1. Introduction
Human resource is pivotal for every organization. Talented workforce is essential to meet organizational goals and achieve competitive edge in the industry. Every company needs to recruit right people for the right job and retain talented employees for strategic talent management. Employees are considered asset of every organization because without having required KSA (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities) in workforce, companies cannot execute policies and utilize resources for optimal benefit. However, the advent of globalization has increased the competition among not only multinational companies but has also triggered race of capturing target market among local businesses. The challenge of talent management, efficient recruitment, strategic employee retention, and prevention from high turnover prevails in local as well as multinational businesses.
1.1. Aim and structure of the report
In this report, resource and talent management strategies are studied to manage diversity and adhere to flexible working initiatives in my previous organization. I was an employee of Majid Al Futtaim which is a multinational organization that operates in western as well as Middle Eastern countries. The organization manufactures and supply apparel for women, men, and kids and is popular among respective fashion industry by names of Jane Norman, Lululemon, Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister. The business runs on global scale and is expected to give even tougher competition to renowned brands such as Zara and H&M. The report studies talent and resource management strategies of Majid Al Futtaim along with recruitment and selection policy and employee retention strategies.
2. Resourcing and talent management
Learning Objective: Play a leading role in the development and evaluation of resourcing and talent management strategies, diversity management, and flexible working initiatives
Resource and talent management strategies are designed to manage the existing resources of organization in terms of manpower. The people resourcing strategy defines the need of resource and its specific type which is needed by the organization. Being an ex-employee of the company, I state that The Majid Al Futtaim pays attention to the resource strategy in order to manage the talent within the organization. Due to widespread business, Majid Al Futtaim is always in need of efficient workforce management policy that is implied to reduce turnover, job absenteeism, and job dissatisfaction issues. In order to manage employees through people resourcing and talent management strategies, Majid Al Futtaim uses the following policy.
2.1. Performance Management, succession planning and career development
Performance appraisal is a part of resourcing and talent management strategy of Majid Al Futtaim. The performance management process is conducted on semiannual and annual basis to evaluate the employee performance (Price, 2011) . The management process assesses the loop holes in employees’ work and review the productivity rate. A typical performance management cycle is illustrated in the following figure.
MAF plans for reviewing employee performance. The employee is selected to determine the performance management technique and process. The company plans for the employee management by evaluating the recruitment position, the employee delivery of output, behavior, and overall workplace status. Job descriptions are reviewed and updated if required. Employees are evaluated in terms of given tasks and the performance output. Number of attended trainings, nominated rewards, workplace behavior profile, and other important elements are decided to begin with the management plan. The plan phase collates all previous data of employee in order to further decide for the management of performance that would result in managed talent and person resource. SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time bound) objectives are set to update the role profile of employee and bring the results of employee retention for the organization.
The act stage works on achievement of objectives that were established in the previous stage. The employee is assessed for the development plan which would bring change in his existing capabilities. The track stage assess and monitor the progress of the employee by obtaining information from various sources. The tracking of progress is made by getting feedback from employees who work with the person (Zaidi, 2009) . The feedback is used as a tool to assess the employee performance as well as behavioral issues at the workplace. The tracking phase also check the risk mitigation policy and obstacles to deal with the policy. The employee will be evaluated in the light of legal and official barriers that can be potentially hindering the employee performance. Coaching is also provided to assess strengths and weaknesses of the employee and adhere to the opportunity of career development under official support. The coach evaluates the employee’s potential and take suitable measures to guide the employee for future performance delivery. Coaching is selected for performance management because it is a convenient and low cost way to provide official support to the employee. The coach tracks the employee performance, identify vulnerable areas of the personality, and then decide about future career planning of the employee. The last stage is review of the plan and its outcomes. Review attachments, identify learnings, discuss career goals, and agree to actions are some key actions included in the stage. These actions determine the strategic position of the employee and manage the talent for organizational workforce strength.
Workforce diversity has generated more challenges to talent and resource management for organizations. Majid Al Futtaim utilizes the contemporary approach of “workplace culture” and “conflict management” by using the code of conduct for disciplinary purpose. Communication is established as a key to resolve the workplace conflict and manage the talent on the basis of merit. The parameters of performance management are defined by considering the diversified culture of the organization and its distinct needs. Since diversified workforce has different communication needs, the pattern of conflict management and workplace environment stability are handled through strict code of conduct. MAF adopts the disciplinary approach and devise a strict code of conduct to establish inter-employee approach.
Conflict management is conducted by using the empathetic approach for both employees. The talent management strategy adheres to the fairness and transparency rules for ensuring non biased trial of both sides and make decision on merit.
