The Use of Technology in Recruitment and Training - Fastsigns Franchise - Case Study Example

The Use of Technology in Recruitment and Training: A Case of Fastsigns Franchise, Texas Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Course Name Date of Submission The Use of Technology in Recruitment and Training: A Case of Fastsigns Franchise, Texas Introduction The human resource department plays a critical role in ensuring the success of an organization. Today, employees are seen as the key assets of an organization. Having the right employees with the right talents is a source of competitive advantage (Hoyle 2013, p. 13). As such, the human resource managers must ensure that an organization acquires the right talents to ensure the achievement of success. However, the technological advancements that has occurred over the past few decades have greatly impacted on the HR functions of most organizations, including recruitment, selection, induction, training, career planning, industrial relations and occupational health and safety among others (Larson and Hewitt 2005, p. 56). Presently, most large organizations have adopted human resource information system (HRIS) to help in the execution of HR functions. HRIS involves the use of HR software to execute HR functions electronically. Fastsigns franchise is a classical example of Australian companies that uses technology to perform some of its HR functions. This discourse will explore the how technology is being used for recruitment and training of employees with a specific focus on how Fastsigns Franchise use technology to recruit and train its accountants. Use of Technology in Recruitment & Training Recruitment and training is one of the key functions of the human resource manager. The HR manager must ensure that an organization has the right number of employees with the right talents all the time to ensure success. This implies that, after hiring, the HR manager must ensure that the right training is offered to the employees to enable them acquire the right skills and experiences to enable them be able to discharge their duties effectively (De Juana-Espinosa, S 2011, p. 14). However, recruitment and training of employees has changed significantly over the last few years. Presently, there are various technologies that HR departments can use to streamline and make recruitment and training efficient. As earlier stated, recruitment is one of the critical functions of HR manager. Fortunately, currently there are recruitment software that allow HR managers to hire employees easily, thereby resulting in time and cost saving, as well as resulting in better recruitment decisions. Recruitment software is greatly changing how companies handle their hiring process by providing firms and employees with more freedom and time. Recruitment software is a type of HRIS application that computerizes the hiring process in an organization (Kavanagh, Thite and Johnson 2014, p. 8). The application software computerizes recruitment processes, creation and job ad posting, candidate analysis, as well as ranking the candidates according to their skills and suitability. Additionally, the recruitment software allows HR to create personalized interview questions within a single system. The use of recruitment software is having many benefits to organizations whose HR has adopted the technology for their recruitment processes. In the past, most hiring managers used to spend a lot of time perusing application letters and resumes to get the right candidate to move to the next stage of the hiring process. This was not only time-consuming, but also costly to organizations (De Juana-Espinosa, S 2011, p. 25). The trend has, however, changed with the availability of recruitment software that has reduced the hiring time but performing the initial screening to identify the suitable candidates for a particular job. The use of recruitment software also benefits firms because it ensures that candidates are thoroughly assessed against the requirement of the job and culture of the organization, thereby ensuring that the best candidate is picked for a job. Kavanagh, Thite and Johnson (2014, p. 5) estimate indicates that recruitment software is more than five times effective than the traditional recruitment process. Apart from the cost saved during the initial hiring process, the use of recruitment software also helps save costs, time and resources in the long-run, particularly those linked to hiring process. This is attributed to the fact that recruitment software ensures proper hiring. In turn, this helps save costs, time and resources associated with poor hiring. Just like in recruitment, technology has also changed the way HR trains their employees. Training is an important function of the HR because it ensures the development of employee’s talent to their full potential, which is importance for ensuring productivity and efficiency of employees. Unlike in the past, where organizations relied on traditional training methods, presently, most organizations are starting to use technology to offer training to the employees (De Juana-Espinosa, S 2011, p. 34). Employees training software, in particular, is widely in use today. The use of employee training software offer many benefits to an organization. These include increasing bottom line by reducing the cost of training; provide immediate feedback on training for improvement, as well as ensuring that consistent and scalable results are achieved (Larson and Hewitt 2005, p. 73). Additionally, employee training software ensures easy alignment of employee skills and goals to those of the organization, thereby ensuring greater motivation and productivity. How Fastsigns Franchise Use Technology in Recruitment and Training Employees Fastsigns