Strategies for Finding the Right Employee

Finding the Right Employee

 It has always been a challenge for companies to find the right person for the right job; therefore, having a HR department or an employee working as HR will definitely help the multiple process of finding and hiring the right person.

Analysis

 Human Resources primary functions are work design & work planning, managing employee competencies, managing employee attitudes and behaviour (Lepak & Gowan, 2010, p. 8). There are of course challenges that come with the job such as organizational demands, environmental influences and regulatory issues. To avoid these issues, HR needs to pay more attention to earlier process starting from job analysis, work design, workforce planning, recruitment and selection.

Managing Employees For Competitive Advantage

Managing employees can be a difficult task because different person has different personality and even though most workers have the same goal (to earn money), they are usually motivated by different things. Some workers are motivated by incentives, some by benefits, and some other likes to travel as part of their job. Keeping employees happy or satisfied is a way to keep the morale or motivation high so the employees’ performance are benefiting the company.

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Giving feedbacks are a must to review and to keep the employees in check. Receiving good feedback can boost the employee’s morale and negative feedback can also motivate employee to do better or improve at their job. Incentives are given to achieve goals that will take longer to achieve otherwise. Employees are more motivated and sales/ performance will also increase. Healthcare benefits are one of the reason why employees are attracted to the job in the first place. Increasing benefits will get the employees excited and also boost their morale. Employees who are more attracted to travelling will love their job better and are more motivated to do their job.

Manage Organizational Demands and Environmental Influences

 A Company needs to understand market demands in their industry and plan their strategy based on that knowledge. There are strategies that fits one company but not necessary the others because no two companies are the same (Lepak & Gowan, 2010, 28). A few of the most common strategies are cost leadership strategy and differentiation strategy. Cost leadership strategy focus on providing customer with the cheapest price in the market; therefore, generating more revenue to the company. Usually company that runs with this strategy have less-skilled-low-cost employees as their majority and it has been proven to be a major success by introducing revolutionary business models built on a single base – the lowest possible prices for a given perceived value (“Competitive Strategies – Cost Strategy VS. Differentiation Strategy”). Differentiation strategy is usually used by company that promotes quality over quantity and the one that provides products to specific high-end markets. Ariel Rodriguez mentioned in his interview with Worchester Business Journal that this business model results in “a higher quality product engineered specifically for use in the target application.” (Finaldi, 2017).

 Aside from business strategies, companies also have to consider environmental influences such as labor force trends, technology, globalization and ethics & social responsibility. Changes in labor force trends influences the options for companies to hire specific demographic in order to realize their strategy. Aging population is one of the reason there are changes in labor force trends as suggested by an article published in Bureau of Labor Statistics website (Frazis, 2017). Technology definitely plays a part in influencing companies decision to hire more workers or moving towards machine automation to do the job. With the current rates of technology advancement, by 2030, it is expected for robots to replace almost a third of the U.S. workforce (Paquette, 2017). Companies can utilize the current technology system and save a big portion of labor cost to improve other sections of the company. With the help of technology these days, it is not as hard as it used to be for companies to enter the global market. Globalization helps company to have wider pool of employees/ candidates to choose from. It helps reduce cost as living cost and wages are different from one country to another. Outsourcing is one of the main cost-reducing action that companies take to expand their business. “Job outsourcing helps U.S. companies be more competitive in the global marketplace. It allows them to sell to foreign markets with overseas branches” (Amadeo, 2018). Despite all the cost-reducing strategy that company can implement, it still has to adhere to ethics and social responsibility as it will also help their brand and reputation as a company to gain additional consumer support (Lepak & Gowan, 2010, p. 45).

Manage Regulatory Issues

 Equal opportunity of employment are expected and regulated in every company. Companies have to follow the regulation to accommodate several protected classifications to ensure that equal opportunity is enforce at their workplace. The protected classifications are race, sex, religion, color, national origin, age, disability and veteran status. If an individual of the protected class is treated differently due to the description of that class, the company has a case of disparate treatment (Lepak & Gowan, 2010, p. 54). This regulation do not just apply during hiring process or the obvious discrimination but also when promotions are available but that opportunity is not presented to the protected class due to membership of the class.

In order to avoid that, company has to choose and manage their employees accordingly.

Manage Job Design and Job Analysis

 Choosing an employee starts from systematically identifying tasks, duties and responsibilities that needs to be done (Lepak & Gowan, 2010, p. 87). Job analysis is used for HR or hiring department to compile the list of responsibilities the candidates need to do in order to contributes to the needs of the company. After identifying the test, company needs to design the work that are expected to be done. There are several approaches to design a job; efficiency approach and motivational approach. Efficiency approach simplifies the job by removing decision-making and it requires less training but this approach increase production and standardize the production process. However, since this approach lacks complexity and require repetition, it leads to boredom and lack of motivation in doing the job.

