Best Practices in Recruitment, Selection, and Talent Retention Report

This report provides an executive summary of recruitment and talent management, emphasizing the importance of effective HR practices for organizational growth. It explores best practices in recruiting, selecting, and retaining employees, focusing on tailoring applicants, highlighting company culture, and creating efficient interview teams. The report uses Sainsbury's as a case study, evaluating its current recruitment, selection, and training policies, and identifying both strengths and weaknesses. Recommendations include screening candidates based on skills, promoting internal talent, and improving the website's application process. The report suggests implementing programs for employee engagement and offering suggestions for recruitment and selection procedures. The analysis aims to provide actionable insights for enhancing talent management within organizations.

RECRUITMENT TALENT

Executive Summary
Deploying the right candidates at the right job at the right time is a key role of Human
resources Management of any organisation whether international or domestic. Effectual
employees contributes to the growth and performance of an organisation. HR department by
recruiting the best employees help an organisation in attaining its goals and objectives. The
report provides with the best practices that can be used by HR team for recruiting, selection and
retention of employees in the organisation. Sainsbury is a MNC in UK that is listed in new york
stock exchange. Company has more than 9250 employees across all its stores. Thus, recruitment
practices that is currently being used in Sainsbury has been explained along with identifying
pro's and con's of its recruitment process. Further recommendations have also been provided.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Using good practice....................................................................................................................1
Critical evaluation of practices undertaken by Sainsbury...........................................................4
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
There are many organisations at different level in a country. Out of which some shows
tremendous growth while some are suffering from huge loss. The reasons behind the success of
an organisation can be many, but the main and most considerable factor that facilitates growth of
a business unit is the efficiency and effectiveness of employees. Therefore, employees act as
main pillar to the success of organisation. This increases the importance of recruiting and
retaining the best workforce at the business place. Here comes the role of Human resource
Management of an entity. HR of any organisation is responsible for the recruitment of the best
candidates with high skill and motivation factor as the employee's of an entity. Retaining
engaging and attracting best and talented employees is not an easy task. Therefore, HRM of a
company need to experienced and talented with new and attractive ideas in order to have the best
efficient employees for an entity. The report focuses on the practices that should be used by HR
in order to attract and retain calibre employees by taking an example of Sainsbury. In this report
practices that are used by Sainsbury will be critically evaluated along with providing suggestions
and recommendations.
Using good practice
For an effective and best management practices, there is need to hire the best quality
employees with an optimum fit. Following best practices should be used by HRM in order to
employ the best candidates: Recruiting talent Tailor applicants: the first step while recruiting and finding the best fit includes tailoring
the applicants as per the need and requirement of the organisation. This could be based on
required skills and educational background. Social recruiting tools can also be used. Provide a space for candidate information: allow candidates to create and maintain their
career and personal profile information at the company's website (McCracken, Currie and
Harrison, 2016). These profiles can further be saved by the company as a data base that
can be used when required.
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 Highlight company culture: Culture that exists in an organisation can have a significant
impact on the decision of a candidate. Therefore, it is the duty of HRM to highlight the
culture of an organisation including vision, mission and values, position and facilities that
are offered to employees. Selecting talent Interview team: Create the best interview team that have diversified knowledge as per the
field of applicants that have been tailored in the above process. Pre-Interview process: Conduct an initial interview of all the candidates on the basis of
their background, behaviour and desire from the job and screen the best among them. Qualifying test: After the initial selection of applicants on the basis of initial interview,
organise a test for all the remaining candidates (Kang and Shen, 2017). Set a benchmark
and select candidates who qualified the benchmark. Final Interview: Final process of selection need to be the final interview of qualified
candidate. This should be based on the values of candidates, their work experience,
knowledge and skills. Final selection can be made after this.
 Training and development practices
Training and development practices are essential in order to maintain and increase
efficiency and skills of employees. Thus, the focus of HRM should be using of best practices that
adds value to the skills of employees. Following practices can be used: Strategic driven training programs: all the training and development programs must be in
line with the strategic vision of the organisation. Trainers should closely interact with the
employees in order to ensure the success of designed and implemented programs.
