Recruiting guide
Qualifications and skills required to obtain the job: experience of working in retail and skills of providing customer service. A chance of quick promotion to managerial positions for college graduates and the candidates with work experience in retail.
Relevant labor market: Candidates from Oregon and Washington
Activities to undertake: use such methods as media, referrals and employment agencies and kiosks, which means placing a position advertisement in the local newspapers for job seekers, radio stations; collecting referrals from within the company, getting in touch with employment agencies and utilizing kiosks as the means of job opening advertisement. During the recruitment it is important to emphasize that culture is vital for Tanglewood employees and that embracing the culture is the best way to fit in. Besides, the recruiters are to shorten the hiring process in order to address the hiring lag.
The staff involved: HR managers, shift leaders and department managers.
Budget: $2500-6500
Using targeted recruitment means evaluating only the candidates fitting certain parameters and reporting specific qualifications and skills required to obtain the job. To attract a particular kind of candidates (for example, college students or people with disabilities), a company is to design a targeted message, in which case the number of applicants will be not very large (Heneman III, Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller 226). In the case of Tanglewood, the targeted recruiting method is the use of employment agencies which will process the characteristics of all the job seekers, select the ones whose qualifications fit into the requirements of Tanglewood and direct them to the company.
As for the open methods of recruitment for Tanglewood, they compose the other means such as the advertisements placed in media, and company referrals. Open recruitment methods will direct all kinds of candidates to the company HR recruitment managers who will have to interview them and select the ones whose characteristics seem especially promising and suitable for Tanglewood and its culture. Using open methods of recruitment Tanglewood would obtain more candidates, and this improves its chances of acquiring a suitable number of employees and address understaffing. There is one challenge concerning open methods of recruitment, which is the large number of applicants making the recruitment process rather lengthy and increasing the hiring lag that results in the loss of candidates.
Yet, this issue can be addressed through the realistic recruitment message. The candidates could be informed about the benefits and disadvantages of the job they are applying for, and then decide if they would like to pursue it. This approach could shorten the process of recruiting and allow the HR managers of Tanglewood to work with a larger number of applicants. Integrity is one of the most important features an applicant must have in order to stay at Tanglewood. In my opinion, the company needs to emphasize open methods of recruitment just because its main focuses are the reduction of turnover and the preservation of the internal culture. This way, loyal and devoted job seekers willing to stay at the company for years should be prioritized over the ones with higher education or experience of work in retail because an inexperienced employee can be coached by their supervisors, whereas integrity and loyalty are traits that would be much harder to develop in an individual
The four methods of recruitment utilized by Tanglewood include media, kiosks, staffing agencies and referrals. The preferences of these methods vary among the regional branches of Tanglewood. At the same time, some of the branches do not consider media as a good way of attracting new candidates. According to the historical data, media is the least efficient method of recruitment for Tanglewood, it provides the biggest number of applicants, but only few of them end up being suitable for the position of store associate.
Staffing and employment agencies work differently and distribute mainly the candidates qualified for the job description, so the number of applicants sent by them is relatively small, but many of them end up hired. Kiosks work according to the same principle as media advertisements, but they have a significant benefit – the job presentation conducted by means of kiosks is much more detailed and relevant, besides, it may be deigned based on the message the managers and recruiters would like to send out. This way, kiosk is a good way to target qualified candidates. At the Northern Oregon branch the managers consider referrals an unreliable and “touchy feely” method of recruitment and choose not to use it at all (Tanglewood Case Three: Recruiting 6).
It is important to mention that none of the regions employ all of the five methods listed in the case and only Western Washington uses four. The one method used by all four regions is kiosk, but when it comes to the combination of the other methods – the divisions have different variations. The one method ignored by the four divisions is job services. Based on the retention rates and costs per hire referrals seem to work the most effectively.
Even though the managers of North Oregon Tanglewood branch reject referrals as a recruitment method and consider it “touchy feely”, for the other regions this method seems to work well and provide good results. In my opinion, calling referrals “touchy feely” is inappropriate because they have several important strengths. First of all, the references come from within the company, which means that the trained and experienced professionals familiar with the specific culture of Tanglewood and its internal processes decide to recommend certain candidates.
This means that the recommended candidates have spoken with the employees of the company, familiarized themselves with the duties and job requirements, and the information they learnt did not come from the internet or their own beliefs, but was delivered by the workers who know the company very well. Examining the rates of one year retention among the employees hired through this method I noticed that out of 300 hired individuals 200 end up working for the whole year. Based on this variable, referrals are the best recruitment method concerning the minimization of turnover, especially when the company is expanding that its internal culture is threatened.
Tanglewood experiences a rather normal turnover rate for a retail business. Yet, this issue is one of the most serious concerns of the company’s leaders. According to the statistical data, approximately half of the store associates hired by Tanglewood would leave their jobs within the first year of working. High rates of turnover destroy the company’s culture and negatively influence its system which is based on sufficient number of store associates staying in the company long enough to get promoted and move on to a higher position such as shift leader. This way, the company does not only need qualified employees, but also is in need of loyal team players.
Moreover, Tanglewood requires a lot of employees to choose from. In order to minimize the costs of the recruitment process the system of attracting new employees should be made more centralized. At the moment, the company utilizes four different methods of recruitment and each of them requires investments. According to the historical data, media advertising is one of the most expensive methods, especially when it places job advertisements in the internet. Besides, this method attracts a lot of workers which are unqualified and are likely to turnover within the first year due to the lack of experience of working in the sphere of retail or the understating of Tanglewood’s culture.
Based on this information, this method of recruitment can be considered as the least cost effective. At the same time, referrals seem to be a very effective method to maximize retention which is very important for the business. This way, the branch in the Northern Oregon is recommended to add this method to its recruitment process, while the costs spent for media advertising could be cut. As a result, the company will attract fewer employees unsuitable for the position of a store associate, the message sent out by Tanglewood would be more to the point, the recruiting process will be trimmed, which will reduce the hiring lag.
A realistic recruitment message for job associate must include the information that it is at the very bottom of the career, but also mention the perspectives of promotion. Besides it has to emphasize that the work requires skills of working with customers and that it can be tiring and take long hours. A targeted message is to mention that college graduates and people with retail work experience and point out that quick promotion to the leadership position is a real perspective. Brand message will focus on the importance of culture in Tanglewood, and mention the integrity is rewarded, and that the loyal workers have a build to develop great careers, learn new skills and grow as professionals becoming more influential within Tanglewood.
Works Cited
Heneman III, Herbert, Timothy Judge and John Kammeyer-Mueller. Staffing Organizations. 8th ed. 2012. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Print.