The mistakes that Lynn had made, as a manager of the Total Sports branch in Nottingham, were mistakes that were unprofessional (Freeman, 2003), and could have been easily avoided. By reading the case study, one can see that Lynn was an established employee of the Total Sports network, and had a positive attitude of the workplace and her job. Through this essay, I shall identify and criticize the mistakes made, and outline in detail the steps she should take in appointing a new shop manager. I shall briefly outline her mistakes before continuing.
Some might say the first mistake made, was hiring a friend (Fulcher 2000). This is, generally not advised as a friendship may complicate matters in the workplace (Fulcher 2000). And as Lynn discovered, found it hard to dismiss Shelly. Another point, is that she immediately phoned Shelly without considering any other options, such as internal recruitment. Even though Lynn did not approve of the Total Sports Shop, she should have still taken the idea aboard and tried to make it work, in the interest of the Sports Club and its employees – and should that not be an option, voiced her opinion to the head office.
From now on, I shall discuss how the process of Recruitment and Selection will help her in the appointing of a new shop manager. Barber’s (1998) definition of recruitment is as follows; ”Recruitment includes those practices and activities carried on by the organization, or on its behalf with the primary purpose of identifying and attracting potential employees. ” Selection of the best person from among many good candidates is a difficult task. Accordingly, several devices and techniques have been created to assist in the decision.
To avoid hiring the wrong people, Lynn needs to develop an employee selection system. The process is set in steps that must be followed, in order to make sure errors are kept at a minimum. The stages are as follows. (York University 2003) Job Vacancy, Job Description, Specification of Attributes Required, Advertising, Shortlisting, Interview, The Selection Decision, The Appointment. The vacancy; Lynn has acknowledged that there is a vacancy, and wishes to fill it. Before the recruitment process begins there are a number of factors that need to be considered.
One such factor is to determine what the parameters are. E. g. Full time/part time, wage, etc. In order to obtain the ‘best’ potential employee, Lynn must have a clear idea of what she considers best. Job Description; The main purpose of this stage of process is to ensure that the duties of the job have been defined and the qualifications, skills, experience and personal attributes necessary for satisfactory performance have been analyzed. Specification of attributes required; Having decided what the job is, the next step for Lynn is to specify the attributes required to fill in the post.
The specification of attributes required aids the shortlisting process and avoids poor and unfair selection. The main factors are: a) Knowledge and Skills – What are the essential skills required for the job, What skills are desirable for performance of the post, it is important to identify ways of testing and measuring relevant skills. b) Experience – Lynn should specify what degree of experience is necessary for the job. However, experience gained in other environments, not necessarily paid employment, may well be transferable, and this must be taken into account.c) Education and other qualifications:
A manager of Total Sports is going to need to have formal qualifications, as some form of proof that he/she may carry out the job listed. d) Personal Factors: If there are any personal factors relevant to the performance of the job, such as team working skills, or someone with good PR skills, it would be useful if Lynn listed these, as it would help with the shortlisting. Advertising the post; Potential candidates may come from an internal evaluation of Total Sports, or from the external job market.
The latter are reached through channels such as recruitment advertising, employment agencies, professional associations or word of mouth. Alan Price (1996), states that the approach differs according to the organization’s resourcing philosophy: ”-Organisations with a strong culture are likely to see malleable new employees at school leaving or graduate levels. More senior jobs are filled from the internal market”. ”-Companies looking for the ‘right’ person however may rule out internal applicants because they do not match the personnel specification prepared for the job. ”
As stated by Alan Price (1996), Lynn should rule out internal applicants, since the rest of the staff are most probably physiotherapists, sports masseuses, or nutritionists… who may not possess the necessary skills. The are two other forms of recruitment, informal, and formal. Through informal recruitment, word of mouth is the most popular way of getting ”the word” out about the job vacancy. This would not suit Lynn very well, as word of mouth restricts applicants to established communities and excludes recently arrived groups who have not become part of the informal networks (Carroll M. and Marchington M 1999).
On the other hand, it may be better than formal advertising which is achieved through open and public recruitment through advertising. At higher levels, such as management, the informal method is known as head hunting or executive search. This way it would be a form of shortlisting in itself and would eliminate time wasters. In fact head hunting is probably the most popular method of job hunting, as shown below. An international survery of 17605 outplaced executives conducted by Drake Beam Morin in 1999 found that networking was by far the most popular method of job hunting, outranking all other methods.
In fact it was mentioned 5 times more frequently by respondents than any other method, including search firms, advertising or the internet. (Drake Beam Morin 2000) Shortlisting; Once applicants have applied for the job, a shortlisting procedure must take place, in order to remove the unsuitable applicants. This is usually carried out through a telephone interview. The shortlisting should be based on how far an individual application meets the requirements of the job description and person specification.
The criteria used in shortlisting should be justifiable in terms of the job, have objective validity and apply equally to all candidates. Interview; After the shortlist has been created, an interview must be arranged so that the final 3-5 applicants may be interviewed so that the best candidate may be discovered. The type of interview most frequently used is called an unstructured interview (Barclay M. Jean 1996). As the name suggests, an unstructured interview is a rather casual, loosely organized conversation between the applicant and the interviewer.
The questions asked are likely to vary from one applicant to the next, and from one interviewer to the next. In contrast to the unstructured interview, there is the less frequently used Structured interview. Here the interviewer has a fairly well-established format or outline of questions to pursue. Despite evidence over the years discrediting the interview as an effective selection technique, studies show that it is still the most popular selection technique in Britain (Robertson and Makin 1986).
One reason as to why the interview technique is still in use is that interviewers maintain great faith and confidence in their own judgments and create and ‘illusion’ of validity. (Einhorn and Hogarth, 1978) The Selection Decision; Once all the applicants on the shortlist have been interviewed, in a non prejudiced manner, the candidate who is seen to be ‘best’ for the job is chosen. Lynn would need some one who could start work as soon as possible as she would have been without a proper manager for a couple weeks, and business would have fallen behind.
