Research Korner: Recruitment Case Studies

RESEARCH METHODS & DISSERTATION PROPOSAL: Multinational Culture: The implications for selection, development and introducing new employees in a multinational organisation, Toyota Europe Brussels Head office, Toyota Motor Europe Manufacturing (TMEM)

RESEARCH METHODS – DISSERTATION PROPOSAL   1.         Title   Multinational Culture:  The implications for selection, development and introducing new employees in a multinational organisation, Toyota Europe Brussels Head office, Toyota Motor Europe Manufacturing (TMEM) Section only.   2.         Research questions and objectives   Research Questions:   	<li class="MsoNormal"> 	 	What are 	the demands when selecting employees for Human Resource professional?</li> 	<li class="MsoNormal"> 	 	What 	expectations after selection, do new members have to ‘live up to’?</li> 	<li class="MsoNormal"> 	 	What 	methods of development are in place for employees?</li> 	<li class="MsoNormal"> 	 	What are 	the causes of failure for employees?</li> 	<li class="MsoNormal"> 	 	What is 	done to prepare new recruits into the organisation?</li>     Research Objectives:   1.    To establish what criteria is used for the recruitment process (skills, knowledge or ‘fit’). 2.    To identify any development tools for employees. 3.    To investigate the causes of employee failure in Brussels head office. 4.    To consider the effectiveness of Toyota’s introduction of new employees into the head office.     3.         Rationale   Over the last 20 years, multi-national culture has been a topic of significant interest in studies and there continues to be recent items, which support my case for this paper.  Kranias, 2000 states culture is always an important aspect within an organisation.  Its importance is further emphasised in the case of the Japanese multinational companies and how their culture affects the relationship between the Japanese parent companies and their subsidiaries overseas.  From 3rd February 2003, I will commence employment with Toyota Head office, which is a Japanese subsidiary in Brussels.   The reason behind my proposal is based on the experience I had during the recruitment process, what my experience has been during the acceptance of my contract and the process for me when joining a multinational company – my first day and onwards.  The other factor, which has been of interest to me when completing additional literature review, is the impact that Japanese cultural requirements may have on the employees at Head office, Brussels, including myself.   I will commence with the recruitment process, which took 6 months and involved three interviews and an assessment day.  Toyota’s recruitment process objectives appeared to be aimed at selecting the right people for the roles available and this could be said that all organisational objectives should be to recruit the right people that match the skills and knowledge required for the vacant position.          My experience during the interview process posed some difficult hurdles due to the questions posed and I felt this was due to language and cultural differences.  During all interviews, there was a panel of three interviewers who were Japanese, German and Dutch.  Various questions had to be repeated or expressed in a different manner for all individuals to completely understand the context, even between the interviewing panel.  The main focus around questioning during my interviews was based on my values rather than technical competence.  This questioning technique came predominately from the Japanese interviewer.   Due to this experience it led me to question if some people may be unsuccessful to join Toyota predominately due to potential cultural differences that may be deemed not to fit with the corporate philosophy.   During the assessment process whereby there were six delegates, the assessors informed us that they were looking for strengths that match the ‘Toyota Way’ but no one to date has informed me what that is and once again is this more a cultural fit rather than on technical ability?   Currently at Toyota head office there are approximately 250 employees and have over 10 nationalities working within the company.  Predominately the mix is British, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Turkish, Polish and Spanish therefore there is a large mixture of different cultures within the head office and potential major differences in cultural backgrounds.  I anticipate experiencing some of the difficulties posed by cultural diversity, which based on the literature research may include communication, values and social culture.  Based on this information I feel these three area’s will be of significances to me as the team I will join consists of 11 human resource employees and I will be the only English person within this team and I do not speak another language.      However, the complexity of cultural differences eludes easy understanding and remains obscure in the complexity of daily life and as this is my first international assignment and based on the significant research already completed regarding multinational culture, this leads me to know there is further research into how culture plays a part in recruitment and development and how individuals fit within the organisation.    Kranias, 2000 states ‘The use of cultural control has great implications for the selection and training and selecting employees is critical’, and this research will aim to establish the basis of selecting employees, what development takes place and what form of assistance does Toyota provide when you join the company.   4.         Theoretical Underpinning   There are many different definitions of multinational business and Frayerweather, 1978 says that multinational business has ‘only one central distinguishing characteristic – it is business, involving two or more nations’.  