Price Waterhouse Cooper Website - Essay Example

Human Resources Management Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Section A 4 Problem 2-On-line Recruitment 4 Brief Overview of PWC Website (UK Division) 4 A.Website Analysis 4 B.Presented Values 5 C.Key Information 6 Step 1 6 Step 2 7 Step 3 8 Step 4 8 Step 5 8 Step 6 8 Step 7 9 D. Expectation about the Work 9 Section B 10 Problem 2- City Bank 10 Brief Overview of the Situation 10 Merits of the Reward System 10 Limitation 11 Alternative Reward System 12 References 14 Section A Problem 2-On-line Recruitment This study has selected Price Waterhouse Cooper in order to continue further analysis. Brief Overview of PWC Website (UK Division) The website has thirteen divisions such as issues, industries, home, publications, services, blogs, careers, events, communities, media centre, contact us, who we are; video and podcast (Price Waterhouse Cooper, 2012a). Career section of the website comes in the seventh position. The company uses colour mix of orange, yellow and pink in order to create background of the website. Right hand side of the website shows two knowledge blocks speaking about the credential of the website. A. Website Analysis The website is easily accessible for individuals. Although the website takes time to open due to rich colour formatting but overall browsing speed is satisfactory. From view point of external applicant browser compatibility plays crucial role for navigation issues. Website of the company supports following browsers. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and above Apple Safari 2 and above Google Chrome 0.2 and above Opera 8 and above Mozilla Firefox 2 and above (Price Waterhouse Cooper, 2012b) Navigation through the website is easy for applicants due to availability of quick links. In the career section PWC has created three recruitment segments such as School leaver, Student and Experienced in order to help applicants to find right job according to their eligibility. PWC incorporated another facility known as PWC people blog in order to get feedback from existing employees. PWC people blog adds zing to the website due to its endeavour not only to provide work culture of the company to applicants but helps to provide knowledge pool (such as article written by existing employees) also (Price Waterhouse Cooper, 2012c). B. Presented Values The company offers various value drivers such as personal development, healthcare benefit, organizational support, good reward system. Every employee of the company gets following benefits such as. Good compensation system Travel allowance 25days holiday policy Gym membership Discount offer on service and products The company also ensures financial security of its employee by providing them various insurance covers such as life assurance, accident cover and medical benefits. Website of the company suggests that key value driver for the company is their effort to build talented and knowledgeable future work force. PwC uses three stepping stones such as Graduate opportunities, Flying Start degree programme and School & College Leaver opportunities for developing human capital of United Kingdom. Graduate opportunities help graduates of various disciplines to join the company. The company has established Talent Academy in order to provide year wise training to graduates studying in Universities. Flying Start degree programme is designed for fresh graduates planning to pursue their career as chartered accountant. PwC gives them the opportunity of doing internship in the company while they are studying in university. School & College Leaver opportunities are designed for helping students to achieve good academic result in schools. C. Key Information Online recruitment of PwC is complemented with seven steps. Steps are given below. Step 1 Applicants planning to join PwC are needed to check company’s UCAS tariff requirements, qualification table and application timetable at the beginning of application process. After going through eligibility criteria if the applicant thinks that he/she is comfortable with the work position offered by the company then the person needs to fill up online registration form in order to get online test invitation from PwC. Step 2 PwC examines candidate’s numerical, logical and verbal reasoning capability in the online test. Online test is mock test for candidates while the candidate need to give paper based test during assessment day under the supervision of external invigilator. Step 3 Candidates performed well during online test are called by the company for formal one to one interview. Candidates need to present interpersonal skills and logical reasoning capability in front of PwC officials during the interview. Outstation candidates can give online interview with PwC manager using video calling technology. Step 4 Fourth stage is the assessment test during which candidates are called by PwC to sit for formal examination. During this stage candidates need to perform individual task and group exercise in order to move into next round. Written exam is designed for checking communication ability of the applicant. Step 5 Candidates performed well in the assessment test are called for final round interview a partner or business director from specified field. In this phase applicants need to show their understanding about global business trend, client service and other relevant issues in order to create a positive mark. Step 6 Candidates performed well during the final interview gets offer from the company to work with them. The whole recruitment process takes no more than five to six weeks in order to complete the process. Step 7 PwC invites (after checking authenticity of candidate’s academic and employment history) selected applicant for an informal meeting in order to increase introduce the candidate with his/her colleagues (Price Waterhouse Cooper, 2012d). D. Expectation about the Work The company provides job expectation statement in triplet manner. They are explained in the following section. Before Application Candidates can apply only once for particular post and the person can not apply within next three months for the same post During Application The company provides information regarding future job function. After Application During the interview phase company managers provide information regarding job functions to candidates. PwC provides a knowledge session to selected candidates prior to their joining. (Source: Price Waterhouse Cooper, 2012e) The company organises career information day for applicants in order to give them a clear picture about