Learning and business objectives also need to be aligned, to make training more relevant. Criteria to determine success: A criterion should be set to measure success of training
programs (McCracken, Currie and Harrison, 2016). Success can be measured by return
on investments at-least once in long term or short term. Programs should be re-evaluated
on regular basis.
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 Learning by doing: Employees can maximise their potential with the best programs by
self-development and self-training. This can be done by identifying their own needs,
creating learning opportunities and by providing individual learning programs.
 Retaining talent
Retention of employees in an organisation is a key job of Human resource management
of an organisation. Often HRM of an entity fails to retain calibre and efficient employees and
only focuses on recruiting new candidates. Practices to be use to retain employees are not taken
as seriously as other functions of the organisation. Therefore, HRM should focus more on
retention of employees (Moye, Mueller‐Hanson and Langfred, 2017). Following can be
considered as good practices to retain skilled employees and avoid employee rotation: Creating a vital culture: As already discussed that culture of the company has significant
impact on the decision of employees. In order to work efficiently, culture of the
organisation should be soothing and inclusive. Engaging employees rather than Preaching: Employees should be engaged in decision
making process by taking their valuable suggestions and acting upon them as long they
are in the interest of the business rather than preaching employees about a work is
supposed to be done (Presbitero, Roxas and Chadee, 2016). Identifying top talent: Entity should make efforts in identifying top talents that are crucial
and essential for the betterment of the organisation. This can be identified by various
factors of the employees like their punctuality, seriousness, sincerity and through key
performance indicators.
 Providing Motivation in a positive manner: Motivation should be provided to employees
on regular basis to maintain their efficiency of work. Different employees work for
different motives like economic benefits, recognition, growth and career advancement,
etc. therefore, motivation should be provided as per the desire of employees.
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Critical evaluation of practices undertaken by Sainsbury
Sainsbury is one of the largest supermarket chain in UK with headquarters in Holborn
Circus, London. The company is listed in London stock exchange and is also presented in FTSE
100 index. Sainsbury is a big organisation and has number of employees at different stores.
Company is growing every year, employees and staff of Sainsbury plays an important role in the
growth and development of Sainsbury. And so it increases the need to retain talented and skilled
employees.
HRM of company provides its applicants equal opportunities to be treated in same way
(Moye, Mueller‐Hanson and Langfred, 2017). The company promises to keep their information
secured with extreme care as it believes in respecting the privacy of employees. They have a
policy to store the information of applicants for a limited period if the applicant was not
successful in his initial interview (Sainsbury human resources strategy analysis, 2017).
Recruitment, selection and retention policies used in Sainsbury
 In saisbury recruitment is the process to have a right person at the right place. It is seen
important not just for HR team but also for the line mangers due to their increasing
involvement in selection process.
 They have practice to certify their all recruitment tools and are regularly reviewed in
order to ensure fairness and reliability.
 HR team of the organisation feels that development and maintenance of their employees
are more essential than recruitment of new employees.
 They focus on engaging their employees around the goals and objectives of company and
also ensure to provide them plenty of opportunities so that they can achieve their
potential.
 They have a practice to advertise their vacancy at their official website i.e.
www2.sainsburys.co.uk. In this, applicants have to fill a form while applying for a
vacancy.
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 Form includes personal information of candidate like name, address, DOB, marital status,
qualification, employment history, 2 reference contact information, etc.
 This information is then used by HR Team to process recruitment procedure.
 Initially they contact applicant to discuss their application via telephone or email. And on
getting approval they start further process of selection that includes internal record
keeping, completing their legal obligations and finally if applicant is successful they his
recruitment records.
 It is practice of Sainsbury to appoint employees two months before their actual
requirement in order to provide them training. When a job advertisement is posted by HR department, adherence to the following anti
discrimination laws like Race relation act, 1976; Age discrimination regulations, 2006;
etc.
