The Human Resource of Organization as the Key Determinant of the Level of Success the Business - Case Study Example

Running Head: Selection Methodology Student’s Name: Instructors’ Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 3 1.0 Introduction 4 2.0 ‘Dutiful Daughters’ currently 5 3.0 Business dilemmas 6 3.1 Business expansion 6 3.2 The options to business expansion 7 4.0 Job description for new employees 7 4.1 Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities 8 4.2 Physical Qualifications 9 4.3 Potential employees 9 4.3.1 Trained nurses 9 4.3.2 Retired nurses 10 4.3.3 Student nurses 10 4.4 Recruiting potential employees 10 5.0 Critical selection criteria for new employees 11 6.0 Ways of improving company’s web site 11 7.0 Conclusion 12 8.0 Recommendations 13 References 14 Executive Summary This report has been developed purposely to address the issue of selection methodology by referring to the case of the Dutiful Daughters. Dutiful Daughters is business that was established and owned by Helen Whitney in the outskirts of Sydney with the aim of providing home care, assistance and support to enable aged people and people with a disability to live at home rather than entering some form of aged-care facility. The report has found out that the methodology used in selecting the company employees is very important because it is the same people who determine the end result or rather the service to client in this case. Business expansion has also been given some reasonable consideration and it has been confirmed that expanding the business requires one to take a risk in order to balance growth and service provision to the clients. The report has discussed some of the job description structure that can be used by the business which is divided into two parts namely the knowledge, skills and abilities and physical qualifications. The report has also identified the potential employees available for Whitney which include the trained nurses, the retired nurses and the student nurses and some of the ways the employers which the employer can use to get to recruit these potential employees which include creating a favorable working environment for the student nurses since they need a more flexible working arrangement to balance work and education. This report has finally provided its conclusions and recommendations for use by management. 1.0 Introduction The human resource of any given organization is the key determinant of the level of success the business will attain provided that these are the people who work for the organization. The human resource department apart from ensuring that a good policy is in place that will enable the organization to recruit the best employees, it is also expected to determine and explain the business vision which could be used a guide to build the company objectives. The human resources department is expected to come up with a good business strategy that will ensure that the business is able to hire highly qualified staff that could actualize the company vision. Apart from selecting and recruiting new employees, the human resource methodology, also need to create the environment that employees could be satisfied to work in (Woodruffe, 2003). Provided the current competition in the labour market, many of the employers are real concerned about work-life balance to ensure that employees are satisfied in terms of work and career development since these two elements are key factors in making a business strategy a success. Improving the quality of work has continued to be a hard cell to crack. It is true that many of the employers are very much aware that quality of work-life is directly related to organizational performance and yet they are not are not able to tackle the available barriers. Employee training and development is also one of the major responsibilities for the human resource department. This is actually a very important strategy for the business since it can be used develop it is own employees especially when the labour market does not have the kind of employees the business is looking for. This report will analyse the case of the ‘Dutiful Daughters’ by looking at some of the ways in which the business could expand without loosing it is personal touch. The report will further suggest the job description for new employees, the kind of employees the business needs and the ways to recruit them. The report will also look at some of the critical employee selection criteria and what the employment panel needs to look consider most. Finally, the report will give its conclusions and recommendations apart from suggesting some of the ways in which the website could be made more attractive to attract more potential employees ( Halfhill & Richards, 2000). 2.0 ‘Dutiful Daughters’ currently Dutiful Daughters, is a business that was started and owned by Helen Whitney in February 2002 in the affluent eastern suburbs of Sydney. Professionally, Whitney had trained as a nurse something after her resignation drove her interest towards the urge to establish and run a home-care service under the umbrella of her son’s interest in a nursing agency. Whitney was interested in providing home care, assistance and support to enable aged people and people with a disability to live at home rather than entering some form of aged-care facility. Given the vast ageing population in Australia, it has been confirmed that caring for them is major challenge presently. At the moment, she is faced several dilemmas including the one to expand it is business and the same time maintain personal touch. Secondly, she is interested in finding out ways in which she can offer best employees apart from ensuring that best team of staff is hired, trained and retained (Hoevemeyer, 2006). 