Running Head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 1

Developing Human Resource Management Effectiveness

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Introduction

The current business market experiences several transformations intensified by the

ambiguity, anxiety and insecurity aspects of the industry. Therefore, human resource managers

play significant roles in the development of effective and firm strategies to ensure that

organizations retain their competitiveness in the industry (Morgeson et al., 2013). Nevertheless,

the intensifying fluctuations in the economy due to the growing competition cause various

challenges such as uncertainty experienced by the organizations operating in the industry. As a

result, these transformations challenge human resource managers in the retention of skilled,

experienced, and lucrative labor forces. While, debates on human resource efficiency and

effectiveness intensify, findings have necessitated their presence (Marchington, 2015). An

efficient human resource is founded on implementing and executing strategies by putting in

place initiative that improve diversity and rewarding of the workforce. According to Kramar

(2014), the strategies and practices of human resource aims at supporting the programs that

improve the effectiveness of an organization through the development of clearly placed visions

and values. In addition, these strategies and practices provide aspects that facilitate improvement

programs in an organization’s effective policy development. Thus, this essay aims a providing a

context-appropriate approach that links the primary areas of human resource practice in talent

management to ensure the achievement and development and effectiveness in the service

industry.

Recruiting Process
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Recruitment is considered as the process that attracts an integral part of qualified

individuals in the labor market available to carry out the objectives of an organization with

maximum efficiency and effectiveness. The first step in the recruitment process is to decide

whether to post the position internally or externally. In the internal environment, it would save

time training and be a great motivational tool for current employees (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander,

2016). However, the recruiter would also have to back-fill that candidate’s position, and it also

may create animosity and jealousy in the workplace that resulted from the competition for that

position (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander, 2016). It is much less expensive to hire from within

because it saves on advertising externally.

Recruiting Tools

Organizations in the service industry through their human resource management conduct

job analysis approaches in identifying and recruiting suitable people for the different positions in

need of filling (Al-Kassem, 2017). Partnering with various associations such as employment

agencies provide the industry with a labor market from which external hiring can be conducted.

As such, when recruiting applicants an industry should address several elements which include,

the branding strength, the focus of the positions available, the location designated for the talent,

the methods suitable for recruiting, timing for recruiting applicants, and recruiting decision

makers (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander, 2016). These elements, enable the industry to identify

suitable applicants for different job positions at the right time and effectively.

To attract interest within the organization, recruiters need to focus on selling their

company’s work-life balance, career advancement opportunities, bonuses, equity and profit-

sharing, through approaches such as advertisements. This process involves reaching out and

attracting a supply of applicants from which the organization selects the most qualified
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individuals its capabilities for the job vacancies (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). Recruitment is the

first major step that businesses in the service industry need to engage for employee resourcing.

The internet has massively changed the external recruiting game in the modern day. It is

cheap, quick, easy, generates a wide range of applicants, has automated tracking and helps with

selection tests (Tedesco, 2018, slide 12). Therefore, the industry can utilize internet-based

approaches in recruiting suitable employees, such as social media, company websites, job

advisement sites among other relevant sources. Haq (2015) argues that the current labor market

extensively applies technological approaches in the recruitment process, thus playing a

significant role in facilitating the process.

Mariotti et al. (2017) states that industries in the international business environment

ensure diversity in the recruiting process by engaging and recruiting applicants from different

backgrounds. The endeavor is achieved through the use of differently available methods of

acquiring applicants including informal networking, social media websites, paid job boards, free

job boards, company websites and employee referrals.

Selection Process

Strategies for selecting suitable applicants vary between the various organizations and

industries in the labor market. Therefore, in their process, service industries choose from the list

of applicants who meet the selection criteria for the position that has been advertised. The

selection criteria methods include popularity, validity (a valid selection method measures the

qualities or characteristics that are supposed to be measured and should predict success on the

job) and reliability (the resource provided by the selection method should be consistent or should

give similar results under similar circumstances). As concurred by Armstrong & Taylor, 2014,

establishing a mutual expectation understanding between the employees and the organization
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forms the basis of the psychological contract. Hence, the employee understands what they

require from the company and what the company requires from them. Among the most common

selection approaches utilized by organizations are interviews.

Once the candidates submit resumes and complete applications, the next step in the

selection process is the screening interview. Screening is conducted by the human resource

management in a bid to identify suitable applicants. This contains basic questions to filter out

the less qualified candidates early in the process over telephone (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander,

2016). Then, a decision must be made for the type of interview. This can either be done

individually or as a team, with preset questions (structured) or unplanned (non-directive), and as

situational or behavioral (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander, 2016).

As a service industry business, Vodafone’s human resource department needs to use a

mixture of internal and external recruitment sources so as to maintain a high level of accuracy in

the process. The internal recruitment sources could be from transfers of employees from its other

units, promotions, and trainees. On the other hand, external recruitment sources can be from the

respondents to the advertised vacancies and from academic institutions. From these sources,

Vodafone will maintain a continuous influx of qualified staff while matching their abilities with

the objectives of the organization (Brewster & Hegewisch, 2017). Like other service industry

firms, Vodafone needs to use a selection criteria process that identifies the smartness of the

employees who are creative and aligns their performance with organizational mission and vision.

The organization should not focus on the experience of employees as a major criterion process.

This indeed will help to maximize the innovation of the employees to the global market.