Motivational approach is used to maximize the employees drive and focus on making the job as interesting and challenging as it can be (Lepak & Gowan, 2010, p. 90). These approach works well with employee who has high growth need strength. Job enlargement, rotation, enrichment and empowerment can keep employees motivated and feel less bored in doing their job.

Workforce Planning

After designing and analyzing the required position, HR has to plan the workforce needed in order to decide whether recruitment is necessary or simply give the task to an existing employee and offer over time benefits. First, HR needs to determine the labor demand and labor supply. Labor demand are the data needed to know how many employees are needed to do the required tasks and labor supply refers to the number of workers available. If labor demand are higher than labor supply, the company has a labor shortage and it can be resolved by several actions. Employee overtime and outsourcing are the biggest 2 answers to labor shortage. Outsourcing is becoming the sought-out resolution to this matter. When a particular type of work is outsourced, then the company does not require hiring skilled people for it (“How Does Outsourcing Reduce Cost? (Benefits of Outsourcing)”).

  If labor supply are larger than labor demand, the company needs to take some measures to reduce their labor force. There are several way of reducing the gap between the large labor supply and labor demand. Early retirement, attrition and layoffs are the biggest contributor in reducing the labor surplus. As proven in the automobile company Ford, Attrition and early retirement help them from their negatives revenue back to acquiring profits (Bunkley, 2010).

Recruitment

 Recruitment process can sometimes takes longer than necessary due to the need of finding the perfect fit for the designed job. Recruitments can be done in several ways such as  internal recruitment, advertising, college and employment agencies. Sometimes, internal recruitment is the best way to find the right person for the position as the candidate already knows the company well and there is not a lot of difference in the company culture. The employer knows what skills the candidate possessed and also what the candidate is capable of doing/ handling. Advertising is used to recruit external candidates and usually concrete job description is needed in order to attract future candidates to apply for the position. The job description will later be posted on newspaper, bulletin boards and of course the vast audience of the internet.

College recruitment allows company to get freshly graduates with fresh ideas to contribute to the company’s benefits. Hiring younger generation will also help with updating the company’s technological system to the latest version in order to maximize performance. Employment agencies will help the company to look for available candidates who are eligible according to the skill required and the needs of the company. They usually charges fee for this service; however, in Britain, it is proven to be the most important source of job matching (Gregg & Wadsworth, 1998).

Selection

 Selection process is the responsibility of the hiring manager. After having suitable candidates for the job, hiring manager needs to decide which candidate is the best fit for the position. There are several methods in selecting a candidate: initial screenings and final screenings. There are of course rating errors during the screenings such as bias, candidate’s personality, contrast effect, halo effect, devil’s horn effect and impression management (Lepak & Gowan, 2010, p. 204). Despite these rating errors, these selection process are one of the best indicators whether a candidate is a fit to the position and the company as a whole.

Summary and Conclusion

 In conclusion, company needs to analyze and design a job, look at their employee inventory, decide on recruitment or other labor shortage strategy, find the right person in order to advance the company to the next level.

References

• Amadeo, K. “How Outsourcing Jobs Affects the U.S. Economy” (2018, March 19). The Balance. Retrieved from https://www.thebalance.com/how-outsourcing-jobs-affects-the-u-s-economy-3306279
• Competitive Strategies – Cost Strategy VS. Differentiation Strategy. Retrieved from http://consilue.com/en/competitive-strategies-cost-strategy-vs-differentiation-strategy/
• Frazis, H. “Employed workers leaving the labor force: an analysis of recent trends” (May 2017). Monthly Labor Review, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved from  https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2017.16.
• How does outsourcing reduce cost? (Benefits of outsourcing). Educba. Retrieved from https://www.educba.com/how-does-outsourcing-reduce-cost/
• Gregg, P. & Wadsworth, J. “HOW EFFECTIVE ARE STATE EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES? JOBCENTRE USE AND JOB MATCHING IN BRITAIN” (August 1998). Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-0084.1996.mp58003002.x
• Lepak, D. & Gowan, M. (2010).  Human resource management: Managing employees for competitive advantage. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
• Mercury Wire advocates for U.S. manufacturing. (2017, May 23). Worchester Business Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wbjournal.com/article/20170523/NEWS01/170529987/mercury-wire-advocates-for-us-manufacturing
• Paquette, D. “Robots could replace nearly a third of the U.S. workforce by 2030”. (2017, November 30). The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/30/robots-could-soon-replace-nearly-a-third-of-the-u-s-workforce/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.831707efcea3