Talent management strategies at the Majid Al Futtaim involve the design and execution of work initiative policies. Being an experienced employee, work initiative evaluation reflects on not only employee’s personal capabilities, competencies, skills and knowledge but also reflects on his job motivation, satisfaction, commitment, and morale. The talent of workforce is shown by assessing the proactive approach adopted by employees in different situations in order to resolve the issue. The word “initiative” is used to show the first step taken by the employee in order to resolve the issue or begin with the work. The talent management strategy at Majid Al Futtaim utilizes the assessment of work initiative policy determined by the employee performance as well as his workplace behavior. The evaluation result reflects on the personal skill and capability of employee as well which is mandatory to know for the sake of future employee management plan.
3. Recruitment, selection and induction
Learning Objective: Manage recruitment, selection, and induction activities effectively, efficiently, lawfully, and professionally.
The management of recruitment, selection, and induction activities are essential to bring the required talent in the workforce. The design of recruitment, selection, and induction activities is customized to the need of the workforce. However, the parameters of fairness, transparency, and justification are standardized in each of the policy rudiment.
The recruitment and selection process is the beginning step of resource management strategy of Majid Al Futtaim. Recruitment process defines the need of job, design job description, conduct job analysis, and hire right people for the right job. The selection phase choose the best suitable candidate who seems capable of meeting the job requirement. Recruitment process is designed as per the type of the job and need of workforce. For example, if MAF needed a line manager, the required candidate should have certain years of experience (minimum level decided by the company), required academic knowledge and specific interpersonal skills. However, in case of a computer analyst job, the company might need to take the test from candidate in order to assess the hands on experience and proficiency for the job (Simons, 2011). The recruitment strategy is responsible for getting the talented workforce available in the market by carefully scrutinizing the candidate’s profile and analyze his competencies and personality by taking interviews. Sometimes, in specific cases, companies also conduct more than one test or interview in order to get the detailed insight of candidate and compare him with other candidates in the pool.
3.1. Working of selection strategy
The selection strategy works on the law of recruitment and company’s rule of inducting an employee. Selection process is sensitive to company’s needs and require non biased and fair approach towards criteria and merit. Majid Al Futtaim executes the selection process by working onto employee profile and testifying the capability of candidate by taking different tests or interviews.
Having been a part of this multinational company, I know that Majid Al Futtaim is also prone to challenges of globalization in the process of recruitment and selection. For key positions in different regions, the company needs competent professionals who are experienced to work on international posts and manage diversified force working under them. the retirement, leave or turnover of leaders also produce the challenge of succession planning at these positions which can result in better connectivity of all international working units to the mainstream headquarters. Therefore, the diversity of culture is considered carefully in the process of scrutiny. If the employee possess specific talent, has a promising profile and experience; Majid Al Futtaim would prefer to hire the employee even when the cost of his management and setting at workplace is a bit higher than local workforce. This is to alleviate performance gap issues in the future that leads to company’s loss and failure in the market.
The recruitment, induction, and selection process identifies the need of people resourcing and work to get the required talent from the talented candidate market. It is the premium responsibility of recruiter to select the right person for the right kind of job who will fulfill the need of specific skills, knowledge, and abilities in the organization. The capabilities of employees are matched with the requirement of people resource identified by the need assessors. The human resource management department is responsible to adhere to needs of workforce in the organization and report to the concerned authority. We in Majid Al Futtaim would evaluate the report of need and conduct the process for recruiting the candidate. Cultural diversity, workplace culture, the job description, and salary and compensation packages are included in the recruitment process decisions. We in human resource department decided these elements and sent the information to the recruitment committee which further advertise the job accordingly. Even if the recruitment was being done through existing workforce, the determination of salary and compensation is mandatory and considered official duty for the recruiter to inform employee before joining.
3.2. Recruitment process
Effective, efficient, lawful, and professional induction needs total quality management approach at all stages of recruitment. MAF, therefore, works on the employee recruitment policy which specifies the criteria succinctly and maintains the transparency of the process. The standardized recruitment and selection policy at Majid Al Futtaim has following steps:
Recruitment, selection and induction policy at Majid Al Futtaim Company
• Step # 1: Identification of vacant position and need evaluation
• Step # 2: Preparing Job description
• Step # 3: Design a recruitment plan
• Step # 4: Establish search committee for scrutiny of resumes
• Step # 5: Implement the recruitment plan
• Step # 6: Short list the resumes by reviewing all applications
• Step # 7: Interview the short listed candidate (s) (if necessary)
• Step # 8: Selection and hiring
• Step # 9: Complete paper work formalities and organize orientation session
Recruitment, selection, and induction policy of MAF is systematic and lawful. The aforementioned set of procedures define the company’s approach towards fair recruitment process which is thorough and detailed to analyze each aspect of candidate’s personality. The process ends with the orientation session plan which reflects the organization’s concern for employee’s intrinsic adjustment at the workplace. The orientation phase adjust the employee in the new workplace so that he can begin the work with familiarity to people and surrounding.
