget Sound business from his parents after they retired in 2003. At the time, the company had just five employees. With his passion and talent for sales, Mr. Sims expanded, opening a branch in Portland in 2007. Heading into 2010, he knew he needed help. He planned to hire an office administrator, two route drivers, and a warehouse worker. Beginning in the third quarter of 2009, he toyed with the idea of hiring an operations manager who could handle some of the day-to-day tasks that were starting to drain him professionally and personally. “There was no one to take work off Mark’s plate,” said Dan Price, who is founder of Gravity Payments, a credit card processor, and has served as an informal adviser to Mr. Sims through their chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization. “A first senior hire is daunting for an entrepreneur,” Mr. Price said. In fact, the prospect of carving out time to make hires was daunting to Mr. Sims. He recalled spending three days sorting through résumés when he could have been out getting business. With the unemployment rate high, the number of job applicants has surged, making screening even more time-consuming. “I get résumés for driver positions from applicants who don’t even have a license,” he said. In addition, Mr. Sims conceded that he did not have the best record of accomplishment when it came to hiring. Last year, for example, he brought on employees who seemed “fine” but did not last. A driver he found on Craigslist wrecked a new vehicle. A new office staff member spent up to 30 percent of her workday on personal social media use, distracting others. “Despite the economy, we aren’t attracting the quality candidates we’d hoped for,” said Mr. Sims, who lamented a “deteriorating work ethic” and said many candidates did not seem committed to building a career. “I want to get people excited about working here — even if we do sell toilet paper and Dumpster deodorizers.” THE OPTIONS To find his operations manager and to fill the lower-level positions, Mr. Sims considered running ads and browsing résumés posted on state employment agency Web sites. At first glance, this seemed the least expensive way to go. However, after factoring in the time for culling résumés, Mr. Sims was less convinced that this was the best way to find candidates, particularly a strong No. 2. His other option was to hire a recruiter, at least to find the operations manager. However, Mr. Sims was not enthusiastic about spending that kind of money — typically, 20 to 30 percent of the hire’s six-figure salary. He had worked previously with a recruiter who had charged much less ($1,500 per placement), but offered little value. THE DECISION In consultation with Mr. Price, who had taken his own company to 53 employees, from 10, in the previous four years, Mr. Sims decided to use a recruiter to find his operations manager, beginning the process last November. The agency began by interviewing Mr. Sims, who said he was surprised to realize during the conversation just how much he disliked operations. Once the agency understood his needs, it sent him the résumés of 12 candidates. Of those, Mr. Sims selected six and spent a day interviewing them back-to-back. He then ranked them and scheduled second interviews with the top two — a former chief financial officer and a former tech entrepreneur who had built a business from three to 35 employees before selling it. Mr. Sims, Mr. Price and a human resources employee from Gravity Payments conducted second interviews at the agency. The process took half a day. Mr. Sims interviewed one candidate, while Mr. Price and his colleague interviewed the other, and then they switched. Mr. Sims said the most valuable part of the process came when he and Mr. Price sat down afterward. “I think I might have made the wrong choice if left to my own devices,” Mr. Sims said. While both applicants were highly qualified, Mr. Sims said he was inclined to hire the tech entrepreneur who possessed strengths similar to his own, a person more focused on vision than tasks. “I felt strongly that Mark needed day-to-day help with the financial and operational aspects of the business and not with management and strategy,” Mr. Price said. The former chief financial officer started in early January, and he immediately took accounting and finance off Mark’s plate. “This was the first time I stepped up and used a professional agency,” and it was worth it,” Mr. Sims said a month later. Best of all, the operations manager assumed responsibility for filling the four remaining spots. The manager estimated that he spent 20 percent of his time in January and February on hiring, weeding through 1,500 résumés for the administrative position alone” (Gardella, 2010). Discussion Human resource management is one of the strategic functions within an organization that deals with the most valuable asset-workers/labor force. In specific, the task of HRM is to hire workers and direct them to organization’s goals by providing them all the resources needed to materialize those goals. In addition, experts have indicated that it also deals with compensation, benefits, training, safety, workers productivity, and effective communication between workers and organization (Hughes, pp. 221, 2002). Universalist approach is a direction or approach adopted by human resource managers irrespective of its size, business strategy, long-term goals, and corporate situation. It actually refers to “best practice model,” which places immense importance on effective communication, teamwork and the utilization of workers capabilities. An example of utilization of workers capabilities is mentioned in the article (Gardella, 2010) in which, Mr. Sim hires the operational manager and he fulfills his responsibility of filling the four remaining spots to his best potential and going through 1500 resumes just for administration post alone. Universal approach is a part of soft strategic practices that consider employees as a valuable asset and focuses on their development and workers are taken as instrument to achieve competitive advantage in the market. Mr. Sim (Gardella, 2010) mentions in the article that after choosing the former chief financial officer, worker took accounting and finance to great heights. Universal approach says that standard rules of thumb for selection should come under application in human resource management irrespective of the size of an organization. However, this is actually not the case as human resource applied in high tech industries are hardly of any concern to mass producers or hiring strategy used by multinational where there is separate human resource department will be entirely different from that of grocery where there is no separate HR department. Similarly, this article is even based on small-scale businesses where there is hardly any need of human resource department; however, still human resource person must be present there to use appropriate selection method for hiring correct employee. As in the absence of any human resource person/department, Mr. Sim used wrong selection method by advertising and browsing resumes posted on state employment agency that might be the correct method for large-scale organizations. He considered this as best method as it was inexpensive; however, later on he was convinced that this selection method was really time consuming to find strong employee. Mr. Sim also mentions that he was even about to make wrong decision by employing technical entrepreneur rather than former chief financial officer in absence of human resource person. The major pitfall of this approach is that it says one direction should be implemented regardless of multifarious situations arising in an organization that can fail couple of times. It does not welcome change of method. However, in the article’s conclusion, Mr. Sim and his new operation manager moves from set standard practices of selection by deciding to place adverts on the state employment agency websites and selected the candidates by using the terms “Quick books” and “route sales” (Gardella, 2010) to search for people who match their needs. Therefore, Universalist approach snatches the opportunity from organization to reinvent and is a major threat to company goals and objectives by following standard best practices at all differing situations of an organization. References Gardella, Adriana. 2010. ‘Hiring Employees, with Help or Without.’ The New York Times. October 27, 2010. Retrieved on February 13, 2011: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/business/smallbusiness/28sbiz.html Hughes, Julia M. C. 2002. ‘HRM and Universalism.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. Volume 14, Issue 5, pp. 221-228. Read More