Human Resource Officer Essay

This module is based around the job of a Human Resource Officer for a chain of outlets called Top Gear. To research this job, I will be looking at what sort of things it entails such as the process of recruitment and job interviews. I will also be interviewing an every day personnel manager to research what he does in his job, how he advertises available job positions and how he goes about selecting the right person for the job. I will look at why jobs become available within a company and the adverts a company produces to advertise the job. This project also involves how you are motivated to work and why companies use these methods for their workers. Recruitment Jobs can become available in a company such as ‘Top Gear’, for lot of different reasons. Some of these reasons are: * A member of staff retires. * A member of staff is fired. * If a member of staff becomes pregnant. * A member of staff gets promoted leaving their old position empty. * Someone leaves for a job elsewhere. * The company expands needing extra workers. * It could be a completely new job for a firm which is newly established and has just started to recruit staff. * If a member of staff becomes ill. * If someone’s contract expires. * Demotion Application Form Application forms are sent out so that people interested in the job can fill it in and then the employers will have the applicants information. This is good because they can then read the forms and decide who sounds like they would be good in the job and then give them an interview, rather than interviewing every single person that applies. Why are Job Descriptions and Person Specifications sent out to Prospective Employees? Job Description A job description is sent out so that people can see what the job entails. This is good because then people who are not suited to the job, and who don’t like the sort of work the job involves can decide whether to apply or not. This saves time as it stops people from applying and then deciding the job is not for them after all. Person Specification So that the applicant knows what sort of person the company are looking for and what sort of qualities you need in the job. These are sent out to save the company time, if an applicant looks like they fit the person specification then they will get an interview. Also, it could stop the wrong sort of person applying as the person specification tells them what sort of attitude they need and how much responsibility they must have. Advertising There are many places a position for a job, like one that was available at Top Gear, could be advertised. Some of these places are: * A local newspaper. (e.g. The Ilkeston Advertiser) The advantages of this are, if people are looking for a job then they are likely to look at a local paper in the job column. A disadvantage of this is that it may be expensive. * A free newspaper. ( e.g. The Trader) Advantages of this are that lots of people receive this paper through their doors as it is free. The disadvantages are that people wont necessarily look in a free paper for a job and also that it costs money to place an advert. * The Internet. ( On the company website) The advantages of this is that lots of people will see the advert but many might not unless they visited the company website regularly. It is also free to write an advert for the job on the website. * At the local job centre. Advantages of this is that it is free and also that a lot of people will see the advert because people looking for a job go to the job centre to find one. The disadvantages of this is that you may get too many people applying for the job. * On the Radio. The advantages of having an advert for the job on the radio are that lots of people will hear it. But the disadvantages are that it is expensive to put an advert on the radio. * On the shop premises. Advantages of putting an advert in the outlet window are that it is free and anyone passing will see it. Also, is people see your advert while inside the outlet then they will be the sort of person you want to employ because they will be the type of person right for the job. * Word of Mouth. Advantages are that it is free. Disadvantages are that people may get the wrong information as news being passed on by word of mouth gets changed as it is passed on. * Company magazine.People may look in this to see if there are any jobs available but it is hard to get hold of a company magazine if you do not already work, or know somebody working within the company. Top Gear are most likely to use the shop premises as a form of advertisement for an open position. This way, the people who apply will only be people who are interested in the type of product Top Gear sells. The Human Resource Officer would choose the people with the best application forms. They would also consider choosing people who had had past experience in a job of the same type. They must be the in the right age group and have good qualifications. Another important factor is that they fit the person specification and match the job description. The Human Resource Officer would only write letters to those who managed to get an interview. It would take too much time to write letters to everyone who had applied for the job and would be a waste of money, buying all the stamps and paying for postage. If the applicants didn’t hear from the company then they should assume that they were not successful and that they hadn’t got an interview, this means that there isn’t really any need to contact them. Letter To An Applicant That Has Gained An Interview. Dear Applicant, Thank you for your application form for the job of Shop Assistant within our Top Gear Outlet. We are pleased to inform