Dresser and Carns, 1969 states ‘Culture is the way of life of the group of people’.  Does this mean the group of people are from the same nationality?   Handy, 1999 makes a statement that different nationalities prefer different organisational cultures and that this should not be a surprise but it is only recently that organisational studies have been able to spell out the difference in any detail. For example, cultural theorists like Hofstede believe that cultural influences play an enormous part in the way employees behave in organisations.     Therefore prior to being offered a contract with Toyota that is owned by Japanese, I worked for an American company.  Will I be able to support this with evidence obtained during my research when I review the selection, development and the introduction of the new employee into the workplace?   Recent research carried out by Miroshnik, 2001 regarding culture of multinational business states certainly the economic and physical environments are important issues but the cultural environment - communications, religions, values and ideologies, education and social structure has special importance in multinational business.    Analysis of problems and failures of multinational business abroad has shown that the first dominant factor is culture.  The old Japanese parable about monkey’s and fish’s management style dramatises the consequences of ignorance of the cultural factor in business and it is an appropriate metaphor for the kinds of problems that can arise when people of diverse cultures come into contact without preparation.   Employers should understand this, as culture is an integrated phenomenon and by recognising and accommodating taboos, rituals and many other components they may pave the way toward greater harmony.  Sherman, et al., 1995 states ‘Managing relations between multicultural organisations is a matter of accurate perception and appropriate adaptation.   A large part of the literature review was concerned with the failure of assigning and devising methods to prevent failures.  Much of this is focused on the difficulties in terms of culture clash, Torbiorn, 1982.  Failure of assignments does also impact the company regarding costs, image of the organisation and will potentially affect the individual concerned.     Based on the research it is evident that considerable attention should be given to recruitment, selection and training, and introduction into the organisation for employees to reduce the risk of failures and costs.   During the module Human Resource International, we reviewed a report held in Teesside University library, 658.311 GLY 02, issued by Roffey Park Management Institute.  The title was ‘Towards Global Leadership, Recruiting and Developing International Managers’, Glynn and Holbeche.  Their literature research showed the issues that surround international assignments from selection, training, development and repatriation to the impact of the family and the importance of career management.  They also state the criteria on which successful international employees are selected is still an issue which has not been resolved.  They also found that most multinational companies agree that their managers need international expertise; but their survey revealed that more than half of the large European corporations participating in the study lacked a strategy.  It does not provide which organisation participated.   Based on the findings during the literature review and my own current experience there remains gap in multinational organisations regarding preparing for cultural difficulties during selection, when developing and especially for the preparation and introduction into the organisation.  This report will explore the gaps and provide recommendations to Toyota Head Office, TMEM section.         5.         Methodology   Due to the change in my employment, I have based the methodology on the following.  I commenced employment with Toyota on 3rd February 2003, and due to the lack of in depth knowledge, I will commence my research from induction – building theory due to requiring building knowledge at this stage about the organisation and the culture.  I will commence collecting primary data by meeting people and interviewing a sample of the employees who have had the experience of joining this company and I will commence with the expatriate population of approximately 40 employees (the number concerned had been obtained from the Human Resource department).  My basis for this decision is to establish and gain a feel of issues (understand what is going on), so as to understand better the nature of the difficulties regarding culture people face during the selection process and when joining a new company.  I will then commence to make sense of the interview data by analysing the information and the result from this will be the basis of my theory.    The interview will be based on semi-structured interviews with employees who have joined as expatriates and are from TMEM, which is the division I have joined.  The interviews will last approximately one hour and will be semi-structured.  I will use an a list of themes and questions based on my own experience and issues obtained during the Roffey Park research but during the interview process I will use follow-up questions when relevant if further exploration is required.    To aid my research I will establish from the Human Resource department if they conduct any form of analysis in order to record the different nationalities that have joined the company and if they conduct any exit forms when assignments have failed to establish reasons.  This would assist with researching different cultures and problems that have been encountered.  I know they do not have at this stage a Human Resource database but I will establish if they record using excel or access package.   