Personnel are one of the most critical components of any organization, and having sufficient and adequate human resources is paramount for a company if it is to be successful (Marchington, Wilkinson, Donnelly, & Kynighou, 2016). The current paper discusses some issues pertaining to hiring staff and providing adequate human resources for an expanding technology company that has recently won a contract to provide remote surveillance cameras for government agencies. If the company fulfils the orders adequately, it is expected that the contract will soon be expanded to supplying similar agencies outside the home state.
Staffing Models
A number of different staffing models may be utilized in the said organization. One of such models is contract staffing (Banfield, Kay, & Royles, 2018). In contract staffing, a business makes an arrangement with a third party, such as a recruiting firm, to provide workers for specific roles for the duration of the contract. Using such a model may allow for quickly filling in the vacancies so as to start producing the necessary remote surveillance cameras to complete the order. This may be acceptable for hiring assembly technicians, providing that their type of work does not require much creativity and training. This model may be especially useful as a short-term solution.
Another model that can be used is recruiting of permanent employees. Doing so may take more time than using the contract staffing model, but it might be cheaper (for even if the organization provides workers’ benefits, it will not have to pay the recruiting firm for providing contract employees, and the latter might be a serious expense), and it is more reliable if the organization is looking for a long-term staffing solution (Marchington et al., 2016). Using this model may be especially useful when filling in positions that involve having knowledge and expertise and, therefore, also require additional training (for instance, a Certified Quality Control Engineer probably might need such training).
All in all, it might be recommended to use the permanent staffing model if the firm expects that the contract on building cameras will be expanded so as to fill orders from agencies located in other states.
Potential Legal Issues When Establishing Equal Employment Opportunities and Diversity Within the Workplace
Generally speaking, discrimination pertaining to providing equal employment opportunities in the U.S. is forbidden on the grounds of such characteristics as religion, race, national origins, age, gender, as well as disability (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, n.d.). Therefore, it is possible that the company in question might have to deal with legal issues if it refuses to provide employment for applicants who have a characteristic that might place them in a vulnerable population with respect to the said categories. For instance, it may happen that an individual who is a Thelemite (a follower of the religion of Thelema) may claim that they were turned down due to their religious convictions. In this case, it will be necessary to demonstrate that the person was refused the position they were applying for due to their professional qualities, or because the company found a more skilled candidate, etc. Similar issues may occur with e.g. people with disability; in this case, it will be needed to demonstrate that the person in question is not skilled enough, that there is a more competent worker, or that the disability will prevent that person from doing their work.
To achieve transparency in the permanent staffing model, it may be recommended to (1) recruit the workers according to certain criteria: e.g., they need to a) meet some minimum requirements, and b) be evaluated using some objective instruments so that they could be recruited on a competitive basis; (2) provide payment for workers according to a disclosed model: the workers should know how their salary is calculated, and why.
Developing Job Requirements and Task Statements
To appropriately identify, analyze, and develop job requirements and task statements to be included in job descriptions, it may be recommended to perform the following three tasks:
- Identify the type of tasks that the workers will have to do, and the amount of time that will be required in order to be able to complete these tasks in a high-quality manner;
- Formulate the normative descriptions of tasks that the workers will have to perform (at this stage, it might also be advised to compare these tasks to tasks which need to be completed by individuals working on similar positions elsewhere in the market if possible);
- Take into account the possible human factors that may affect or interfere with the execution of these tasks.
Generally speaking, it might be needed to review and adjust the produced job descriptions if the employees are not working to their full potential (e.g., they have too little work to do; although, in this case, it will be difficult to review the working conditions because the employees will demand a greater compensation for increased workload) or if they are overloaded with work. Also, it is possible to regularly adjust and improve the working process using such methodologies as Six Sigma (Jacobs, Swink, & Linderman, 2015).
Dealing With Employee Turnover
To minimize employee turnover, it pivotal to provide workers with adequate, competitive salaries. Employee benefits are also a significant factor. It may also be proposed to supply bonuses for those who have worked for the company for a considerable amount of time to improve employee retention (Banfield et al., 2018).
Apart from adequate material compensation, it is paramount to develop an organizational culture of mutual respect and avoid conflicts or confrontations in the workplace. This may be a secondary factor when compared to material compensation, but poor organizational culture will still result in high turnover (Banfield et al., 2018).
Since companies do not always provide high material compensation for their workers, it might be useful to develop succession plans and to minimize the impact of turnover (Banfield et al., 2018). For instance, while hiring workers, the organization might place a demand that a worker had to warn the employer about quitting the position in advance. This will be beneficial for the company because the latter will have more time to find a new employee with the required knowledge. In addition, in some cases, it is possible to ask the remaining employees to work overtime while the vacant position is not filled in. This will be beneficent for the company because it will help compensate the lack of workers. However, overtime work should be voluntarily and for additional compensation, to avoid further turnover (Marchington et al., 2016). It is also useful to keep job descriptions at hand, to be able to start looking for workers immediately if the need arises. In addition, hiring outsourced temporary workers might be a short-term solution when an employee quits their job. This may be beneficent for the company if the situation is critical, and the lack of workers has a considerable adverse impact on the company’s productivity.
Conclusion
All in all, it should be pointed out that human resources are one of the critical components of success for any organization. The company in question ought to choose an appropriate staffing model, develop the necessary job requirements, and provide their future workers with adequate compensation and atmosphere. It is also critical to develop plans for dealing with potential turnover if the firm’s human resources are to be adequate at all times.
References
Banfield, P., Kay, R., & Royles, D. (2018). Introduction to human resource management (3rd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Jacobs, B. W., Swink, M., & Linderman, K. (2015). Performance effects of early and late Six Sigma adoptions. Journal of Operations Management, 36, 244-257.
Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R., & Kynighou, A. (2016). Human resource management at work (6th ed.). London, UK: CIPD.
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (n.d.). About the EEOC: Overview. Web.