you that your application has been successful and that you have gained an interview. This interview will take place at Top Gear on Monday 21st February at 10 o’clock. We look forward to seeing you then. Yours Faithfully, Lucy Howard Human Resource Officer Top Gear Interveiwing At the interview I would ask a number of questions to find out whether the applicant is suitable for the job. I would ask questions on a range of different subject like what hobbies the applicant has, what sort of past experience they have gained and what qualities they would bring to the job. I would ask mostly open-questions which would make it easy for the applicant to give long detailed answers and tell me as much about themselves as possible. If I chose all closed-questions to ask in the interview that could all be answered with one word answers, then I would learn hardly anything about the applicant and whether they were suitable for the job or not. I questions I choose to ask will have to be the ones that are going to tell me the most about the applicant and whether they are going to be right for the job or not. Some questions I could ask at an interview for a new sales person at Top Gear are: * Why do you think you should be the one hired for this job? * What experience have you had where you had to work with people? * What sort of things do you enjoy doing outside of work? * What qualities have you got that will make you a better person for the job than anyone else? * What do you understand to be the key responsibilities in this job? * How will your past experience equip you for this role? An Interview With a Real Human Resource Officer We decided to interview for this project, the personnel manager of McDonalds to find out what their job involved and how they went about recruiting new members of staff. 1) When you have a job placement available, how and where do you advertise it? We don’t use the job centre as the people they send tend to be desperate for any sort of job and not all that interested in what the job entails, just in the money they will be earning. We have a sign in the shop which attracts people to apply and is a good idea as if people come to eat in our shop, they are already interested in what happens in McDonalds. Jobs are also heard about through word of mouth as we often employ young people who need a job after just leaving school. 2)When sending out application forms, do you send person specifications and job description with it? No, we don’t send either of those things with an application form. When someone applies for the job, I talk to them myself as the personnel manager to make sure they understand what the job entails and what McDonalds needs in its staff. 3)How do you decide who to interview out of the applicants, and how many people get an interview.? Only about one in every ten people who apply for a job at McDonalds actually get an interview. A good application form will be neat and organised. McDonalds does not require any select qualifications to work there, but you should have at least a D grade at GCSE in Maths and English. People who work in McDonalds need to have good literacy skills. 4)What sort of questions do you ask in an interview? The best question to ask someone in an interview is â€Å"what do you know already about McDonalds?† because you can tell how much the person wants the job by how much research they have bothered to do. Another question asked in an interview is â€Å"what would you change about McDonalds?† because the staff are constantly changing things at McDonalds to suit customers needs. The questions asked are to test and see how well a person gets on with new people, how quickly they learn and their willingness to work hard. 5)How long do the interviews last? The interviews do not last very long, only about 20 minutes. In this time, you can already get a good idea of what a person is like and whether they will fit into the job well or not. 6)How do you finally decide who gets the job, what qualities do you look for in a worker? There is no special scoring system to decide who gets the job in the end. The main reason for choosing a person for the job is gut feeling about whether they will be right or not. Things that McDonalds are looking for in workers are respectable looking, bubbly, cheerful, easy to get along with, punctual and polite. From this interview I have learnt that not every personnel manager handles recruitment in the same way. It depends on the surroundings and where they are working. The personnel manager in McDonalds hired people mainly on gut feeling about whether they were right or not, which would not be an appropriate method of choosing for a big company like a bank. A Score Sheet That Would Help Me Select The Most Suitable Applicant. During the interview, I would use a score sheet to help me decide which applicants are good. The score sheets would have different areas and I would mark the applicants out of ten for how well they perform in all the different areas. If an applicant scores very low on the score sheet then they are obviously not right for the job position and not what the company is looking for. The person who scores highest on the score sheet will not necessarily be the one who gets hired for the job, but a score sheet will still give you a good idea of who is better than the other applicants. Here is a score sheet that could be used in an interview for a sales person at Top Gear: Applicant 1 Applicant 2 Applicant 3 Applicant 4 Appearance Confidence Friendliness Response to Questions asked Did they speak clearly? Good humoured? Are their answers relevant? Ease Choosing Who to Employ From the Score Sheet This score sheet is only to mark the applicants on how