Recruitment and selection in tesco analysis

For a company, whose international business endeavours had recently started its roots, Tesco promoted a workforce planning where structured forecasting of staff demands had been executed. This way, the organization’s resource in-charge of recruitment and selections will have ample time to either fill vacated positions or provide for new occupational spots. The act of recruitment and selection, as described by Bach (2005), indicated the collaboration of the two processes, where the former is undertaken to attract and draw in potential jobseekers in organizations, while the latter comprises of predictive procedures on the suitability of applicants with the set of job requirements drawn based from company standards. Pfeffer (1998) generally presented the recruitment and selection processes frequently recommended, where there is a need for large pool of applicants, properly evaluated for technical and cultural aptness through specific scales in “critical skills, behaviours, or attitude.” Moreover, multiple screening strategies should be rendered, generating commitment in both recruiters and applicants with the involvement of senior management sectors to promote better assessment details to the process.

Significantly, Tesco made specific job descriptions and person specification scales, provided benchmarks for the staff to strictly follow during the recruitment process. Based on the case study, the company’s recruitment management will look at its available employee pool within the organization first, the “internal Talent Plan,” then it may branch out within the organization personnel through intranet advertisement, should internal employee pool is not able to meet the qualifications needed. In particular, Gatewood, Feild and Barrick (2008), had demonstrated that the recruitment process require the existence of construction of objectives, strategies, control of resources, and its subsequent evaluation. In line with this, selection process is divided in pre-selection phase and actual selection episodes. In the former stage, initial screening deals more on standardized evaluation of documents, such as the application paper and resumes. On the latter phase, recruiters utilize a number of selection methods, ranging from interview, to psychological examinations and multiple methods in assessment centres. As such, there is a long process that applicants have to go through before being accepted in desired organizations, may it be large or small-scale establishments.

Outline what you consider to be the main strengths and weaknesses of Tesco’s methods of attracting and recruiting candidates.

The progress of attracting and recruiting potential employees can take many forms, from different media concepts in radio frequency and television broadcasting, to the current Internet-based online application schemes. In some ways, Tesco had utilized such media in order to draw skilled people to their organization. As explained by Cober, et al. (n.d.), the wide coverage presented by Internet-based recruitment accounts for a number of benefits, where it can save both time and efforts during such processes, at this type of computerized media can be manipulated to provide prompt screening of online applicants, disregarding unqualified people while retaining potential ones.

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As a strategic strength, Tesco is in a better position to effectively recruit and select individuals at a faster and accurate manner. However, this type of approach could have more impact had Tesco considered one important aspect in rendering online applications, organizational familiarity. As illustrated by Williamson, Cable and Aldrich (2002), this is a recruitment characteristic where organization demonstrate their “staying power” on the memory of job seekers when they hear any concepts related to organizations in question. In such appeal, although Tesco may have posted their need for personnel in their websites, sufficient efforts must also be performed to market their image and concepts towards the public, through their formulated online company site. Based from the presented case, it seemed Tesco had not been able to do this, as it only mentioned the move to post online job vacancies. Substantially, with less familiarity on the existence of Tesco, applicants are not encouraged to apply as they do not know how and what the institution operates on specific scales. In more ways, it becomes a weakness as Tesco does not improve itself in such area, especially as not all are compelled to check their designated website to check their recruitment status.

Another point that requires attention is Tesco’s flexibility in handling walk-in applications. For those occupations with store-based positions, interested applicants can hand in their application requirements and expect that their applications will be duly entertained, should any vacancies will be available. This part of the resource filing can be effective for random job assessment can ensure that no biases can be inflicted, and at the same time, all applicants are given opportunities to contend for the job, as all will be screened and entertained in due time. According to Bach (2008), outcomes of walk-in recruitment demonstrated better retention of workers, as well as a cost-effective way of attracting applicants. Keeping these in mind, Tesco’s strategy of accepting such applicants strengthened the recruitment process, and provided fewer efforts in the long scale.

