Nature of Recruitment and Selection - Doc

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management
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Table of Contents
Question 1........................................................................................................................................2
Question 2........................................................................................................................................5
Role of HR as Strategic Partner/ Contributor..............................................................................5
Role of HR as Administrative Expert..........................................................................................5
Role of HR as Employee Advocate.............................................................................................6
Role of HR as Change Agent.......................................................................................................7
Question 3:.......................................................................................................................................7
Nature of Recruitment and Selection...........................................................................................7
Orientation...................................................................................................................................8
Performance Appraisal/Management...........................................................................................8
Employment Contracts.................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................10

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Question 1
The HR problems in the particular case study identified with the help of ADAP approach
to case preparation (Berkes, Folke and Colding 2000). The approach consists of six steps
however, the HR problems of the case study company is done using the first five steps.
Step One: Gaining of Familiarity
Adelaide based HS Furniture Co. remained an industry leader in the local market with its
innovative design and offered compact, self-assembled and fair priced furniture. The company
however had a constant demand for its products. CM, the owner of the company did not find it
important in introducing the formal HR practices and policies since he believed that it would
seize the company of its opportunities of growth thereby making it more inflexible. This
prevented the company from having a separate HR department. However, the owner in
coordination with the trusted line managers made most of the HR decision. In the year, 2015, the
company took advantage of its position and opened a sales office in Darwin, NT. In spite of the
lack of necessary skills or any awareness of Darwin’s labor market, the manager for the
concerned office would be from the already existing Adelaide staffs. CM put forward that an
individual with the right kind of personality and attitude would suit the role. A sales
representative named Jane was offered the role. She was ambitious and loyal but did not possess
any management experience besides her role. However, CM trusted her with the responsibilities
of not only marketing and sales but also accounting and human resource (HR) since the subjects
were a part of her business degree.
Step Two: Recognition of the Symptoms

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In absence of a formal HR department, CM carried out the HR activities of the company
along with the line managers. This resulted in contradictory and unfair decisions although the
CM had the impression that it ensured speed and flexibility to the company. In addition, the CM
also micro managed the operational activities that also included the maintenance of relationships
with the primary customers. Further, in the new sales office located in Darwin, the responsibility
of the selection and the recruitment of the new employees were appointed to Jane, a formal sales
staff of the Adelaide branch, who had no formal in human resource management.
Step Three: Identification of the Goals
HS Furniture Co did not have formal performance or appraisal management system due
its small size. However, CM and his managers believed in achieving the goal by providing
constant guidance to the employees that ruled out the need for a separate HR department. They
believed that they actually carried out the functions of HR through employee’s motivation by
ensuring them to work harder through creation of the expectations of the stress performance. The
new division also aimed at performing HR activities without a formal HR department and a
professional. Jane, the new manager, who had no formal training, carried the HR activities by
introducing and molding the employees.
Step 4: Analysis
In the Adelaide branch of the furniture company, the absence of human resource
department led to contradictory and unfair decisions. The company also lacked a formal
performance management and appraisal system. The company also did not provide job
descriptions in a written form. In the newer division, although Jane blamed the labor market of

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Darwin but it was also lack of her training and expertise that led to only the recruitment of the
graduates for all the positions. The absence of a formal HR department and a professional HR
also led to the arousal of tensions amongst the employees of Darwin due to the setting of
unrealistic targets. There were also a persistent problems related to payroll. The constant
pressure of performance improvement and the lack of professional mannerism made Jane more
demanding and aggressive. This led her to direct unreasonable and repeated comments towards
the workers. This withdrew the workers, as they felt more sullen and passive. Under Jane, the
employees did not even posses the necessary freedom of using initiatives and making decisions.
The explosion of her when she caught her clerks internet shopping forced them in quitting their
jobs. The company also received legal notice from one of the clerks for wrongful dismissal. The
intertwining of several instances landed the company in a financial crisis where the employees
also had low morale.
Step 5: Diagnosis
To diagnose the problems faced by the employees, CM intervened through process of
discussion and tried to provide a remedial measure. He also analyzed whether the situation could
be improved through career development and by providing the employees with necessary formal
training. To improve the situation he acted paternalistic and not only treated everyone as family
but also emphasized on the loyalty factor. He also initiated company sponsored social gatherings
for all the members. The ongoing problem in the Darwin division made CM realize the
incapability of Jane in managing the division that finally had a close down.

