Factors to Consider during Employee Selection - Assignment Example

Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Introduction: 7 Employment of the two new full time Staff 8 After selecting the two candidates, the following procedures should be followed; 8 Give the members of staff an overview of their job description 8 Present the terms of employment to the recruited staff 8 1. Hours 8 2. Rate of salary/ pay: 8 3.Overtime/Extra 8 Provide The Practitioners with the organizations hand book, for them to effectively understand the operations of the organization. 9 Cost of financial and physical resources 9 Resource and procure materials/staff for the project. 11 Identify how the project could be evaluated 13 How principles of operational assurance can be applied. 15 20 18 Employ two new full time staff 8 Consider financial and physical resource costs 8-9 Resource and procure materials/staff for the project. 10-12 Identify how the project could be evaluated 13-14 Discuss how principles of operational assurance can be applied. 14 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….15 Project Overview Introduction Young children of primary school age greatly face the risk of fire in our society. It is therefore essential to formulate a project that will improve fire safety awareness for young children in order to reduce their vulnerability to this particular risk. The latest national Risk Management Plan (2008-2011) recommends that every Fire and Rescue Authority should develop an Integrated Risk Management Plan (IRMP) that highlights the risks that face the community and the strategies for service deliver in order to eliminate the identified risks using a cost effective way. The projects basically centers on meeting the objectives of IRPM which involves improvement of public safety, reduction of the amount of incidences and saving lives with the basic aim of resource management. It will focus on developing safety awareness among children. Aims/ Objectives of the project The objectives of the project include Enhance fire safety awareness among school going children Reduce the number incidences in Southampton Improving the general community safety Expanding our community out reach program Managing Resources effectively Staff Recruitment The execution of the project requires two full time staff who can act as community safety practitioner. It is essential to take note of the fact that not ever practitioner can effectively work with children, as a result the selected candidates should be individuals with vast skill on handling school going children essentially in terms of communication. The employee selection strategy of recruiting two new staff members to undertake the project can be termed as the use of an external change agent. Harry (1984) highlights that the benefits associated to utilizing the external change agents is that new skills can be brought into the organization and the existing staff members can learn from the new change agents. Another advantage linked to the external change agents is that problem solving becomes much easier, division of tasks and increased consultation among staff members. Job Summary and Description The two selected candidates will be employed on the basis of a Seven months contract. The successful candidates will also work full time. Qualifications and Experience: University degree in community safety with emphasis on risk management in fire and safety Exposure of working with children a course in child psychology would be an added advantage. Knowledge of fire and safety regulations Worked within the fire and Rescue Authority environment Skills and qualities Excellent communication skills essentially with young children Innovative and analytical Cheerful and good-humoured Ability to present facts in an understandable manner The candidates must pass the CRB Check, that is not have any sort of criminal record Processes of staff Recruitment In order to find the two community safety practitioners the best method would be through an advert this is due to the fact that the individuals required have to be equipped with multi-disciplinary skill which include working with young children and on the other hand poses knowledge on fire and safety regulations. It would be to some extent difficult to find such candidates more promptly as a result advertisement would be more appropriate. The advert will be posted in the organizations website. Advertising is science that is complex as a result the only real way we can be sure that the strategies used will work is through referring to previous indicators in order to measure the effectiveness of the method of advertisement, as a result the outcome from the evaluation of previous record indicate that our website has proven its reliability. Cost of advertisement The cost of advertisement is an essential factor during any recruitment practice. Job advertisement should majorly get the best possible applicants for the specified position. As a result in order to get quality applicants it is essential to integrate advertisement channels that are frequently accessed by a lot people. On the other hand the cost of advertisement has to be reasonable enough. In this particular context the project requires two additional staff members who can basically be perceived as additional costs in terms of advertisement and staff remuneration due to an increase in human resource. However it is essential evaluate the cost – benefit analysis (CBA) of this particular project. Cost benefit analysis will put value on the practicability of a project in terms of the economic and social costs and benefits that will be attained from the project.  