3. Evaluate the benefits for Tesco of using both interviews and assessment centers in the selection process.

The combination of interview and assessment center utilization can be an effective means to evaluate whether applicants possess what the company requires and needs. For one thing, both methods can appraise the intellectual capabilities of the applicants. Assessment centres is an approach utilizing a variety of methods within two weeks (Bach, 2008). Resource management will have ample chance to exercise a variety of situational conflicts and sample crises events, where applicants are compelled to solve each dilemma tactfully and are expected to intellectually exercise their critical thinking capabilities in handling such situations. In this, the personal values and work values of applicants are placed in crucial perspectives, where they need to accommodate each concept without sacrificing their working environment in the process. At the same time, during the exercises in assessment center and subsequent interviews, the applicants’ professional skills and personal characters are also placed into verbal and actual work scrutiny. By handling situational episodes provided in actual settings, the applicants can skillfully demonstrate their expertise, or lack of, when confronted with work problems, while presenting their personal side in terms of distinguishing characteristics that fits the job’s attributes-more than the technical side. As insisted by Pfeffer (1998), the process of selection requires that applicants must possess traits not liable to be influenced or changed, at same time, should also have skills easily reinforced with training. Priority in selection should consider the values and attitudes of applicants, as these are difficult to improve, while concepts of work expertise may follow as most have learning capabilities to adjust. Their psychomotor and affective skills in responding appropriately, and within the limits of company and moral protocols, can exhibit whether they are fit to be selected in particular positions.

As they are liable to do so, they are further evaluated by handling the pressures of coming face-to-face with resource and line managers during the interview portion. Interviews are seen as effective predictors to applicant appraisal when approaches are said to imbue open-ended inquiries, in combination with work-related questions, during actual interview sessions (Cooper, Robertson & Tinline, 2005). At this point, they can either convince the panel of interviewers that their skills are more than adequate, or they can fail in doing so. Both the intellectual and working skills of applicants can be impartially screened during interviews and exercise evaluation in assessment centers. In performing these, the resource management can be assured that they have objectively appraised the applicants, both in verbal and nonverbal means, and had found that some perfectly fits the position while some have not. The three arenas tested, critical thinking, technical skills evaluation, and occupational attitude towards teamwork can be largely examined with the above-mentioned techniques, hence, benefits of more suitable selection of personnel are acquired-reducing turnover rates in the long run.

Section B- Corus Company

Explain what is meant by internal and external drivers for change.

In every organization, there is an inherent need to adjust and adapt to the changes overtime. In view of this, organization performance and competitiveness relegate that the management consider the business drivers that influences the development and sustainability of business establishments in the current market, may it be in local or international sectors. In line with this, developmental changes in organization can be impacted by forces in internal and external drives. According to Barksdale and Lund (2001), the latter denotes outside elements that holds liable control over the operations in organizations, with inclusions of movements in sectors on the economy, workforce availability, government policies and regulatory involvements, consumer perceptions, and even the marketability stability within targeted customer behaviours. The direct and indirect participation of such drivers can make a difference with how organizations move forwards, as the above business drivers may have distinctive effects on the goals and functions that organizations have to fulfil-where such drives may control profit generation and extent of expenditures needed in adapting to changes wrought by such factors.

On the other side, internal drivers are said to involve issues relating to organizational structures, as well as management of resources, material and labor forces, within the organization. As enumerated by Phillips and Connell (2003), organizations need to recognize and intervene with internal drivers relating to employee loyalty, their motivations for better work conditions, and general need for career growth and better compensations for such work efforts. In this type of driver, consideration focus magnanimously on the employee needs, professional status, their overall working conditions, and current status within organizational settings. As generalized by Barksdale and Lund (2003) such type of driver can be consigned to alterations in organization’s resource systems and processes, and largely expounds on remaining internal drivers in technological aspects, “financial… (and) new product generation. In more ways, these two business drivers, internal and external, are link together, where the prominence of the latter factors may account for inclusive changes in the former elements (Anderson & Anderson, 2010). In this account, there is a need to focus on employee’s processes and dynamics, as well, as their impact on successful drive towards organizational progress and success.

What barriers to change existed at Corus?

Change, in some literature, is said to be the sole constant concept that exist, both in living and nonliving figures. As emphasized by Russell and Russell (2006), the course of change has a paradoxical content; on one hand, it can be utilized to bring about positive improvements from past mistakes and shortcomings, while it can also breed nonconstructive stress and coping, as individuals are forced to move and perform from familiar environs to unfamiliar settings. Such reality seemed to reflect the actions observed in the organizational development rendered by Corus, as part of their drive to implement improvement strategies with “The Journey.”