Franchise is one of the companies that understand the benefits of integrating technology for enhancing HR functions. Fastsigns is an Austin based sign and graphic company founded in 1985 by partners Bob Schanbaum and Gary Salomon (Entrepreneur 2015). The company has grown over the years to become a global brand operating in many countries across the globe. Some of the countries, where Fastsigns operate include the U.S., U.K., Mexico, Brazil, Canada, UAE, Cayman Island and Australia. However, Fastsigns operate under the name Signwave in Australia. Despite the stiff competition that Fastsigns faces from rivals in the industry, the firm has maintained steady growth in profits in all the countries, where it operates. The executive of the company attributes the many years of success to the right talents that the company has (Hyrell 2015). The company’s HR managers have always ensured that the right talents are hired and training offered to enhance their expertise, which has ensured quality delivery of services to customers. The Texas-based Fastsigns franchise is a perfect example of a company that uses technology in its hiring process. Jean-Ann Taylor, the HR manager of the franchise reveals that, initially, when it needed to hire sales representatives she would post the job ad on the internet and go through numerous resumes and application letters of each applicant. Taylor reveals that hiring sales representatives was challenging considering that the company would receive as many as 1000 resumes (Hyrell 2015). As such, to find the right candidate for the sales, she would spend a lot of time going through stack of resumes after which she would pass the candidates to the next stage for interview. However, the franchise recently implemented recruitment software called Hyrell that has helped streamline the hiring process. The Hyrell recruitment software automatically identifies a qualified candidate for a post (Hyrell 2015). Accordingly, the company has been able to save a lot of time, as well as ensuring that the best candidate is chosen for a given job. This is because the software identifies the candidate’s qualifications and matches them with the requirements of a job automatically. Taylor proceeds to state that Fastsigns Franchise has also been able to save money that would have otherwise been spent if the company conducted its recruitment processes manually (Hyrell 2015). Other benefits that Fastsigns franchise has gained from the use of technology in its hiring process include higher applicant quality, enhanced applicant evaluation and organization, as well as decreased staff turnover. The HR managers of Fastsigns franchise also understands that training is critical to having productive and highly motivated employees. This is because employee training ensures that the employees improves their skills and expertise in doing their jobs, thereby resulting is quality products and services; thus customer satisfaction. Taylor reveals that, in the past, the Fastsigns franchise use to organization for workshops for employee training. However, this used to be costly and time consuming to the company as some operations had to be stopped during training (Hyrell 2015). In response to such shortcomings, the company decided to install employee training software. The software is installed in the computer of each of the company’s graphic designers demonstrating to designers how to go about designing a quality banner, vehicle graphics, building signs, as well as designs for floor, windows and doors. An employee who wants to make reference on a given design only needs to see it at the comfort of their computers. Fastsigns has reaped a lot since starting to use employee training software, including time and cost savings, as well as ensuring that employees update their skills each time. This has helped ensure productivity and delivery of quality products and services to customers. Conclusion The human resource department plays a huge role in ensuring the success of a company. In particular, the HR dependent ensures that a company has the right talents to accomplish the organizational objectives. However, as indicated, the technological advancements have greatly impacted the HR functions, such as recruitment and training. Today, there are software applications that allow companies to recruit and train employees easily, faster and cost effectively as demonstrated by Fastsigns franchise that has benefited a great deal since starting to use technology to recruit and train its employees. This demonstrates that, for a company to succeed in the present day business environment, the HR departments must consider implementing HRIS; otherwise they will be outcompeted by rival companies that embrace technology. References De Juana-Espinosa, S 2011, Human resource management in the digital economy: creating synergy between competency models and information: Creating synergy between competency models and information. IGI Global, New York, NY. Entrepreneur 2015, FastSigns Int'l. Inc., viewed 27 August 2015 http://www.entrepreneur.com/franchises/fastsignsintlinc/282341-0.html Hoyle, R 2013, Complete training: From recruitment to retirement. Kogan Page, Limited, New York, NY. Hyrell 2015, Texas FASTSIGNS franchise saves time and money hiring with hyrell’s applicant tracking system subscription solutions, viewed 27 August 2015 http://www.hyrell.com/applicant-tracking-system-case-study-fastsigns Kavanagh, M. J., Thite, M., & Johnson, R. D 2014, Human resource information systems. SAGE Publications, Oxford, UK. Larson, S. A., & Hewitt, A. S 2005, Staff recruitment, retention, and training strategies for community human services organizations. Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company, London. Read More