In human resource, the choice of strategy adopted in the organization affects many aspects of the organization including planning and selection. In a bid to achieve organizational effectiveness, the selection of new staff should be aimed at setting up and ensuring that the competitive advantage and profitability are sustained.
This paper will explore how the position of the a director-level position should have a strategic mindset to help in the execution of business strategy by looking at business strategies of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategy and the appropriateness of cost leadership for an efficiency-minded retail organization.
The paper will also explore the various strategies of job design or redesign and the significance of operational job design applications in upholding an organization’s strategic goals. Finally, the paper will explore the challenges and constraints in recruiting and selection ideas that might be valuable to the selection procedure.
TYPES OF BUSINESS STRATEGIES
There are three main types of business strategies that organizations can adopt. The cost leadership strategy seeks to reduce organizational costs involved in creating goods and services. Broad differentiation strategy seeks to develop a unique impression in the minds of consumers that the organization produces distinctive goods and services. The focus strategy centers on a particular section of the larger market (Lussier 1).
How cost leadership affects HRM
The selected strategy is the cost leadership strategy in business. Cost leadership affects human resource management in that it seeks to maximize employee efficiency and effectiveness. The strategy needs to be applied in highly specialized jobs as it requires employees to repeat the same task. Because the organization under consideration deals with repetitive tasks, cost leadership approach would be the ideal business strategy to achieve efficiency. In a retail business, work entails employees repeating the same task (Lussier 1).
How cost leadership affects how HR does its job
The objective of cost leadership is to keep costs as low as possible. As such, the strategy might negatively impact how HR does its job in that employees are regarded as a cost center rather than a profit center (Lussier 1). As such, decisions made will be based with the intent to reduce the amount spent on employees as much as possible. For instance, if the retailer experiences an unprecedented increase in sales, the management will stretch the existing staff rather than employing additional staff in a bid to keep costs down. On the other hand, if sales volume decline, the management is likely to layoff some employees in an effort to reduce cost. The work of HR is to ensure the wellbeing of staff such as ensuring that an organization pays overtime to staff for working extra hours. However, a management with a cost leadership mindset explores for ways to reduce the current employee’s pay. The HR will be impacted in that it will be forced to practice what it preaches one hand, and on the other hand collaborate with the management to achieve the cost leadership strategy.
METHODOLOGIES OF JOB DESIGN OR REDESIGN
Job design or redesign takes four main techniques. These are job enrichment, job rotation, job enlargement and job engineering. Job design approaches has two main dimensions of impact (vertical) axis and complexity (horizontal) axis. The vertical axis explores the extent to which job design is related to elements outside the immediate job like the compensation systems, customer needs, working conditions, and organizational design and performance appraisal methods. The horizontal axis that looks at the complexity dimension looks at the extent to which job design or redesign calls for a high level of decision-making to implement and involvement of individuals with varied capabilities (Lussier 1).
Job Rotation
Job rotation is a job design technique that entails moving employees from one job to another to allow an employee to develop skills in a variety of tasks. Job rotation is believed to be reduce boredom and disinterest by enabling an employee to learn new skills in another job at the same level. The idea behind job rotation is that workers with varied skills help the organization to be more flexible when allocating tasks, adjusting to changes, and filling in positions. Nonetheless, job rotation as a job design technique is regarded as non-impactful as it entails merely substituting one zero for another (Lussier 1). An example of a job rotation in the retailer business is when a cashier at the retail section goes to learn what happens in the corporate section, how to handle corporate tellers. Corporate tellers are core to the business because they purchase goods in bulk, thus they require to be handled with due care.
Job Engineering
Job engineering entails focusing on the activities to be executed, the techniques to be employed, process workflows and layout, standards of performance, as well as the relatedness of people and machines. Experts in job engineering explore these factors by assessing the time and movement, establishing the time needed to perform each activity and any other factors needed to execute the task efficiently. The hallmark of job engineering is specialization of labor because of the high degree of specialization aimed at allowing workers to perform a task promptly, and allow for reduced work cycles to ensure that performance involves little mental effort. An example of a job engineering in the case of the national retailer is to relocate the teller station towards the exit door to reduce the amount of efforts that carriers will use to take goods to the buyers car or destination.
Job Enlargement
This is a job design concept that entails increasing the number of tasks and duties that a worker performs (Lussier 1). For instance, in the national retailer example, a cleaner can be assigned the role of cooking tea and snacks for the staff to give variety to the existing job and make it more interesting.
Job Enrichment
This is a job design technique that entails adding more motivators to a given job in a bid to make it more rewarding (Lussier 1). Job enrichment is appropriate when the job is captivating, creative and challenging and provides the position holder with more controlling and power to make decision. In reference to the case of the national retailer, job enrichment can be such as enabling a shop attendant to cross-sell other products and get commission depending on the number of successful referrals.