To establish how recruitment is conducted, I will conduct a semi - structured interview with the head of the recruitment and selection team to verify the criteria they use and to confirm if they are looking for the ‘fit’ rather than based on a criteria of establishing a persons skills, experience and technical ability.  Again the interview guide will be based on my own experience with follow-up questions when necessary.   The interviews which I will undertake of the expatriate populations will be aimed at establishing a variety of aspects of their experience during the recruitment process and when joining the company by giving personal experiences.  Thus the interviews will consist to some extent of story telling; personal accounts of an experience.  Bruner, 1986 and Polkinghorne, 1988 state ‘story telling is a generic human approach aimed at structuring and ordering reality and individual experience and is a deliberate research method increasingly used in organisation studies.  Gabriel, 2000 has used story telling when researching organisational communication and culture.  I will use this information to formulate the image of the culture and the ideas and beliefs and group the views, for example, managers will be in one group.   A problem that may arise when carrying out interviews is if the interviewer is inexperienced with the possibility of interviewer bias.  I intend to carry out the interviews myself, I am a trained and experienced interviewer, (for recruitment and industrial relations), and would therefore hope that these problems could be minimised.    The other factor, which I felt was evident during my interview process, is an individual’s perception of the question posed.  I must continue to establish the question asked in English means the same to the individual during interview.   The current methods of managing selection, development and preparing new employees will be identified and reviewed prior to structuring the interview process and I will also use my own experience for this process.    There is also an intention to carry out qualitative interviews with other parties including the HR Manager and HR Director and will be conducted face to face as I have been informed the department structure is open plan and regular open communication meetings take place therefore I do not envisage a problem organising time to hold these interviews.    It is my intention to use Excel to analyse my data.  Excel will be used to produce graphs and tables.  The data gathered via the qualitative interviews will be used in a descriptive way to enhance the quantitative data gathered by evaluating the information obtained from the semi-structured interviews, and recording which of the experiences were referred to by the expatriate employees.  This will show the frequencies clearly experienced by the sample group.   6.         Timetable   February      analysis of current procedure for selection, development and introducing new employees into the organisation. March           identify gaps, prepare script for interviews and classify them. April              Complete interviews collate and analyse results and record results. June             first draft, proof reading and rewriting August          final proof reading, final copy printed and bound     7.         Resources   Access to tutor, which will be by telephone and e-mail due to geographical reasons. Time (of researcher and those to be interviewed) Computer facilities, (will use own laptop)   8.         Ethical Considerations   Due to people providing their own experiences and the fact that the interviews will seek their own personal experiences, reassurance must be given to all participants that confidentiality is of the utmost importance.  They may be concerned if they are critical of the process, that this may affect their future with the business and relationships with their manager.   It will be made clear that the purpose of this research is purely a study for the purpose of this dissertation and that recommendations will be made.  They will be notified that findings will lead to recommendations to help with future selection, development and introducing individuals to the organisation to achieve a better process.   It must also be made clear that invited participants have a right to refuse to participate, or to answer any particular question during the interview.     9.            References   Dresser, D & Carns, D., 1969, Sociology the Study of Human Interactions, Intercultural Press   Glynn, C & Holbeche, L., Towards Global Leadership: Recruiting and Developing International Managers, Roffey Park Management Institute, 658.311 GLY 02   Frayerweather, J., 1978, International Business Strategy, Ballinger, Cambridge, MA   Handy, C., 1999, Organisational Changes,   Harvey, F., 1997, National cultural differences using Hofstede’s national culture, Information Technology & People Journal Vol.10 No.2, pp132 –146   Helms, M., Exploring the factors that influence employees’ perceptions of their organisation’s culture, Journal of Management in Medicine, Vol.15 No. 6, 2001, pp. 415-429   Hofstede, G., 1980, Culture’s Consequences. International Differences in Work Related Values, Sage Publications   Holden, R., Managing people’s values and perceptions in multi-cultural organisations, Employee Relations Vol.23 No.6, 2001, pp.614-626   Miroshnik, 2001   Sherman et al., 1995   Torbiorn, 1982   Roffey Park Article, GLY 02

RESEARCH METHODS & DISSERTATION PROPOSAL: Multinational Culture: The implications for selection, development and introducing new employees in a multinational organisation, Toyota Europe Brussels Head office, Toyota Motor Europe Manufacturing (TMEM)

RESEARCH METHODS – DISSERTATION PROPOSAL 1. Title Multinational Culture: The implications for selection, developme...

