The task of creating and staffing a new position is one that requires a detailed understanding of the legalities that are associated with the process. The process of staffing employees to a given position would require the HR officer involved to consider the legal aspects that are critical to make the process not be challenged legally. It becomes critical to consider key laws and legal principles that would need to be embedded in the process of recruiting the right staff as a HR officer. The application of the legal principles in the process of staffing of the workers to fill the position would be critical in the process of mitigating the potential legal issues surrounding the filling of the given position. In this context, the position that is created and is to be filled is that of retail sales staff of the business. The process of filling new staff to take on the retail sales officer job would need a keen look into the legal issues surrounding recruitment and staffing the sales workers. The focus of this study would be to analyze the legal aspects that would need to be considered when it comes to creating new position and staffing the workers.
Part 1: Concept Map
The focus of this paper is to create a new position in the sales department. In this regard, the new position will be the retail sales officer’s position that would need to be filled with candidates who have qualified and have the ability to meet the job description. The entire pipeline of the work will involve the creation of the new position, advertisement/vacancy of the new position, the interview of the applicants, the selection of the right applicants and finally the orientation of the selected staff. This work pipeline is aimed at ensuring that the most suitable retail sales staff is selected into the company and that the process does not carry with it the legal issues surrounding recruitment and staffing the sales workers. The focus of the HR director is to ensure that the processes of job advertisement, recruitment, selection, and orientation of the sales staff do not raise legal issues (Handlogten, 2014). The workers who will be selected into the new position should be able to carry out their roles as per the job description that would be offered during the vacancy advertisement for the position.
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The concept map for recruiting and selecting the sales staff will be as follows
Fig. 1: Concept map showing qualification and skills, and job description
The job description of the new retail sales officers would be as follows. The following job description was developed in line of the need to outline the functions this position will perform on a regular basis; the way the job functions within the organization and the scope of work that should be expected by the candidates who would fill the job (French, 2017). The focus of writing the job description was to shape the expectations of the candidates who will fill the position on what is expected of them. This is important considering the fact that the retail sales job is newly created for the organization, and the staff would need to be actively engaged in the work process.
Job Description
The main duties of the retail sales representatives at the function are as follows.
Greet and assist customers as come into the shop for new products
Engage in promotional activities at the shop to facilitate consumers to make more purchases.
Suggest applicable and relevant upsells. This should be done with the focus on helping customers walk out the door with all the items they need.
Meet weekly, monthly, and quarterly sales quotas. The retail sales officers would work to meet the developed targets.
Learn how products work. In addition, they should learn how to troubleshoot issues with customers when they arise.
Prepare and submit weekly sales reports to the team leaders who in turn would submit to the sales director
Assist local team members with transactions where it is deemed necessary.
Sales Representative Qualifications and Skills
The retail sales representatives would need to have the following qualifications.
Bachelor’s degree in sales is preferred
2+ years’ experience in direct or inside sales experience
Ability to sell and promote sales at the shop
Experience working with sales volumes greater than $200,000
Willingness to be posted to alternate store locations when it is found necessary
4+ years’ retail experience is an added advantage
Part 2: Legality Paper
The process of creating and staffing the new position would need to address the legalities that are associated with the position. The key issues that would need to be looked at include the age of employment/minors, gender equality, racial and other discrimination issues, health and safety, and fair compensation of the recruited workers (Tippins, 2017). These items are critical in the process of ensuring that the process of recruitment and staffing does notattract legal issues. Without addressing these core legal issues concerning the new sales position that has been created, the company may attract legal suits.
The legal considerations surrounding the creation of the new retail sales job description for the position are many. They include issues of fairness and discrimination policies that would have to be observed. The first legal consideration that would need to be considered is that of job postings. The law demands that job postings in light of the new retail sales job should not give preference to race, color, religion, family status, gender, age, political affiliation and sexual orientation (Handlogten, 2014). This would mean that the process of developing the job post for advertising the new position should not indicate any preferential treatment that would be offered to candidates who apply based on the listed items. The job post should indicate neutrality on the part of the employer that all candidates applying for the job and have met the requirements as outlined would be given fair treatment and not be discriminated against (French, 2017).
Another set of legal considerations that would need to be checked relate to the issues of handling the interview. The interview or selection process is a critical one in the process of finding the right candidates who will fill the advertised retail sales position. The legalities involving the interview process touches on the way the questions are crafted. The interview questions should not shows that the interviewing panels intentionally or unintentionally are involved in questions on prohibited grounds (French, 2017). On these grounds, it becomes important for the interview questions addressing job and its requirements to be put in a way that gives all applicants a chance to apply. A good example would be if the job needs regular overtime and has an irregular schedule, there is need to avoid questions such as “Do you have children?” Such a question may imply individuals with children are discriminated against.
In addition, it is important that in all steps of the recruiting process (job postings, interviews, checking references and making the offer); no form of discrimination should be condoned. The focus of taking on this approach is to avoid the legalities that may arise because of use of words, phrases, or tone of voice that may indicate unfairness of treatment of the candidates. All the applicants participating in this process should be given equal opportunity and a fair chance to respond to the job posting based on the jobs needs and responsibilities that were to be played (Whittaker, 2013). Taking on this approach will go a long way in minimizing the risks associated with legal suits on issues of staffing. Taking on this approach is also good for it identifies the company as one that observes the business ethical practices. Such practices would contribute largely to fostering a positive reputation of the business to the market.
Conclusively, the process of filling the new position in retail sales would require key consideration of the legal issues in line with crafting the compensation package plan. There are legal considerations that would have to be checked in regards to the compensation that would need to be offered. In order to craft a good compensation plan for the retail sales staff that would be recruited by the company, a few principles would need to be observed. These include the need to observe (i) Fair and livable compensation, need to consider (ii) market-based compensation, need to avoid (iii) discrimination in compensation, (iv) need to consider performance-focused compensation, and lastly, need to have open and explainable compensation. Putting these principles into place in designing the compensation plan would address legal issues.
References
French, W. (2017). The Personnel Management Process. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Handlogten, K. (2014). Staffing the Contemporary Organization. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Tippins, J. (2017). Handbook of Employee Selection. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Whittaker, W. (2013). The Fair Labor Standards Act. New York: Nova Publishers.