Job design applications come in handy in supporting the overall strategic goals of an organization through creation of task variety to reduce the level of boredom. Job design also helps in creating meaningful work modules such that a worker completes a major portion of work and take pride of his contribution to the entire product (Lussier 1). Employees experience greater job satisfaction when the perform tasks that utilize their physical, mental and conceptual skills.
CHALLENGES AND CONSTRAINTS IN RECRUITING
The national retailer might not be in a position to recruit persons freely because of the following constraints;
Reputation of the Retailer: the image that the community has towards the retailer largely influences the recruitment process as potentials hires might not be interested in the retailer if its goodwill is not good. Bad reputation may stem from bad working conditions, which might shut off qualified personnel even if they offer higher wages than competitors (Lussier 1).
Organizational Policies: the prevailing internal policies at any organization can attract or put off potential candidates. For example, if the national retailer is known for getting outsiders to fill in managerial positions, then it might discourage candidates from applying in the company because they will not have a chance to grow with the organization from bottom to top positions.
Government Policies: government policies can serve as a major constraint on recruitment following various legislation that might require that an organization should reserve a given number of posts to people belonging to certain privileged groups. There are numerous employment legislations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, and Civil Rights Act of 1991 among others that restrict the choice of management in recruiting new persons (Lussier 1).
Advice to Deal with the Challenges
Hiring the wrong person can be a costly affair for the company. As such, the national retailer should have its instincts high while choosing the right candidate. The retailer should also strive to adapt to new emerging technology by using contemporary search tools to look for candidates to easily find potential candidates and they can find the recruiter too.
STEPS IN THE RECRUITMENT
Apart from using the above selection process, the national retailer may consider using other steps highlighted below;
Background investigation after the second interview
Lussier (1) provides a 4 step selection process that involves background checks before the interviews are conducted. Nonetheless, there should be another step for background investigation after the second interview. The investigation at this stage is to verify the information on the application form and what was given in the first and the second interviews. Personal reference checks provide additional insights into the information that the applicant has provided in the application and during the interviews.
Personal reference checks are important as they deliver supplementary insight into the information the selecting panel has and allows for verification. The society of human resources notes that past conduct is the best predictor of future conduct (SHRM, 3), which enhances the significance of getting as much information as possible concerning a potential hire’s past behavior and understand the kinds of behaviors to expect in the future (Wiest, 2). The rationale behind background screenings after the first and second interviews is to minimize the time spent in the selection process whereby background checks in the first stages will need to be conducted for everyone selected, yet not everyone selected makes it to the final stage of being hired.
Conditional Job Offer
A conditional job offer means that a job offer can be contingent whereby an employee is put on probation until certain conditions are met, or if a worker has stayed with the organization for a certain specified minimum time (Bauer, 4). For instance, if an employee does not quit after six months of employment, and fulfills the stipulated substance abuse, physical and medical test, the contingent nature of the contract offer will be lifted and the agreement becomes permanent.
TYPES OF BUSINESS STRATEGIES
There are three main types of business strategies that organizations can adopt. The cost leadership strategy seeks to reduce organizational costs involved in creating goods and services. Broad differentiation strategy seeks to develop a unique impression in the minds of consumers that the organization produces distinctive goods and services. The focus strategy centers on a particular section of the larger market (Lussier 1).
How cost leadership affects HRM
The selected strategy is the cost leadership strategy in business. Cost leadership affects human resource management in that it seeks to maximize employee efficiency and effectiveness. The strategy needs to be applied in highly specialized jobs as it requires employees to repeat the same task. Because the organization under consideration deals with repetitive tasks, cost leadership approach would be the ideal business strategy to achieve efficiency. In a retail business, work entails employees repeating the same task (Lussier 1).
How cost leadership affects how HR does its job
The objective of cost leadership is to keep costs as low as possible. As such, the strategy might negatively impact how HR does its job in that employees are regarded as a cost center rather than a profit center (Lussier 1). As such, decisions made will be based with the intent to reduce the amount spent on employees as much as possible. For instance, if the retailer experiences an unprecedented increase in sales, the management will stretch the existing staff rather than employing additional staff in a bid to keep costs down. On the other hand, if sales volume decline, the management is likely to layoff some employees in an effort to reduce cost. The work of HR is to ensure the wellbeing of staff such as ensuring that an organization pays overtime to staff for working extra hours. However, a management with a cost leadership mindset explores for ways to reduce the current employee’s pay. The HR will be impacted in that it will be forced to practice what it preaches one hand, and on the other hand collaborate with the management to achieve the cost leadership strategy.
METHODOLOGIES OF JOB DESIGN OR REDESIGN
Job design or redesign takes four main techniques. These are job enrichment, job rotation, job enlargement and job engineering. Job design approaches has two main dimensions of impact (vertical) axis and complexity (horizontal) axis. The vertical axis explores the extent to which job design is related to elements outside the immediate job like the compensation systems, customer needs, working conditions, and organizational design and performance appraisal methods. The horizontal axis that looks at the complexity dimension looks at the extent to which job design or redesign calls for a high level of decision-making to implement and involvement of individuals with varied capabilities (Lussier 1).
