Rent-A-Car Personnel Strategies - Case Study Example

Recruitment and Selection Strategies at Rent-A-Car Rent-A-Car is a car dealership enterprise that was established in 1957 by Jack Taylor in a car dealership’s basement in St. Louis, USA. To start with, the business only had seven cars. Currently, the enterprise is the frontrunner in the car renting business within North America, constituting over 900 offices in Canada, Germany, Puerto Rico, the UK, and Ireland, and 7,000 offices in the US. By 2007, the organization had 728,000 cars for rental purposes and employed more than 65,000 employees, with more than 4.5 billion pounds in annual turnover. The company has the following operational units: Enterprise Fleet Management, Enterprise Car Sales, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and Enterprise Rent-A-Truck. In spite of the fact that a customer within each and every one of these markets is in need of different products, every customer, whether private or business, requires a convenient, speedy and reliable service. Car rental as a business continues to be competitive. Enterprise is continually expanding the range of services it has, in a bid to meet the needs of the consumers (Kazanjian 40). Apart from business rentals at city and airport locations, the company also avails replacement cars for the repair of accidents, holiday rentals at short-term intervals for special occasions or breaks, and courtesy cars to be used in garages. Moreover, the enterprise offers a service of collecting consumers and taking them to their cars for hire. Upholding high customer satisfaction levels is an essential proponent of growth within the company. Enterprise’s emphasis is delivering high-class customer service. It has on regular occasions won awards to this accord. The small and local office structure of the company and their entrepreneurial teams of employees have the capacity to whip out crucial decisions independently, and are, as such, able to attain their goals. The case study herein examines the manner in which the enterprise is able to screen and recruit the right personnel and skills in order to attain its business objectives and aims (Kazanjian 44). The Human Resource Management’s Role The human resource management’s purpose is to hire, consequently train, and ultimately develop staff. Where necessary, the department disciplines personnel or dismisses them. Though comprehensive training and development, the enterprise’s employees are promoted in the company and attain their full potential. This modus operandi reduces the company’s need for recruiting external personnel by making maximal use of the existent talent (Compton and William 36). In terms of cost effectiveness, this is an effective way in which a business can manage its personnel. The human resources department not only functions to manage present staff but also plans for approaches of effecting changes bound to affect its staffing needs in the future. This phenomenon is referred to as workforce planning. For instance, the business may accrue growth into emerging markets such as truck rental. It may also adopt the use of new technology that necessitates new skills, such as global positioning. Moreover, personnel can retire or may be promoted, hence leaving gaps that have to be filled (Kazanjian 48). External changes in the labor market may occur, and this means that fewer skills will be available in a particular area, with other areas being inundated with professionals. Human resource management takes charge of planning for all tenets that define the company’s strategy for planning and recruitment. The human resource management function of the company, therefore, plays a focal role in the business since all the managers make use of their expertise in their quest to acquire staff. The enterprise has an intrinsic policy of manager promotion from within its existent workforce. What this means is that the business has an obligation to recruit individuals who exhibit potential for growth. On an annual basis, an average of 1,000 employees is recruited into the company’s Graduate Recruitment Program in Ireland and the UK. To enable it to achieve its objectives and aims, the enterprise requires motivated staff with drive and initiative. Attracting Applicants The enterprise draws positive effects from is policy of promoting managers as well as giving career opportunities to personnel within the company. Employees end up remaining happy, stay longer in the company, and consequently give their best in terms of output. However, as growth and diversification set on, the need for external recruitment emerges so that new skills can be provided or the business’s capacity to expand can increase. In a bid to attract candidates of high quality, the company raises the company’s profile in universities within the US through the use of campus brand managers. These interns or students work in the company, acting as liaisons for individuals who may potentially apply for positions in the company. Other activities that the company conducts in universities in its bid to attract applicants who are interested include: attending career fairs, making presentations about the company, forming alliances with organizations and clubs, taking up mentoring programs, and holding “drop-in” sessions. Students are also allowed to visit the company and learn the modus operandi that the enterprise adopts in transacting its business, as well as the opportunities it has to offer. As part of its benefits, the company offers its personnel good training and salary. It is, however, the opportunity of an actual career, not merely a job that attracts candidates seeking positions in the company. Most of the employees in the organization begin as management trainees and have the opportunity of specializing in specific fields such as vehicle acquisition, risk management, human resource management, finance, and many more (Underwood 97).The company is, therefore, able to screen potential employees with distinction, and those whose expertise proves essential are given a chance to proceed and specialize in the aforementioned fields. This essentially enables individuals to develop the path of their career progressively within the company. In its employee selection process, the enterprise takes an initiative to make sure that its workforce represents the ethnic and cultural diversity of population at large. In screening its employees, Enterprise Rent-A-Car values and seeks individuals hailing from all