Essay: Impact recruitment and selection

Introduction

It is no gain saying that the impact recruitment and selection could have on the finance of an organization could be unpredictable depending on either it turns out good or bad, which will inevitably affect the reputation of the organization both internally (staff, stakeholders) and externally (potential staff, customers and other stakeholder) “High-performing employees are great to have around. They hit targets, add value, contribute to the organization overall and inspire others” (Leslie McKeown 2002). The research will case study a call centre in the United Kingdom, a call centre is and can be used as an interface between the organization and its customers, it is an organization’s system that carry out “well specified transactions, to generate sales or to provide solutions to and advice on quite complex and technical issues” (Catriona M. Wallace et al: 2000)

Recruiting into an organization is not about where the organization is at the moment it should also be bothered with where the organization is planning to be, therefore the management of the organization in this case the human resource management team is entitled with the responsibility of ensuring that the recruitment and selection process is one which displays these and one which incorporates the necessary and important policies to ensure safe delivery of these policies. However the percentage of turnover recorded in call centre as a sector according to the CIPD survey in 2005 was 36.7% of which voluntary leavers resulted in 33.7% of that, and this subsequently reduced significantly in 2009 to 34% out of which voluntary leavers was just 19.2%.

Recruitment and selection is not only about choosing the most suitable candidate, it is also about building an effective central workforce. The process will also impact on the candidate not only in making the decision to accept the job offer but also the subsequent commitment of such work force or individual to the organizational goals and objectives. Recruitment and selection process has over the years had various models and theories which will be discussed in this study, in relevance to their effectiveness in enabling the organization reach its preferred goal at recruiting the most appropriate candidate to the appropriate jobs. The research will also explore the areas whereby ineffective recruitment and selection process can have substantial effect on the organization. This research will inevitably critically study the various regulations guiding the recruitment and selection process and the bodies that affect it.

Research methodology

Often research process take either the primary data collection or the secondary data collection. The primary data collection involves all data collected empirically and analysed or interpreted, methods include observation, Focus group, Personal interviews (one-on-one), for collection of in-depth information telephone interviews/surveys, self-administered (mail or Internet) surveys, while the secondary data collection involves; research based on the work of others, texts that interpret or comment upon primary sources, "Secondary data not only offer advantages in terms of cost and effort, as conventionally described in research methods books, but also that in certain cases their use may overcome some of the difficulties that particularly afflict business ethics researchers in the gathering of primary data." (Journal of business ethics 2004).

The research will approach this study with secondary data collection; data will be gathered through the electronic sources, such as e-journals, e-books, articles, websites and related texts, also a short one-to-one interview will be conducted with six employees of the organization, three of which have worked with Ventura O2 before and three of which are still working for Ventura O2), also human resource websites will also be explored for information on surveys and analysis up until the recent times.

Due to the time factors and the coverage of the research it will be unrealistic to embark on the primary data collection process which involves comprehensive interviews, surveys, distribution of questionnaires, analysis etc.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The strength of every an organization lies in its workforce so is the successful and the achievement of every set goals and objectives. The identity of such will also be determined largely by the kind of people being recruited into the organization, at every point in time, therefore recruitment of skilled and effective workers is an important step towards creating workforce development issues within an organization. The importance of getting the right people into the right position in an organization is not only for them to remain in the organization but also to add value to the organization by increasing your pool of potential employees – meaning you get the best person for the job build the morale and productivity of your employees, minimise complaints, disruptions and legal wrangles – so you can get on with work, add to your bottom line and build your reputation in the community.

It is a good place to give relevant definition to the various terms necessary in this research, understanding of the meaning of recruitment and selection will help giving more meaning to the research. Recruitment is the process of identifying the fact that the organization needs to employ someone up to the point at which application forms for the post have arrived at the organisation it is also “recruitment is the process of identifying and attracting a group of potential candidates from within and outside the organization to evaluate for employment”( Paul R. Bernthal, Ph.D.), while selection then consists of the processes involved in choosing from applicants a suitable candidate to fill a post it also means collecting, measuring, and evaluating information about candidates’ qualifications for specified positions.

The recruitment and selection process is the most critical future investment and a decision making process which we engage in attracting the best talent into our organization. The selection process consists of several critical steps in ensuring we don’t only attract the best capacity in the industry, but we provide them with most exciting and challenging environment to work in. Organizations use these practices to increase the likelihood of hiring individuals who have the right skills and abilities to be successful in the target job.