Human resource planning on Contemporary organization

HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING ON CONTEMPORARY ORGANIZATION         Human resource management in a traditional organization requires traditional works including planning, organizing, directing and controlling these four fundamental foundation will definitely amount to a load of work in a certain traditional organization. This involved a thorough and wide formal incorporation of works in an organization to fully demonstrate a reliable and integrated structure of management initiative to implement such function to the organization.       The solid human resource foundation plan and other works will serve as the guide of their employees. A traditional organization must comply with the abiding rules set by the management to a strong and beneficial employee to employer relation and this are the usual setting in a certain company and organization.         In a contemporary organization which do not comply much to a traditional type of work and an organization that has been redesigned and innovated because of globalized and technological pattern, the foundation of this business draws a different pacing of workflow and sometimes the structure maybe even disseminated in an informal settings thus the human resource function may decline in certain restriction and advantages and disadvantages of works.       In this type of organizational structure information and ideas may come from different direction and therefore it is the decision of the human resource management to deal or follow such ideas but not necessarily be implemented in the organization.  The contemporary organization may lessens the works of most employees because the traditional demand of internal amount of work may also decline or associated in a different pattern than the usual is it also assumed that their revenue may rise and fall depending on the outcome of the disseminated lines of work, to further understand the scenario let us identify a certain contemporary company or organization and how the traditional work has been disseminated.         Amway is typical organization but have adopted a contemporary organization structural based network for their customers. They have expanded their business in other countries to recruit people and teach them the strategy of their business to buy and sell their products this recruit will also recruit their people and this people will also recruit and so on until all people are working for their company.       It you already know about Multi-level marketing this is an example of a contemporary organization where the core company do not have the obligation to their recruits but rather they have the obligation to propose a business strategy to be adopted by their recruits and therefore they will become independent distributor but not necessarily associated in their company.           Another example is www.elance.com, www.freelance.com, www.odesk.com. Try visiting these websites and you can see various job opening and job posting, their contemporary organization reaches all over the world and visitors can apply in the job but these organizations do not necessarily belong to the company who posted the job. They can never even be considered as a job placement agency but these websites organization are able to provide a job controlled solely by advertiser but not the organization. The human resource management potential job description is simply hiring people or job posting and nothing more and therefore diminishes their work but retain their earning in a more systematic manner.       Human resource planning in a contemporary organization does not require much work to maintain about employees but their usual works requires maintaining about their system. Their work is directing their activities to their partners so that they can also establish their own business so they both benefit and simply earn, there may not be any employee employer relation involve in their system that is why it is called contemporary.       You may also presume that contemporary organization is an open system structure and the workflow involve divide the task into independent system adoption. Everyone who can understand the line of work of a certain company can simply be involved in their organization to adopt their system, therefore planning, organizing, directing and controlling is in the hand of the person who have adopted their system and therefore reduces the line of work of human resource management in their company but passed on to their customers and their partners. Direct selling, Networking, Referral marketing companies like Avon may also be considered as another form of contemporary group.       This contemporary approach may also reduce employees, overhead cost and labor cost but may promote technology adoption, radical expansion, incremental changes and re engineered business. Sometimes they cannot even be controlled by the government because they can reach from various places. More and more firms have been engaging with this kind of strategy but some companies have taken advantage about the system to perform illegal activity that questions its advantage but that is another issue.

Human resource planning on Contemporary organization

HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING ON CONTEMPORARY ORGANIZATION Human resource management in a traditional organization requires tradition...