As an example considering the fact that that the organization has its website, we necessarily do not need additional costs in terms of posting the ad. In order to find the cost/benefit ratio the monthly cost of maintaining our website will remain constant as it will also be used to advertise the two job positions. Benefit/Cost = £650. So in this example, the cost of recruitment is actually very much reasonable to pursue Criteria for Employment A job interview is categorically a very powerful employee selection criterion undertaken by the Human resource department (Michael 2000). The interview will use panelists whereby each member of the panel is given the role of asking questions linked to the specified functions of the position. For instance one panelist should ask questions on fire safety measures for young children, another panelist can ask questions concerning how to communicate with young children in a more understandable manner. Factors to consider during employee selection The National Procurement Strategy for fire and Rescue Services (2005-2008) in chapter two recommends that fire and rescue authorities should put into consideration using contract terms and common documents in order to make effective use of communication sharing and improving performance. As a result hiring the services of the two staff practitioners on contract is actually an effective strategy of improving performance and also enhancing community safety and further reducing costs. It is also essential for the human resource department to manage the hiring process in the most ethical and appropriate manner. The main factors to consider include; Ensuring that the process apply any discriminatory tendencies either in form of gender, race or academic qualifications. The decision of hiring should be made with adequate information concerning the candidates The best candidates are selected after sufficient consultations among the panelist members. Managing Resources Introduction: According to Southampton City Council (2010); the current population of Southampton is 236,700 of which 119,000 are male and 117,700 are female. Southampton has large number of people as it's shown above which only the people who lives there. Making the public safer, the fire services have the responsibility to educate the public about the safety strategy, to do so they should educate the children at the school. In Southampton; there 79 schools consisting of; one nursery school, 21 infant schools, 16 junior schools, 24 primary schools (ages four - 11), 10 secondary schools, two academies and five special schools (Southampton City Council 2010). The target is to send some of our staff to the primary schools to educate and make them awareness about the fire safety. Employment of the two new full time Staff After selecting the two candidates, the following procedures should be followed; Give the members of staff an overview of their job description Present the terms of employment to the recruited staff 1. Hours 2. Rate of salary/ pay: 3. Overtime/Extra 4. Benefits 5. Place of work 6. Mobility clause Provide The Practitioners with the organizations hand book, for them to effectively understand the operations of the organization. Cost of financial and physical resources When making an analysis of the cost of the financial and physical resources of this particular project emphasis should be laid on resource management whereby the project should be undertaken both economically and efficiently, John( 2002), highlighted that resource management should lay grounds for conservation or basically budget reduction. Some of the financial and physical resources required in the implementation of the project include; Financial resources: e.g. salaries for the two recruited practitioners, purchase of teaching aids and materials, transport costs, accommodation, allowances Physical resources: e.g. offices, supplies, work sites, material, vehicles. In order to analyze the efficiency of the project in terms of resource management it is essential to evaluate the Benefit-cost analysis (BCA), the technique can assist in the evaluating projects through the comparison of the economic benefits with the economic costs of the activity. The BCA gives one general objective of the project that is problem solving (Brent 1996). For instance in this particular case young school going children in Southampton have increasingly been vulnerable to fire incidences , as a result the project would be an effective strategy towards problem solving For instance a rough estimation of the cost of resources of the project can be presented as follows; Materials and consumables (18 x 25) 450 Staff cost (700 x 2) 1,400 1,850 Margin (35%) 996 2,846 Other cost Accommodation (75 x 2) 150 Invoice value 2,996 If the Fire Department spends is budgetary funds on the project we will not only be improving community safety but also be managing resources, in that if young school going children are well equipped with skills concerning fire safety, the number Incidences will be reduced as a result the fire department would be saving on both financial and physical resource that are required for incident management. Resource and procure materials/staff for the project. National Procurement Strategy for Fire and Rescue Service in England (2009-12) recognizes the fact that fire rescue authorities are democratically accountable and responsible for their own expenditure decisions. The National Procurement Board supports collaborative procurement in order to purchase fire specific equipments. However the regulations of the board state that procurement arrangements in FRAs are to be regarded as the role of the regional body, in addition the procurement process should follow the requirement of legal equality obligation, as highlighted by (ESLG) National Equality Standard for Local Government, which states that the procurement process should embrace principles such as monitoring, equality impact and contract monitoring management. Basically the central factor in resourcing and procuring materials for the project is to ensure that the procurement department acquires the best materials at the best total ownership cost in order to meet the needs of the educational program in terms of quantity, quality and time. In terms of procuring the two staff members it is essential to secure the best candidates that the organization can rely on to deliver the