Executive Summary
I am Amanda Schaefer, assistant human resource director, and I want to present and overview findings of my extensive research, which I have conducted for the past few weeks. The research was based on the business communication, where I wanted to know the best means of hiring and testing new employees. I choose the topic because currently our company’s development stagnant, and my suspicion is that improper hiring of employee has great influence to stagnation. I needed to compare our employees hiring methods and those used by other companies in similar industries. The comparison of the methods and their effects in the business will enable us to apply the best of these means and this will enhance our company development.
Currently our company has a shocking employee turnover rate of 23%. Through selection decision we can have get a better turnover, which in return can ensure the continued flow of our company, and the general progress of the company. The research report will enable us to highlight our company’s failures in hiring process, locate our position with regard to other similar companies in the industry, and will also help us to draw appropriate suggestion on how to correct our company’s mistake, in order to improve the company’s hiring policies. The report has many extensive comments, and anybody willing to learn more, can consult the report to access the comments.
Introduction
Many departments in the company face operational problems because employee’s inadequate skills. The quality of our employees skills does not meet our company’s expectation and needs. The company need to improve in its various, operations such as customers services, and the general productivity. Many operations are dissatisfying, a factor that has made the company to incur tremendous loses. When the company’s performance is analyzed and compared to the performance of other companies in similar industry, the analysis shows that the company performance is low, and require improvement.
With the knowledge and understanding of importance of best and qualified employees in our companies, it is important to find ways of getting the best employees in future, and improving the workforce of the existing employees. However, this is not very easy for the individual company. The Human resource manager should follow the appropriate advertising guidelines when advertising the job places, to ensure a pool of qualified applicants from which they can choose, the right and the best employees. The applicants and new employees need to undergo various tests to determine their ability to perform the duties, and to predict their experiences. A research to other similar companies in the same industry is likely to give ideas and information pertaining how they hire their employees and the entire process of hiring (Harvard Business School Press 2005, pp76). This means that if our Company can consult other Companies we can hire the best employees in our Company. The Human resource manager should not just get the idea and information and complement in the company, rather he/she should analyze the new hiring means to get the benefits and drawbacks, and then compare the effects of the other companies means to the means used in our Company in order to determine the effectiveness of the hiring means. With the knowledge, and application of the best hiring means in our employee”s hiring process, we can easily solve the department problems. The information about other companies hiring and testing of new employees can be got by interviewing Human Resource personnels of the companies, or through literature review and other studies of the company.
Body
Various companies have various means of hiring and testing their new employees. The means depends on company nature, size and location. The hiring process, selection and interviewing of new staff in a company is very important to the human resource personnels, because the process enable the company to hire employee who are the best in practice and knowledge ensuring business productivity and reduces the business turnover.
Other Companies
Drafting advertisements
Advertising of job position involves a process that is characterized by the below steps.
Authorization
When I interviewed Dr. Morris Hunis, a human resource personnel in a similar company, he informed me that most of their advertisement are usually posited in Craig list advertisement, which requires the company to complete position request forms that contains authorized signatures. This is usually done before the actual posting of the announcement to authorize the advertisement. The position request form usually contains detailed assessment, job description and a staffing request rationale, which need to be signed by the Human resource officer, department executive staff member, and need to be approved by the company’s president officer (Hunis 5 May, personal information). When making position advertisement, the duties and qualification should be consistent in both the authorized job description and in position advertisement, to ensures that the advertisement is up dated and valid. Any changes in need to be made before approval.
Selection
The selection usually follows authorization. I found out that there is a need to select an appropriate day and time for the advertisement, especially when dealing with specialized professional journal, Internet sites, publication and newspapers. Appropriate day and time ensures that the Company attract large number of qualified applicants. Many of interviewed Companies use Internet sites , and other on line sites advertisements, because of they are readily accessed, at any day, time and by many applicants.
Budget policy
According to Dr. Morris, it is important to consider the cost and we should always choose the most convenient in terms of cost, effectiveness and efficiency. This depends on the position being advertised because each c are placed depending on positions, meaning that a particular position has a different charge, and the charges also varies depending on the number positions being advertised. The department placing the advertisement need to have a budget and the number of positions being advertised.
Goal Diversity
The advertisement need to be diverse, and should ensure diverse opportunities to all qualified people. This means that goal should be set in a way to enable all qualified individual from all races and ethnic background to have a chances of being hired. Diversity targets at equal opportunity, and the method of advertisement used need to be broad covering a wide demographic region. This avoids biases. Diversity ensures a pool of qualified applicants from which the Company can choose the best applicants. Studies have shown that many qualified applicants do not get a chance to job opportunities because the means of advertising covers a small demographic region, and in most of these cases, the advertisements are made covering a local and specific ethnic group or region. When such advertisements are made, chance of qualified applicants getting the information is low , and this subsequently reduces the pool, increasing the hiring rate of semi qualified, or unqualified applicants in the Company.