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Question 2
Role of HR as Strategic Partner/ Contributor
This role of HR as strategic partner /contributor involves working with the business
leaders for putting a strategy in place, ensure its implementation and make use of the people to
the best of their abilities (Bratton and Gold 2017). For instance, this involves analysis of the
human resources and skills available for the projects that each of the business units undertakes in
the next five years. The HR role as strategic partner also evolves into the input for decision-
making (Mitchell, Obeidat and Bray 2013). This particular role sees the contribution of the HR
in the form of providing recruitment by molding the employees in fitting the roles meant for
performance and leadership and also managing and organizing them for supporting the
organizational performance (Ananthram and Nankervis 2013).
CM and his managers in providing constant guidance under took this particular role of
HR to the employees for working hard and improving their performance. They also ensured
career development or formal training as a means for personal development for improvement of
the employee productivity.
Role of HR as Administrative Expert
In this role, the HR manager act as consultant to the senior management. This role
demands the HR in fulfilling leadership and administrative qualities (Hunter, Saunders and
Constance 2016). The role of the administrative expert allows the HR in complying with
confidentiality and labor regulations, safety, restrictions and requirements thereby minimizing
the risk of the fines, lawsuits and penalties. This role also charges the HR managers with
rethinking on how they would question and work with procedures and policies related to the

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people that needs improvement (Thill et al. 2014). The administrative role also motivates the
employees in introducing human resource information system for revamping the service
provided to the employees. The administrative role also allows the HR in providing the
appropriate number of people with the necessary skills, experience and knowledge for profitable
functioning of the organization (Maier et al. 2013).
CM and the managers of the HS Furniture Co took to the administrative role of the HR
by appointing Jane as the manager of the new division of the office in Darwin. She carried out
the role of an HR through appropriate staff selection and recruitment in the new office. She also
took up the administrative role of the HR in deciding that eleven employees were required for
effectively penetrating into the competitive market of Darwin. Out of the eleven employees,
seven represented the sales representatives, one personal assistant and receptionist, one sales and
one account clerk. Moreover, she also sought applicants based on the personality and attitude and
who were ambitious and over enthusiastic with a preferable marketing background. As an
administrative HR, she also insisted the administration of payroll from the head office.
Role of HR as Employee Advocate
The HR professional as an employee advocate act as the employee’s voice through
performance of an employee advocacy role within organization (Sheehan et al. 2014). Thus, the
HR in this particular role helps in creation of a link between management needs and the
employee needs.
CM plays the employee advocacy role of an HR when he intervenes into a problem after
its occurrence either by taking the side of the employees in discussing the issue or by providing

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remedial measures on the job training. The problems are often related to poor customer service o
might be related to the product quality and design.
Role of HR as Change Agent
As a change agent, the HR plays the role of transforming the organization by focusing on
improvement, development and organizational effectiveness (Benn, Edwards and Williams
2014). In this role, the HR primarily focuses primarily on the people and their interactions within
the organization.
CM of HS Furniture Co plays the role of the change agent by deciding on opening a new
sales office in Darwin despite the lack of the skill inventory and knowledge of the labor market.
He brought in a change on deciding to recruit a manager for the newer division who would
further undertake selection and employee recruitment.
Question 3:
Nature of Recruitment and Selection
Adelaide based HS Furniture Co follows the recruitment approach of review resumes and
the selection procedure of personality profiling (Wright and Chin 2014). Reviewing resumes
involves the recognition of a keener eye for the talent on the paper. This involves over viewing
of the combination between experience and education by the managers. On the other hand,
personality profiling, also referred as personality testing or behavioral profiling that involves
every aspect from the technical to the clinical and the business-oriented tools (Flekova and
Gurevych 2015). In this regard, CM of Adelaide based HS Furniture Co looks for an individual
who has the right personality and attitude for being hired as candidate. The manager of the