well they perform in the interview. It does not mark them on their qualifications or past experience in this sort of job. I would use these areas to see how friendly the applicant is with new people and how confident they are, because if they aren’t friendly or confident around the interviewer then they won’t be the right person to be working in a shop. The kind of person Top Gear would want to be working in their outlet would be someone who is friendly and polite to everyone and someone who does not lose their temper easily. Attitude is very important to an employer but so its past experience and qualifications. To the applicants that did not get the position at Top Gear, I would send a letter letting them know and maybe a voucher for the store as a sort of conciliation and to make them think that Top Gear is a worthwhile company so they would maybe apply for another position and still shop in the shop. For the 5 or 6 people who have been unsuccessful in their interview I would send a letter like this: Dear Miss Bromby, Thank you for applying and attending an interview for the position of Store Assistant at our Top Gear outlet. I am sorry to inform you that you were not successful this time. We have included a voucher for our store with this letter, as a thank you for your time and co-operation in the selection process. Yours sincerely, Lucy Howard Human Resource Officer at Top Gear For the applicant who was successful and gained the job at Top gear I would send a letter like this: Dear Miss Bromby, Thank you for applying for the job of Store Assistant at our Top Gear outlet. I am very pleased to inform you that you have gained the position and we would like you to start work next week starting the 25th of August. Other details and training will be sorted out on your first day. If you have any queries before then, you can phone (0115) 8547651 and we will sort out any worries that you may have. See you next week! Yours Sincerely, Lucy Howard Human Resource Officer at Top Gear Companies train their staff because a well-trained group of employees will be more productive as they are better at there jobs. They might also be more motivated because they enjoy the feeling that they are good at there jobs. There are three different types of training induction, off-the-job and on-the-job. Induction training is for new staff within a company. Both the employer and the employee can benefit from this type of training. The employer would want the training scheme to include: * Training on the tills, so that the new employee would understand how to take payment in the form of cheques/ credit cards/ debit cards/ cash/ gift vouchers. * Customer relations. Teaching the employee to handle difficult customers * Company History/ image. Trying to make the employee feel part of the family as it might make them work better. * The employee would be hoping that from the induction training they would learn: * The terms of their payment, when and how they will be getting paid. * What they must wear for their job. Whether there is a specific dress code or uniform. * What sort of discount their new job entitles them to. * The arrangement of breaks and lunchtimes. Also when they can have holidays and how long they can take off work for them. * Answers to any queries they might have about the job. Such as what they must do when they are ill. * What happens in the dismissal procedure. A Schedule For an Induction Training Day at Top Gear. Time Activity 10:00-11:00am Speech about company history 11:00-12:00pm Practical learning about working the tills 12:00-1:00pm Break 1:00-2:00pm Role plays about coping with difficult customers 2:00-2:30pm Answers to questions and queries In my induction day, I have included practical work as well as theory because listening to someone talking all day is boring and does not give you real practise or confidence in your new job. I have made my day useful for employers and employees. On-The-Job Training On the job training is mainly used for new employees who are unsure of what to do in their job. It usually involves a new employee staying with a more experienced worker within the company and watching them closely to see what they do. After watching for about a week, then the new employees would feel like they are ready to do the jobs themselves. This sort of training is mainly practical. Advantages of this sort of training to an employer is that it does not cost anything as the new staff would be training on the company premises and also the new staff would learn quickly and be able to put what they have learnt into practise straight away. Advantages of this type of training to an employee are that they don’t have to sit around listening and being told what they must do, they are able to learn by watching someone else. Another advantage is that if they have any queries about anything, the more experienced worker helping them would be able to tell them the answer to their problem. Disadvantages of this sort of training are that if the experienced worker has bad habits then the new employee may pick them up as well. Off-The-Job Training This is where any of the employees in a company go away on a course. This type of training is mainly theory work. This type of training can also involve things like day release where an employee goes to work some days during the week and college others, but is still getting paid for the days they aren’t working. Advantages of this sort of training for the employer are that, there staff can become a lot more experienced and know a lot more about their job after just a one-day course. Advantages of this sort of training for an employee are that they can become more confident within their job and