The Labor Market Conditions and the Process of Recruiting Employees - Research Proposal Example

Recruitment Proposal Eatwell Introduction Recruitment is a very essential practice carried out by business all over the world especially for a labor intensive business like supermarkets. A lot of money, time and effort is put into this therefore there is a strong need to plan before going on with it. This paper will provide a detailed proposal of how Eatwell should carry out the process of recruiting employees for the branch it has recently opened southwest of England. Discussion Before we discuss the proposal, we need to understand the labor market conditions and its possible effects on our recruitment plan. The labor market conditions determine a number a factors that will affect our recruitment plan. The demand and supply of labor will determine the market mechanism. The equilibrium of the demand and supply of labor will determine the wages or salaries. Besides this, other factors that could affect our recruitment plan include government regulations in the market. These regulations could be a minimum wage set by the government or could also be other regulations regarding the number of employees that can be employed etc. According to research carried out by the Human resource department of Eatwell, the skilled labor present in the region we plan on opening our next branch does not belong to any sort of trade unions. This is an advantage for us because no trade union means that the labor will not be strong enough to influence our decisions. However, a throughout England, there is a minimum wage law set by the government and we will have to consider this before deciding on wages for our unskilled labor. Secondly, since there are not many superstores in the area where the new branch is being opened, we have many opportunities that we can make use of. The labor over there does not have much choice, giving us an advantage of excess labor supply. This will allow us to choose the best possible employees for Eatwell from a wide range of labor supply. In order to calculate the number of vacant jobs in our new superstore, we will need to consider a number of aspects. First of all, we will consider the number of employees in the other branches and compare it with the branch's size. This will give us an estimate of the amount of vacancies available for our new branch. Then we will consult various departments and ask them their requirements of employees. These requirements will also be considered and formal job descriptions will be developed for each job identified. These job descriptions will be useful later on in the recruitment process when the jobs will be advertised. Another aspect that needs to be considered is hiring the number of recruits which will most profitable for the firm. Too many employees hired could result in diseconomies of scales while fewer employees than required mean lower output. This is how the exact number of available jobs will be identified and employees will be recruited accordingly. In order to be efficient, a firm needs to be flexible. Atkinson gave a flexible firm model in 1984 according to which flexibility in an organization depends on workers of two kinds, the core workforce and peripheral workforce. The core workforce consists of those employees that are regular and permanent. The organization has a standard contract with them. On the other hand, the peripheral workforce consists of those workers which are semi-permanent. They are hired when they are required and fired when the work is done. They are also called just-in-time workforce and disposable workforce. The peripheral workforce is actually what makes a firm flexible. The firm can hire a worker whenever the need arises and dismiss him as soon as there is no more need. This model will give Eatwell a competitive advantage over rest of the supermarkets in the market. This practice allows a firm's average cost to decrease and the efficiency to increase. This model can be applied to our recruitment plan as well. All the low paid and low skills jobs will be included in the peripheral workforce. This will be mentioned to them when they will be hired. Also, all the jobs that require specialists will be included in the peripheral workforce. These jobs include those that are technical such as the job of computer programmer. These will be highly paid jobs and will be hired from external markets (Price, A.). Therefore, we will need a special department which will have to keep a check on which peripheral worker needs to be employed and which worker is not longer needed and must be dismissed. This department must be very efficient in keeping account of all this information. Another method that can be employed by Eatwell which will help it become flexible include outsourcing. This is a new practice adopted by organizations all over the world which allows the firm to hire external companies to carry our tasks that are essential to run the company while the firm itself can concentrate on the chief goals. Recruitment Method The recruitment process will begin with deciding the number of jobs available. We will adopt the strategies discussed above to decide on a number of recruits. We will then work out the sort of person we are looking for. We will make a job specification which will include duties and responsibilities associated with the job and the person required. It will take account of the attitude, qualification, experience and other conditions that must be present in the candidate who is applying for the job. This will help shortlist the number of people applying and therefore making it easier for the human resource department to select the right employee. At this stage, the recruitment department will settle on on the pay for each job. Pay will be decided after considering the level of job, qualifications required, market conditions, job timings etc. After this, the advertisement budget will be decided and this will help identify the means of advertising. Internet or local jobs center can be used it the budget is low while newspapers or magazines can be used if the budget is comparatively higher. Since the number of recruits will be a big number, we will have to hire an agency which will advertise in the newspapers and magazines. This again depends on the job that is being advertised. If the job is for a higher level like a specialist's job, it will be advertised in a newspaper that is national or even a journals of professional bodies, while on the other hand, it the job requires unskilled workers, it will be hired in a newspaper that is local. The advertisement needs to be very clear and must include all the details that are necessary. These details include the job title, duties and responsibilities, person specification, contact numbers etc. Once the candidates start responding, their details will be analyzed properly. These details include their CVs and certificates etc. This analysis will help the human resource department shortlist the candidates and bring it down to minimum number because the next step in interviewing and if the number is not small, the interviewing process will take too much time and cost. After this interviews will be scheduled and the short-listed candidates will be replied. They will be given a time and place for the interview and will be asked to bring the necessary documents. Meanwhile, the questions that will be asked during the interview will be decided upon. These questions must be very carefully decided upon because interviews will be the last step which will be used to decide on which candidate to finally select for the job. These interviews reveal a lot of the candidate therefore the interviewer and his associates must be experienced. Each interview will be designed according to the nature of the job. Once the interviews are carried out, all candidates will be given a time period before which they can expect a reply from us. During this time, each candidate for each job will be carefully analyzed and will be short listed again and again until we have the one ideal candidate for the job. This candidate will then be informed about him getting the job and once we have a confirmation from his side, the rest of the candidates will be informed about their rejection. Once the candidate has been selected, his performance will be evaluated. If the performance is not up to the mark, the human resource will decide whether or not training should be used to familiarize the employee with what is expected from him. This training may be on the job training or off the job training depending on the nature of the job and the complexities associated with it. Conclusion In conclusion, I would once again like to emphasize on the importance for a well organized recruitment process. There is a lot of money, time and effort put into this process therefore, an organization cannot afford to mess this up and select an individual who is not ideal for the job. References 1. Price, A. (2000) Principles of Human Resource Management: An Active Learning Approach. Blackwell Publishing 2. Taylor, S (2005) People Resourcing. CIPD Publishing. Read More