Proposed Procedure for Recruitment and Selection of Checkout Operators: Case Study of Derby Retail Store, Inc.

Proposed Procedure for Recruitment and Selection of Checkout Operators Recruitment provides an impetus for the search for human resource personnel who will be effective, efficient and productive in their job specifications. The essence of effective selection lies in making predictions about the future job performance of applicants for a given position. But such predictions are difficult, partly because only a limited amount of information can be gathered in the selection process, and because important characteristics of job applicants are hard to measure accurately. Checkout Operators’ duties are mainly to ensure that they man the electronic tills: take cash and give change, use the credit card readers and take money off coupons. In addition to these duties, they have to help pack bags and generally be helpful to customers. However, these are the minimum expected of a checkout operator. Also in his/her job specification is the need to be customer oriented- this includes friendliness, helpfulness and patience in dealing with customers. The more difficult challenge is to deal with difficult customers who are demanding and sometimes irrational.   These issues coupled with the problems of finding employees who may not have problems regarding their discipline on their job, competency, absenteeism, and abusive behaviors may trigger the future problems with a checkout operator. Thus, as a member of the office personnel team, I deem it necessary that there be a recruitment and selection process that shall address the current and the future problems that we may encounter with regards to check out operators. This proposed recruitment and selection program for the Checkout Operators seeks to: (1) provide a comprehensive and specified job description for checkout operators as part of the personnel specification process; (2) provide a proposed recruitment process that will cover the selection criteria, interview process and the final selection; (3) present a recruitment advertisement and; (4) and a sample induction program for the new checkout operators.    Company Profile   Derby Retail Store, Inc. consists of a multi-department retailer, located primarily in medium-sized and larger communities. The Derby Retail Store aims to offer quality merchandise, services and value to meet customers' needs for home, family basics, casual apparel and seasonal products, along with a special emphasis on retail health, operating in-store pharmacies and optical centers. As of February 1, 2003, the Company had 8 retail stores operating in within the UK. It also serves smaller and more rural communities, offering a one-stop shopping format.   Job Description for the Checkout Operators (also cashier, cash register assistant) JOB DESCRIPTION Checkout operators count the total price of customers’ purchases. They take payment and give change. They may also pack customers’ bags. MAIN TASKS <ul type="square" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> 	<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	greeting customers at 	the checkout counter</li> 	<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	swiping goods across a 	scanning device to identify the prices, or in a less modern establishment, 	typing product codes into the cash register </li> 	<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	weighing and pricing 	goods sold by weight</li> 	<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	calculating the total 	price of a customer’s purchases</li> 	<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	collecting payment and 	giving change </li> 	<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	in some cases, packing a 	customer’s purchases </li> 	<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	tallying up the cash in 	their till at the end of their shift </li> 	<li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	answering customers’ 	queries about products and prices</li> </ul> Personnel Specification We all agree that our goal is to recruit and hire the very best people to the company in providing the best customer care support. Our search and selection process for hiring checkout operator is supposed to lead to that outcome, and most of us believe we can identify the most qualified applicants from a pool of candidates. However, our belief that it is obvious who is the most qualified candidate ignores the subjective aspects of human judgment and decision making. The retail company is committed to equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees and consistent administration of policies and procedures. Accordingly, the department neither practices nor condones any form of discriminatory treatment on the basis of race, religion, creed, color, national origin, sex, age, marital status or disability.   