Human Resource Management Report: Coles Group Recruitment Issues

This report provides an executive summary and detailed analysis of the recruitment challenges faced by Coles Group, one of Australia's leading supermarket chains. The study identifies key issues such as organizational image, cultural diversity, labor supply shortages, competitive business environments, talent management, and demographic factors including an aging workforce and generation gaps. It recommends strategies to address these challenges, including employer branding, improving reward and recognition programs, and utilizing various advertising methods. The report emphasizes the importance of effective recruitment in achieving organizational goals and long-term success, offering insights into how Coles Group can enhance its recruitment processes. The report highlights the need for cross-cultural training, informal communication, and competitive employment benefits to attract and retain a skilled workforce. Furthermore, the report recommends that Coles Group invest in employer branding and advertising to attract youth and manage the generation gap. The ultimate goal is to improve the company's brand image and attract competent candidates. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of the recruitment process for the success of the organization and the need for Coles to implement better plans and policies to attract potential candidates, and the benefits of doing so.

Running head: Human Resource Management 1
Human Resource Management

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Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to understand the various key challenges in the employee
recruitment practice in respect with the Coles Group of Australia. The report will highlight
number of issues and challenges faced by the organisation and the recommended strategies
which can help the company on improving its recruitment process. The study will also present
some of the key recruitment strategise such as employer branding, improving reward and
recognitions, use of advertisements, etc for fetching eth attention of the potential employees. The
paper will help in developing an improved understanding of the importance of effective
recruitment in the organisations and its relevance with the success of the company.

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Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Key recruitment challenges at Coles Group and recommended strategies to address these
challenges........................................................................................................................................3
Recruitment challenge: Organisational image.............................................................................3
Recruitment challenge: Cultural Diversity..................................................................................4
Recruitment challenge: Shortage of labour Supply.....................................................................4
Recruitment challenge: Competitive Business Environment & Talent Management.................5
Recruitment challenge: Demographic factors (ageing workforce and generation gaps).............6
Conclusion and recommendations...................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
In the present scenario, there are numerous challenges and issues faced by the organisations in
recruiting the adequate workforce. The human resources are the most vital part of the
organisations that can either make or break the future of an organisation. Their competencies and
abilities are the most essential factor for achieving the organisational goals and experiencing
long-term success. There are several issues in respect with the supply or demand of labour, talent
management, the various demographic factors that comprises of cultural diversity, competitive
employment, generation gaps, ageing workforce, etc. and the image of the organisation. All are
the key factors that develop barricades in the successful recruitment process. Because of these
issues there are several sustainability challenges which the organisations suffer. The paper will
present the recruitment challenges in respect with the Coles Group of Australia which is one of
the most well-known supermarket chains of the nation and gives employment to number of
individuals. The company was founded in the year 1914 and is presently employing more than
100,000 individuals but is facing a number of issues which are required to be resolved for
improved operations and organisational functioning (Coles, 2017).
Key recruitment challenges at Coles Group and recommended strategies to
address these challenges
Coles is one of the renowned organisations of Australia that have extensive business operations
and vast employment opportunities for the individuals. But since last decade, the company is
facing numerous recruitment challenges which are negatively impacting the business efficiency
of the brand.
Recruitment challenge: Organisational image
The first and the key recruitment challenge is the organisational image. The image of Coles
Group is highly impressive but from the industry point of view, the individuals escape from
employing in the retail sector as it is considered as one of the least preferred employment sector
by the individuals. Thus, this results in decreased number of individuals applying for the jobs in
Coles. There is also a developed image of the organisation as one of the retail giant that have
high pressure on its employees to meet the sales target (Mokhlis, 2014). Thus, such set notions

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regarding the image of the brand restrict several potential candidates to be a part of the company
sand develops recruitment challenges for the HRM (Lievens and Slaughter, 2016). To overcome
the recruitment issues and challenges related to the brand image of the organisation, there must
be initiatives taken by the organisation to develop an improved image in the minds of the
individuals by exhibiting robust career opportunities to them as well as providing them with
several growth and personal development opportunities so that they can get attracted towards the
retail sector jobs too (Tang, et al., 2014).
Recruitment challenge: Cultural Diversity
The second key recruitment challenge faced by Coles is cultural diversity. As Australia is a
multicultural nation which has diverse cultural groups so there are employees who are nationals
as well as migrants. It results in increased difficulty for the organisations ton manage these
cultural recruitment challenges and issues. Because of increased cultural diversity in the
workforce, it becomes difficult to manage the workforce and the same can be identified in
recruitment process (Alexandre-Leclair, 2014). There are people who are from diverse cultural
backgrounds and the recruitment managers found it difficult to have an understanding of the
candidate because of diverse culture and this leads to rejection of some of the potential
candidates. Many a times, the individuals also face diversity related issues and do not associate
with such multicultural organisations because for the fear of losing their cultural identity
(Peltoniemi, 2015). To manage the cultural diversity related recruitment challenges, there is an
essential need that the employees must be offered with adequate cross cultural trainings so that
they can easily adjust in a diverse cultural environment. It is also necessary that adequate
discussions and feedbacks sessions must be there so that the issues and queries of the employees
can be resolved. Above all this, the first key step to be taken by Coles is to develop an informal
behaviour in the organisation so that the issues of cultural diversity can be resolved with
increased level of communication among the employees (Wilton, 2016).
Recruitment challenge: Shortage of labour Supply
The next recruitment challenge is the shortage of labour supply and increased demand for labour.
There has been analysed a sudden shrinking pool of labour in the regions of Australia. Due to
globalisation and expansion of the several other industries in the country, there is an increased
demand of the labour. In that situation, it becomes extremely difficult for the retail sector to fetch