3.0 Business dilemmas 3.1 Business expansion Currently the Dutiful Daughters business strengths include its ability to link the clients with their relatives who live outside Sydney. Currently, the business is responsible for the wellbeing of its clients apart from ensuring that their relatives are regularly updated with information on there current state. The business at the moment is restricted to eastern parts of Sydney city. However, Whitney is interested in expanding its operating territories to other states but she is lacking the courage to do so because she feels that by doing that she is likely to compromise the quality of service the business is offering its clients and therefore loosing her customer base (Staw & Boettger, 1999). In order for the business to increase its productivity and maintain its personal touch, it’s important for Whitney to take into consideration a number of factors which include: She needs to appreciate the role careful matching can play in making sure that specific clients are only handled with specific staff. This is so because through matching it will not matter how big the business will be but the bottom-line is that personal contact will be maintained throughout. The idea in this case is to ensure that those members of staff who have similar experiences to those of the clients are assigned to manage them. By doing this, the business is in a position to expand its territory in a more systematic manner without loosing personal contact. Business charges also play an important role in attracting more customers. The charges per an individual are supposed be directly related to the nature and level of service provided. For Whitney to succeed in expanding her business, she must be ready to assess and charge an individual accordingly so that the more the time the business spends on a customer the more the charges. Business growth and continuity is depended on how willing the owner is ready to sacrifice and take risks. Whitney must describe herself as ‘a control freak’ who is desiring to grow her business by making some important compromises that are difficult to make and develop unique services that will ever remain attractive for the customers. Business growth inevitably needs someone to give and take. However, the most important factor to consider is quality control mechanism which can only be achieved customized and standardized services (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003). 3.2 The options to business expansion The first option towards expansion for Dutiful Daughters is to come up with a strong marketing strategy that could survey the market and find out if it is well positioned to offer the services the clients’ values. This is very necessary in determining whether the business ready for expansion. The other option for Dutiful Daughters, is to start a full scale expansion of the business to the other cities by sorting out those duties that are definable, recurring and measureable can easily be expanded. This option is cost effective because it will not require much capital to expand (Aube, & Rousseau, 2005). 4.0 Job description for new employees The current achievements that have been attained by the Dutiful Daughters have been attributed to the level of dedication by the members of staff in discharging their services. Whitney strongly believes that the success of any business greatly depend on the available staff. Dutiful Daughters, however, is currently sourcing it employees from among students and retired nurses. This is because there are no enough and qualified workforce in the labour market where they can choose from. In some occasions when Dutiful Daughters cannot match their experiences with that of the client, a position is advertised for the potential employees to apply. Currently, the business is developing its employees through extensive education, training, workshops and seminars in order to meet clients’ needs. This part of the report will provide job description summary of a new employee at Dutiful Daughter. A job description summary for the appropriate person, who can work with the Dutiful Daughters, is divided into two main parts namely knowledge, skills and abilities and physical qualifications (Campbell & Heskett, 1998). 4.1 Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities The most appropriate job description summary that Whitney need to use for the new employees in terms of knowledge, skills and abilities must consider the following attributes: An employee must have rich experience in human resource apart from health and must be someone who respects people who need her assistance. Somebody who is ready to learn and develop new skills. Ability to communicate effectively with others and the clients High level of professionalism in attitude, keeping and managing time, attendance, policies as well as procedures. Someone who should be able to work more independently with less supervision and the ability to work together with the others as a team. Finally, the most important factor to consider is to look out for someone who is ready to work with people who have special needs such as the sick, physically impaired and the aged most of the time including the weekends and holidays. 