There are three identified areas that served as barriers to the constructive changes that could have been rendered by strategies of “The Journey,” including workforce resistance to the concept of change, the approaching incident of ageing workforce, and misguided reinforcement schemes. As discussed earlier, the concept of change relegates anxiety as the fear of the unknown, when it comes to work settings, can strengthen employee resolves to resist the feeling changes may bring. This can be related with the type of culture maintained by most organizations, where deep-seated values and attitude had been moulded, in time, through historical norms and long-standing work practices (Lakos & Shelley, 2004). As such, uprooting such a complex network of work cultures can be a great challenge for organizations to handle. Relatively, this type of reaction had been combined with a complacent work ethics, where the values maintained by Corus workers had been borne out of the company’s former stability. Failure to implement better management schemes, through employee empowerment may be inadequate (Masters, 1995). Complacency, then, breeds poor work performance and teamwork-enhancing resistance to change with old beliefs and values.

In the event of ageing within organizational labor force, problems can be generated with higher technical expertise but few innovative ideas. There seemed to be a decided risk with expressing inventive and creative ideas, as most organizations adapt a traditional way of perceptions-where skills are valued more than innovative ones (Chatman & Cha, 2007). In this scenario, young minds are more hesitant and introverted in work settings, as their talents are forcefully hidden in adapting to rigid work cultures. Unfortunately, drawbacks in both developmental progress and sustainability can result with the lack of fresh and competitive ideas within organizations-leading to possibilities of organizational failures.

Lastly, the misguided assumption that people can be based by longevity in work service can replace talent-based reinforcements seemed to promote partiality. In view of this, retention of employees are much affected, as talented ones are not compensated for the great contributions made on the company, where market value of individual talent should have been more important than hierarchical type of financial reinforcements (Worley & Lawler III, 2006). Organizations can suffer from high turnover costs as young innovators shift towards greater compensations, despite their junior positions. All these account, in more ways, to the barriers seen to have plagued the Corus organization.

Analyze the approaches Corus used to overcome these barriers.

The first step to overcoming barriers must be to identify the root cause of such shortcomings.

Based on the three primary barriers enlisted above, it is safe to say that the fear for cultural change can be traced back to the lack of awareness with what went wrong with their former type of management within the organization. With this major idea in mind, it is quite important to address the root cause of barriers by opening up, from the top management and down to the first-line workers in the field. This type of intervention against culture had been adapted by Corus Company, where the ownership of the company had been suggested to shift towards a more joint integrations, as everyone is encouraged to participate in activities largely involving the operations of the organization, from menial to more substantive ones. As intoned by Chatman and Cha (2007), shared beliefs and decision-making approaches in the staff, whatever their positions may be, can promote the feeling of security, hence, they are more expressive in providing honest feedback, are able to admit their mistakes more freely, and convey their innovative ideals more. The open collaboration corrects mistakes more easily, as people communicate on the same level, and organization goals of changes may be exercise more effectively in such constructive environment.

In a more aggressive approach, employees and departmental managers had been handled with shock tactics. Where interventions had been highly unlikely, in order to draw out a number of behavioral analysis based on the reactions observed from the participants. This had been said to be attained by providing assistance to employees who had gone through circumstantial crises that have affected the work performance in the Corus organization. Instead of incorporating rigid disciplinary measure, the organization modified its strategy to comply with more constructive tactics, encouraging workers to air their problems in the guidance of counselors and other related services. In some ways, these actions endorse progress on the workforce parameters for organizational change adaptations.

In analysis, it seemed that some of the programs initiated by Corus Company to address the barriers to organizational changed seemed lack in some particular, yet, equally important area. It had been identified that the seniority-based system in the level of compensations can hamper the motivations and drives of individual employees. As insisted by Worley and Lawler III (2006), a few advantages can be generated with the person-based compensation procedure. For one, it can motivate to accept changes more readily when improvements relate to personal growth and talent enhancements. For another, the reduced emphasis to hierarchy-based employment progress may appeal to employees, encouraging them to explore new expertise areas in order to contribute more to the organization, inciting more compensations and benefits in return. As observed with the implementation scheme demonstrated in Corus case, it did not prioritize the tactic of person-based compensation, as though it still approved the hierarchical form, rather than the new one. With such step, it can be viewed that this will serve as the main loophole against overcoming the barriers to organizational change. Conclusively, this could only mean that with the interventions adapted by Corus Company, these may possibly be ineffective as they do not address all aspects of the barriers, solely choosing the ones which seemed to be convenient for them-reducing the chance of achieving the goals of change Corus Company had sought to accomplish.