Evaluation of sainbury's current policies:
Current policies and practices that is being used by Sainsbury for recruitment, selection
and training of employees has been discussed above. It is a fact that no organisation is perfect in
all of its functions as no person is also perfect in performing each kind of task. Thus, policies and
procedures of Sainsbury have some effectiveness along with some setbacks. Following are the
efficiencies of company's current practices:
 Recruitment policy of Sainsbury i.e. right person at right plat at right time is effective and
shows company's ability to understand what type of employees are required at what time.
 Policy of retaining information of unsuccessful candidates for not more than two months,
helps HR team to not maintain long data base's that are not useful for a longer period.
This in turn increases their efficiency.
 The policy of providing training to employees in the initial two months adds value to
their employees.
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 Certification of their recruitment tools enables them to treat all candidates in a fair
manner.
Along with these efficiencies, some drawbacks have also been identified which are as below:
 Practice of providing employment to the employees before two months of recruitment
can negatively impact the company in various ways like, it increases the cost of company,
employment will not be effective if vacancy or requirement doesn't arise.
 It was found that there was in recruitment process of company. Screening candidates by
organising a written test was not found in its recruitment process.
 No option for uploading resume and other documentation was found in the website of
Sainsbury along with the form of applicants.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Above analysis of recruitment, selection, training and development talents that a HR team
should have for attracting and retaining calibre employees provides with various
recommendations:
 Candidates should be screened on the basis of their skills and talent, sometimes
employees with less educational background could also have the best skills and talent
required for the job.
 In order to appoint employees at upper level, HR team should first consider promotions
within the organisation and then if necessary should hire other employees.
 This increases motivation among the employees and also enable them to work more
efficiently.
 Recommended recruitment and selection procedure:
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Illustration 1: Recommended recruitment and selection process
(Recruitment and selection process, 2017)
From the evaluation of Sainsbury's current practices for recruitment, selection and
training of employees few drawbacks have been identified. Following are the recommendations
for same:
 Company need to provide space in its website that allows applicants to upload their
resumes and other documentation. This will help the company in maintaining data bases
in more easy manner and for longer period. This will be feasible for applicants also as
they don't have to submit the hard copy of their document along with them at the time of
interview.
 It is also recommended to the HR team of the company to initiate some programs to
increase employee engagement. From this employee's will feel more motivated and
ultimately there will be increase in the performance.
 Practice of appointing employees two months before their actual requirement increases
cost of company but training is essential as well. In this case policy could be altered to
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appointing of employees a month before. Through this alteration, cost can be managed
and required training could also be provided to employees.
CONCLUSION
Employees are the main pillar of an organisation and appointment and engagement of
employees is the main role of Human resource Management. Attracting employees and retaining
them for longer period is a talent of HR team. From the above report it has been concluded that
in order to improve the performance of an organisation and increase in market share, high skilled
and talented employees are required. Attracting new employees is not just enough, selecting the
best among them and retaining the calibre employees is more important task of HR department.
The whole process of recruiting, selecting and retention of employees has been explained by
taking example of current practices of recruitment in Sainsbury company that is situated in UK.
Recommendations have also been provided for the same.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
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Management: The Price Waterhouse Cranfield Survey. Taylor & Francis.
Garavan, T., Watson, S., Carbery, R. and O’Brien, F., 2016. The antecedents of leadership
development practices in SMEs: The influence of HRM strategy and
practice. International Small Business Journal. 34(6). pp.870-890.
Kang, H. and Shen, J., 2017. International Training and Development Policies and Practices.
In International Human Resource Management in South Korean Multinational
Enterprises (pp. 85-112). Springer Singapore.
McCracken, M., Currie, D. and Harrison, J., 2016. Understanding graduate recruitment,
development and retention for the enhancement of talent management: Sharpening ‘the
edge’of graduate talent. The International Journal of Human Resource Management.
27(22). pp.2727-2752.
Moye, N., Mueller‐Hanson, R. and Langfred, C., 2017. Assessment for Leader
Development. The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Recruitment,
Selection and Employee Retention. pp.353-375.
Presbitero, A., Roxas, B. and Chadee, D., 2016. Looking beyond HRM practices in enhancing
employee retention in BPOs: focus on employee–organisation value fit. The International
Journal of Human Resource Management. 27(6). pp.635-652.
Online
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