Effective Recruiting Methods According to Employment Outcomes - Case Study Example

Human Resource Management Analytical Report Presented by Name Presented To Lecturer Institution Topic Date Human Resource Management Analytical Report The case: This case is about Datiful Daughters, a personal care and nursing business owned by Helen Whitney. Helen, a trained nurse, started the business in the year 2000, after which she ran the business alone for some months before it gained enough client base to demand assistance from other people. Australia faces a major challenge with care of the aged as well as those who are sick. Helen therefore started the business after noting the opportunity and decided that the business shall take care of the clients at their homes instead of them coming for the services at the business premises. At the beginning of business, Helen faced challenges since Datiful daughters took time before it could pick up. The main reason for this was that it took time for the people to know about the business mainly because she was working alone at the time. Working alone meant that she had to carry out two main activities at the same time; visit the clients in order to give them services they needed and then go back to the office to setup for another visit. The business now employs around fifty workers on casual basis, comprising men and women and from different backgrounds. Some of these workers are university graduates while others have retired from nursing, implying that they have considerable knowledge about nursing. These workers also carry out over 250 shifts every week between them but Helen, their employer, has the belief that it is possible to increase the number of shifts two times the current number. In other words, Helen believes that she can have the workers undergoing 500 between themselves every week. Datiful Daughters currently operates only in the Eastern Sydney because Helen believes that maintaining a low customer base is paramount to ensuring that the clients receive quality services. She believes that the business should strive to become more productive and provide quality services to its customers in order to become successful. The workforce of Datiful daughters comprises of casual workers, whom the business regularly seeks in order to employ. The business attracts these workers by promising beautiful remuneration packages and excellent working conditions for the potential employees. In addition, the firm promises such people, working hours that are favorable for them, a variety of works to choose from, training opportunities and chances to develop their skills. Through this tactics, Datiful Daughters manages to attract employees that are suitable for their various works. The firm however faces a major challenge of lacking qualified people from whom the firm can choose for the businesses activities. In spite of this challenge, Helen is never reluctant to praise her employees for the achievements of the business, as she believes that success for the business arises from excellent staffing. Maintaining a work-life balance is not easy not only for Helen but also for all the other workers working for Datiful daughters. Helen personally admits that she spends a lot of time delivering services to her clients and this is the same case with the other workers. After realizing that the firm was undergoing challenges in its operations, and after seeking some professional assistance, Human relations professionals gave her a couple of advices. First, they advised her that she should let the workers understand the vision she has for Datiful Daughters. By doing, there shall be no conflict between the services they give to the clients and the profits for the business. Regarding the staffing area of the business, the professionals advised her to be careful on what she should offer potential employees. In addition, she needs to take considerable care in choosing the appropriate strategies for recruiting her staff. From the case study, it is very clear that Datiful daughter is facing challenges regarding the expansion of the business. Helen, the founder of Datiful Daughters, has the belief that the business should remain small yet provide quality services to the clients. This is what Helen believes will bring success to the business. This is the reason as to why she considers advertising by use of word-of –mouth strategy, claiming that there is no need to advertise the business too much yet the business will not be able to meet the increased demands of the clients, which is likely to arise after extensive advertising and marketing of the business. Matejka (1995) gives out some strategies that a business should use to ensure that it makes successful expansion, which serves to reinforce the advice that the Human relations professionals gave Helen regarding addressing the challenges facing her business. According to Matejka (1995), any business wishing to expand requires that its management get involved in critical thoughts regarding expansion. Successful expansion is a very crucial issue in the operation of small and medium sized firms but many firms fear to attempt to expand into multi investments. Datiful Daughters, like many other firms, fear that expanding their client base will have the consequence of its employees offering substandard services to the clients, a condition that will result into loss of customers. It is important that Helen, the founder of the Business and most probably the Chief Executive Officer of the business ensures that her employees have a clear understanding of the vision, the mission and the goals of the business, and in particular the initial goals that she had at the start of the business. Matjeka (1995) points out that this is of paramount importance since it helps the employees to assist