4.2 Physical Qualifications Physical health is important for any person is willing with Dutiful Daughters given the kind of job that is expected to do. The most important physical qualifications that Whitney has to consider include the following: Ability to stand upright, bend, lift and pivot in order to handle the client in a more convenient way. Well developed human senses like hearing, speaking, reading, writing and communicating either on phone or in person. Able to reason and tackle a problem. High motor skills that will enable one compile good work reports. Ability to do household tasks like cooking, bathing and care. 4.3 Potential employees Referring to the case provided about the Dutiful Daughters, it is important to recognize it is actually more than just employing new staff to serve the clients. This is a kind of job that requires some specific skills apart from the general knowledge. Whitney is expected to come up with a certain criteria that will assist her identify the most suitable staff to work for the business. These persons show some potential in them that can be transformed into effective service delivery. This part of the report provides an insight on the potential employees who are likely to be attracted to work for Dutiful Daughters. Some of the potential employees include: the trained nurses, the retired nurses and the student nurses (Carless, 2007) 4.3.1 Trained nurses These are the newly graduated nurses who have joined the labour market for the first time. They form the large part of the labour market for Dutiful Daughters. These group of employees are important for this kind of business because they fresh, energetic and eager to join the job market. This crop of employees is well knowledgeable and equipped with new skills and ideas that can drive the business to the next level. 4.3.2 Retired nurses The retied nurses also form another important of potential employees that Dutiful daughters may be attracted to. These people have got rich experience in the field of nursing and can actually provide brilliant ideas for the business. 4.3.3 Student nurses The student nurses, form an important part of the potential employees. They actually do this work as part-time or as part of their training and can be part of the greater labour market where the Dutiful Daughters will be sourcing from in the future. 4.4 Recruiting potential employees Currently, Dutiful Daughters are faced with the scarcity of qualified employees to choose its staff from. However, for the business to hire potential employee from a view that are available, Whitney must ensure that her business is ready to leverage staff relationships in order to create an environment that one will be comfortable to work in. Credible and organizational commitment to develop its employees is one key factor that will ensure that the company is able to recruit employees who have the capability to work. For example, the business must support those employees that are willing to go for further training in order to enhance their capabilities. The organizational structure need to be more favorable for students who work for the business by ensuring that the business is more flexible to accommodate them. These factors and many more will enable the business attract and recruit more attractive and potential employees for Dutiful Daughters (Carless, 2007). 5.0 Critical selection criteria for new employees The Dutiful Daughters’ case has provided this report with an overview of the challenges that the recruiting and interviewing teams face while employing the new staff to the business. This is because the process of recruiting new staff is very wide and so involving. However, this report based on the scenarios drawn from the case study of the Dutiful Daughters, will discuss the key considerations that need to be remembered when designing a selection criteria. Some of the key critical selection considerations that have been cited from the case include: planning, job analysis, attraction, short-listing, the selection process, reference checking, concluding the selection decision, induction and orientation and finally evaluation. These considerations are important in helping Whitney to develop the most appropriate employee recruitment procedures that will go along way in assisting her hire the most qualified staff for the business (Recruiting Roundtable, 2005). 6.0 Ways of improving company’s web site In the current world economy, because of the available competition for the few employees available in the labour market, recruiting and hiring of new employees, the process is now more than mere placement of the advertisement on the newspaper or the web site. In the case of the Dutiful Daughters, it is notable that Whitney is fond of advertising job vacancies using the website and a very brief brochure. However, proper management and use of web site advertisement can be very effective to the business in terms of cost and time required to order for advertising space (Whitney, 1994). In order to assist Whitney and other senior management improve their web site advertisement, the following suggestions have been made: The first and foremost thing to do is to ensure that the company is aware of who is available in the labour market and thereby place information