Additionally, the company needs to conduct background checks, interviews and preliminary

screening for the selected candidates.

Employee Training and Development Process

According to Budhwar & Debrah (2013), training is a running activity that is directed

towards the acquisition of specific knowledge, skills and attitudes form immediate transfer to an

occupation. Therefore, training employees will assist the employees to increase their knowledge

in particular tasks in this organization. Training the employees is essential as it creates change in

the way the employees think and behave and enables them to work in more efficient ways. In

addition, training acquits the employees with their present and prospective jobs as well as

increasing their skills (Budhwar & Debrah, 2013). On the other hand, development is the

acquisition of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enhance an employee's potential and

capability to perform future jobs. In doing so, they equip them with adequate skills and based on

their areas of interests, an employee can choose and specialize in their areas of interests (Snell,

Morris, & Bohlander, 2016). Vodafone, through training and developing their employees will be

a stepping stone for their growth as it will identify, asses and help develop the skills of the

employees to ensure that their increase their production to facilitate the competitive advantage of

the organization.

Training and development can be done through credit coaching, skills application

workshops, and simulations on credit training.

Onboarding: Skills application workshops

As Marchington et al., (2016) purports, these are dynamic employee skills development

programs that are piloted by instructors and involves employees learning from each other. They

are built around the real-world case studies involving challenging business case events where the

trainees are required to make critical business-related decisions (Marchington, 2016). The role of
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the instructor is to guide the employees in asking the expected questions so that effective and

proper decision making and analysis can take place.

Content and Delivery: Placement and Induction

Once Vodafone has selected and trained the employees, the management then needs to

focus on placing them in the right jobs deemed fit for them. They are placed appropriately based

on their applications and the selection process. For instance, an employee with qualified

information technology skills will be placed in an IT department. After placement, the

employees are inducted to know their roles and responsibilities as per the organization’s policies

(Storey, 2014). This will place them in a position where they can learn, grow and eventually

choose and specialize their areas of interests and expertise thereby increasing the performance of

the organization.

Additional Training

Succession Planning

The executive management of Vodafone has a key responsibility of ensuring that they

plan for the succession of their management in case of retire, death or the top managers leaving

the organization. Therefore, they need to select individuals with adequate skills, those that are

promising and train them to adequately fit in the shoes of the top managers long before they are

separated from the organization (Armstrong, 2014). Through succession planning, the employees

can choose and specialize in their areas of interest as they are trained to be leaders.

Evaluation
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According to Morgeson (2013), human resource managers will need to conduct a

continuous evaluation of their employees to determine their knowledge, skill, and attitudes over

time. This could be done through psychological tests and questionnaires. Evaluation is essential

as it assists the managers to know the state of their employees and if need be, place them in

different departments for improved performance (Morgeson, 2013). In addition, evaluation is

crucial in the determination of the productivity of the organisation and whether it is performing

according to the set goals and objectives for it to remain competitive in the market.

Performance Management

Setting Goals

According to Kramar, career planning refers to the process through which an employee

becomes aware of the personal skills, interests, knowledge, acquires information about

opportunities and choices, identifies career-related goals and establishes action plans to attain the

set goals (Kramar, 2014). Vodafone's management has a significant impact on employee

performance by establishing a clear and effective human resource development. The organization

has the responsibility of ensuring that employees understand and develop their skills and make

the best use of these skills while in the organization and even after leaving the organization.

Monitoring Performance

Vodafone's management enhance the development of their employees’ performance by

overseeing their training and ensuring that it improves their skills, knowledge, and experience.

Additionally, monitoring the employees is crucial as it helps detect the skills gaps and the

weaknesses. During the monitoring process, the mentors assist their trainees to identify specific

weaknesses and the effective ways to address those weaknesses (Renwick & Redman, 2013).
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Upon the determination of gaps in skills, the management then needs to provide improved

development approaches in enabling the fulfillment of roles effectively (Snell, Morris, &

Bohlander, 2016). Once Vodafone advances the level of training, this, in turn, will add more

benefit to the organization as the employees will be aware of what to add to the table and

improve their performance.

Credit Coaching

According to Purce, this program is important as it empowers the internal coaches in their

credit skill sustainment, the development of credit culture and transfer of knowledge. This

program is set to operate in specific time making it inconvenient to some employees. Therefore,

to ensure every employee is satisfied, the management should introduce a spaced repetition

learning which helps people to learn at any time and in any device (Purce, 2014).

Conclusion

This report aimed at forming a human resource strategy that could help Vodafone which

want to set up a call center operations unit in Guildford, United Kingdom to remain competitive

in the dynamic world of business today. It has been argued that to manage talent in the

organization, Vodafone needs to engage in several human resource practices. This include, a

comprehensive recruitment and selection process, training and developing the workforce,

motivate them through giving rewards and incentives and evaluating their performance for gauge

whether the organization’s purpose is working as planned. Based on the conducted research, it is

evident that adhering to the above human resource practices, Vodafone will ensure that it retains

and manages its workforce effectively, thus ensuring the efficiency of its human resource

management in hiring suitable labor forces. To increase the competitive advantage of Vodafone,
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it is suggested that the organization musts have an aligned strategic vision. By having a vision,

the organization will have a clear indication of where it is heading and what type of workforce it

needs to get there. The human resource managers need to review the current vision and

determine the human resource practices that will support the vision.

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