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Darwin division of HS Furniture Co also recruits applicants based on personality and attitude
along with having a good marketing experience.
Orientation
This refers to the making and breaking of the experience of the new employees that helps
in solidifying the relationship of the employees with the organization (Cascio 2018). The
orientation process helps in fueling enthusiasm and guiding them towards a positive relationship.
In this respect, the CM of HS Furniture Co follows an orientation process that provides
constant guidance to the employees through career development and formal training. He also
provided orientation that motivated the employees in working hard. Moreover, he emphasized
loyalty and ensured greater emphasis on the loyalty aspect. The employees hired in the Darwin
division underwent orientation by the new manager who not only introduced one another but also
motivated them to get along the job.
Performance Appraisal/Management
Performance appraisal refers to the periodic, general and systematic process that helps in
accessing the productivity and job performance of the individual employee based on pre set
organizational criteria and objectives (Beh and Loo 2013).
The Adelaide based HS Furniture Co did not have a formal performance management or
appraisal system due to its smaller size. However, CM and his managers for delivering improved
performances provided informal performance boost up through constant guidance.

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Employment Contracts
Employee contract refers to the type of the contract in the labor law for attributing the
responsibilities and rights bargained between two parties (De Cuyper and Isaksson 2017). This
type of contract is between the employee and the employer.
There existed no written job specifications since CM of HS Furniture Co considered it as
bureaucratic nonsense. Although there existed no such written employment contract but CM
verbally made a promise to Jane that allowed her to stay in the job for minimum two years that
would also help in justifying her move to the company’s new division at Darwin. The terms and
conditions of the employment were verbally discussed with employees during the interview
process.

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References:
Ananthram, S. and Nankervis, A., 2013. Strategic agility and the role of HR as a strategic
business partner: an Indian perspective. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 51(4),
pp.454-470.
Beh, L.S. and Loo, L.H., 2013. Human resource management best practices and firm
performance: A universalistic perspective approach. Serbian Journal of Management, 8(2),
pp.155-167.
Benn, S., Edwards, M. and Williams, T., 2014. Organizational change for corporate
sustainability. Routledge.
Berkes, F., Folke, C. and Colding, J. eds., 2000. Linking social and ecological systems:
management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience. Cambridge University
Press.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Cascio, W., 2018. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.
De Cuyper, N. and Isaksson, K., 2017. Employment contracts and well-being among European
workers. Routledge.
Flekova, L. and Gurevych, I., 2015. Personality profiling of fictional characters using sense-level
links between lexical resources. In Proceedings of the 2015 Conference on Empirical Methods in
Natural Language Processing (pp. 1805-1816).
Hunter, I., Saunders, J. and Constance, S., 2016. HR business partners. Routledge.

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Maier, C., Laumer, S., Eckhardt, A. and Weitzel, T., 2013. Analyzing the impact of HRIS
implementations on HR personnel’s job satisfaction and turnover intention. The Journal of
Strategic Information Systems, 22(3), pp.193-207.
Mitchell, R., Obeidat, S. and Bray, M., 2013. The Effect of Strategic Human Resource
Management on Organizational Performance: The Mediating Role of High‐Performance Human
Resource Practices. Human Resource Management, 52(6), pp.899-921.
Sheehan, C., De Cieri, H., Greenwood, M. and Van Buren, H.J., 2014. HR professional role
tensions: Perceptions and responses of the top management team. Human Resource
Management, 53(1), pp.115-130.
Thill, K., Venegas, B.C. and Groblschegg, S., 2014. HR roles and activities. Empirical results
from the DACH region and implications for a future development of the HR
profession. International Journal of Business and Management, 2(4), pp.97-109.
Wright, W.R. and Chin, D.N., 2014, July. Personality profiling from text: introducing part-of-
speech N-grams. In International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation, and
Personalization (pp. 243-253). Springer, Cham.