Level 7 Advanced Diploma: Business Research in People Practice

This research project delves into the critical aspects of recruitment and onboarding processes within organizations, emphasizing their impact on retaining talented and skilled employees. It includes a project management plan utilizing a Gantt chart for effective task management and resource allocation. A literature review critically analyzes recruitment and onboarding concepts, current practices used by companies like Marks and Spencer, and measures to improve new employee satisfaction. The project further formulates research questions to examine current practices, the importance of improving recruitment and onboarding, methods used to enhance the new employee experience, and challenges faced in measuring employee satisfaction. The research aims to provide actionable insights for optimizing recruitment and onboarding strategies to foster a positive and productive work environment.

RESEARCH PROJECT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO1: Project management plan...................................................................................................3
Task 1.1: Explain how and why you chose the terms of reference for your project...................3
Task 1.2: Develop a literature review which focuses on the key people practice issues you are
investigating, and critically analyses a targeted range of literature from academic, professional
and practitioner sources...............................................................................................................3
Task 1.3: Devise one or more research questions to examine during the research and in the
final report...................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Recruitment can be defined as the process of seeking out, searching and hiring suitable
candidates for a particular job position within the business organisation (Angima and Carroll,
2019). Recruitment is an important part of the business because this helps in bringing more
talented and skilled employees for attaining the set objectives and goals. Whereas onboarding
can be defined as the process of introducing a newly recruited employee to the company norms
and regulations that they follow for managing smooth functioning of the business. With the help
of onboarding employees get to know about their new position and job profile requirements in a
easy manner for better growth and success. Employees are the most necessary factor of the
business which assist in achieving the high sales and profitability in the competitive business
environment (Czopek and Kazusek, 2021). Recruitment and onboarding helps in retaining and
sustaining employees in the business for attracting customers attention for contributing towards
the business.
LO1: Project management plan
Task 1.1: Explain how and why you chose the terms of reference for your project
The main purpose of the project is to understand about the concept of recruitment and
onboarding within an organisation for retaining talented and skilled employees. The research
project includes different activities for completing each activity in a proper and effective manner.
For completing the activities with the stipulated period of time, the researcher has used Gantt
chart for accomplishing the given activities according to the given plan and order. Gantt chart
helps in providing an overview about the activities of the research and how much time a project
will take, identify the resources required, and also gives order plan for carrying the activities in
that order (Palombarini and Martínez, 2022). It helps in determining the process of the project so
that they deal with the competencies related with the particular research project in an effective
manner. This helps the researcher in planning out work according the the given deadlines and in
allocating the resources properly.
Task 1.2: Develop a literature review which focuses on the key people practice issues you are
investigating, and critically analyses a targeted range of literature from academic,
professional and practitioner sources
Concept of recruitment

As per the view of Van Esch, Black and Ferolie (2019), recruitment is defined as a
systematic process of determining, attracting, interviewing, choosing, recruiting and onboarding
employees within the company. This process includes everything from identifying the need of
staff to selecting the best potential candidate for the specified job position. It is mainly about
finding and identifying the right and needed skills, experience for accomplishing the given task
in an effective and appropriate manner. Hiring the talented and best skilled employees proved to
be more productive and desirable for the company goals and objectives. Recruitment mainly
helps in dividing the number of received applications into different categories of over qualified
and under qualified individuals for the particular job profile (Lawong and et. al., 2019). Right
employees helps in increasing the performance and productivity of the business and results in
more growth in the competitive business environment.
Concept of onboarding
As per the view of Caldwell and Peters (2018), onboarding is important for an
organisation because it helps in introducing the hired employee to the company environment and
working structure so that they work in a more effective way. It also helps in engaging employees
in the business, creating workers that are actually committed in achieving success and retain new
employees in the business by making them comfortable with the other team members. Building
strong and effective relationship among employee and employer is the main purpose of
onboarding that helps in delivering better and sustained results. Helping new employees to learn
about vision, mission, strategic priorities and goals of the company is an important part for
gaining high growth and success in the competitive market (Morgan and et. al., 2020). Talented
employees are comparatively more productive and efficient in completing the given task of the
company as they understand and learn more effectively in reaching out the main objectives.
Current recruitment practices used by Marks and Spencer
As per the view of Roo and Newman (2021), there are different types of recruitment
practices that business organisation can use for promoting and hiring suitable individual for the
specified job profile designed by the employer. Direct advertising can be defined as one of the
prominent practice for recruiting candidates for particular job position. Placing job related
advertisements on job boards, careers site, social media and many more are different methods for
attracting large pool of talented applicants. Transfers and promotions is also an effective practice
of recruitment that helps in achieving high growth and success in the business market. Promotion

