Interview with a Human Resources Manager - Speech or Presentation Example

Analysis of interview with a human resources manager BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE HERE Analysis of interview with a human resources manager Background to interview process This report identifies real-life HR practices in an SME, one which operates in a highly dynamic and ever-changing manufacturing industry, with the information gleaned through a face-to-face interview with the Senior Human Resources Manager. The individual interviewed maintained six years experience as the HR Manager at the organisation, having been promoted from a line management position, thus giving them direct experience with the traditional management process of controlling, organising, and planning for operational efficiency. The participant was a female, aged 44, who maintained a Master’s Degree in Marketing and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration. The interview participant requested discretion; anonymity for the company and for the participant due to the sensitive nature of the oligopolistic market structure where competitive HR practices (human capital development) were considered advantages over rival companies in this industry. The company provides technology products that are utilised in major mobile telephony brands, including plastic casings for cellular phones, recharging and other plug-in technologies, and detachable skins to enhance telecommunications products. The interview session lasted one hour and twenty minutes and was designed under a semi-structured format to provide adaptability based on responses. The report utilises a structure that replicates the questions asked with a critical analysis of participant responses, followed with a critique of whether the organisation uses established best practices in the HR position. 2. “How would you define the characteristics of your organisational culture?” This question was constructed in order to establish the framework of management and leadership in the organisation, which often influences the approaches taken to HR policy development and practice (Mathis and Jackson 2008). The participant indicated that the organisational culture was built on participative leadership, one which values consensus, shared decision-making, and a general decentralised organisational structure (Mullins 2005; Yousef 2000). Participative structure generally produce more commitment and motivation to achieve desired task and strategic-oriented outcomes (Mullins 2005) which is how the candidate described the inter-dependencies between HR leadership and employee relationships. 3. “Motivation is an important element in dynamic organisations. Do you perform any interview processes to gain information about employee sentiment to assist in building motivational strategies? What might those be?” The participant indicated that it was considered best practice in the organisation to perform exit interviews, which was the only formal interview process that occurred. In recent years, the company had considerable trouble with turnover and implemented this process to gain better qualitative knowledge to improve the job environment. Exit interviews were conducted face-to-face immediately before leaving the business or via telephone, with these interviews occurring approximately two weeks after departure. The participant in the study indicated that exit interviews focused around the social condition of the organisation, since many special project teams were necessary on a recurring basis in order to develop new opportunities for product and service innovations. The relationship between manager and subordinate, the participant believed, were critical to sustaining human capital advantages over competition, thus the exit interview wanted to identify the psycho-social characteristics that were hindering productivity or enhancing the job experience. Questions probed perceptions of managerial competence in conducting appraisals and providing feedback, as well as beliefs about equitable distribution of work and rewards within their departmental context. What was interesting about this process identified by the participant is that the exit interviews maintained restrictions regarding inquiries about compensation as a rationale for leaving the company. The participant was adamant that the executive team believed bonuses and special financial rewards were not effective motivational strategies and it was believed that focusing on compensation issues would be ineffective for producing any meaningful data on how to structure the organisation. Many of the concepts that were described by the participant were closely aligned with transformational leadership philosophy, one which coaches and mentors employees, establishes a shared vision and mission, and where leaders role model desired behaviours (Fairholm 2009). The participant had been involved in piloting a motivational program that included more focused in-service training opportunities for faster promotions as the primary guidance for improving motivation and commitment. The company experienced a 30 percent reduction in turnover after implementing the program, which provided tangible statistical data about effectiveness of HR policy by which the participant was strongly supportive as being a quality best practice. 4. “How do you translate your exit interview findings into new or adjusted HR practices or other organisational changes that you believe provide value to the HR position?” The HR manager maintained a database of responses that were entered during the interview process in a standardised table format using Microsoft software products. The same template was utilised for all exit interviews whether managerial or subordinate. Quarterly, the data from these interviews were analysed (as the HR manager had to produce a quarterly report for delivery to executive leadership) to identify any meaningful correlations that existed. The company’s three business holdings maintained a total employee population of 1400, therefore there were vast volumes of data available to create meaningful correlations. Now, there is no reference available that indicates this is aligned with best practice in the interview process. Data, according to the participant, was plotted using both statistical software and in HR-oriented meetings using the talents of line managers and HR practitioners to develop inductive frameworks to correlate findings and brainstorm new HR concepts as a response. This is not surprising, however, in an organisation that is highly decentralised, where team-working is a primary objective, and where consensus is critical for improving business positioning and innovation development internally and externally. 