An Analysis of Leadership, Recruitment, and Teamwork at Avon Company

This report offers a comprehensive analysis of leadership, recruitment, and teamwork practices within the Avon Company. It begins by examining the company's recruitment process for an Area Manager position, detailing eligibility criteria, legal and ethical considerations, and the stepwise decision-making process. The report then delves into leadership qualities, differentiating between leadership and management roles, and exploring leadership styles such as democratic and transformational approaches. Furthermore, it discusses the application of motivational theories, particularly Maslow's hierarchy of needs, to enhance employee productivity and performance. The report also highlights the benefits of teamwork within Avon, including building trust and improving work quality. Finally, it presents a case study involving the selection of a candidate, addressing potential biases and conflicts in the decision-making process. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of effective leadership and recruitment strategies for organizational success.

WORKING WITH
LEADING PEOPLE

INTRODUCTION
Every company needs skilled, hard working and qualified employees as well as manager
in their organization in order to achieve success in the market and earn profit. Working
efficiently in the organization than others need kin focus and concentration. Further, working
with leaders help employee to achieve target and goals of organization easily. It creates positive
work environment and contribute to the success of the organization. This report comprises study
of American based company Avon (Alter, 2013). The firm is based on selling women's
cosmetics. Their selection criteria and recruitment process selects the members who can be
effective and productive of the organization. Moreover, other criteria and factors should also be
included such as legal and ethical terms to get better work environment. Also at certain situation
they should be able to make decision and adopt leadership qualities.
TASK 1
1.
In 1886, Avon was established by David McConnell. It's the most finest and productive
company in producing and serving cosmetic products like perfume, creams etc. For effective
working of the organization, company is planning to recruit a Area manager whose post is vacant
at working area. For the selection criteria, Human Resource Department needs to identify the
effective and productive candidate for the company through their assessment process. At Avon,
HRM have mentioned some selection criteria which are needed to be fulfilled by candidate in
order to get placed.
Details about Job offered
Firm name Avon Company
Designation Area Manager
Location UK
Reports to Director

Roles and responsibilities  Candidate should be able to set sales volume for certain
time period.
 Potential to take important decision to increasing the
revenue and profit in the organization
 Creating an effective workplace for other staff members
and inspire them to be more productive (Bell and
Blanchflower, 2011).
 Motivating then to work effectively and in team work to
promote bond and strength between staff member.
 For further improvement of employees, organise regular
training and development session.
Eligibility Criteria for selection
Qualification Post graduation in MBA from recognized college with 75% in HR
department.
Demography No defined boundaries.
Age Age limit should be 25 to 45 years.
Skills and abilities  Interpersonal and communication skills should be fluent and
efficacious.
 Self motivated and positive in every situation.
 Leadership qualities are highly recommended.
Work Experiences Minimum 4 years experience in HR department.
1.2
For Avon to get successful and developed in market, the recruitment and development
process should have procedure which follows the legal terms and conditions of organization.
This is required to reduce the risk factor. The organization should ensure and consider all
possible regulatory and legal aspects into consideration during the selection process of
candidate. For effective work environment in company, qualities like ethical factors should be

considered in recruitment process. All the decision for selection criteria are made by the HR
manager so the mentioned should follow all the legal aspects. Consideration for the final
selection shouldn't be based on the discrimination factor regarding sex, race and religion.
Decision making should be fair in all aspects (Cameron and Green, 2015). Furthermore, the
regulations such as racial relation act, employment quality regulation, gender discrimination etc.
need to be practised at the workplace so that no one is exploited in any means. These regulation
are necessary and required to be practised in the organization. Additional it adds the trust and
confidence in the candidate which will result in more applicant applying for the post.
1.3
Decision making should be efficient in recruitment process, this duties should be
performed by the HR manager in the efficacious manner. HR manager at Avon are following
certain steps for the selection criteria for Area manager which are mentioned below:
 Beginning for the selection process will be based on the job description and specification
to be distributed according to preplanned structure. Through this step the needs and
requirement required by the candidate can be assess for the selection procedure.
 Second steps is to advertise and promote through media and other form is done. This will
lead to attract more candidate from different places to apply for the post of Area
manager.
 Next step is about choosing the right candidate from the bulk through the resume
analysis. This step is done to confirm that they qualify the prescribed specification as
mentioned in the criteria.
 In the forth step, candidates are evaluated by certain test like aptitude, physical and
physiological tests in order to evaluate the knowledge, skills and behaviour of candidate.
 At last, interviewing is done. It may include technical and non-technical questions. Also
it determines the communication, interpersonal and intrapersonal skills which post
requires. Finally selected candidate is given post and asked to join the organization
(Cummings and Worley, 2014).