The figure above display the a typical form of which an organization takes in recruiting staff into the organization, at times this may all be present depending on whether the organization is recruiting for a top post or a high managerial position, if this is the case it will be advisable for such organization to put into consideration the whole model above. This can be likened to the classic model-core employees, described by McKeown, he believes that core employee needs to be hired using the standard hiring model and it works best in situations where

Senior management appointments- need for the full time attention of the person

Core activity- a situation where the activity is core to the central purpose of your organization

Proprietary activities- where there are trade secrets intellectual copyrights that you wish to keep internal within the organization (McKeown 2002 :124).

There are two ways of selecting candidates into a post and these are internally and externally. When an organization is recruiting internally, it entails filling the vacant post with existing staff members in the organization, this however has its upside and down side which has to be considered and this include, one of the advantages of internal recruitment is that it saves a lot of cost in the sense that the person who is already in the organization is already familiar with most organizational principles, therefore the management does not need to spend too much on training of such individual, while the most important downsize is that, this form of recruitment may affect the motivation of other staff members who think they are also entitled to this same promotion and also decision on who to promote to the newly vacant post.

The external recruitment on the other hand is the process of actually advertising a vacant post to the general public and receiving application from a wide range of applicants, this kind of recruitment brings new ideas and fresh experience into the organization one of the biggest downsize is that it can cost between £3,950 and £4,625 (CIPD 2005), and the company may eventually employee the wrong person for the job or at least people who are not as sound or appropriate as they appear to be on paper.

Therefore it has become more important for organization to up their stake as to recruit and select the right candidates for the right positions in the organization, this however can be a bit difficult based on various research carried out by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD), the following include the reasons behind the difficulties faced by organization in recruiting the best candidates for the job: lack of specialist skilled required, lack of the experience required, desired money could not be offered to candidates, no applicants applying for positions, image of the sector/occupation, high cost of leaving in the area and lack of required formal qualifications (see appendix 1).

Research has shown that most organization tailors their own recruitment and selection to suit the position they are recruit for, which may be different from each other depending on the level of the vacancy. This is to ensure that the recruiting for this position the organizational culture is maintained in process of recruitment and selection

Table 1. Use and effectiveness of various recruitment strategies

*Note: 1 = Not Effective; 2 = Moderately Effective; 3 = Very Effective

Labour turnover, this is the rate at which people leave an organization or are made redundant in an organization and more people are being recruited into the organization, this may seem not to be an important aspect of an organization or may seem not to be affecting the organization as such, because it is inevitable, and some organization may not consider it, but for organization who wants to reduce it, it is an area to focus on. Where there is high labour turnover, the organization is faced with loss of knowledge and skills and the effort of achieving organizational aims and objective may be undermined and in a situation where it is too low, it may result to stale business performance and there may be limitations to business growth (CIPD 2009).

The CIPD records 15.7% as the median labour turnover in 2009, this is a significant reduction, compared to that of 2008 which was 17.3%, this could be attributed to the economic situation at the present moment as 75% of respondent to the CIPD survey are ready to stay with their organization. In call centres, the opposing goals of efficiency and excellent service are both central to call centres and since the number of “completely satisfied” customers is one of the few predictors of long term profitability (Jones and Sasser, 1995), therefore, they manage to combine both the efficiency goal and the excellent service goal in order to meet up with their target. 

Excellent service is achieved through the supportive management of employees, as the employees are critical to service delivery; there is a requirement to have employment security, extensive training and decentralized decision making (Pfeffer, 1998). Given the working condition within some call centres, one could argue that it is hardly surprising that high employee turnover rates are a trade mark of the industry, particularly in the UK. (Carol Boyd 2003: 131), although research have shown a subsatncial reduction in the turnover rate in the call centre industry over the years this is not to say that, number of employee who leaves the organization voluntarily is in reduction, according to Callaghan and Thompson 2001, calls centre have the worst rate of sickness and non-attendance due to stress. You don’t want people shouting at you all day. Your line is active at all times.