5. “Do you feel that the exit interview process is sufficient for improving your selection techniques? And why do you say this?” The manager seemed very firm that the exit interview process was substantial enough to avoid using other techniques for data collection. In fact, during this question, the HR manager showed the researcher many colourful charts and diagrams that were part of historical reports to executives that were produced based on findings from the correlated interviews. This manager believed the exit interviews created enough meaningful data to assist in revamping the selection process. This participant seemed to believe that assessment of emotions provided by the exit interviews created a viable framework for improving the personality tests that are currently utilised by the organisation in the selection process. It is considered a best practice in the selection process to use personality tests, however most organisations choose time-tested and psychologically-valid techniques in this respect. What was interesting to these responses is that the business had developed its own personality testing model, founded on exit interview findings, which the HR manager believed strongly provided an excellent instrument for measuring an employee’s emotional, sociological and psychological competencies to function in an extremely social and team-focused environment. 6. “You mentioned psychological testing in selection. Are there any additional frameworks or models that you use to assist in finding the right fit for a job position?” The business uses what they referred to as workplace simulations to engage the candidate in addressing and assessing real-world work scenarios. These simulations had been developed in cooperation with line management, executives and the HR division, asking the employee to write small-scale essays on how they would respond or otherwise handle workplace circumstances. These scenarios, according to the participant, included hypothetical engagements between managers and internal staff, when working with customers, interventions during the sales process, and handling a variety of difficult workplace situations. As an immediate follow-up to this question, the researcher recognising an opportunity to expand on these responses, it was inquired as to how these scenarios were evaluated for correct versus incorrect responses. The business leadership had developed a series of desired keywords that they wanted to see in responses which were aligned with management and leadership theory. The participant believed in the integrity of academics and the contemporary lessons of management and leadership that are provided by universities and colleges. It was believed by this leadership team at the organisation that insertion of these keywords (there was a list with well over 200 keywords) would provide the business with the most viable candidate based on genuine academic learning. The business, other than personal face-to-face interviews with candidates, used no other selection technique, which was not aligned with the researcher’s curriculum learning about the importance of diversity in selection processes. “No one piece of information, in and of itself, is sufficient to predict future job performance” (Fisher and Nobile 2004, p.2). 7. “How do you apply your selection technique findings and interview findings with the staffing process?” The only relevant response was that interviews and selection techniques provided valuable information in determining job descriptions and ensuring they were aligned with the real-world situations faced by employees. It was the responsibility of the HR manager to conduct routine job analyses with assistance from line management to make sure pay grades were properly aligned and so that the online recruitment process would bring the most desirable candidates with skills (cognitive and psychological) necessary to achieve strategic tasks and job role outcomes. The interview participant showed very strong, positive emotions about the company’s belief that historical, inaccurate job descriptions that had been posted online and in other recruitment mediums brought improper candidates. The business, according to the participant, had been wasting considerable capital and labour trying to screen out candidates that did not (based on interviews) have the proper skills necessary to achieve success in many job roles. In fact, the executive leadership team believed that inaccurate job descriptions were providing liability to the company and had, a few years earlier, demanded a radical restructuring of job descriptions and constant upgrading of existing descriptions. Now, this is properly aligned with curriculum learning about best practices in staffing processes, with a great deal of emphasis being placed on job analyses and job description development to ensure the organisation is attracting the appropriate and proper talent pools. The depth by which job descriptions were considered to be a vital recruitment resource was substantial. There were some ambiguous statements made by the HR manager that would seem to indicate the business had lost several legal disputes with disgruntled ex-employees that were able to use job descriptions to justify settlements about improper business practices. Therefore, it was not generally surprising that job analyses and job description redevelopment was a primary goal of the HR function with the authorisation to utilise many other talent experts in the organisation to ensure they were properly aligned with legal mandates and actual job role practices and expectations. 8. “What recommendations would you make to OTHER HR managers in your industry to improve data collection and the overall recruitment process?” This question was developed in-house during the interview process, as the manager being interviewed continued to provide the researcher with a great deal of emotionally-charged responses about her belief in the integrity and reliability of the chosen methods currently being used by the organisation. The intention of this question was to delve more into the psychological aspects of the HR manager’s thought processes. It seemed to the researcher that there was a great deal of ethnocentrism present in the participant’s philosophy of HR best practice, which is a type of self-generated belief in superiority of the organisational practices over that of other trusted and respected models of human resources. To better supplement the interview, the researcher believed that gaining more knowledge of why these powerful emotions existed would assist in producing a competent analysis of the relationship between HR practice and policy with individual values and principles. The HR manager provided a singular recommendation to other HR practitioners to be constantly aware of the changing dynamics of relationships throughout the entire organisational model. The participant provided experiential knowledge about how new employees served to both conflict and enhance the social models in place when introducing new sets of diverse values, ethics and beliefs as an injection into the organisation. There was discussion provided by the participant that change resistance was often a product (at least in this business) of misgivings between managers and peers that could easily be avoided if HR managers were more attentive to non-statistical issues and maintained more visibility in the business as an advocate for employee relationship development. The HR practitioner believed that if other HR managers and line managers created a framework by which to conduct discreet observation of the dynamics between managers and employees, it would create better HR strategies and programs that improved positive outcomes in an organisational culture context. It was clear by the end of the interview session that the HR manager participant felt strongly that this business’ strategies of performing comprehensive exit interviews and other aforementioned recruitment efforts should be benchmarked for their ability to reduce turnover and improve team performance. 