4. Employee turnover and retention strategies
Learning Objective: Gather and analyze information on employee turnover as the basis for developing robust staff retention strategies.
Employee turnover is the number of employees leaving the organization. Every organization wants to retain good talent so that the work can flow without any hurdle. However, the turnover of employees is not a bad indicator of employment practices if it is not very high. The high rate of turnover signals serious issues in HRM policy of the organization (Anne-Wil Harzing, 2010) . If the turnover is under control, the organization can always induct fresh talent and revamp the culture as well as work techniques with the help of new minds.
The uncontrollable turnover rate or very high turnover rate costs resources, time, and effort to the organization. The turnover cost is the full cost that is incurred to hire a new employee in replacement of the employee who has left the position. The cost is not only financial but also administrative to adhere. Some key areas of cost are:
- Hiring cost, such as cost of advertising the post
- Hiring a temporary employee or rotating an existing employee to do the work until a permanent employee is hired
- Training cost for the replaced employee who has the capability but need training to acquire or polish a particular skill
The turnover cost per year is calculated by total no. of employees left * the cost of rehiring of each employee.
In spite of bringing new talent to the organization, turnover also results in some serious issues such as uneven workload, shortening deadlines for other employees and temporary hires, the low morale of colleagues, loss of organizational knowledge, disruption in work continuity and issues with the productivity and quality of output delivered by other employees.
From HR Perspective, I determine that Majid Al Futtaim believes in employee retention strategies that can reduce the turnover and keep the work flow constant in offices. The balancing of turnover to employee productivity is dependent on the quality of retention strategies. The Majid Al Futtaim company targets that turnover rate must remain below 15% of total workforce per year in order to keep things smooth in the office. Some typical causes of employee turnover decision are absence of career development for employees, low salary and compensation, neglecting employees in rewards and fringe benefit decisions, absence of challenging work or new work for employees and a poor relationship between employee and employer along with bad working environment.
4.1. Staff retention strategies through employee turnover
In order to develop robust staff retention strategies, the turnover can be utilized as an opportunity to view the needs of remaining workforce from intrinsic and extrinsic perspectives. Some techniques to develop robust retention strategies from employee turnover are as below:
4.2. Counter offers
Proposing a counter offer is an evidence based technique to retain hard working and valued employees by the organization. The research shows that approximately 2,3 more employees leave the organization within nine months if their hard working and efficient colleague leaves (HOLTOM, et al., 2008) . Majid Al Futtaim offers retention package which include adjusted workload, stress management techniques, vacation approval, increment in compensation or salary under the pre-defined quota as per the need of hour for employee retention. The retention strategy also include the HR technique of job rotation or enlargement in order to satisfy intrinsic needs of employee. Coaching and mentoring is provided for employees who are dissatisfied due to lack of career development strategies in the organization.
4.3. Exit interviews
The exit interview with the employee who left the organization is a useful retention strategy for Majid Al Futtaim. The exit interview works other departing employee’s complaints or motive to leave the job and adhere to the genuine issue with cautiousness. The exit interview is conducted at the last day of employee’s work at the company which inquires the motive to leave the job, the opinion about workplace environment, the satisfaction with cash and non-cash benefits of the job and more. In seldom conditions, managers and coworkers are also questioned about the motive of leaving the job to know the reason of leaving. MAF maintained the understanding that how remaining workforce can be kept motivated and what is needed to adhere the issues of workforce. In case of high turnover rate, MAF also believes in the revamping of HR strategy in order to proactively identify the issues and manage the morale of remaining workforce.
Employees are also inquired about the factors which value them at the workplace. Majid Al Futtaim believes in the democratic approach and ask employees about their preference at the job. For instance, some employees are happy when their work is recognized in front of colleagues while some employees value financial compensation more than the appreciation. This technique pertains to the needs of undervalued, over looked and ignored employees who feel that their efforts go to vain. in order to manage it, the interview with retained staff or a general meeting in an informal manner figure out the factors that can reduce frustration, anxiety and stress among employees and improve their morale to perform well at the job. This retention strategy is conducted after the turnover rate is calculated. The turnover data is segmented to different categories and trends, undercover causes and reasons are identified and morale of remaining workforce is analyzed by using appropriate HR technique.
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