Picking the best individuals for a job is very crucial especially for new businesses or those that are experiencing expansion. Employers are faced by the task of picking staff that will complement the businesses approaches the organization follows. Looking at the example of Barlett Constructions Company, the founder who was Guy Barlett maintains his business through the belief that good relationships in the workplace promote success. Guy’s company has been in existence for the past six years. His business that started with two employees has expanded to employing five staff members. The type of work and quality delivered by these employees is top notch as stated by Guy. According to him, his employees are the best in his business. He dwells on nurturing a committed team of staff who deliver to their maximum capability and display job satisfaction. Bartlett’s construction company is a good starting point for understanding the nature of business expansion and the important factors in employee recruitment. The paper will be about expanding a business in a new state as the writer assumes the role of a Chief Human Resource Office (CHRO), who is faced by the task of employee recruitment.
As a starting point, it is fundamental to acknowledge that employees are the most valuable assets for the success of any business. Also, staff planning is critical in ensuring that enterprises are capable of matching the right person with each job (Rahman & Islam, 2012). As the CHRO for this particular organization undergoing expansion, it is important to recognize the nature of employment cycle. Normally, the employment cycle consists of three major phases, which include establishment, maintenance, and termination. Furthermore, each phase comprises of different stages. For instance, the establishment process includes staff planning that compliment different business strategies, job analysis as well as design, recruitment, selection, and hiring plans and remuneration. Secondly, the maintenance phase comprises of processes such as induction, training and development, acknowledgements and positive reinforcements, and finally the performance supervision. Lastly, the termination phase includes aspects such as termination supervision, voluntary and involuntary termination, entitlements, and transition. The establishment and the maintenance phases require the human resource management to ensure employees register growth and productivity. In this particular case of expansion to a new state, it means that there are new positions to be filled, hence, the need for staffing. The focus will be based on the establishment phase because it guides the department towards employing new staff.
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The first responsibility as the CHRO will be staff planning. Employees offer a huge investment for business owners. Therefore, hiring them requires critical planning just like other business aspects. Lack of planning will be risky for the department because of the increased chances of hiring unsuitable employees. In most failed business, you find that poor performance of employees go unnoticed because the initial stage of staff planning was shoddily done. Planning will involve the job analysis that will comprise of job description and job specification. Based on this case, there will be four major positions to be occupied. First, there will be the position of the general manager, accountant, office assistant, and two customer care specialists. In the category of job description, there will be a detailed list of roles and responsibilities relating to the advertised positions. For instance, the general manager will be expected to authorize and oversee all the administrative purposes of the business. Also, they should be delegate duties to different employees within their jurisdiction to ensure efficiency, job discipline, and increase the employees’ morale. When it comes to future employee selection and recruitment, the manager should have the skills to be in the selecting panel. Their responsibility also entails being leader of the office, report to the head office, organize training seminars, chair all the meetings of the organization within the specific state, make important decisions, and maintain employee discipline. The requirements and qualifications for this position will require high qualifications of a person holding either a bachelor’s or master’s degree in business administration, over four years working experience, musts be an American citizen, have good communication and interpersonal skills as well as being fluent in English. Moreover, they should have a clean crime record and be available for a full-time job position.
Secondly, the accountant will be expected to prepare, assess, and evaluate all the accounting records, financial statements, and other financial reports for accountability. Also, their role will be to compute taxes and ensure all taxes are paid. They should report to the general manager regarding all financial processes. They should also be able to assess all business processes in terms of costs and offer financial advice whenever necessary. Besides, their work should be to maintain and analyze budgets. Moreover, they should be able to conduct and internal and external auditing processes as well as investigates irregularities in the financial statements and records. The requirements and the required requalification’s for the accounting post will require the candidate to hold a bachelor’s or master’s degree in accounting, over six years working experience, must have licence and certification, they should possess CPA credentials, must be an American citizen, and should have English language proficiency.
On the other hand, the office assistant job definition will involve performing various routine clerical, reception, and other supportive office functions. The roles and responsibility of the office assistant includes record keeping, document preparation, offering staff supports as well as communicating with the clients. The qualifications for the position include two years’ work experience, diploma or degree in any relevant field. It should be noted that a bachelor’s degree is an added advantage. Furthermore, they should be highly skilled in computer use. They should have good communication and interpersonal skills as well as English language proficiency. Moreover, they should be willing to work on a full-term basis.
Lastly, two employees will fill the post for the customer care specialists. The job definition includes offering information over the service and products, and resolving the customers’ problems. The duties or the two specialists should be to attract potential clients by answering their queries about the products and services, open customers’ accounts by recording and computerizing their information, maintain the clients’ records and updating their information in the databases. Their duty also involve resolving clients problems, clarify their issues, offer solutions for the issues, and do a follow up to ensure customer satisfaction. The job requirements for the specified position includes any degree or diploma in customer relations field, two years’ work experience, good communication and interpersonal skills, language proficiency and knowing more than one language is an added advantage. Other skills particular to the job includes having the ability to grasp information faster, problem-solving skills, listening and conflict resolution, and ability to multi-task.