is having more responsibilities with good amount of package and transfer is handling more
precise position. Recruitment agencies also helps in attracting talented employees in the business
for the particular job position in a proper manner. These are found to be more productive for
filling out hard positions easily and for providing them with high growth and success in the
business organisation (Seraphin and et. al., 2022). Internships and apprenticeships is an effective
way to get to know about the strengths of the particular candidate and can be considered to be a
working interview. These programs are efficient in recognising the future talent and leaders in
the business organisation for attaining more growth and success in the future.
Measures related to recruitment and onboarding taken for improving satisfaction level of
new employed employee
As per the view of Kirchner and Stull (2021), there are some of the measures that help
Marks and Spencer in improving satisfaction level of employees who are newly employed in the
company for carrying out the business activities. Offering flexibility to employees is an effective
way for increasing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of employees to achieve the
predetermined goals and objectives. Providing training to employees is also important because
this helps in improving their level of knowledge and consistency to perform in a better and more
efficient way in the business organisation. Recognising and appreciating employees helps in
increasing their level of motivation for making them perform outstanding in achieving high
success and growth in the market for better growth. Providing rewards to employees is an
effective strategy that helps in delivering better results as they are actually appreciated for best
performance and this results in improving their performance level (Ghani and et. al., 2022).
Promoting social connection is necessary for building strong relationships with the employers so
that they achieve the set targets and coordination among the team members.
Task 1.3: Devise one or more research questions to examine during the research and in the final
report
Research question
What is the current practice they are using within recruitment and onboarding and how to
improve it all while measure satisfaction level of the new employee on the used recruitment and
onboarding methods?
 What is the concept of recruitment and onboarding in context of retail sector?

 What is the importance of improving recruitment and onboarding process for Burberry to
measure employee satisfaction within organisation?
 What are the different recruitment and onboarding methods used by Burberry to make
better experience of new employee?
 What are the challenges faced by Burberry to measure satisfaction level of the new
employee within an organisation?

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Angima, S. and Carroll, J.B., 2019. Recruitment and onboarding resources for Extension in the
West. The Journal of Extension, 57(2), p.7.
Caldwell, C. and Peters, R., 2018. New employee onboarding–psychological contracts and
ethical perspectives. Journal of Management Development.
Czopek, M. and Kazusek, M., 2021. Remote recruitment and onboarding of public
administration employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Business Informatics.
Informatyka Ekonomiczna, 1, pp.60-69.
Ghani, B., and et. al., 2022. Challenges and Strategies for Employee Retention in the Hospitality
Industry: A Review. Sustainability, 14(5), p.2885.
Kirchner, M. and Stull, F., 2021. Employee onboarding and satisfaction in US manufacturing
companies. Industrial and Commercial Training.
Lawong, D., and et. al., 2019. Recruiter political skill and organization reputation effects on job
applicant attraction in the recruitment process: a multi-study investigation. Career
Development International.
Morgan, P., and et. al., 2020. Emerging practices in onboarding programs for PAs and
NPs. Journal of the American Academy of PAs, 33(3), pp.40-46.
Palombarini, J.A. and Martínez, E.C., 2022. End-to-end on-line rescheduling from Gantt chart
images using deep reinforcement learning. International Journal of Production
Research, 60(14), pp.4434-4463.
Roo, A.C.D. and Newman, E.A., 2021. Best Practices in Recruitment. In Diversity, Equity and
Inclusion (pp. 1-10). Springer, Cham.
Seraphin, H., and et. al., 2022. Determining and making sense of recruitment practices for
tourism academics in the UK. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, (ahead-
of-print).
Van Esch, P., Black, J.S. and Ferolie, J., 2019. Marketing AI recruitment: The next phase in job
application and selection. Computers in Human Behavior, 90, pp.215-222.