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the attention of the employees and manage the demand for the labour (Cox, et al., 2016).
Because of unavailability or shortage of labour force, the business functions get affected and
such big organisations like Coles face issues in managing the extensive business operations in a
smooth manner (Atkinson and Storey, 2016). To eradicate the recruitment challenge of shortage
of labour supply it is essential that the company must add several rewards, recognition and
incentive programs in its remuneration plan to attract the potential labour. In the present
scenario, it is extremely essential to offer a work-life balance to the employees with adequate
incentives and wages for retaining them in the organisations. If Coles will offer such
employment benefits to the employees, then such shortage of labour supply can be managed and
more number of competent individuals will be applying for the work role in Coles (Weller,
2017).
Recruitment challenge: Competitive Business Environment & Talent Management
The next major recruitment issue faced by Coles is the competitive business environment and
talent management. There are competitive organisations that are offering higher remunerations
packages and employment offers to the individuals which are fetching the attention of the job
seekers. It becomes challenging for the company to retain the employees in a lesser package and
thus the there is squat pool of applications seeking job in the Coles. One of the biggest
recruitment challenges for Coles is inability to recruit competent, skilled and talented workforce.
The key reason behind this recruitment challenges is that in the retail sector it is not easy to
recruit such sort of candidates as the maximum of the employees are graduates or under graduate
(Sparrow, Brewster and Chung, 2016). Because of the lack of need of professional knowledge,
the employees with higher qualifications And higher competence are not recruited in such
organisations which lowers down the level of efficiency in the work because of less knowledge.
And thus, managing talent in Coles becomes one of the biggest recruitment challenges for the
HR managers (Coles Group Limited, 2017). To overcome the recruitment challenges of
competitive business environment and talent management, Coles must take use of employer
branding strategy. Employer branding can be understand as the approach of developing an
organisation or a company as the employer of choice from the perspective of a required target
group of employees where such individuals wants to employ themselves and retain for a longer
period of time. When Coles will invest time and capital on employer branding then there will be
higher visibility of the organisation as well as the pool of potential candidates will try to

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associate themselves with Coles. Thus, to sustain the competitive business environment there is
an essential need of employer branding by Coles (Tatoglu, Glaister and Demirbag, 2016).
Recruitment challenge: Demographic factors (ageing workforce and generation
gaps)
There are few of the demographic recruitment challenges also which are faced by Coles such as
the generation gaps and the ageing workforce. The Australian industries are suffering from a big
issue of ageing workforce which explains that there are employees in the organisation that are of
higher age group. These aged workforce lack innovative skills as well as there is low level of
zeal and enthusiasm to learn new and updated technology based operations. To attain improved
outcomes and better efficiency, Coles need workforce who are young and have fresh talent.
Thus, it becomes one of the key recruitment challenges for the company and its operations.
Because of presence of old age workforce as well as recruitment of young ones, there develops a
generation gap among the employees which gives rise to several issues and challenges at
workplace. Thus, use to autonomy of the older ones, the youth and young individuals do not
want to get employed at the organisation because of lesser chances of growth and success
(Schröder, Muller‐Camen and Flynn, 2014). To manage and overcome the recruitment
challenges of generation gaps and ageing workforce, it is necessary that Coles must take use of
various types of advertisements which can fetch the attention of the youth and young individuals.
These advertisements could be on social networking sites pr through campus visits to several
institutes so that the company can explain the significance and importance of the youth in the
organisation (Connell, Nankervis and Burgess, 2015). Once there will be understanding of the
importance of work role, there will be higher applications of youth for the jobs in the company.
secondly to manage the issue of generation gap, it is recommended that, there must be open
forum discussions as well as regular informal meets where the employees can have exchange
their ideas and develop a better flow of communication among themselves (Broadbridge, 2017).
Conclusion and recommendations
Managing human resource as well as having an efficient recruitment process is the two essentials
for any successful business organisations. Coles is a big giant in the Australian supermarket and
retail industry bit still it faces number of recruitment challenges and issues as highlighted in the

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report. From the insights and analysis, it can be concluded that to improve the organisational
performance, Coles is required to have an improved and better recruitment princess free of these
challenges. The issues such as shortage of labour, competitive business environment and talent
management acne b easily resolved by offering better employee benefits and higher wages and
incentives to the workforce. It is recommended to Coles Group that, it must pay higher attention
on the recruitment process by implementing better plans and policies for attracting the potential
candidates. The key strategy which can help Coles is expanding is visibility among the potential
candidates through various types of advertisements on diverse channels. The more visible the
organisation will be and the better will be the brand image of the company, the more competent
and skilled candidates will try to have association with the organisations (Lievens and Slaughter,
2016). Thus, it is concluded and recommended that Coles must use its brand image as well as its
sound financials for recruiting more number of employees which are both competent as well as
skilled for effectively carrying on the operations of the company with long term retention in the
organisation.

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https://www.coles.com.au/
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