in maintaining the objectives of the organization even after expansion. Trust, according to Haunschild and Eikhof (2009), is an important Human relations practice that seems to lack with Helen, and which is very crucial in ensuring successful expansion of Datiful Daughters. This is very evident in the way Helen takes all the responsibilities and decisions regarding the operation of Datiful Daughters. For instance, she decides that the business should remain small since she believes that expanding it will mean poor quality services to the clients. Successful expansion of Datiful Daughters therefore requires that Helen involves and entrusts other management in the operation of the business. This requires that if she does not have proper management, she should hire some. Indeed, it seems she lacks good management from the fact that she approached accountants and Human Relations professionals for advice regarding the challenges facing her business. Expansion also requires that an organization make use of competent and dedicated employees. Keng-Boon, Pei-Lee and Chong (2009) suggest that any organization can only ensure that it achieves expansion if its workers are dedicated not only to the work they are assigned, but also to the proposed expansion. This also requires experienced and competent workers who can effectively handle the increased demand. Datiful Daughters is no exemption and Helen must ensure that the business employs competent employees. Getting such employees would not be a major problem since as already stated in the case study, she has a website where she carries out her advertisements. This is an excellent method of reaching potential employees with the aim of selecting the appropriate employees. On this note, Helen needs to ensure that the business website is more attractive to the potential employees. To do this, she first needs to market her Company website. This means that she should start with ensuring that as many people as possible are aware of the website so that they can frequently visit it and where necessary, make job applications using the website. Maybe an excellent way of doing this is by ensuring that her company website is optimized for search using search engines so that every time a person searches some information regarding care or nursing, her company website pops up. Another suggestion is to advertise the vacancies in print media such as newspapers but indicate that potential employees should visit the website for more information. Jablin (1975) has given an outline for constructing a job description for employees. The same procedure is used here in construction a job description for a new employee, who will be responsible for taking personal care to the clients of Datiful Daughters. But before construction the job description, it is worth first to point out the guidelines that one need to follow in order to construct a good job description as Jablin (1975) outlines them. i. The first step is to ensure that the title of the job well fits the job description, or in other words, the job title and the job description agree with each other. ii. Sometimes the new employee might be replacing a missing member of staff. In such a situation, it is important to consider whether the new employee will carry out the same tasks that the former employee was executing or the new employee needs to come up with fresh ideas and innovations to the post. In addition, it is important to consider whether the new employee will work for the same amount of hours as the former employee or the hours need adjustments. iii. After considering the above issues, it is time to construct a job description. During the construction process, it is important to be specific. In other words, it is important to point out all the duties that the new employee is to carry out instead of generalizing tasks under one group, for example administration duties. Such duties may differ from those of similar posts in other companies. iv. After constructing the job description, it is important to give a reflection to the nature and environment that the new worker will work in, in order to outline the best personality that will fit the environment. In addition, this is the time to decide the required skills and experience that the new employee should have to properly execute the task outlined in the job description. However, the Human resource Manager or the person constructing the job description needs not be too specific as this will lead to narrowing down the potential employees with the negative consequence of loosing good employees. For instance, for the post in consideration for Datiful Daughters, the firm may require a person who is qualified in nursing, social health or may be counseling. On the same note, it is important to consider the various laws regarding recruitment of employees available in the country. A good example is law regarding discriminatory recruitment. v. Finally, it is important to consider the various packages that the new employee will receive. Among these, and the most crucial package to consider, is salary. It is important that the firm decides on the maximum amount of salary that the new employee would receive. It is important that this is affordable by the firm. Having given such an outline, it is now possible to construct a job description following the guidelines above. Title of the position: Personal care taker Department: Nursing Reports to: Head of Department (HOD) Overall responsibility: Taking personal care of the clients at their place of residence: The person will visit the clients at their respective places and give them the care as they need or as their relatives require. Specific areas of responsibility: Taking the clients for outings Spending time with the clients to keep them busy Washing elderly or sick