Introduction
Hiring the right personnel who have skills and competency is an important task to ensure quality and efficiency in the company; however, the task remains a challenge for most human resources managers. The recruitment process is very complicated and at times companies hire other firms responsible for hiring manpower to act on their behalf. The workforce is so important to the company’s welfare since its effectiveness depends on the quality and skills of the workers. New ideas must be incorporated into the workforce so as to ensure that the firm remains dynamic and prosperous and that there are new ideas in human resource management.
Case study overview
When it comes to the workplace not everything will work as expected and for Carl Robins, the new campus recruiter for ABC, Inc., the dilemma occurred which required to be resolved fast. Being on the job for only six months, he decided to recruit new employees despite his inexperience. He beat all odds to successfully recruit the hires and went on with the process in early April. The new recruits were to work for Monica Carrolls who was the operations supervisor. He even set the expected time frame for the recruitment process of 15 new trainees and scheduled it to be on June 15 with the hires starting to work on July 15.
Carl Robins went ahead to make all the plans ready for the orientation of the new recruits while Monica Carrolls helped him with some of the plans but he had to organize other issues. Monica went to see Carl on May 15, she was to confirm whether he was still organizing and coordinating the training schedule, orientation manuals, and other issues for the orientation whereby Carl gave an assurance to Monica that he was to take charge and not to worry that he would organize everything in time.
Carl shelved the duties and got involved in other duties putting aside the organizing. This was not until Memorial Day the United States federal holiday which is observed on the last Monday of May that Carl remembered the process. When he checked the files of the recruits, there were various anomalies with the files. Most files with the applications were incomplete, and no recruit had undergone the drug test which was mandatory as per the company’s policies. This was a serious case and given the time limits, it would prove impossible to correct.
This made him tense and confused. He had made an error that needed to be corrected before the orientation of the recruits that was to be on June 15. This meant that he had 15 days left for the preparations and verifications of the recruits. After walking around for some time, he went back to the office and when he checked the training room which was to be used for the orientation, he realized that Joe from technology services was busy setting up computer terminals. Reviewing the schedule register, Joe had beaten him off on reservation of the training room for the entire month of June for computer seminars which was on a new database software implementation, a situation that brought a more serious deadlock since his plans were all set to fail. The company had already hired and the recruits were ready to report to ABC Inc. in less than two weeks while their documentation was not ready and there was no venue to train them. Carl’s mind was spinning with the question of the next move.
Case study analysis
When such situations occur, you can’t help but panic but what is required is to concentrate and work on the timelines and the outcome expected. Some questions have to be answered which are; what are the problems that will be there when the recruits don’t attend, and the human resource strategies and policies? (McNamara, n.d). This will help Carl to solve the problem so that it does not reoccur in the future. Moreover, there is a need to also answer why do these problem(s) exist? What caused them? What is the effect of the problem(s) on the organization or the relationships among individuals in the organization? Who is responsible for or affected by the problem(s)?
The problem is time management and proper planning. He was able to recruit new recruits but failed in the planning for their recruitment. Looking at this scenario, Carl had already been consulted earlier to make the necessary plans by Monica but he never headed to this. The recruitment of new individuals in ABC Inc never needed to be organized by a new recruiter without the help of others who were experienced. Despite being new, he went ahead to take a challenge that was enormous for him and above all, never dedicated his time to this task. What Carl never understood is that things never work themselves out but must be clearly planned and assigned and the time frame followed to the letter. Having recruited, he could have taken the initiative to organize for the training schedule, orientation, manuals, policy booklets, physicals, drug tests, and oral tests. This would have given him the chance to know the new recruits and gauge their credibility for the recruitment. He could have also got all the information that the company requires of the hires before they are recruited and trained. This portrays his incompetence in such a post or just his ability to assume things.
Having also known the recruits required training and they needed a venue to conduct the exercise, he needed to book the training room in advance to avoid embarrassments. At this time, he was just gambling with the availability of the venue which should not have been the case. Joe comes, in this case, to expose Carl’s weakness even on issues that require common sense. Joe can now not give up his computer training seminar already perfectly organized for an exercise that seems to be canceled or postponed.
If Carl was competent enough, he could have concentrated on the recruitment process since it was in his first recruitment process and fine-tune the details way long before a fortnight to the deadline. However, he should now concentrate on redeeming his image to the company’s management. He has several options to use with two of the decisions being most dependent. He can either terminate the exercise or let it go on with relevant adjustments included. If he chooses to terminate the recruitment process he must explain his termination that the recruits never met the standards expected by the company. Conversely, if he decides to continue with the process then he must be committed and sacrifice most of his time to the process. He first needs to recall all the new recruits and let them fill the duly required forms. This will help him have all the necessary paperwork needed for the orientation. In addition, this will enable him to know the recruits in person prior to the orientation. If the drug screens are not ready in the due time, he has to caution the recruits of the repercussions of not passing the drugs screens. He also needs to organize the orientation manuals and policy booklets before the day arrives.
As for the venue, he can start by knowing the policy of the company and whether there may be other venues present. Monica might help in this case since she seems to be an older employee who has knowledge of the company. If another venue is present then it can be used otherwise Carl should go for other options. These would include hiring a venue outside the company’s precincts to hold the training. This would be dependent on whether the company is ready and willing to part with the amount to hire the venue. He can also convince Joe to change his venue to another place leaving him to use the training room for the orientation.
While the above explanation remains the options that Carl has, it also requires him to be very careful at any given moment not to leave out anything unattended so as to make sure not to repeat the mistakes he made earlier. This may prove to be very tight for him though it remains his only option.
Conclusion
Recruiting new employees is tiresome and tasking and sometimes may be very expensive. The changes in the work environment and enormous competition have made the recruitment of effective staff a gambling process. Each company should strive to maintain its integrity in the market. The human resource department of ABC Inc should be united in the recruitment process and ensure that it runs smoothly and effectively in the search for skilled and qualified personnel.
Reference
McNamara, Carter. (N.d.) Sample Case Study Report. Free Management Library, Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Web.