future work responsibilities. Work/life balance and benefits section of the website provide information regarding future job benefits to applicants. This section of the website also provides information regarding out of work benefits such as flexible timing, annual season ticket loans and insurance benefits to applicants. Information availability in the website helps the company to establish knowledge base of their future employees (Price Waterhouse Cooper, 2012f). Section B Problem 2- City Bank City Bank case study has been selected in order to continue further analysis. Brief Overview of the Situation City bank is going through tumultuous situation in terms of squeezing profit margin, increased competition from other financial institutes of UK, bad debts and other issues. The bank maintains bureaucratic culture and belief system in terms providing reward to managers. In the changing dynamics of business environment such bureaucratic culture is not sufficient to make the company afloat. Elizabeth Mulberry (Director of Human Resources) has proposed a new reward system based on leadership capability of managers in order to turn the impetus of previous situation. Merits of the Reward System Top management has planned the new reward system in order to link behaviour of line managers with key deliverables of customer service and leadership quality. Performance appraisal for a particular line manager depends on quality of customer service offered by that person. Quality of customer service offered by managers will be assessed by following criteria. Time taken by managers to deliver service Focus of the manager to solve problems of customers Ability of managers to communicate clearly product and services offered by the bank to customers New reward system focuses on paying branch manager based on their leadership skill. City bank has established triplet rating system such as not meeting expectation of customer, meeting customer expectation and exceeding expectation of customer closely linked with annual reward system. New performance appraisal of the bank focuses on developing leadership skills among managers. Target driven performance measure such as number of new mortgage per year ultimately motivates branch managers to perform well. This reward system will help the bank to increase annual revenue and operational excellence internally while providing better customer service will help them to creating good word of mouth among customers. Limitation Although the company has implemented new reward but they have not implemented standard model of performance management. Another thing is that relying heavily on customer service does not help the company to improve overall performance. Customer service is important aspect of service deliver but not one and only criteria to measure overall performance of the organization. Other department of City bank such as marketing, finance also play crucial role on deciding overall success. General study shows that customer satisfaction only helps to develop delivery part of the bank instead of increasing quality of value chain. Sometimes customer provide biased feedback about service quality hence deciding reward system based on customer service can create wrong performance appraisal policy. Alternative Reward System City bank can use three types of performance appraisal system in order to fillip new reward system. Critical Incident Method: - In this system (proposed by Flanagan in 1954) managers will keep record of the positive and negative aspects of employee performance and (Hayes, 2008, pp. 17-18). Employees can change the service delivery quality in accordance to the feedback. This model can also enhance leadership quality among employees. 360 Degree: - In this model the feedback from employees are kept confidential from others. This process will help the bank to develop factors such as leadership effectiveness, team work and character among employees. Management by Objective: - In this model supervisors will assign a particular performance objective to managers and employee and based on that intermittent reviews bank will decide future strategy. Employees will be rewarded after they have achieved predetermined objectives. City bank needs to create a sustainable strategy for developing a strong reward system. Reward system of the bank should include following issues. Contribution: - Individual contribution of employees in terms of attaining objective of the company is needed to be measured during reward system. For example annual sales performance of an employee can be guiding criteria for deciding reward system for employees belong to marketing department. Skill Set: - Reward system for employees should identify their skill set, strengths and weaknesses. For example an employee may have strong drive to provide superior quality customer service but lacks in communication skill to deliver his/her intention. In such cases City bank needs to give communication training to the employee to deliver expected service quality. Ignoring such issues will create a vague reward system which will not help the bank. Work Ethics: - Synchronizing customer service delivery issues with work ethics can create a sustainable reward system for the bank (Fogli, 2007, pp. 216-218). Factors such as motivation, punctuality, dedication and interaction with customers can be used to measure performance of the employee. References Fogli, L., 2007. Customer Service Delivery: Research and Best Practices. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Hayes, B. E., 2008. Measuring Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty: Survey Design, Use, and Statistical Analysis Methods. Milwaukee: ASQ Quality Press. Price Waterhouse Cooper., 2012a. Sitemap. [online] Available at: http://www.pwc.co.uk/sitemap.jhtml [Accessed 9 November 2012]. Price Waterhouse Cooper., 2012b. Web Accessibility Statement. [online] Available at: http://www.pwc.co.uk/who-we-are/web-accessibility.jhtml [Accessed 9 November 2012]. Price Waterhouse Cooper., 2012c. PwCPeople Blog. [online] Available at: http://pwc.blogs.com/pwcpeople/ [Accessed 9 November 2012]. Price Waterhouse Cooper., 2012d. Recruitment Process. [online] Available at: http://www.pwc.co.uk/careers/schools/applying/recruitment-process.jhtml [Accessed 9 November 2012]. Price Waterhouse Cooper., 2012e. FAQs. [online] Available at: http://www.pwc.co.uk/careers/schools/faqs/faqs.jhtml [Accessed 9 November 2012]. Price Waterhouse Cooper., 2012f. Benefits. [online] Available at: http://www.pwc.co.uk/careers/experienced/benefits.jhtml [Accessed 9 November 2012]. Read More