Management and Team Working Capabilities - Case Study Example

Management and Team Working Capabilities In this reflective write-up, the describes and analyses his role as a recruitment and replacement manager in a social work organization. The reflection is done based on the Gibb’s Reflective Cycle, which is described in the diagram below: Source: dp1 Department of Practice Learning (2005) Description I happened to work at PrintMark Social Centre, a social work that is dedicated to rendering social need services to children and the aged in Tokyo, Japan. For the past seven years, the organization has battled with the serious problem of employee retention. According to the Nautrihub Journal (2007), Employee retention is a process “in which the employees are encouraged to remain with the organization for the maximum period of time or until the completion of the project.” This was the exact weakness of the organization because measures were not put in place by previous managers to ensure that employees stayed at post till as long as their services were needed. The absence of employee retention, a situation known as employee turnover occurs. In the view of Clint (2011), “Employee turnover occurs when employees voluntarily leave their jobs and must be replaced.” To this effect, my services was employed to take charge of the recruitment of the organization for the year 2010 to ensure through my duty that employees were retained. The need to have someone playing the role of a recruitment manager as an attempt to ensure employee retention was in the right direction because one of the factors that has been identified to be the cause of employee turnover is poor recruitment. Explaining what recruitment is, Stevens (2010) assert that “Recruitment is the process of having the right person, in the right place, at the right time.” It is therefore logical to assume that if the right people are not put at the right place, they would surely leave. In this direction, The Missouri Business Journal (2011) advice that in recruitment, it is always important to hire “the people that are a good "fit" with the culture of the organization — meaning that their values, principles, and goals clearly match those of the company”. Most often than not, managers loss site of their role in using recruitment to ensure the long term. I was therefore called upon to play this all important role of a manager in charge of recruitment. Feelings The task that was assigned to me was more of an opportunity than a merit because I was still a subordinate worker of the organization. For this reason, I became extremely excited about the appointment. In relation to leadership or managerial style, I felt strongly that my superiors were practicing and all-inclusive management style and that was recommendable. At such moments in organizational systems whereby all protocols and bureaucracies are broken to give way for young employees to put to test, what they are capable of is described by Leadership Expert (2011) as delegative leadership style. According to Leadership Expert (2011), “this leadership style is also often called “laissez-faire” leadership, meaning that followers are effectively given free reign to make decisions and do what they think is appropriate.” Because such appointments are not permanent, they are received, just as I felt, with so much pride and joy. The feeling was great but what was I thinking? As a matter of fact, I thought I had been privileged rather than thinking I had been appointed because I was the best the management of the organization would get. Again, I did not think the position had been given to me to be something I was to try my hands on. I assume the position with seriousness and understood the task that had been handed to me. There was a problem and I was to solve it. Evaluation In a bid to putting my managerial knowledge in managing affairs in such a large organization, I set off by first setting up a recruitment and selection committee. The committee was made up three members and me as the head. All members had serve in the organization for at least four years. We set off by planning for the whole exercise. As part of our plan and execution of the plan, we placed advertisements in local newspapers. The idea was to attract only people who stayed close to the organization and lived among the people they were to serve. Our greatest attention was with the job description given in the advertisement. As the manager, I ensured that there was a detailed job description and job specification to ensure that people who applied for the job saw them as the right people for the right job. This was to ensure that there was not a situation whereby someone would be selected for the job and later quit because he or she may find it difficult acquainting with the job. After the advertisement, a date was set for the interview. Before this, I had led my team to shortlist candidates for the interview. The main criteria for short listing were academic qualification and work experience. After the short listing, selected candidates were given prior notice of the interview within a reasonable time to prepare. At the interview, the individual candidates met members of the interview committee who were five (5) in number. The number of interview committee was made to be of sizable amount in other to ensure that selection was done based on consensus or majority decision. It also gave the opportunity for questions asked to be diverse and broad. After the interview, the committee took time to review the candidates one after the other, via what had been recorded about them during the interview. Next, I lead the committee to select the most appropriate candidates for the job. My work did not end here. I welcomed the new employees, gave them their appointment letter containing their job description; held an in-service training for them to acquaint them with the task ahead for them and organized an orientation program for them to familiarize them with the structures of the organization. Taking a reflection at the whole task that was handed to me, there are a couple of pluses and minuses. On the positives, it was a good idea to have a lot of people on the interview committee. This ensured efficiency in the sense that there was division of labour that ensured that one person did not have so much to do. Most often than not when one person has so much responsibility during interviews, there is the tendency that there would be reduced attention on the interviewees. In a typical example when an interviewer has to ask questions, listen to responses and record observations at the same time. Still on the use of many people on the committee, it signified a good managerial and leadership practice that ensured involvement and delegation. Such a practice ensured that individual skill, knowledge and talent were brought on board for the growth of the organization. Also on the fact that interview candidates were given prior notice to the interview and within a reasonable time frame is an act that was on the positive side. This allowed the candidates to prepare far in advance and put up their best during the interview. Because of the prior information, there was a reduced tendency that a naturally good candidate would underperform due to pressure. On the negatives, the fact that the committee limited the advertisement to the community alone was disadvantaging. This is because this practice hindered a lot more people who could have the needed knowledge for the positions from seeing the advertisement. Again to make the recruitment less expensive and more efficient, the committee could have relied on universities close to the organization for candidates for the positions. Analysis Analyzing the entire situation, it could be said that my role could to a very large extent achieve its aim. Protective employees were recruited and through the hard work of the committee members, the right people were recruited. To a large extent, my actions were appropriate and in setting the right work done. The expected results were to get people to take up vacant positions in the social service and this is exactly what my term achieved. There was virtually no difference in expectation. The theory of management that guided these actions was the fact that planning is an important part of management. There was therefore a lot that went into the planning section with the committee member – something that accounted for the success. My area of thinking that has been changed has to do with delegatory leadership. Before, I thought it showed that a leader was weak and underperformer. Now I now team work and delegation, overseen and monitored by the manager in charge leads to greater success at the work place. Conclusion I believe I could have handled my position more effectively if there was even more time for planning and the inclusion of more and more people to offer their knowledge. This was however hindered due to limited resource. Clearly if there was more time for planning and more people on board, efficiency would have increased. Again, as an alternative method, I could have resorted to the use of the university. I am sure this would have been cost effective and would have made had the organization landing on the most preferred kind of candidates with the right academic qualification and background. Action Plan My observations remain my action plan. To this end, if this responsibility arises again, I will rely directly on the university to cut down on cost. Part of the resources that would be saved would be channelled into involving more personnel on the committee. REFERENCE LIST Clint J, 2011, Employee Turnover – Duties, Benefits and Expenses. Reference for Business, accessed March 24 2011 dp1 Department of Practice Learning 2005, Using a Model of Reflection, accessed 5 April 2011 Leadership Expert 2011, Different Leadership Styles, accessed April 6, 2011 Missouri Business Journal, 2011, Reducing Employee Turnover, accessed March 27 2011 Nautrihub Journal, 2007, What is employee Retention? Accessed March 26 2011 Stevens, M. 2010, CIPD Urges Employers to Invest in Workforce Planning”, People Management Magazine, 8 June 2010, [Online]. Available at Read More