Research into an organisation

Gain an understanding of the recruitment process from an employer’s perspective. Employers are interested in candidates who are able to demonstrate clearly how they will fit into the organisation and meet the organisation’s needs. By taking on the role of an employer, you will be able to reflect on the implications of this assignment for preparing effective job applications. The ability to research an organisation in the manner set out in this assignment will also help you to be aware of wider issues in the labour market, which is an important part of career management. You are a management consultant. A colleague shows you a brief of an organisation that they are investigating. This is the organisation in Scenario A, B or C. You find the organisation and its issues interesting, and you decide to identify and investigate an organisation facing similar issues so that you can offer them your professional advice. Your task is to: i. Identify the key issues faced by the organisation, and any themes that are evident in the organisation’s current situation. ii. Identify a real world organisation that could be facing similar issues, and/or has similar characteristics (e.g. a fast-growing company in an innovative market sector). iii. Identify and research the sector your organisation is located in. iv. Analyse the cause(s) of the labour problem(s), primarily the skills gap outlined in your chosen scenario. This will contribute to the rationale for producing a new role. v. Propose ONE additional role with the aim of solving the problem based on your understanding of the skills gap outlined in your chosen scenario. vi. Propose appropriate Job Description and Person Specification followed by details of your recruitment initiative. Labour Problem Scenarios: A, B and C Scenario A Company A is an innovative payments company that was established 10 years ago and is headquartered in London, UK. The company’s CEO is a co-founder of the business, which he set up after building a payments operator business which was later sold to a big bank. The company is performing well, but is growing so fast that management constantly needs to reassess the skill set of their staff. The CEO observes ‘someone might be a great person for a role in 2016, but not 2018, because the job has changed so much.’ He further observes that: ‘I was once told not to hire a guy who had only started learning Java in his 40s. He became one of my top developers.’ This reflects the need to remain open-minded when searching for talent, even more so in a globally expanding business such as Company A. Recently, a Director of Strategic Planning and Business Transformation joined the team and has carried out a review and analysis of the company’s growth prospects. A few important findings were identified: • The CEO is keen to expand overseas, however the new director advises that this is often complex from a legal and regulatory perspective. The company needs to ensure that it has developed the right level of operational strength in the home country. • The company has built up volume with smaller customers, and is in the process of attracting larger ones, which is taking greater time and effort. The strategy requires patience and long-term vision. • In order to maintain key strengths of the business while taking on the challenge of future expansion, the company needs to constantly review its human capital. Although the company has an HR Department and recruits internationally, the Department is located in the UK Head Office. Most of the staff employed in the HR Department are HR generalists. As the company expands, the HR Department will need a higher proportion of specialist roles in relation to the generalist ones. A team has been put together to look into the findings established. If you were the leading this team, what role would you create for the HR team to address the problems identified and help the challenges of future growth? As part of your justification for the role, you may wish to think critically about the composition of HR teams. Scenario B Company B is a small, specialist car manufacturing company with production facilities in Wales, UK. The founders of the company all have a background in motorsport, and the company began by designing single seat racing cars for Formula 3 and Formula 4 racing. This line of business was not particularly profitable, so the company branched out into building ‘green’ vehicles. The company is currently developing fuel cells and composite vehicle bodies. One of the Board members has had a discussion with fellow Board members and has recently proposed some changes to the business model: • Replacing car ownership with a service contract model, rather like a mobile phone contract, whereby the customer pays a fixed rate each month and a mileage rate. • Creating a customer service centre to service the user contracts. • Review of stakeholder relationships to facilitate the drive to produce zero emissions cars. Although the Board is willing to set aside a budget to implement this new business model, the company is currently approaching the local county council about a new production facility for making zero emissions cars. This also requires substantial resources, and therefore any change to the business model must be carefully thought through and efficient. The Board member has invited a Human Resources colleague to look into the objectives set out and how to make use of the budget set aside. If you were the HR colleague, what role would you create for the Board to achieve the above objectives? Scenario C Company C is a loosely formed ‘company’. While it is an officially registered company with designated premises for training, it is in essence a team of 5 eSports players and a coach. The team has been playing in professional tournaments for just over a year with much success. The coach has been covering not only coaching but managing all commercial and logistic matters. With the recent success and increasing public interest in the team, they find that they are encountering the following problems: • The coach is constantly being distracted to deal with logistics, coordination and commercial issues, and cannot focus on training the players. • The games have become increasingly competitive and the demand on the coach is mounting. • With the recent success of the team, multiple sponsors have approached the team to offer support. Yet, the team is apprehensive about negotiating commercial deals with these major sponsors. • With the recent success of the team, few high-profile tournament organisers from Asia, notably in Korea and China, have invited the team to join their games. Due to the lack of time and communication skills among the team members, they have already missed one opportunity to join a major game in Hong Kong. • The Twitter accounts of the team players are experiencing a spike yet the players cannot spare enough time to respond to all fans’ tweets. Company C has saved up some prize monies over the year. They have also considered the prospect of securing sponsorship in the near future. They have therefore decided to create an additional role to solve the problems above. Company C does not have a HR department. However, if you are the HR expert friend of Company C, what kind of role could you help Company C create to address the problems they have encountered and help them develop their career?