1.4
Stepwise procedure for selection process is a great responsibility for HR. Sometimes
biased decision making can be there. Sometimes relatives or family member are working in the
same organization, so some priority is given to those candidates. At times decision are made
against the acts of discrimination. Here caste, creed, gender, race and religion are considered.
Many times decision are made on the experience basis which neglects the more talent and
qualified person for the post. This are all false belief that they can have better assistance in
achieving and acquiring the goals. All this spoils the image of organization and create negative
image.
Such procedure should not be attempted and necessary steps are too be taken to overcome
such issues. Recruitment along with selection process should be effective and updated according
to situation. HR should follow the legal rules and regulation in order to take honest decision and
work smoothly (DiPaola and Tschannen-Moran, 2014). As a senior manager, all the decision
taken by me will not unfair and discriminated.
TASK 2
2.1
Leadership quality are required too be effective concept for the organization. An efficient
leader will easily manage more group of people in proper way. These are the important points
that are required and considered for being effective leader:
 Efficient communication skills- Leader must have good command over communication
skills as they are the sources to bring the stakeholder to the organization .they also need
to communicate with other higher authority members of the organization. Avon business
completely depends on the selling the product so their communication skills need to be
perfect.
 Motivating the employees- Sometimes situation are there when employee needs
motivation for completing the task and increase the productivity. Leaders needs to adopt
related theories in order to inspire the employee to be more innovative (Ford, 2014).
 Interpersonal skills- As leader need to manage the group of people to achieve the target
and goals they should have effective interpersonal skills.

2.2
There is little difference between the leadership role and management role. Leadership
can be defined as the ability to lead the employee to perform the particular task. While
management refers to manage, organize and control the employee. Further there differences are
highlighted in the given table:
Leadership Management
Leadership is required to lead the group of
people and motivate them to achieve the
objectives.
Management role is to direct, manage and
allocate the task to the employees with a
purpose to coordinate and acquire the goals
They needed to make important decision of the
organization
Final decision are taken by the management
They need to identify different ideas and
create new methods that can be helpful and
productive to the organization
They identify different strategies and follow
the policy of the organization for better work
place.
The various styles under this are democratic,
participative, consultative etc.
In this the styles included are dictatorial,
authoritative etc.
2.3
Leadership qualities that Avon leader need to adopt should be based on the situation that
company is facing. Through this style the employee can be motivated and inspire to be more
productive and targeted towards the goals (Goetsch and Davis, 2014). Below here are the
qualities which are possessed by the leader at Avon. These are :
 Democratic style- In the democratic style all the employee are free to take active
participation in the decision making for the benefits of the organization. This makes the
employee to understand organization values and provides positive impact on the
employee performance
 Transformational style- This is the new strategy adopted where employee can be
suggest different ideas to the organization in order to improvise at certain sectors. This
also provides motivation in order to perform more difficult tasks.

2.4
In order to be more productive and improved performance there is need to adopt
motivation and inspiration theories in the organization. For this purpose, Avon adopted the
theories of Maslow's which is to motivate the employees to be more productive at their work.
This theory also includes dealing with the psychology of he employee which basically contain
five needs of the employee. Those factors which are needed for motivation are mentioned
below:
Needs Elements to fulfil the needs
Physiological needs Basic salary, drinking water, rest
Safety needs Job security, safe workplace
Belongingness needs Encourage teamwork, Develop relationships
between staff members
Esteem needs Bonus, incentives, appraisals
Self-actualisation needs Promotion, increment
Fulfilling this demands Avon can ensure high productivity and performance level of
employees.
TASK 3
3.1
For being productive and completing the task at the required time Avon team approach is
highly appreciated (Griffin, 2013). Whole team of Avon works hard to achieve the goals. For the
instances following are the benefits which the organization gets from team work:
 Builds trust- Group task can help you to gain trust on each others. It will also increase
the performance level of the individual and promote the others to work. It create the
bond between the employees and reduce s the conflict in the improve the work
environments.
 Enhance work quality- Working in the group will reduce the individual effort and and
will result in the higher performance level.

