Effective Human Resource Management is of Vital Importance to the Achievement of Organizational Strategic Goals

黃 嘉

（六盤水職業技術學院 商務管理系，貴州 六盤水555001）

0 Introduction

Due to the fast economic and technological development in recent decades,more and more organizations and companies mushroomed all over the world.As a consequence,the competition among organizations also became more and more fierce.There is no doubt that human beings are the basis of organization development.Human resource management no longer simply played the role of personnel administration.Instead,effective human resource management is of vital importance to the achievement of organizational strategic goals.Thus,the strategic human resource management has been attached great importance and attention in recent years.Effective and strategic human resource management helps organization improve employee performance,enhance working efficiency and facilitate the achievement of organizational goals.DongFeng Cinema Equipment Company is one of the biggest film equipment manufactures in China,which occupied about 60 percent market share in Chinese market and also have export business in Indonesia,Vietnam,Malaysia and so on.It was built in 1970s and had relatively long history in this field.However,recently,the line managers complained that the recent recruited employees are hard to match their work roles and the new employee turnover is high (Zhang,2009).The recruitment and selection of employee is one of the most important human resource practices because it is the basis of providing organization with talent and useful staff.The ineffective recruitment might lead to the poor match of new employees to their work roles and enhanced organization’s management cost.

Thus,the purpose of this report is to identify and analyze the current problems and try to find out an effective HR recruitment procedure for Dongfeng Cinema Equipment Company,supported by certain strategic human resource management theories and concepts.Therefore,in the following part,the author is going to describe the organization development background and the current problems.Next,the related strategic human resource management theories and concepts will be demonstrated and critically discussed.And then,an effective human resource recruitment procedure that appropriate for Dongfeng Cinema Equipment Company will be illustrated.At last,the whole report will be concluded in a few words and specific recommendations on human resource management will be offered.

1 Background of organization and current problems in recruitment process

Dongfeng Cinema Equipment Company was established in 1973,and had more than 1000 employees until now.It was the first cinema projector manufacture in China,so it has relatively large market share and good customer reputation.With the fast economic development in China,it broadened its business in global scale and exported its projectors and other cinema equipments to Indonesia,Canada,Vietnam,Singapore,and Malaysia.The company was in its rapid developing period and needs large amount of high quality talent employees who can help organization fasten their development.The demands for senior managers in key function positions required the human resource department to recruit large amount of new employees.Thus,the human resource staffs cooperated with headhunting agencies to recruit new employees for organization.The current recruitment procedure is that the headhunting agencies first recommended candidates,and then the human resource manager selected certain appropriate candidates according to the position description and requirements.Following that,the selected candidates’ resume and material will be given to line managers and general manager for them to decide the final interviewees.At last,the final employees can be selected after interview.However,recently,the line managers complained that the new employees are hard to adapt to their work roles and their work performances are also not satisfying.

Several reasons led to the current problems.First of all,the qualification of candidates and job description are not clear enough.Sometimes,the line managers fail to provide specific and clear job description and qualification requirements,which may add the difficulties in selecting proper candidates.Secondly,it lacks of scientific and systematic recruitment procedure.There is no sound and scientific assessment towards the candidate.It all depends on line managers and general manager’s personal feelings and judgment,rather than scientific assessment and evaluation.Thirdly,there is no verification about applicants’ education background,diploma,past working experience,qualification and so on,which provided headhunting agencies with the opportunities to offering fake material to human resource managers.Facing the current problems,it is necessary to improve the current recruitment procedure so that it can help organization recruit more appropriate new employees.

