Human Resources Case
Human resources is important in small or sizable business. A small business with few employees may not have specialist human resources staff. Recruitment and management are carried out by line managers. Larger businesses may have an HR specialist or department to oversee and coordinate their employee management policies and procedures. Even when a company employs an HR specialist, it is the line manager who has day-to-day responsibility for implementing HR initiatives.
Challenges
A small company with few employees, due to business expansion, needs to hire 3 additional engineers to cope with the business needs.
In the past, candidates were not active in responding to hiring advertisements. So something needs to be done to improve the situation.
Upon discussion with the chief technical manager, the company planned to hire graduates studying electronics or computer science and candidates have specific knowledge of certain computer programs. The manager wanted the new hires to perform immediately in line with his requirement as his plan was to put new hires immediate to the field work due to lack of manpower.
The chief technical engineer shared the information provided is practical for hiring of staff man. Since he is a technical professional, he concentrated to provide technical information rather than giving simple and straight forward information as customers who needs technical service will have both business and technical people to attend meeting so this is useful for his sales meeting as well.
Solution
Shared with the chief technical manager the below:
a) Suggested newly hired engineers working in the company for about a week with on the job training before putting to the field.
b) Recommended advertisement with expectation of work performance description in addition to character and attitude requirements since the past advertisement just mentioned 3 technical requirements.
c) Worked out PowerPoint presentation based on information provided to show potential candidates (can also serve as sales tool):
• Company background and strengths
• Specialization (ATE, CBM and Industrial Automation)
• Planning to cultivate people in a good working environment to inspire and excel
• With good performance, career path can be upgraded as Senior Engineer or Project Engineer eventually Project Manager
d) Recommended to put company performance, future prospects and industry specialization (such as specialized in software and hardware integration monitoring system for public transport, medical and health system) rather than just an electronics company in the previous advertisement. Also added company planning to develop technical and management talents to grow with the company.
e) In addition to company benefits, emphasized young and energetic team with good working atmosphere for new hires to grow
Impact
The company hired 3 engineers in a month.
Contributor’s Bio
Samantha Lee is currently the Head Consultant of a boutique consultancy. She has over 20 years of management experience. She worked in big brands like Polo Ralph Lauren, DKNY, adidas, as well as thriving SMEs. Her footsteps treaded across Asia, and went as far as Africa. Her expertise brought the lecturing opportunity in a government-funded VTC institute.
(guest post from my earlier blog in 2017)