Recruitment Advertising Recruitment can be a powerful vehicle in shifting from a seemingly old and outmoded culture to a new one. In the company for instance, the time wasted on wandering around instead of being productive necessitates action from the management. However, too often, recruitment officials underestimate the difficulty of recruiting competent people. Further, recruitment is a highly competitive enterprise (Barber, 1998; Gabert, 1994; Heneman, Judge, & Heneman, 2000). Stated another way, recruitment is a two-way decision-making process involving decisions made both by organizations selecting new employees and by job applicants pursuing open positions. Thus, the aid of a catchy recruitment advertisement is invaluable. Compared to Americans, UK employers emphasizes character more: it is not surprising to find personal attributes to appear in recruitment advertisements and that these convey meaningful insights into the organization and messages about the type of applicant wanted (Mathews and Redman, 1997). In today’s challenging recruitment advertising market, we are finding that the clients/prospective employment advertisers are focused on measuring the Return On Investment (ROI) of their advertising expense. The market is more competitive than ever before; as the economic pressures on advertising budgets that many service providers are competing for is smarter and more conservative than in decades. Identifying the needs of a customer and matching those needs to a solution is challenging.             The purpose of a recruitment advertisement is to: attract the attention of prospective applicants and motivate them to find out more about the advertised opportunity; market the company, the job (checkout operator and the opportunity being offered; provide enough information to define the desired attributes of candidates; secure a pool of suitably qualified applicants from which the most suitable person can be appointed.             Suitable Selection Tests and Interview format There are three basic components to Objective Pre-employment Interviewing: identifying, defining and quantifying information targets; the interpretation of applicant behavior during the interview; and interviewing techniques to encourage more accurate information, even when applicants perceive that accurate information will result in disqualification. Objective Pre-employment Interviewing first determines that each information target being considered for the interview is, in fact, a bona fide occupational qualification and/or essential job function. In identifying information targets to consider, employers sometimes fail to include the activities and behaviors that actually predict hiring failures. For any given industry or profession, historically, why have some employees been disciplined or fired? If the company would like to reduce these failures in the future, I propose that the recruitment and selection of employees be reevaluated to include a clearly specified task and responsibility profile for Checkout Operators including the additional tasks that may be required of them in cases where they are not called for by their work. The important point is to evaluate all of employees job specifications and relevant items -- not just on competency issues -- and be sure to cover the most likely possibilities, when there are multiple jobs at hand or when they are not doing anything. Once the information targets have been identified for possible inclusion in any given interview, we can conduct an objective pre-employment interviewing then catalogs the information targets into three groups: Category I can include the traditional skills, knowledge, abilities, and experiences the assessment has determined to be appropriate for the position being sought. Category II may cover the organization's interests and requirements, such as shift requirements, conflicts of interests, etc. Category III may address the various counterproductive activities, such as substance abuse, workplace violence, lack of integrity, etc., that historically have been problems for the jobs in question. No matter which interview format is being used (Recruitment, Background, Oral Board, etc.), I recommend to always start with the traditional, or Category I, targets. Applicants expect to be questioned about their employment, education and military histories, and, with few exceptions, questions regarding these targets are not considered sensitive by either the employer or the applicant. Obviously, if the applicant discloses that he/she does not meet the minimum qualifications regarding these topics, there is no legal or ethical reason to discuss the more sensitive Category II and III information targets. Do not confuse the consistency guideline that employers use to treat applicants equally -- without regard to gender, race, ethnic group, etc. -- with any mandate requiring employers to cover all of the exact same information targets. While "checklist interviewing" (asking all applicants exactly the same questions without regard to the applicants' backgrounds or answers) may be a fast, inexpensive way to teach newly designated interviewers -- and may even be essential to some subjective interviewing programs -- it is completely ineffective in dealing with applicant misrepresentation, a leading cause of hiring mistakes and unacceptable turnover. Induction Programme All new employees, should attend an induction at the Human Resource Office, on their first day. The employee must provide details and complete an employment declaration for taxation purposes before placement is effected onto the payroll. Other original documentation, such as an UK birth certificate, UK citizenship certificate or passport, evidence of qualifications, and a curriculum vitae, will also be required. The new employee will receive information about the company, conditions of employment, Occupational Health and Safety, Equity and other matters.   