understand a lot more about it from a course. They can also meet new people with similar jobs to theirs. A disadvantage of this sort of training is the fact that it costs the company money to send staff out on a course. Sometimes there is the cost of travel as a course may be quite far away. A problem with this sort of training for an employer is that sending staff out could leave them short staffed at the company. An Advert for a job opening at Top Gear! How an Applicant Should Prepare for an Interview: * Make sure that they look smart and presentable. No company is looking to hire someone who does not care about what they look like. * Look up some information about the company where they are having the interview as to impress the interviewer with their knowledge. * Prepare some sample questions so they are ready to answer anything the interviewer asks them. Some of these sample questions could be: * What sort of hobbies do you have and what do you like doing in your spare time? * What sort of past experience do you have and which of your qualities will most help you in this job? * What do you know about the Top Gear company? For these sample questions, the applicant should prepare an answer that will impress the interviewer and make them think that they are the best for the job. This will help the applicant during their interview as knowing what to say will make them come across as confident and friendly. How to Behave in an Interview In an Interview the interviewee should act relaxed and confident they should smile and be polite to the interviewer. The interviewer is also looking for the way you act and your body language as it tells them a lot about the sort of person you are. You shouldn’t be shy or too over the top. Methods of Training If I worked at Top Gear I would use the induction day as a method of training. I would choose this because the employee would only need one day off and would learn everything they need. They wouldn’t pick up any bad habits as they would be learning everything from new and not copying off someone who has already been in the job a while. They would get to practice new skills during practical sessions during the day and still learn about the history of the company and get to know other employee’s as well. Communication Systems in use at Top Gear Top Gear would use different methods of communication internally and externally. If communication in a business is poor then poor decisions are made and customers and suppliers will lose confidence in the company. A company such as Top Gear would be likely to use methods of communication such as these below, but all of them have advantages and disadvantages so they might only use certain ones. Companies would use written methods of communication such as notice boards, memos and reports. These are mainly used internally. Externally they would use letters, e-mails and faxes. Advantages of this are that there is a permanent record of the message if it is needed and copies can be seen by lots of people. Disadvantages of these are that it can be hard to get feedback and sometimes people cant understand what is written. Verbal methods such as telephone calls, conversations or meetings can be used as a form of communication. A disadvantage of this is that there is no record of it so people can forget the information. Visual methods can be used such as films, posters, diagrams and charts. These are good because complicated information can be summarised and visual things communicate feelings better than words. Motivation There are three main motivation theories. They all explain what managers need to do if they want to motivate their workers to perform their best. Two of these theories are: 1) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Maslow believed that all people are motivated by the same things. The three lower needs at the bottom of the pyramid have to be achieved before the two higher things can be met. The things on this pyramid starting with the ones at the bottom are: * Physical Survival People need food, water, shelter, clothing and warmth. These should be met by a basic wage. * Safety People want to feel safe and secure from harm. Managers should give their workers job security. * Love and Belonging People enjoy the company of others. Managers should encourage team work and social contact. * Self-esteem People want to feel valued by others. Managers should praise and encourage and give financial rewards for good performance. * Self-Actualisation People want to feel they are achieving something. Managers should help staff set and reach their own personal targets. 2) Herzberg’s Hygiene Factors Herzberg’s ideas are much more straightforward than Maslow’s. Herzberg believed that all the needs of workers can be put into two groups. 1) Hygiene Factors. Are the things a business has to provide to keep workers contented. These include clean, quiet and safe working conditions as well as adequate rest breaks. 2) Motivating factors Are the things that will encourage workers to do their best, like praise from managers, career advancement for good workers and more responsibility. Motivation at Top Gear I would use mainly Herzberg’s theory if I were manager at Top Gear. I think that giving staff the right conditions to work in will help them get a better job done. Telling employee’s that they are doing well will make them happy and willing to do more of the same. Employee’s who have been consistently good would be promoted. Seeing a fellow member of staff being promoted may cause others to work for a promotion as well. I would try and make staff feel happy and secure in their job as it would make them like coming to work and enjoy what they are doing more.