Job Rotation
Job rotation is a job design technique that entails moving employees from one job to another to allow an employee to develop skills in a variety of tasks. Job rotation is believed to be reduce boredom and disinterest by enabling an employee to learn new skills in another job at the same level. The idea behind job rotation is that workers with varied skills help the organization to be more flexible when allocating tasks, adjusting to changes, and filling in positions. Nonetheless, job rotation as a job design technique is regarded as non-impactful as it entails merely substituting one zero for another (Lussier 1). An example of a job rotation in the retailer business is when a cashier at the retail section goes to learn what happens in the corporate section, how to handle corporate tellers. Corporate tellers are core to the business because they purchase goods in bulk, thus they require to be handled with due care.
Job Engineering
Job engineering entails focusing on the activities to be executed, the techniques to be employed, process workflows and layout, standards of performance, as well as the relatedness of people and machines. Experts in job engineering explore these factors by assessing the time and movement, establishing the time needed to perform each activity and any other factors needed to execute the task efficiently. The hallmark of job engineering is specialization of labor because of the high degree of specialization aimed at allowing workers to perform a task promptly, and allow for reduced work cycles to ensure that performance involves little mental effort. An example of a job engineering in the case of the national retailer is to relocate the teller station towards the exit door to reduce the amount of efforts that carriers will use to take goods to the buyers car or destination.
Job Enlargement
This is a job design concept that entails increasing the number of tasks and duties that a worker performs (Lussier 1). For instance, in the national retailer example, a cleaner can be assigned the role of cooking tea and snacks for the staff to give variety to the existing job and make it more interesting.
Job Enrichment
This is a job design technique that entails adding more motivators to a given job in a bid to make it more rewarding (Lussier 1). Job enrichment is appropriate when the job is captivating, creative and challenging and provides the position holder with more controlling and power to make decision. In reference to the case of the national retailer, job enrichment can be such as enabling a shop attendant to cross-sell other products and get commission depending on the number of successful referrals.
Job design applications come in handy in supporting the overall strategic goals of an organization through creation of task variety to reduce the level of boredom. Job design also helps in creating meaningful work modules such that a worker completes a major portion of work and take pride of his contribution to the entire product (Lussier 1). Employees experience greater job satisfaction when the perform tasks that utilize their physical, mental and conceptual skills.
CHALLENGES AND CONSTRAINTS IN RECRUITING
The national retailer might not be in a position to recruit persons freely because of the following constraints;
Reputation of the Retailer: the image that the community has towards the retailer largely influences the recruitment process as potentials hires might not be interested in the retailer if its goodwill is not good. Bad reputation may stem from bad working conditions, which might shut off qualified personnel even if they offer higher wages than competitors (Lussier 1).
Organizational Policies: the prevailing internal policies at any organization can attract or put off potential candidates. For example, if the national retailer is known for getting outsiders to fill in managerial positions, then it might discourage candidates from applying in the company because they will not have a chance to grow with the organization from bottom to top positions.
Government Policies: government policies can serve as a major constraint on recruitment following various legislation that might require that an organization should reserve a given number of posts to people belonging to certain privileged groups. There are numerous employment legislations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, and Civil Rights Act of 1991 among others that restrict the choice of management in recruiting new persons (Lussier 1).
Advice to Deal with the Challenges
Hiring the wrong person can be a costly affair for the company. As such, the national retailer should have its instincts high while choosing the right candidate. The retailer should also strive to adapt to new emerging technology by using contemporary search tools to look for candidates to easily find potential candidates and they can find the recruiter too.
STEPS IN THE RECRUITMENT
Apart from using the above selection process, the national retailer may consider using other steps highlighted below;
Background investigation after the second interview
Lussier (1) provides a 4 step selection process that involves background checks before the interviews are conducted. Nonetheless, there should be another step for background investigation after the second interview. The investigation at this stage is to verify the information on the application form and what was given in the first and the second interviews. Personal reference checks provide additional insights into the information that the applicant has provided in the application and during the interviews.
Personal reference checks are important as they deliver supplementary insight into the information the selecting panel has and allows for verification. The society of human resources notes that past conduct is the best predictor of future conduct (SHRM, 3), which enhances the significance of getting as much information as possible concerning a potential hire’s past behavior and understand the kinds of behaviors to expect in the future (Wiest, 2). The rationale behind background screenings after the first and second interviews is to minimize the time spent in the selection process whereby background checks in the first stages will need to be conducted for everyone selected, yet not everyone selected makes it to the final stage of being hired.
Conditional Job Offer
A conditional job offer means that a job offer can be contingent whereby an employee is put on probation until certain conditions are met, or if a worker has stayed with the organization for a certain specified minimum time (Bauer, 4). For instance, if an employee does not quit after six months of employment, and fulfills the stipulated substance abuse, physical and medical test, the contingent nature of the contract offer will be lifted and the agreement becomes permanent.