The Customer Care or delegate is responsible for the induction of a new staff member to the checkout operation. The first day would normally take the following format; 	 		 		 		a meeting with the 		supervisor to cover the duties and responsibilities of the position, and 		the performance and quality standards expected; 		 	 	 		 		 		introduction to the 		personal work space; 		 	 	 		 		 		a tour of the work 		unit and survival information; 		 	 	 		 		 		assignment of a 		mentor for instruction, questions etc. 		 	             Effective staff induction should be planned, scheduled over a period of time and meet the particular needs of both the individual and the company. It includes learning about the company and the interactions between the various areas, the acquiring of skills, experience and knowledge through learning, and the promotion of commitment to the duties of the position of checkout operator.   Conclusion In a customer-oriented industry, customer satisfaction aside from the prices of goods, takes the primacy in retail stores. As such, the efficiency of the personnel shall represent the company in general; it shall also be the bulwark of customer service. Thus, Derby Retail Store shall take measures in selecting the personnel particularly the checkout operators of the store. This process entails a structured and planned process: from the specification of job descriptions, the recruitment advertisement, the interview process and the induction of the employees on the organization. It is important to note that in this process, the organization must present an efficient and productive organization in order for the employees to convey such image to the consumers.   Recommendations Aside from having a planned and structured recruitment process, I recommend that a training be conducted upon the induction of the newly hired applicants. In this way, there will be a minimization of errors on the job. Furthermore, it shall give the employees an opportunity to enhance their skills and get used to their job and the organization.   References   Barber, A. E. (1998). Recruiting employees: Individual and organizational perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.   Gabert, G. (1994). Human resource management in the community college. In G. A. Baker III (Ed.), A handbook on the community college in America (pp. 377-385). Westport, CT: Greenwood.   Heneman, H. G., III, Judge, T. A., & Heneman, R. L. (2000). Staffing organizations (3rd ed.). Middleton, WI: Mendota House.   Mathews, B. and Redman, T. (1997) What do recruiters want in a public sector manager? Public Personnel Management, Vol. 26.   Thomas, J. (1998) Job aspiration and ethnic minority unemployment in the UK: is there a connection? Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 24.     Appendix 1. Job Description for Checkout Operators   CHECKOUT OPERATORS AND CASHIERS operate cash registers and receive payment for goods purchased by customers or receive and bank takings and make payments. Skill Level: The entry requirement for this unit group is completion of compulsory secondary school education or higher qualification. Tasks Include: receiving goods selected by customers, registering and totaling prices on cash register processing payments for goods by cash, cheques, gift vouchers, credit or debit cards and other non-cash forms of payment issuing sales dockets and giving change processing mail and other payment types and arranging banking counting and recording money received and balancing against register sales records recording and balancing petty cash disbursements   Appendix 2. A Personnel Specification   PREFERRED PERSONAL TRAITS AND SKILLS Checkout operators should be friendly, polite and quick with dealing with customers. They need to have some basic cash-handling and mathematical skills. Being observant helps, as products may sometimes be priced wrongly or dishonest customers may have switched the price tags of goods. Checkout operators also need to be honest as they deal with large amounts of cash daily. A smart appearance and the ability to stand for long hours are important. QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED Educational attainment at least high school graduate, must be 18 years old and above, must hold a PMR certificate, no previous criminal record. Appendix 3: Advertising the Position Here is the proposed budget plan for the advertisement: For two consecutive Sundays: A 1/8 page advertisement on Sunday Herald and Sunday Times A one-week advertisement on Herald and Time: i/8 page each (seven times) Costing: 7,500 pounds Following is a sample letter that can be used to advertise a checkout operator opening: Date: November 11, 2003 TO: Newspapers, Magazines and Dailies FROM: Derby Retailer Store Human Resource Personnel Officer Please place the following ad in your paper __________ (dates). Any questions can be answered by ___________(Human Resource Personnel Officer), _______________ Derby Retailer Store, ___________ (phone number). Please bill the advertisement to the Finance Department. CHECKOUT PERSONNEL ASSISTANT: 37 hours per week (must be willing to work on weekends with pay). Duties: operate cash registers and receive payment for goods purchased by customers or receive, bank takings and make payments, and receiving goods selected by customers, registering and totaling prices on cash register processing payments for goods by cash, cheques, gift vouchers, credit or debit cards. Minimum qualifications: High school graduate, preferably with two year's experience as a checkout operator and/or training. Salary: 5.25 pounds/hour. Apply until ______ (date) at _______________ Derby Retailer Store.  