intended mission. It is also essential for the pay package, allowances and benefits offered to the recruited staff be significantly proportional to the task awaiting the practitioners in order for them to be fully motivated and ready to work. In general in the selection process of the staff and resources for the project it is essential to put into consideration the aspect of sustainability that is setting up a long term framework, that will not only be useful presently but also in future, as a result the materials and also the procured staff should be useful in future projects undertaken by the organization. Therefore it is vital for the procurement process to be fair and transparent without any sort of fraud. Resources for teaching fire and safety awareness for children Consultation with teachers is very necessary before procuring the teaching resources. This is because certain schools my be equipped with resources that can facilitate the teaching of fire safety as a result in order to not spend much on procuring resources , it is vital to make consultations with the teachers. The resources required for teaching Fire Safety Craft – colors, paint, cards, glue , drawing boards , charts , toy trucks , toy mobile phones Emergent Reader Book 'How Fires Start'- e.g How to start a fire, I'm A Fire Fighter, fire, fire and many other reader books. Pictures; Flame Picture, Matches Campfire Fireplace Cigarettes Lightning Candles Stoves Fun games Identify how the project could be evaluated Economic Development Institute (1996) stated that the success of a particular project can be evaluated through continued feedback and making adjustments on the project accordingly while it is still at the implementation stage. The project will be evaluated using the follow factors; 1. Using the outlined objectives of the project Some of the questions to be asked when evaluating whether the project met the stated goals include; Was the process effective in meeting the stated objectives of enhancing fire awareness among children and reduction of the number of incidences? The status of the progress of the project towards meeting the objectives Do the personnel/ staff have adequate resources to ( materials , money , training and facilities) that can assist in meeting the stated objectives How can priorities be changed in order to put more emphasis on the stated objectives should the stated goals be changed or added? 2. How the process of the project works Evaluating how a program works and how it can produce the intended results. The basic questions to be asked when evaluating the process include; What do the employee require in order to deliver effectively Are the two recruited staff members able to deliver effectively How do the targeted clients come into the program in this case school children What do members of the Southampton consider to be the strength of the project What complaints have been highlighted by the schools visited so far What do the staff members consider to be the strength of the project 3. Outcomes-Based Evaluation The out come based evaluation will assist in analyzing whether the project managed to bring about the outcomes that the organizations truly believes in. Questions include; Did the children’s awareness concerning fire safety increase Did the project cover all the targeted children Will fire incidences be reduced in future as a result of the educational project Did the children increase or change their knowledge , attitudes and towards fire and its dangers How principles of operational assurance can be applied. The Fire and Rescue Authority plays a significant role assisting professionals in striving and improving their performance in the service they deliver. In order to raise standards and knowledge in terms of delivering this particular project, the aspect of operational assurance will focus on enhancing operational effectiveness (Jennifer 2009). Operational effectiveness of the project can be attained using two strategies which are ; Ensuring all the material and equipments needed by the staff in educating school children on fire awareness are available Ensuring that the two staff members are well remunerated and the payment is made on time in order to motivate them to work efficiently Conclusion The project presented above can categorically be a strategy of reducing the number of fire incidences in the region. It is therefore essential that resource allocation and management is well undertaken in order to attain the stated objects. In addition it is essential to take note of the fact that the implementation of the project is a step towards sustainable development due to the fact that school going children form a fundamental part of the future generation, as a result by increasing their awareness during their young age , the project is facilitating community safety even in the future. Bibliographies Brent, J, 1996, Applied cost-benefit analysis, Cheltenham (UK), Edward Elgar. Economic Development Institute, 1996, The economic evaluation of projects, World Bank, Washington DC IRMP Steering Group Integrated Risk Management Planning: Policy Guidance Community Safety, 2008, Communities and Local Government Christopher, M, 2002, Building Services, Taylor & Francis Jennifer, D, 2009, Fire Service Performance Measures, National Fire Protection Association, Fire Analysis and Research Division, U.K. John , V,2002, Managing resources for development, Commonwealth Secretariat. Harry R, 1984, The Procurement Process, National Contract Management Association. MSU Resource Management Principles, 2004, Approaches to Planning and Budgeting Michael B, 2003, Managing financial resources, Butterworth- Heinemann. Michael, A, 2000, Strategic human resource management National Risk Management Plan (2008-2011) nue al Bu7/0 National Procurement Strategy for Fire and Rescue Service in England, 2009-12 Department for Communities and Local Government Revenue and Capital budget (2009-2010) Southampton Fire Department. Budgets 20 8 Revenue and Capital Budgets 2007/ Read More