To provide a competitive level of service and quality, Lawler (1986) argued that a firm’s HR strategy should be centred on developing skills and ensuring motivation and commitment. This is especially so when emotional labour is required (Gutek, 1995, Hochschild, 1983). In call centre excellent service is delivered through personal efforts of front line and not through managerial intervention. In call centres, the technology is still used to track productivity gains while the service is assured through personal commitment of the employee. In this way both service and efficiency is achieved, but at the expense of both physical and psychological well-being of staff members. Therefore the front-line managers need to pay more attention to “managing one’s own emotions and being aware of others’ emotions in forming effective relationship” (Gareth Robert, 2005:66) which will enhance the achievement of the efficiency and excellent service objectives of the organization through the agents.

Background to Ventura (the outsourcing expert)

Ventura is an outsourcing company employing about 8,000 staff for its large scale call centres spanning across the UK -one of the largest customer management outsourcing- with another branch in India, managing over 80 million customer contacts for 28 private and public sector organizations each year, the main outsourcing the organization performs include: Customer management,Debt management and Document and payment management. The organization manage a wide range of clients ranging from telecommunications i.e. O2, orange to other sectors such as Sky, Google, British Gas, Next and the department of works and pension, iYogi also signed contract with Ventura early this year.

The customer service provider boost itself on providing a high level of quality service and at a reduced rate compared to its competitors, Ventura has also grown over the years and this growth has encourage the establishment of a new contact centre in Pune, India, so as to enhance the delivery of the quality service at a reduced rate to the client, the recruitment of educated and committed agent into the organization who will consistently generate target customer satisfaction scores is of utmost importance, this is majorly because like any other contact centre, Ventura as an organization has a target to reach for its clients, this target is broken down into the various department in the organization which is in turn broken down into teams and each team members has a target to reach in order to ensure a realistic achievement of these set targets. However if this target is not met Ventura does not get paid by the client which in turn affects each agent within the organization.

The organization describes its benefit to its client as follows:

• Premium quality customer service at a low cost through greater availability of agents in Pune.
• Reduced agent turnover as a result of Pune’s well educated and committed agents.
• Better management and depth of understanding of the clients’ business.
• Being able to meet overtime requirements at a lower cost.
• A multi-skilled workforce. (See appendix 2).

The activities of agents range from taking inbound calls, processing orders, making outbound calls, managing customers email etc (see appendix 2). The contact centre has 560 agents who manage 250,000 customers and 240,000 pieces of administration each week.

Recruitment, selection in Ventura

Ventura is one of the large contact centres of its kind in the UK; therefore it provides a lot of job opportunity for people, considering the number of client the organization outsource for, it will be discovered that the need to recruit suitable staff member is inevitable in the organization the question therefore is, if the organization being a contact centre of choice and one of largest of its kind, what are the steps taken towards the recruitment of suitable candidates to fill in the post, and it is also found that the organization keep recruiting people into its workforce. The recruitment practise with the organization can be termed as best practise.

As an organization Ventura employs the internet (company’s website) and employee referrals, also apart from potential employee sending their resume through the company’s website, they could also call a phone number for a telephone interview, after they have passed this stage and have been selected for interview they will be contacted for a one-to-one interview, which include a competency based interview, with five different competency based questions, testing for the candidates level of maturity, emotions, communications skills, how to deal with difficulties (people) etc, candidates experience in the field or related field will also be checked alongside credit check (CRB). If the candidate passed the interview stage, then the offer is made and a date to start will be agreed and so is the shift. On the other hand if the candidate failed the interview, it will be advised that, the organization will be in contact. Although according to the research carried out by Bernthal Paul “ability tests (mental, clerical, mechanical, physical, or technical) are used by 52 percent of organizations.” The weakness of this practice is that people can actually pretend to be what they are not during the interview and the stress of not getting jobs elsewhere because of the global recession can actual make the desperate candidate turn-out to be an appropriate candidate, it is now of utmost importance for human resource managers to be able to distinguish between these set of people and the actual people who could be right for the position.