Advertising format
The drafting of advertisement has a lot to the final response. A well drafted advertisement ensures a pool of qualified applicants. According to the many companies which is interviewed, they use a standard advertising format, to advertise job positions. The standard format should constitute:
Name of the company, and the department, Job title and a brief description, showing the duties and responsibilities, time designation, job status -whether permanent or temporarily, and live-in expectation in applicable job cases jobs.
Required qualification: it is usually important to clearly indicate the required qualification to narrow the number likely to apply, here experience, degree and abilities are included as well as the salary information and he date when the working is expected to start.
Due date of application: The deadline of application need to be indicated in the draft to ensure that all applicants have their application sent on time to enable all application to be opened and assessed. In specified due date is likely to make the process to take longer than expected and to have some qualified applicants being left out.
Miscellaneous instructions: These instructions in the draft reminds the applicant to include or rather to attach the required documents increasing the chances of determining his/her capability and ability. This is very important because enclosed documents such as cover letter, reference letters, certificates and resumes carrying extra information about the applicant, making it easy to approximate the applicants experience and abilities. The enclosed documents provide valuable information about the applicants past experience and educational background, so the Company can predict the most qualified applicants.
Job advertisement location
According to Human resource managers in various Companies, job advertisement location is a very important consideration, especially when advertising, because without the location, applications and applicants confuse makes the company to get very few applicants and untrained applicants. In cases where they get trained applicants they learn that their field of training differs with what the Company needs. They also argued that there is a high probability that these applications are likely to be misplaced or even get lost before reaching to the company, lowering the chances of getting best and qualified applicants.
Advertisement posting days
Companies need to have knowledge of the most appropriate day(s) to post their advertisements. This is necessary because there are days when a larger number of people or rather possible applicants are likely to get the advertisement than other days. This usually depends on the job, opportunity and he means of advertisement being used. For example it is during the weekends and evenings most people are likely to have access to radios and television as compared to workdays and late at night. This means when announcements are made, at evenings and weekend, more people are likely to get the announcement. This however, differs in other advertising means such as Internet (Gresing 1991)
Verifying applicants references
Employers checks he applicants reference in order to determine the past performance of the applicant. The performance is usually collected by supervisors, subordinates or even peers because t they stand a better chance of having more information , because they know or have worked with the applicant in his/her past job(s). The applicant may make attempts to distort the information given by the referees in the enclosed document ‘s information regarding to their history and training, in order to fit in the job described. The resumes usually holds the summary of applicants accomplishment claims meaning that whatever the applicant decides to give as his/her accomplishment, the resume covers it up making it hard for the human resource personnel hiring the applicant to detect the distortation from the resume and the applicants. The reference data is used to contact the former supervisors, direct reports and peer who give information about the applicant, and this helps in forecasting the ability of the applicant to performance in the job. The behavioral consistency principles argues that the future performance is determined by the past performance. The verification in most hiring process takes place at almost the end of the process through telephone in order to get immediate feedback and to ensure clarification by probing for more detailed information regarding the applicant.
Budget allotted to seeking qualified applicants
We cannot deny the fact that a considerable budget is required in order to get qualified applicant. This is usually handled by the company’ president. This is accordance to the report of majority of the companies which I interviewed when I wanted to know what happens after there is shortage in finances required, I was informed that the concerned departments meets the extra expenses that goes beyond allotted budget (Gresing 1991).
Outside staffing agencies
Large companies involve outside staffing agencies in employee hiring process, but majority of the small scale companies does the interviewing themselves. The large companies prefer outside staffing because of time saved and the chances they stand in getting qualified employees.
Experience
According to many companies, the more the experience the higher the pay, and each job has its experience requirement. The more the years that the employee works, in a company, the greater the experience and the greater the pay. Companies that utilizes this principle are likely to retain their employees for longer time, motivates them enabling them to work better for the company.
Employees research term
Traditionally, researchers associate new employees with the initial two to three years. This is based on relative tenure and co-workers newness perception. In researchers based on companies, to determine newness liability, organizational tenure and age has been used as a measure of newness. The newness of employees in a company is usually a temporal phenomenon, that varies with organizational tenure and individual perception of newness. (Keith 2007) When the tenure is high, the employee is viewed to be getting older in the company.
Various companies have varying employees’ research team, depending on the organization tenure, the individual worker and he older co-workers in the company. Relative tenure where by the individual percentage is ranked in company’s tenure distribution, is considered to be a better predictor of the employees newness in a company, as compared to absolute tenure, where the months and years duration of the employee determines his/her newness.
Knowledge – based testing procedures
Knowledge based testing procedures which are carried out to many employees helps in determining the new employees ability to perform tasks to help the human resource personnel to determine applicants who are able to apply skills and knowledge to perform tasks and to effectively solve arising problems.
According to an interview that I carried out to various employees who had undergone the tests to secure their jobs in their current workplace, the commonly used testing procedures include Microsoft office tests and typing tests. (Hunis 5 May, personal information) the applicants are given computers and are given certain information to type. As they type, their ability to identify and recall the position of various letters in the keyboard is determined and at the end, their speed in typing is analyzed. Those who are faster are employed while those who are slow in typing are denied the job opportunity (Still 1997).