3.2
For recruitment process, Avon determined the necessary documents which contains the
required selection criteria. For the job Area manager in Avon, the minimum requirement is 4
years of experience and need to have the score 75% in MBA. This are the minimum qualification
of the company which are required for the post.
Further, for the specified post two candidates Mr. A and Mr. B have applied for the post.
Selection criteria can be based on different criteria along with various process which assess
different qualities of the candidates. Lets assume Mr. A has been selected then, they must have
qualified through the assessment process in terms of qualification, experience and characteristics.
By checking that Mr. A has experience of 5 years and that too from reputed company will bes
preferred more as he is more appropriate. Company approaches to the final candidate by
analysing complete details about the candidate; Mr. A fulfil all those demands.
Sometimes during the time of final decision making, due to same qualification there can
be issue in selecting the accurate and correct member for the post. The reason can be same
mentality and perspective. Such situation creates conflicts. As being the Senior sales officer and
final decision are too be made by me, some people made the contradictory statement that
decision made by me is biased towards a single person. In order to resolve this issues we
approached to the higher authority and than fair decision was made according to him (Lev,
2013). At last also, decision made by me was appreciated and they also supported it. Finally Mr.
A was selected.
3.3
Working in the firm like Avon feels greats and the work environment is also too
favourable. Team work has contributed many times in the success of the organization and
growth in the market values with better outcomes and profit margin. Moreover the team work
can be accessed through the enhanced in the sales and share market values of the company. It
can be easily observed that firm gets benefited financially and enjoys the benefits with the
employees. Team work has made the management create better and effective work environment.
This has created improvement in the performance level and time taken for completing the tasks.
At Avon the bond between the employees and other members has created positive impact and
has lead the company to achieve the success levels. The organisation is achieving great profit ,
market values and revenue which ensures the long term benefits of the company (Longoni,

Golini and Cagliano, 2014). It will also reduce the conflicts between the workers and can even
provide different solutions to the problems that might generate. Due to team work at Avon
worker are free to provide their suggestions and feedback to the company and other workers.
4.1
Their is great need accessing of work performance of the workers working at the
company. Various methods are adopted by the Avon in order to assess individual employee
skills, performance, weakness and also their requirements. Listed are the elements which are
required for the planning and monstering of employee performance :
 Feedback- Through this formal way the view point of the workers is collected in order to
evaluate the demands and needs to improvise in them and increase the performance of the
company.
 Learning styles- Organisation should able to make the employee understand about the
work style and guide them in understanding their capability. So the manager role is to
guide and ensure the needs and demands of the people and to suggest them new ways to
understand the work environment (Mendenhall and Osland, 2012).
4.2
An important aspect for the Avon is to evaluate the development needs and demands of
the workers and employees in the organization. Thus given below are the stages which are
required in the assessment needs of the area developmental demands of Area manager

Illustration 1: Stages involved in assessment process
(Source: Bell and Blanchflower, 2011)
4.3
For assessing the success of the organization as it plays the important in evaluating the
efficiency of the organization. These are the methods followed by the Avon Company for the
assessment of company's success rate (Neck and Manz , 2010).
Benchmarking- In this the company determine the standards which need to be achieved by the
staff members. Moreover the company employee needs to perform the task in proper standards.
At last the performance is evaluated through the previous performance and variations in both is
estimated. Where ever the performance is lacking worker needs to focus on those areas (Parris,
and Peachey, 2013).
CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned report there is important role of leading people in the
company like Avon for improving the efficiency of the employees in efficient manner. This is
achieved in order to achieve the goals and targets of the company. Further, for HR plays main
role in the recruitment process and many strategies are adopted I order to get right candidates for

the position. Also leadership role is recognized in the report which demonstrate the role of leader
in the organization. Along with this them work must be appreciated and promoted in the
company to create bond between the members of company. More the performance and
development level of one should be assess and guidance should be given to them to achieve more
and perform in effective manner.