BITTCORE.com is an IT product and services provider that has opened another office in the region of Scotland. I have held the position of head of the IT department in the company’s London office for twelve years. The company’s board of directors has promoted me to the regional director position with the head office in Scotland. The vacancy at the London office needs to be filled. The Human resources manager has asked me to prepare a job description, recruitment plan, selection strategy, performance evaluation, testing, and interviewing, and remuneration for the vacancy at the London office (Carmeli & Schaubroeck, 2005).
The information technology sector remains competitive. The candidates for this position are required to match the demand and the dynamic nature of the job. This is in line with keeping the mission and vision at BITTCORE.com is to transform business processes through innovative solutions. This exercise is necessary because the expansion was taking place at BITTCORE.com in line with the five-year strategic plan. Generally, the board and the top-level management are in agreement that one area to focus on to drive the company’s profits will be human resources planning. This planning broadly covers aspects like employee recruitment and retention, selection procedures, staff appraisal, among other activities (Dessler, 2011). It is necessary to understand that this exercise will continue concurrently with the expansion process, and the cost of the exercise has been budgeted for to ensure that the process is competitive and the best staff is employed at BITTCORE.com.
Job analysis
If an organization has to survive, organizational functions like recruitment of staff must be justified. Generally, a job analysis process will help the company to justify the need to carry out a function like staff recruitment (Dubois, 1993). It is inevitable that the board of directors at BITTCORE.com has justified the recruitment process requiring the human resources manager to produce a resource plan. A job analysis will be carried out on the resources plan. This plan identifies the positions and roles of both the individual and the department. A resources plan as part of the job analysis process at BITTCORE.com can identify arising issues related to factors like the growth of the job holder, the value of the job, the effect of the job function, and the changes that have resulted in the need for the job function.
It suffices at this point to draw a job analysis highlighting the competencies for the IT department manager. Perhaps to save on cost, it will be necessary to carry out this process and include an analysis of the staff required at the new office in Scotland. Therefore, a careful analysis of each position will identify the various competencies necessary for each task (McShane & Von Glinow, 2009; Robbins & Judge, 2011). This can be suitably documented using a table to highlight the job-specific, management, and corporate competencies. Job-specific competencies are those required to perform the given job effectively. Focusing on the IT department manager to be based in London, the likely job-specific competencies would include an academically approved level, preferably a master’s degree in information technology, an effective communicator in English as the first language with French as the second language considered an added advantage.
More competencies cover areas of experience in a management position(s) over a staff numbering more than 50 people. A proven track record of effective team leadership skills is a requirement for this position. On management competencies that cover those needed to interact with the staff, the position of the IT department manager requires a good mentor and leader who is strict on deadlines and encourages an open-door policy of management. This is in accordance with BITTCORE.com’s strategy to capture innovative ideas by the staff dynamically. Corporate competencies as part of the job analysis competencies are those that are specific to the nature of BITTCORE.com.
As such, the need to transform business processes through innovative solutions forms the basis for analyzing the corporate competencies during this exercise. The suitable candidate for the IT department managerial position should be able to align the department’s innovative capacity to the organization’s strategy to make a profit.
Recruitment plan
Once the job analysis process has been carried out, it will be important to liaise with the human resources manager and develop a recruitment plan (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright, 2010). To make the process competitive, it is necessary to consider internal and external candidates. To maintain the company’s competitive reputation, only the highest standards in the recruitment process will be followed regardless of whether the candidate is internal or otherwise to the company. Basically, the recruitment process will require the identification of suitable candidates. Once these have been identified, the IT department manager vacancy will be publicized. BITTCORE.com has a website where the vacancy will be posted under the vacancies and opportunities category. Additionally, the company publishes a monthly magazine where the vacancy also can be publicized.
However, the reference will be on the company’s website that has elaborate information, including the mission and vision of the company to ensure the right candidates apply for the job. Basically, the candidate requirements must be based on qualifications that must be appropriate to the IT department manager’s task. It is important to note that academic qualifications may only be appropriate for certain types of tasks. Therefore, together with the qualifications is experience and in this case, what will count is definite managerial experience. Besides the experience, another consideration as a requirement for the candidates will be personal qualities. These are important to ascertain the candidates’ behavior patterns in pressure and repetitive situations. It is desirable that the IT department manager can work under pressure and tight deadlines because the workload at the main office in London is big. It will also be important to evaluate the job profile for each of the candidates.
This job profile will be determined based on the candidates’ work environment. A candidate who reports low support, high challenge profile may be working under tension. Alternatively, a high challenge, high support profile indicates a vitalized candidate. There may be a profile that indicates low support and low challenge, in which case the candidate may be disillusioned. Additionally, a low challenge, high support profile indicates apathy. Prior to the start of this process, the board at BITTCORE.com evaluated a number of options. The internal promotion was considered basing on its cost-effectiveness. However, the disadvantages outweighed the advantages, and, in addition, BITTCORE.com has not carried out a recruitment process in four years, having relied on internal promotions instead. The process has been conducted using specialist organizations outsourced to carry out headhunting within the company. Typically, the promotion to the new office in Scotland as a result of such a process that commenced six months ago.
