Business owner through the recruitment process
High quality staff is a major factor in the success of a business in today’s competitive markets. Hiring Employees is a challenge most business owner’s face. A business owner cannot recruit and keep good employees unless he recognizes their contribution to the business and keeps in mind that excellent service can only come from a well-recruited and highly motivated workforce.
Let’s take the case of a retail store owner who wants to recruit employees for his business but does not know of the importance of good employees in the workplace. He starts by writing up a job posting. He makes the duties of high level- jobs (manger, cashier etc) appear more complicated than they are by using jargon such as when writing up a job for a data organizer when he only needs someone to file sales records. He overstates monetary benefits to make the job appear glamorous but he does not add any non-monetary benefits that he can offer.
For lower-class jobs (sales staff, sweeper etc) he writes up a job description which makes the job seem tiresome and worthless such as by briefly saying ‘24 hours sweeper required to sweep store floors for a minimum wage’. Finished writing up the lengthy, hasty and unclear job descriptions, he places the job posting outside his store.
Everything with the above is wrong. The business owner makes absolutely no effort to lure potential employees in his store. The Job-descriptions that the store owner wrote did not clearly state the nature of the job but made it sound complex and glamorous or in the other case tedious. A well-written job posting determines the number of employees you end up with.
Precise and detailed job description carefully written up with any fringe benefits squeezed in can be the start of a good recruitment process. Lastly, the business owner should have been more careful and selective when choosing a medium for posting his job. Cashiers and managers are unlikely to see the job posting outside the store. A good idea would have been to advertise the job in a local/national newspaper which would have attracted a large number of potential employees.
The retail store owner will find that he has only a few applicants for each job. Now he begins with the interviewing process but has no idea that interviewing is the most important part of the recruitment process. He does not have his questions prepared and he does not pay attention to the details of the candidate. He does not notice his attitude, eagerness and confidence. Does he make eye contact? Is he able to articulate his thoughts? Is he well informed about the business? The store owner asks brief questions but does not know what to look for in a candidate and ends up with the wrong workers. And even if he does end up with a few good employees he does not know how to retain them.
What should normally have happened? After attracting a large number of potential employees with a carefully drawn up job posting, the retail store owner conducts a customized brief initial screening interview not lasting more than 15-30 min to help him determine whether the applicants are as motivated, capable and energetic as stated in the resume. Then with the candidates short listed from this brief interview the store owner takes a customized pre-employment test to predict their work behavior and mental abilities.
For example through this test he should be able to tell how well the sales staff candidate gets along with other workers in the store and how well he is able to communicate with the customers. The applicants screened out from this test would then be asked by the store owner to play their role so that he can evaluate how well they are able to carry out their job. For example the store owner can have a salesman applicant role playing dealing with customers. Then, the candidate who proves himself capable is appointed. (Mercer, 2005)
Once the store owner has his employees, he needs to retain the valuable employees by motivating them and rewarding their work with both monetary and fringe benefits.
The recruitment process although time consuming, ensures that the workers hired are highly productive and that there is a reduced labor turnover. It is important keep the employees contented after they have been hired.
References
- Mercer, M. (2005). 7 Steps to hire the best: Management Information
- Retrieved on July 30 2009
- http://www.bigmoneycentral.com/management/10466.php