Advantages
Job advertisement location
Proper locating of the company ensures that the applicants get the right information concerning the company’s location. It helps the company to get a pool of qualified applicants, making it easy to get the best applicant for a pool of applicants. Lack of job advertisement location creates assumptions which leads to invalid applications with regard to job description, and required qualification.
Knowledge based tests
Companies that use knowledge – based tests are likely to hire applicants who have knowledge in the specific field, ensuring good operations and business productivity.
Verifying applicants references
Reference checks are good in predicting applicant job performance far beyond past job experience and education. The activity is usually cost effective. It can also reduce possible low suits that may arise due to failure to be careful in hiring new employees.
Employees newness in the company
Human resource considers some individuals new in the company, and offers orientation, mentoring, training and other special activities. The employees who are considered new in the company gets favors and privileges as compared to other workers, and the co-workers give supportive help to new employees, to an extend that when these new employees does a mistaken, it is easily forgotten without punishment unlike mistakes made by the other workers (Keith 2007).
Disadvantages
Job advertisement location
This can easily put off qualified applicants. For example an applicant who is qualified and lives in rural areas may not be moved by the advertisement after learning the it is located in urban center or even in a rural area that is very far from where he/she lives.
Knowledge based tests
Knowledge based tests involves use of large amounts of resources. The testing is usually based on computer application and there are other required knowledge far beyond computer knowledge. The testing can also be biased because an applicant can be very good in computer work especially typing, while the skills, techniques and the experience in he actual field is inadequate. Large amounts of money are required to stimulate the work environment and also to observe the participants. The knowledge based tests measures the declarative knowledge only leaving the procedural knowledge on tested despite the fact that most of operations in company require knowledge on operating procedures.
Employees research term
The newness liability is likely to be extended to individuals. The new employees lack demonstrated values and relationships, making their job tenuous. The new employees are usually not asked for information and information within the company, because of the belief that new workers have little of the company’s information regarding to routines and norms. This limits them from participating in generation of ideas, creativity and innovation.
Verifying references
Many applicants do not like references verification as they consider the activity to be very invasive, limiting their privacy.
Our Company
Our company’s job advertising procedures are outdated. As compared to other companies, our company uses the old type of advertisement rather than new method. For example we currently advertise in L.A times, specifically on Monday night. This has limited the number of qualified applicants we get because the time our advertisements are made is usually odd, reaching to a small population of qualified applicants. The small pool of qualified applicant has subsequently limited our selection forcing us to hire semi-qualified employees to fill the positions. The company has no system of screening applicants, and the tests that we use to test the applicants are based on knowledge enabling us to only tell the applicants knowledge in the position, while leaving us with deficiency of the applicants’ ability to use required procedures.
The supervisors in our company also have no knowledge of the newly hired employees unlike other similar companies whose supervisors are capable of eliminating a considerable percentage of applicants through knowledge based test. Our company has been employing new employees at a constant pay rate for quite a long time in most of positions making the employees unhappy and making them quit. According to an interview to a receptionist in a competitor company, she earns $12.00 at the start with minimal prior experience while at our company our receptionist can go to the competitor company, the salary can be increased greatly and this has been affecting our company.
The above charts show that our Company hires applicants with a high past experience , and the hourly pay to the employees is low compared to other Companies in the same industry.
Conclusion
Our Company need to improve its productivity, and this lie on the workforce. We need to get an immediate has well as long term solution to the issue, and i believed the procedure used by the Company to hire employees has a lot on this. When we compare our employee hiring procedure and other companies’ procedure we can get the difference between the two and we can also get the impact of our poor and outdated procedures. There are various cheap ways of improving our new applicant hiring policies and procedures such as Craig list, and other Internet advertising means. We can utilize these procedures and policies, we can reduce the company’s employee turnover. We can achieve this by using better and cheap drafting and posting of advertisement such as Craig’s list which many similar companies are using to obtain about 93% of their qualified applicants, because it is effective and its cost is considerably low.
Improved testing procedures such as new interviewing processes can be used to ensure that all applicants are screened, increasing chances of hiring qualified employees. If the company can ensure that the employees are handled in a better way, for example giving them considerable pay, we can ensure their retention. Enhanced company culture, on-time reviewer and featured benefits can also ensure employees retention.
Illustrations
The findings of my research have been represented in the above chart which compares our Company’s Employees turnover with the Competitor Companies our Company’s turnover rate is about 23% compared to about 47% in other Companies.
Outside staffing in our Company is low compared to other companies.
Our Company requires a high experienced applicant, and our employees salary is usually constant for more than seven years. Other companies require a minimal past experience and the employee salary increases gradually as he/she continual to work in the Company.
References
Gresing, Lin. ”Small Business Guide to Employee Selection”. Bellingham: Self-Counsel, 1991.
HBS Press. ”Smart hiring, advantage in competition ”. Boston: HBS, 2005.
Keith,Rollag. ”New in new employee research”. 2007. Occupational and Organizational Psychology. 2008. Web.
Still, Del. ”High impact hiring”. California: Management Development Systems, 1997.