Screening applications
When the applications have been received, a screening process can commence. Various considerations will go toward ensuring that the publicizing process is optimized. During this process, the vacancy there will be rules and laws governing what can or cannot be included in the job advertisement. Other factors related to this consideration are necessary to ensure that the publicized vacancy is not discriminatory. The advertisement must be attractive, portraying a strong impression of BITTCORE.com. This is pertinent to attracting the best candidates (Robbins & Judge, 2011). The job requirement for the IT department manager must be clearly stated to encourage qualified candidates and discourage those who do not qualify. Considering that the publicized vacancy will be on the company’s website and the monthly magazine, a large number of applicants is expected. Therefore, a screening process of the received applications is important. The objective of the screening process is to select applicants who have the best attributes and who qualify for the preliminary interview. This requires that the decision criteria are clear to ensure an effective screening process. It may be suitable to divide the screening process into two stages. For this process, a list of five to six will be made with a reserve list of an extra five applicants based on the closeness of the matching attributes to the candidate requirements.
Interviewing
BITTCORE.com interview panel will consist of representatives from the HR and IT departments. Each of the departments will identify those from among them who will sit on the interview panel. These interviewers will be informed in advance so that they can prepare. The interviewers will be fully briefed about the IT department manager requirements. Additionally, the interviewers will get a complete list of all the candidates selected to attend the interview. The interviewers will agree on the assessment criteria to use during the interview. Most importantly, the panel should also agree on the evaluation of the relevant attributes of the interviewees. Generally, the interview process should be prepared to identify who will be involved. This process is important for BITTCORE.com’s reputation. Therefore, it must be conducted in a professional manner. It will be important to prepare so that the interviewers can answer any questions and sell the job. General information about BITTCORE.com will be availed. The interview process will pass through a number of stages that include the following:
- Arranging the interviews
- Preparing for the preliminary interview
- Conducting the preliminary interview
- Conducting testing
- Preparing the final interview
- Conducting the final interview
- Writing to the successful candidate (job offer)
- Writing to the unsuccessful candidates.
Interviewing will not be adequate in its full sense. As such, the deficiency of the interview will be covered by a degree of testing of behavioral characteristics or aptitudes. It may be necessary to include professional specialists to interpret the results of such tests.
Prior to the final interview, a process to take up the references for successful candidates is important. The candidate’s current employer should not be approached without the candidates’ agreement. The final interview will be prepared in a similar manner but have a more detailed plan (Robbins & Judge, 2011). The final interview is performed to identify the best among a number of equally good candidates. During this interview, conditions of employment will be clearly highlighted.
Job offer
A job offer will be sent to the first-choice candidate. All the other candidates will also be thanked for attending the interviews. The job offer will include all the conditions that apply to the IT department managerial position. The successful candidate will be given a two week period to accept the job offer. During this time, BITTCORE.com will maintain contact with the candidate who may be working out their transition with their current employer.
Appraisal
The new IT department manager will be appraised. The appraisal system provides a means by which a job-holder and his or her supervisor converse fully and freely about what is involved in heading the IT department at the London office. The appraisal process will involve me as the immediate former IT department manager, where we can discuss the plans and priorities for the department as part of the organization’s strategy.
Basically, during this appraisal process, it is expected that we review the current departmental performance and set goals in line with the incoming job-holder. It is important to indicate the importance of the appraisal process by mentioning clearly and accurately the main objectives of the exercise. BITTCORE.com carries out an appraisal process once every year to ensure that high standards of performance are maintained. Generally, the appraisal may cover the success and failures where a brief review of the period the job-holder has been heading the IT department is considered with a focus on the successes and failures. Looking at this requires a consideration of the external factors, which are those things outside the job-holder’s control that contributed toward the kind of performance indicated (Sunil, 2003).
Focus is also on the results obtained measured against the initially agreed objective. Summarily the appraisal will conclude by summarizing performance and stating the actions agreed. Additionally, priorities within the IT department can be identified, and a monitoring process of addressing these priorities stated (Sunil, 2003).
Remuneration
Remuneration at BITTCORE.com is based on performance, experience, and achievements. Based on the principles of Theory Z, the staff at BITTCORE.com has the staff’s pay package categorized according to department and grades. The theory focuses on increasing the employee’s company faithfulness. This can be achieved by the company providing a permanent job, which focuses on the employee’s well being. The tenets of this theory tend to encourage high employee productivity, morale, satisfaction, and the promotion of a stable employment environment (Yeung & Berman, 1997). Considering that the incoming IT department manager is new to the company, the starting remuneration package will be different from that of a manager in the same grade that has been with the company for five years now. The difference is the benefits where the long-serving manager will receive increased benefits as part of the remuneration. During the appraisal, the job-holder can be informed of a change in pay (pay rise), depending on the performance and experience brought to the company (Robbins & Judge, 2011). The general policy at BITTCORE.com is such that entry salary scales have been stipulated for each category of employees. However, based on how long and how well the employee has worked for the company, he or she is entitled to a pay increase.
References
Carmeli, A., & Schaubroeck, J. (2005). How leveraging human resource capital with its competitive distinctiveness enhances the performance of commercial and public organizations. Human Resource Management, 44(4), 391–412.
Dessler, G. (2011). A framework for human resource management (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Dubois, D. (1993). Competency based performance: A strategy for organizational change management to drive organizational performance. Amherst, MA: HRD Press.
McShane, S., & Von Glinow, M. (2009) Organizational behaviour (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Noe, R., Hollenbeck, J., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. (2010). Fundamentals of human resource management (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Robbins, S., & Judge, T. (2011). Essentials of organizational behaviour (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Sunil, J.R. (2003). Measuring human resource’s management effectiveness in improving performance. Human Resource Planning, 26(1), 1-28.
Yeung, A., & Berman, B. (1997). Adding value through human resources: Re-orienting human resource management to drive business performance. Human Resource Management, 36(3), 321-335.