and their places and facilities if necessary Visiting clients under medication during specific times of the day to ensure they take their prescribed drugs Making shopping on behalf of the clients and their relatives The person will also perform other task as required by the client Consults with: Head of department Employment terms: Contract basis: renewable after one year of successful service Qualifications: At least a diploma in Nursing, Social heath, social Work or any other relevant qualification: Experience: The deal candidate must have at least 10 years experience in a community-based service or have worked for at least 10 years in a hospital setup in the nursing sector. After constructing a job description, the next step involves announcement of the vacancies in order to attract potential employees, from whom Datiful Daughters will recruit for the position. The company will expect various applications from different professionals and the company needs to take considerable care in recruiting them. While recruiting is very expensive for many firms, it is indispensable. According to Wiley (1992), recruitment strategies largely depend on the age and experience of the potential employees. For instance, Wiley (1992) indicates that for a firm to ensure effective recruitment of experienced workers, it should make use of recruitment agencies while college recruiting is the most effective recruitment method for those potential employees without experience such as college or university leavers. Dane (2004) suggests that effective strategy for recruiting job candidates depends on the age of the candidate. This, according to Dane (2004), is due to that fact that younger candidates have different motivations as compared to older candidates. As already noted, advertising for the position of personal care will attract different individuals, from different professions, age and gender. Looking at the nature of the job as outlined in the case study, it is very clear that majority of the applicants will be aged or retired women who are qualified nurses. Helen, a retired nurse, started the business in her 50s. This indicates that like other women nurses, she has the required personality to carry out the care and nursing activities. University leavers will definitely fear the nature of the job taking into consideration that this job requires spending a larger proportion of their time, thereby sacrificing their own time. Men too will fear the same situation like fresh graduates or young professionals. In addition, it is worth noting that women have a caring personality by nature especially during their older times. This mainly results from the care they continuously give to their children and husbands. The situation is even more for retired or elderly women nurses since they have attained a great amount of experience in the nursing sector. The most effective recruitment strategy, according to Wiley (1992), is through use of recruitment agencies. This is mainly because such candidates are qualified and using Datiful Daughter’s management might not pick the best person. These agencies have well qualified professionals who will ensure that the recruited candidates not only sticks and serves for the company for a long time but one who will offer excellent services to the clients. While qualification is important in selecting the proper candidate for the job, it is very important that the recruiting agency focus on experience and even more on personality. Ashton (1998) points out that personality is a major predictor of job performance since however experienced and qualified a candidate is, performance will only depend with the personality of the worker. This type of work, giving care to elderly and sick people, requires that the worker is very patient and should tolerate with the behaviors of the clients. Different individuals (client) have different personalities and behaviors and the workers should be in a position to adjust and deal with the different people at different times. In addition, as Helen points out, this work requires that the workers is ready to sacrifice personal time since at times, it requires taking care of the clients even during unplanned times. This means that personality is a major aspect that should define the proper candidate that the selection panel should focus on while selecting the appropriate person. Bibliography Ashton, M, 1998. Personality and Job Performance: The Importance of Narrow Traits: Summary. Journal of Organizational Behavior, Volume19, P. 289-303. Dane, P, 2004. Recruitment Strategies for Encouraging Participation in Corporate Volunteer Programs: JBE. Journal of Business Ethics, Volume 49 (4), P. 371-386. Haunschild, A, & Eikhof, D, 2009. From HRM to Employment Rules and Lifestyles. Theory Development through Qualitative Case Study Research into the Creative Industries. Volume 23 (2). P. 107-124. Rainer Hampp Verlag Jablin, F, 1986. The Selection Interview: Contingency Theory and Beyond. Journal of Human Resource Management, Volume 14 (1) Keng-Boon, O, Pei-Lee & Chong, A, 2009. Developing an integrated model of TQM and HRM on KM activities: MRN. Management Research review, Volume 32 (5), P. 477-490. Emerald Group Publishing, Limited Long, L, & Smith, R, 2004. The role of Web-based distance learning in HR development. The Journal of Management Development, Volume 23 (3/4), P. 270-284. Emerald Group Publishing, Limited Matejka, K, 1995. Successful Business Expansion: Practical Strategies for Planning Profitable Growth. Journal of Management Decision. Volume 33 (7). MCB University Press Limited Wiley, C, 1992. Recruitment Research Revisited: Effective Recruiting Methods According to Employment Outcomes. Journal of Applied Business Research, Volume 8 (2), P. 74. Clute Institute for Academic Research. Read More