9. A Critique of Interview Findings Upon reflection, it was clear that this particular organisation did not follow standardised best practice procedures in the interview process. Why is this? First, the business did not utilise a diverse set of instruments by which to measure candidate competencies to successfully fulfil job role expectations. It is common for businesses to use a basket of different recruitment techniques, including cognitive testing, personality testing, scenario testing, interviews, and even integrity testing. Integrity testing involves a measurement of honesty, fidelity and even dependability for a candidate using standardised multiple choice responses to questions (Sackett and Wanek 1996; Ones, Viswesvaran and Schmidt 1993). Many businesses have ethical climates or a generalised need for employees who are likely to be consistent in moral behaviours and general honesty that requires a more comprehensive set of analysis instruments to ensure the organisation has found the proper fit for a job role. This is especially true when hiring managers that have responsibility in finance, procurement and inventory management (or similar activities with access to business resources). There seemed to be too much involvement, additionally, with the executive leadership team as moderators and controllers of the HR function. Instead of giving the manager more direct autonomy over function and policy development, the executives were demanding regular and recurring evaluations and reports to justify inclusion of new innovations in HR strategy. Rather than being a positive aspect, it seemed more to be a hindrance to effective HR policy development. Executives were clearly concerned with the economics of turnover and removing liabilities from the business model, which is not generally surprising since many executive leaders must ensure viability of profit and also satisfying shareholders and other stakeholders from a financial lens. However, it was clear that the constant interventions with executives were satisfying internal needs related to business protectionism, but was also limiting the diversity of strategy development that could have been provided by this very dedicated and knowledgeable HR manager. Additionally, best practice in most respected HR models for the exit interview process would indicate a need to address much more than just the social condition. There are many factors that create an intention to leave a company that include compensation, job role difficulty and excess workload expectations, poor training and development practices, or even peer or managerial incompetence. It seemed that the HR manager was being unrealistic in believing that the very simplistic structure of exit interview evaluation techniques was reliable for addressing the high volume of mitigating circumstances that lead to higher turnover. The researcher had to accept the HR manager’s review that the simple format for exit interview information collection led to such a high reduction in turnover, however it seems unrealistic based on knowledge about best practices in HR strategy development that this could be accomplished in an organisation that had historically-high turnover problems. Though a subjective assessment, it seemed that the very close-knit and participative/transformational leadership philosophies in the organisation that promoted strong social connections were clouding rational decision-making about methodologies for improving the business and its culture. It might be a quality recommendation to this HR manager, if such opportunities were available, to re-examine how such a strict dedication to the social model at the organisation could be limiting opportunities to further improve HR strategy development. The researcher had not, prior to the interview, seen such a commitment and allegiance to a business. This powerful loyalty to the organisation was most definitely shrouding a multitude of opportunities to use more dependable frameworks for interviewing, the selection process, and data collection. The researcher believes that the participant’s somewhat-unjustified belief in this business’ superiority in HR development was too idealistic and was severely limiting future prospects for gaining a more competent set of candidates and enhancing competitive advantage through HR policy development. There seemed, also, to be too much trust in self-competence to measure emotions and sentiment of employees and try to translate these findings into statistical representations. Henerson, Morris and Fitz-Gibbon (1987) indicate that emotions and attitudes are so extremely complex that one must rely on personal inference since such complexities cannot be measured using statistical frameworks. The HR manager seemed somewhat mislead to believe that emotional responses from employees could be quantitatively charted, thus producing a set of rather ineffective HR strategies. The researcher believes if the HR manager considered this factor, she would be more equipped to view the organisation holistically and see the tangible realities of the business to create more worthwhile and sustainable HR practices and procedures. It actually seemed that the participant believed that the social condition occurred in a proverbial vacuum, segregated from other factors such as operational efficiency, management competencies, technologies, and a variety of other organisational features. Most HR practitioners will indicate that social and psychological considerations do not encompass the whole of a dynamic and multi-divisional organisation. References Fairholm, M. (2009). Leadership and organisational strategy, The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 14(1), pp.26-27. Fisher, D.R. and Nobile, R.J. (2003). Employee Selection: Best practices for reducing legal risk in pre-hire assessments, Seyfarth and Shaw Attorneys. [online] Available at: http://www.podiaconsulting.com/pdfs/legal_selection_paper_f.pdf (accessed 23 February 2013). Henerson, M.E., Morris, L.L. and Fitz-Gibbon, C.T. (1987). How to Measure Attitudes. Newbury Park: Sage Publications. Mathis, R.L. and Jackson, J.H. (2008). Human Resource Management, 12th ed. United Kingdom: South-Western Cengage. Mullins, L.J. (2005). Management and Organisational Behaviour, 7th ed. Pearson Education. Ones, D., Viswesvaran, C. and Schmidt, F.L. (1993). Comprehensive meta-analysis of integrity test validities: findings and implications for personnel selection and theories of job performance, Journal of Applied Psychology, 78(3), pp.531-537. Sackett, P.R. and Wanek, J.E. (1996). New developments in the use of measures of honesty, integrity, conscientiousness, dependability, trustworthiness, and reliability for personnel selection, Personnel Psychology, 49(3), pp.787-828. Yousef, D.A. (2000). Organisational commitment: a mediator of the relationship of leadership behaviour with job satisfaction and performance in a non-Western country, Journal of Managerial Psychology, 15(1). Read More