2 The demonstration of relevant SHRM theories and approaches

As one of the most important part of human resource management,recruitment policy determined the efficiency and quality of recruitment practice.Generally,recruitment policy includes recruitment planning,recruiter selection,recruitment approach strategy and recruiting time strategy (Williamson et al.,2002).First of all,the aim of recruitment planning is to avoid the blindness of working by analyzing the current organization demands and the number of needed position and applicants.During the recruitment process,the organization’s real situation and demands should be put into the first place so as to design the most appropriate recruitment activities for organization.Secondly,the selection of recruiter is also of vital importance to the overall recruitment procedure.As the representation of organization,the quality of recruiter will directly affect the recruiting efficiency and outcome.Besides,the time strategy is also very important.Choosing appropriate time to recruit people in labour market can help organization reduce cost and enhance recruiting efficiency.At last,it should select proper recruitment approach.The general recruitment approaches include internal recruitment which means to select candidates from internal organization and external recruitment which contains internet recruitment,campus recruitment,headhunter and other employment agencies and so on (Underwood,2000).Each recruitment approach has its own advantages as well as disadvantages.The most important thing is to choose the most appropriate one for the organization.

Except for the recruitment policy,it also is of vital importance to choose appropriate recruitment strategies for different situations and different organization developing stages.

2.1 The recruitment strategy in the early developing period

At this time,organization is just like a new born baby who is weak and had not yet been recognized by society but meanwhile is very vigorous and had great potential to grow up.During this stage,organization has no systematic regulations,organizational culture,and was directly managed by the boss or owner.The main strategic goal of organization is to survive from the fierce competition and try to find the ways to develop.The main difficulties it may face are the marketing and the build of products brand.Due to the incomplete management system,and relatively low salary and welfare,the employee turnover might be high (Morrell,Clarke & Wilkinson,2004).What’s more,in this period,a small number of staff is enough so the demands for external personnel are not prominent.The most needed people in this period are salespeople,and technicians.The demands for senior managers are relatively low.Therefore,at the early stage,the recruitment focus should be those people who have rich work experience and well job performance,especially those younger staff who have the same goals and concepts with organizations.The means of attracting talent can be good career prospects,challenging work and leadership charisma.Since the enterprise funds are not sufficient,in order to reduce the recruitment costs,the main recruitment approaches are online recruitment,job fairs or introduction from friends (Stewart &Knowles,2000).Organization might have not formed a professional human resources department yet,so the selection of personal mostly depends on boss’s personal judgment.

2.2 The recruitment strategy in the fast developing stage

During the fast developing period,organization gradually expanded its business and grew rapidly; the brand awareness increased dramatically; institutions,regulations and sound business management thinking have been established,and corporate culture is being formed.Thus,it needs more employees and more inter-departmental coordination.The main challenges organization faced are the balanced growth and cross-departmental collaboration.Differences emerged among high-level managers and the employees who cannot keep up the pace of organization development may resign,so the employee turnover in this period is also relatively high (Forrier & Sels,2003).For the human resource management in this period,the demands for talents are large,and it needs to recruit people for all levels,whatever common employees,mid-level or senior managers.

The demand for Middle-level professional and technical personnel largely increased.It required staff to have work experience in similar industry or job,can directly get started,have great potentials,and can be adapted to changes quickly.The means of attracting talent rely on the promotion,good prospects for further development and remuneration that close to or above the industry average salary.Due to the urgent recruitment needs,the main recruitment approaches conclude online recruitment,job fair,or establishing flexible and mature recruitment channels by the assistance of professional headhunting agencies (Okpara& Wynn,2008).At this time,companies might have set up human resources department,but is not professional enough.The selection of employees mainly depends on sector managers.Therefore,it needs to speculate the human resources demands and business development and has to have certain plans before recruitment.

2.3 The recruitment strategy in the mature stage

Organization mature stage is the peak business period when organization developed to large scale,performed excellent,and had ample funds and sound regulations.The organization at this period,be associated with great importance to customers’ satisfaction,marketing and corporate image.How to extend the period of prosperity and strive to enable enterprises to enter into a new growth becomes the main strategic goal of company.During the mature stage,it is difficult to be promoted,the staff turnover is low,and the staff size is relatively stable (Jameson,2000).The number of demanded employees is relatively low,but the quality of employees is valued.It emphasized candidates’ comprehensive ability,in particular the innovation ability,execution and clear career direction.The means of attracting talents rely on corporate image and high remuneration.A variety of recruitment channels are conducted,such as internal recommendation,online recruiting,campus recruiting,and so on.HR department had also become more professional and began to use scientific approach to assess candidates objectively.