that matches the employees’ qualifications and interests. The web site ought to provide a comprehensive package of the company’s employee benefit arrangements. The web site needs to clarify for the sake of employees that not all benefits that involve money for example the medical insurance programs that involve dental and optician expenses. The information placed on the company web site must explain the company’s view on lifestyle since many of the employees nowadays care so much about the quality of life they will live while working for a particular company. Finally, the company web site must list in totality all the benefits it offers and what many big companies do not offer like education support, child Daycare, adoption assistance and any benefit that can entice the employee to join the company. These factors and many more other improvements are important in ensuring that the company is able not able not only to attract potential employees but also attract a variety of employees as well as building the company brand (Hunter, 2000). 7.0 Conclusion In concluding this report it is important to state that a number of observations have been made from the study. One, expansion of one business requires one to make sacrifices in order to balance growth and service delivery. After looking at the concept of human resources selection methodology it is also clear that employees in any given organization play a very vital role in driving the business forward. However, this is not the case with many businesses since the methodology they use does not real assist the business to do the recruitment in a more competitive manner. Referring, the case provided, it has also been discovered that many companies apart from doing their advertisement over the newspapers, they also place advertisements on their web sites. However, the problem with the web is that most companies do not design it accordingly by providing relevant facts to attract the most potential employees (Stagl & Burke, 2004). 8.0 Recommendations In order to assist the management to expand their business as well as improve their selection methodology, the following recommendations have been made: Growth is all about taking risks and the management team must always understand any business expansion is an endeavor that one needs to pursue at all costs. The recruitment team must develop a job description model that should be used to hire new employees. Create a more flexible working environment that could attract a more potential group of staff to the business. Develop a common critical selection criterion for all new employees joining the company. Use of web site to advertise job vacancies must always have detailed information which is self explanatory to all potential employees (Baron, Handley & Fund, 2006) References Aube, C. & Rousseau, V. (2005). Team goal commitment and team effectiveness: The role of task interdependence and supportive behaviors. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 9, pp. 189–204. Baron, R., Handley, R & Fund, S. (2006). The impact of emotional intelligence on performance. In Linking emotional intelligence and performance at work: Current research evidence with individuals and groups (pp. 3–19). Campbell, J. P & Heskett, J. (1998). Alternative models of job performance and their implications for selection and classification. Personnel selection and classification. 41(1), pp. 108–19). Carless, S. (2007). Literature review on best practice recruitment selection techniques, Melbourne: Monash University. Dematteo, J.S., Eby, L.T & Sundstrom, E. (1998) Team-based rewards: Current empirical evidence and directions for future research. Research in Organizational Behavior, 20, pp. 141–83. Hoevemeyer, V. (2006). High impact interview questions: 701 behavior-based questions to find the right person for every job. New York: American Management Association. Hunter, J. (2000). Cognitive ability, cognitive aptitude, job knowledge, and job performance. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 29, pp. 340–62. Kozlowski, S. & Bell, B. (2003) Work groups and teams in organizations. Handbook of Psychology (12): Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 333–75. Lee, D. (2005). How to avoid the four deadliest onboarding mistakes. And why you need to get onboarding right. Retrieved 31 August 2011 from, www.ere.net/articles/db/3F9DEDC4BD074E23A72AD98B938382CA.asp Recruiting Roundtable (2005). Achieving operational excellence in recruiting: a new framework for breaking the quality-time compromise. London: Corporate Executive Board. Salas, E., Stagl, K & Burke, C. (2004). 25 years of team effectiveness in organizations: Research themes and emerging needs, in C. Cooper & I. Robertson (eds). International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 19, pp. 47–91. Staw, B & Boettger, R. (1999). Task revision: A neglected form of work performance. Academy of Management Journal, 33, pp. 534–59. Sundstrom, E., McIntyre, M., Halfhill, T & Richards, H. (2000). Work Groups: From the Hawthorne Studies to Work Teams of the 1990s and Beyond. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice. Vol 4, No 1. Pp. 44–47. Whitney, K. (1994). Improving group task performance: The role of group goals and group efficacy. Human Performance, vol. 7, pp. 55–78. Woodruffe, C. (2003). Assessment centres: Identifying and developing competence, Wimbledon, UK: IPM. Read More