backgrounds, since each employee, business partner, and customer is important. They are, therefore, effective in their recruitment process by affording equal opportunities to job seekers (Underwood 101). Recruitment The company’s process of online recruitment is an essential part within its work strategy. This functions to improve the efficacy and speed of applications, both for the applicant and the company. The website avails a function for registration, listing all available jobs. It also avails copious information as regards the role of the management trainee, as well as the values and culture of the organization. Applicants are, as such, able to understand whether the enterprise as a company best suits their career path and objectives. New recruits can be absorbed into the company in various ways. First is an internship scheme which is open for university students in their first or second year. Students are, therefore, afforded an opportunity to work with the organization. They are able to amass inestimable experience and may consequently end up as full-time employees following graduation, based on the skills they attain, as is vetted by the human resource management. Interns take part in initial training sessions based in the classroom. Consequently, they are able to carry out work functions within a branch office in which they start on-the-job-training. The interns are charged with similar responsibilities to graduate trainees, learning about marketing, sales, business management, administration support, and customer service. The company’s program of graduate management trainee affords graduates a career path that enables self-development and swift progression (Kazanjian 59).The graduate trainees are able to ascend to the position of management assistant and, consequently, assistant manager in as short a period as between 8 and 12 months. The role entails affording a greater customer experience, selling the company’s service, and marketing the business in addition to dealing with partners of the business such as dealerships, auto body shops, and insurance companies. Opportunities and vacancies at the enterprise are advertised through an expansive array of media. These include magazines, online channels, and newspapers. In targeting graduate recruits, the company has a recruitment website that is highly dedicated to its quest: “Come Alive.” The site highlights career opportunity benefits at the company to potential employees, affording a medium for students to submit applications (Kazanjian 66). The company also makes use of a website for specialist graduates during peak times across the year in a bid to appeal to the greatest possible audience. The company recruits close to half of its total workforce in Ireland and the US through this website strategy. Selection The enterprise carries out a process that seeks to establish the candidate best suited for the position in question. This is an essential and effective hiring stage conducted by the company since not all the candidates who apply for the position necessarily possess the right set of competencies and skills. The company looks for competencies in the recruits for the immediate job position as well as for long-term development to facilitate the business’s growth. The human resource managers regularly utilize standard documentation so that they are able to match work functions with personal skills and qualities (Michaels, Ed, and Beth 65). First is the job description which makes a summary of the job role and goes ahead to list the key tasks. Second is person specification which explicates the requisite specifications for a position in addition to the desirable qualities that the company seeks. The company combines these two approaches by making use of a competencies and skills framework. In its selection process, the enterprise offers the candidates a number of opportunities to exhibit their best qualities in situations that are different (Michaels, Ed, and Beth 77). In candidate screening, recruitment managers of the enterprise make a comparison of the application forms filled online (a reflection of the candidate’s curriculum vitae) to the competencies and skills needed for the role. Candidates consequently secure an initial interview conducted face to face by a recruitment manager (Rudman 98). After that, an interview with an enterprise branch manager is secured. Thereafter, candidates who are selected get an invitation to attend an assessment day. This day forms a standard part in the organization’s recruitment process. Candidates are involved in some practical exercises which include group and individual activities as well as role plays. The company values role play as a way to test key skills such as customer service and communication. The company assesses the performance of candidates in different tasks related to work, using different methods. This makes the enterprise’s selection process fair. Tested fields include flexibility, work ethic, teamwork, leadership, sales aptitude, and skills in customer service. The enterprise’s assessment day concludes with yet another interview in which senior managers arrive at final decisions. To sum it all up, a business oriented in service such as the enterprise has an obligation to make perfect service delivery all the time in order to satisfy customers. It is unlikely that an unhappy customer will return. To do this, they have to hire the right staff. The company’s out and out selection, screening and recruitment process discussed herein enables the company to keep its customers happy and stay relevant in business. Works Cited Compton, R. L., and William J. Morrissey. Effective Recruitment and Selection Practice. 5th ed. Sydney: CCH Australia, 2009. Print. Kazanjian, Kirk. Exceeding Customer Expectations: What Enterprise, Americas #1 Car Rental Company, Can Teach You About Creating Lifetime Customers. New York: Currency Doubleday, 2007. Print. Michaels, Ed, Helen Jones, and Beth Axelrod. The War for Talent. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 2001. Print. Motivating the "Whats In It for Me?" Workforce Manage Across the Generational Divide and Increase Profits. New York, NY: Wiley, 2007. Print. Rudman, R. S. Getting the Right People Effective Recruitment and Selection Today. Auckland, N.Z.: CCH New Zealand, 2010. Print. Underwood, Larry. Life under the Corporate Microscope: A Mavericks Irreverent Perspective. Denver, Colo.: Outskirts Press, 2009. Print. Top of Form Bottom of Form Read More