2.4 The recruitment strategy in the fading stage

This is the final stage of business life cycle when overall competitiveness and profitability declined and the crisis began to emerge.The core of strategic management is how to restructure the corporate and give it a new life.During this period,the coherence of organization is declining and key talents are lost (Connerley,Carlson & Mecham,2003).In this period,the human resource recruitment should focus on internal recruiting which can enhance organizational vitality and coherence.It required senior managers with reform-mind,strategic vision,decisionmaking skills and the ability to manage the overall business.The means of attracting talents counted on benefit-sharing mechanisms,which means to share the power and benefits risks.During this period,the evaluation and assessment should be conducted direct by board of directors.

3 The discussion of HRM policy and procedure that are conducive to the achievement of organization’s strategic goals

After analyzing the related strategic human resource management theories,it is realized that organizations should choose different recruiting policies according to their different developing stages.As for Dongfeng Cinema Equipment Company,it’s in the fast developing period.In this stage,the personnel demands are large,and the recruitment pressures are heavy.Therefore,under such circumstance,it is more important to design scientific and systematic recruitment procedure in order to enhance recruitment efficiency and guarantee the new employees’ performance during their works.Firstly,before the real recruitment practice,it needs to conduct needs analysis which clarified why organization needs to recruit new staff,what kind of staff can better satisfied the position needs,and what are the job duties.The answers to these questions are the basis of arranging recruitment activities (Daily & Dalton,2004).

Secondly,to develop recruiting standards through scientific and objective job analysis,including the qualifications for target positions,the job duties and ability requirements,job competency model and the content and methods of recruitment test according to job responsibilities and competence model.The purpose of this stage is to guarantee the veracity and pertinence of recruitment activities.

Thirdly,it needs to develop effective resume identification and selection process in order to select valuable and valid resumes from hundreds of candidates in a relatively short time.

Fourthly,it is going to design the interview procedure.It should determine the interviewers according to the types of different positions and guarantee the professional ability and quality of interviewers.In addition,the interview and selection standards should be uniformed and fair.Effective interview procedure can ensure the comprehensive evaluation and scientific results of interview.

Fifthly,it needs to make sure the contents of interview test,including the structured interview questions,written questions,comprehensive ability and personality measurement tools and methods.

The last but not the least,it has to develop hiring decisions model.Distributing the weight of each test,and determining the candidates according to the calculating results of weight analysis.Finally,to conduct background checks on candidates and hiring the most appropriate candidates.

With the above selection criteria and interview process,the key isthe concerns towards the process of implementation and details.During the actual interview in the implementation process,the following aspects and details should be paid enough attention to： the candidates informing,reception,certificate of qualification examination,interview site layout,the interview process control,the implementation of comprehensive evaluation,as well as the summary of various evaluation results.The aim of recruitment interview is to select the qualified staffs that can fit corporate culture,with high professional ethics and fully competent for the vacancies.Meanwhile,job interviews are also the process for brand promotion,and corporate image build up,therefore,the details of interview process directly determined the success or failure of strategic recruitment procedure and should be attached great importance.

4 Conclusion and recommendations

In conclusion,the strategic human resource recruitment policy and procedure are of vital importance to organizational development and effectiveness.Organization should develop appropriate recruitment policy and procedure according to organization’s real circumstance.The recruitment process should be evaluated by scientific and objective assessment standards and system,rather than managers’ personal views.What’s more,in order to enhance the recruitment efficiency and new employees’ work performance after hiring,the following recommendations can be considered.The objective and specific job duty descriptions are crucial to the effectiveness of recruitment process.It helps organization recruit more appropriate staff and meanwhile helps employees have real expectations towards their future work roles.Besides the recruitment process,organization should also pay attention to the new employee training process,which is the key to guarantee new employees’ work performance and stability.As a mature and successful corporate,salary and welfare should not be the only means to attract talents.The importance of spiritual motivation and the opportunities of promotion and career development should be valued.

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