Compliance with the legal requirements (UK discrimination laws)                Job discrimination laws were enacted in the UK precisely because of the unemployment level of minorities and disabled. For instance, Thomas (1998) noted that the excess ethnic minority unemployment in the UK can be explained by minorities having relatively inflated job aspirations, making them more likely to eschew jobs that white people find acceptable. There is an over riding requirement for retailers like us to comply with the discrimination laws in UK regarding the employment of minorities and the disabled. Thus, there will be no discriminatory clause in the recruitment and the selection of personnel in any way be it implied or otherwise. We conform to the anti-discrimination laws in UK pertaining to the employment of minorities, the disabled, women and several others. Furthermore, we subscribe to the fairness of the selection and contends that the applicants will be employed on the basis of their competency and their suitability for the job. This commitment can be manifested in the job advertisements for check-out operators and in the selection criteria for hiring. Furthermore, this anti-discrimination clause is also an evidence of the company’s corporate social responsibility in helping and developing the workforce in UK regardless of certain demographic variables other than those concerned with their competencies.   Evaluation of the Procedure Assessing outcomes of the recruitment is critical to systematic improvement of recruitment effectiveness in the company. This shall benefit the company in three ways: (1) it can assess the strengths and weaknesses of the recruitment process for future improvements; (2) it can provide an impetus for action in terms of cost measurement in recruitment (cost analysis and the best measure of lowering the cost of the recruitment process and; (3) in determining the productivity of the newly hired checkout operators. For organizations to pursue systematic, sustained improvement in recruitment effectiveness, a new approach to the assessment of recruitment outcomes is necessary. I believe a practical approach to recruitment evaluation can be achieved (a) by isolating and evaluating attraction outcomes, (b) by directly assessing the job performance potential of each applicant, and then (c) applying utility analysis methods to convert differences in applicants' job performance potential to a dollar metric. This final step produces an estimate of the benefits of alternative attraction activities that can be compared to their costs.   Assessing Attraction Outcomes: A Step-by-Step Overview Step 1. Identify positions to assess. Description: Organizations may choose not to develop scores to evaluate recruitment outcomes for all positions. Those positions where assessment of attraction outcomes is likely to be of greatest value are jobs that generate several new hires and attract large numbers of applicants.   Step 2. Identify current screening mechanism and determine current assessment properties. Description: Organizations need to identify the current selection mechanism. In some organizations, screening devices are not formalized. In these cases, efforts should be made to identify the true character of the screening device as it currently exists.   Step 3. Determine strategy for adapting current screening device to produce scores for each applicant and adapt changes. Description: Depending on what screening device is currently used, the amount of deviation between current practices and the development of scores for each applicant with the desired properties will vary. Organizations need to decide how far they want to go toward developing measures that yield scores with optimal properties. In most instances, it is likely to be more effective for organizations to develop measures over a series of iterations aimed at working toward desired score properties. Doing so is likely to minimize costs.   Step 4. Assess attraction outcomes. Description: Assess each applicant using the device developed in Step 3. Scores for all applicants in the applicant pool in batch recruiting should be evaluated. In continuous recruiting, all applicants, including those that have left the pool by withdrawing themselves from consideration or because they were hired, during the appropriate time period (defined by the organization) should be included. Data from the analysis of applicant flows for each position should be archived in order to facilitate comparisons across recruiting events.   Step 5. Match recruitment activities to recruitment phases and estimate recruitment costs. Description: In order to evaluate the cost effectiveness of various recruitment practices, recruitment costs must be identified and mapped to the appropriate phase of recruitment (i.e., attraction, status maintenance, gaining job acceptance). Estimate costs of attraction by identifying all activities primarily designed to influence the attraction of applicants to this position, not general recruitment costs. The cost of general recruitment activities--those not attributable to a specific position--could be evaluated against all positions that are influenced by those activities.

Proposed Procedure for Recruitment and Selection of Checkout Operators: Case Study of Derby Retail Store, Inc.

Proposed Procedure for Recruitment and Selection of Checkout Operators Recruitment provides an impetus for the search for human resource ...