After the selection has been made and the training started, candidates will be exposed to the working systems of the organization, both technically and other roles which include the acceptable way of talking to customers, colleagues and leaders and so on. The training program ranges from three to five weeks, (which is paid for). After the completion of the training, the candidates is taken on the floor and the normal customer service process begins, although necessary help is provided to the new recruit at any point when it is required, they encouraged to put into practise what they have learnt during the training. The benefit of working at Ventura O2 include the fact they provide shift pattern ranging from 7 hours a week which can be suitable for students up to full time shifts. The pay is also above the minimum wage, also agents are entitled:

A competitive salary is the starting point, but you could be enjoying much more than you’d expect:

• Minimum 30 days holiday (including 8 public holidays)
• Next company pension scheme
• 25% Next discount card
• Next Staff Shop – Leeds, Hepworth House & Dearne Valley have heavily discounted onsite shops
• 30% O2 mobile phone discount
• Childcare vouchers
• LHF Health plan Onsite parking for car owners Gym membership for staff at reduced cost Relaxed dress code principle
• Life insurance
• Share save scheme Life insurance
• Share save scheme
• free employee assistance program – independent & confidential advice and support service. (www.ventuta.co.uk).

The recruitment and selection process of Ventura O2 has been successful as it tends to easily attract people, as this gives it an edge over its competitors, it may also be a downside to in, in that it may be factor that will enhance application even from non credible applicants, and if the selection process is not of good and efficient quality the wrong people may end up getting the job and this will invariably lead to staff turnover as these people find out that they cannot do the job.

Survey

A one-to-one interview was conducted with six employees of Ventura O2 three of which were past employees and three are still working with Ventura. This was done so as to ensure balance and avoid bias in the response of the individuals. The initial sample was 8 but due to time constraint, it was impossible to access all the people because of their own private life and time for other things. Snowball sampling was also used this is majorly because of time constraint and as it seems difficult to get people to talk, snowball sampling will give referrer and the referred the ease to talk. The same question was posed to all the interviewees, in order to avoid inconsistency and bias, it took an open ended format to answer each question, giving interviewee the opportunity to give full answers to their satisfaction. To enable for accurate usage of time, 5 to 7 minutes was dedicated to each question. The interview covers staff who has been working in the organization ranging from 4 years to 6 months.

Findings

It was found from the interview that general working at Ventura is very stressful as there is pressure from team leaders as target of selling product and services are set for agents to meet. 33.3% of the respondent thinks that the target set for agents can be met and are within limits, 66.7% believes that the target set are not reasonable as it is not possible to sell things to customers who does not want to such product, more over it is meant to be customer service and all they need to is deal with customers problems and request and not to sell product to them.

However whole people interviewed believe that working at Ventura O2 is very stressful and leaving in a place outside of Dearne Valley is not advisable for anyone who wants to work at Ventura O2 as it can be more stressful to get to work and actually such a person would have to set off for work like about an hour on both bus and train to get to work especially if such person stays in a place such as Sheffield, but if it is a person who drives it can be quite convenient.

66.7% of the respondent enjoys having 30% off all O2 phone contract, Next discount card and a good pay at the end of the month, 16.7% thinks that it is only the good pay that is beneficial and the fact that you can get convenient shift. 16.7% of the respondent does not see anything beneficial in working for Ventura O2 as the level of stress is too high in the contact centre.

50% of the respondent does not see how the training program is relevant to stress management, and says it is only about the systems being used to add value to the customer service and nothing to do with stress management or anything related to that, 16.7% of the respondent believes that the training program was not sufficient and information given during the training was incorrect as the training program was about customer service but they were asked to make sales once they get on the floor or after the training

66.7% of the respondent says they would recommend anyone to work at Ventura O2, while 16.7% says they will recommend anyone to Ventura only if they can cope with stress, 33.7% of the respondent says that they can never recommend anyone to work for Ventura.

Report

It is evident from the interview that call centre can be stressful. This is evident in the reply of all the interviewee and according to the discussion of Callaghan and Thompson 2003, mainly because agents have to satisfy the customers’ needs and work towards the target set for them, which ranges from time spent on calls to actually how many successful sales they have make in the case of Ventura O2. Apart from this, emotional labour is another aspect of stress that can be faced in the contact centres as agents have to be friendly over the phone to customers no matter what they might be going through emotionally. Ventura 02 being an outsourced maintain itself from the contract it has with its clients (which is O2 in this case), therefore target set by O2 for Ventura must be met in order for the contract to be active and necessary fees paid to Ventura out of which agents’ salaries will be paid, in other words anyone who wants to work as an agent must be ready to meet the target set for Ventura by O2.