The second phase after staff planning is the recruitment phase. Recruitment will include attracting the right individuals to apply for the available vacancies. Over the past years, the most common method that has been used by employers includes advertisements in the classified sections of the newspaper. However, due to globalization and the recent technological advancements, online recruitment has been on the rise even though most businesses still resolve to utilize both methods. There are two types of recruiting employees and these include the internal and external methods. When it comes to internal recruitment, the business will consider hiring an individual who works for the organization already. Usually it involves promotions for them to take higher responsibilities. Whenever this happens, the company is forced to perform external recruitment to replace the employee. Conversely, external recruitment involves finding suitable candidates from outside the particular business. There are varieties of sources that can be used for external recruitment such as online services, advertisement in the media. Additionally, referrals from friends and family members, word of mouth, and the private hiring agencies can be used.
In this particular case, the business will employ both the recruitment types although for particular posts. For instance, recruitment for the post of the general manager will employ the internal approach. As the acting CHR, I believe it will be very effective to promote one of the office assistants who have worked for over three years because they are conversant with the company’s policies. Having a former employee take over the new office in the new state will make it easier for other employees to adapt effectively to their new environment. Less training will occur when using this method because the employee for this position will be highly familiar with the policies. On the other hand, the company will utilize the external recruitment method for the three remaining posts. The methods that will be used include online/media advertisement and word of mouth from the current employees. These kinds of advertisements will offer a platform to attract many potential applicants and will be cost-effective. The sites that will be used for the advertisement include government-owned Job Network, which offers free advertisement.
Just like providing job specifications and descriptions, job advertisement should show the benefits associated with each position as well as positive information about the business. Moreover, the type of work environment advertised should be supportive and offer opportunities for growth (Pulakos, 2005). It is important to keep in mind that employers will always strive to get the best employees to promote the business and increase the work ethics.
The third phase of employee recruitments will be the selection process. Employee selection will involve the means of selecting suitable applicants for the job. Some of the steps to include the selection options include written application, interviews, employee testing, and background checks. For all the four positions advertised, the selection process will include all the four selection options. Interviews will be the most fundamental procedures during the selection process. The two types of interviews that will be utilized include structured and unstructured interviews to assess for applicants’ consistencies. The human resource departments will ensure the interview processes are efficient and suitable applicants are hired for the job. First, there will be decisions on who will conduct the interviews as well as the setting. All applicants should be made to feel at ease because when they are relaxed, the interviewing panel gets a more accurate impression of the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, the interviewing panel should not allow the first impressions of the candidates to cloud their judgements, hence, the need to be impartial. Also, the panel needs to encourage questions from the applicants. After the termination of the interview, the panel members will decide the suitable candidates for the four outlined posts.
In the pursuit of employing suitable staff, the company will accompany the interviews with particular pre-employment testing. This involves the use of standard tests to test the personality types and cognitive functioning of the applicants to help in the evaluation of their suitability for the positions advertised (Taylor & Russell, 1939). For instance, there will be the use of MMPI test to know the personality types of customer care specialists. Are they introverted or extroverted? Are they social? Can they maintain interactions with customers under pressure? The test will be important to assess for different skills and techniques required for the specified position. Meanwhile, drug tests will be conducted on the applicants to determine if they are users. Drug and substance abuse usually lower the productivity of employees and might have a negative impact on the business. However, it should be noted that before conducting the tests, applicants would be made aware and there will be written consent (Stevens & Ash, 2009).
As the selection process is underway, it is important to remember the nature of state and federal legislation concerning employee recruitment. According to the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act 2010 under the equal employment opportunity (EEO), it is unlawful to discriminate against any employee or potential employees depending on their career choice, gender, sexual orientation, disability or impairment, marital status, religious affiliations, political beliefs, and age among other factors. The EEO requires the employer to exclude any terms in their advertisements that might indicate discrimination. Also, during an interview process, it will be illegal to ask the candidates sensitive questions that do not relate the job descriptions.
Consequently, the organization will draft employment contracts that are in alignment with the new state rules. According to the National Employment Standards, employees are entitled to particular minimum employments conditions. The federal government establishes most of the laws governing these rules. Therefore, before the employee selection process, the organization will learn about the state rules that protect every employee. Thereafter, the selection process will follow the regulations of the new state. The ten standard for employment that will be considered in this category include the standard working hours, parental leaves, flexible hours for parents, annual leave, personal leave, community service leave, public holidays, information within the workplace, notice to termination and redundancy, and long service leave. All this factors will be considered during the selection process to avoid any legal suits against the company.
In conclusion, the key to successful employee recruitment and selection lies in the ethics of the human resource management. This means that the departments should be able to follow the stipulated guidelines by each state as well as keep the employees and potential employees’ needs into consideration (Arvey, 1988). Also, having a good strategy during the selection process ensures that only the appropriate candidates are selected for the job.
References
Arvey, R. D. (1988). Fairness in selecting employees Addison Wesley Publishing Company
Pulakos, E. D. (2005). Selection assessment methods: A guide to implementing formal assessments to build a high-quality workforce . SHRM Foundations
Rahman, M. S., & Islam, M. S. (2012). An analytical study on determining effective factors for recruiting right person ABC Journal of Advanced Research , 1 (2), 50-56.
Stevens, C. D, & Ash, R. A, (2001). Selecting employees for fit: personality and preferred managerial style Journal of Managerial Issues , 500-517
Taylor, H. C, & Russell, J. T, (1939). The relationship of validity coefficients to the practical effectiveness of tests in selection: discussion and tables. Journal of applied psychology , 23 (5), 565
