Human Resources for Recruitment Wesfarmers- MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about theHuman Resources: Recruitment Challenges of Wesfarmers. Answer: Introduction The businesses nowadays are presently facing the main challenge of attracting and retaining the right talent for successfully conducting their operational activities. The human resource managers are increasingly facing the issues regarding the development of effective recruitment strategy for hiring and selecting the right type of candidates (Ekwoaba et al., 2015). In this context, the main purpose of the present report is to identify the key challenges faced by retail industry in Australia for recruiting the workforce and recommending the strategies for addressing the identified challenges. The organization selected for the case study is Wesfarmers, a retail giant in Australia. The report has adopted qualitative research methodology for achieving the aims and objectives of the study. Key Challenges Faced by Wesfarmers in Recruiting the Workforce The development and implementation of an effective recruitment process is one of the major roles of human resource managers of business organizations. The productivity and profitability of organizations is largely impacted by its type of workforce diversity. However, the human resource managers are currently facing the problems in attracting, retaining and motivating the right type of talent at their workplaces (Renko, 2017). As such, the retail industry in Australia is encountering major recruitment challenges that are impacting its performance and productivity to a large extent. As such, one of the largest Australias listed retail companies, Wesfarmers Limited, is also facing challenges in retaining the right type of workforce at its workplace. The company is believed to provide employment to about 102,000 employees in its various retail divisions. The company though strives to develop a healthy work environment for all its employees irrespective of gender, age or cultural backgrou nds but still is facing issues in relation to its recruitment strategies. The major challenge faced by the company in this regard is identifying and retaining the best talent that can effectively carry out the business operational processes (Retaining talent is biggest challenge: Wesfarmers Managing Director, 2017). Wesfarmers is facing the main challenge of identifying the right people due to incompatibility between the labor supply and demand. The company has incorporated the use of information technology devices and tools for automating their operational processes in order to attain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. However, the company is facing issues for attracting and retaining the skilled employees that possess the IT knowledge and thus can work appropriately on the computerized tools and devices. The skilled employees have adequate IT knowledge demand high salaries and also company have to invest heavily in providing appropriate training to the hired employees so that they are able to work properly on the computerized devices (Tay, 2011). Thus, finding and retaining a skilled talent pool of specialized workforce is a constant burden on the human resource department (HRD) of the company. The company as such is encountering problems to find cheap, flexible and high quality workf orce that is able to conduct the retailing operations adequately (Australia Recruiting Trends 2017, 2017). The human resource managers of the company also face issues for hiring right personality, attitude and appearance for providing good customer service. As such, the company is emphasizing on recruiting and hiring young workers such as students due to their flexibility, cheapness and high quality IT skills. The major issue faced by the company in hiring such workforce diversity is high turnover rate of students as they pursue jobs for short-span of time. Therefore, the company incurs significant losses on account of heavy cost involved in providing training and development to the employees (Treadgold, 2016). In addition to this, the company is also facing demographic issues such as managing the huge workforce diversity and ageing workforce as major recruitment challenges. The company also faces challenges of managing and controlling the diverse workforce as it possess workforce belong to different age, gender and cultural background. The human resource manager thus face major problem of developing effective strategies for attracting and retaining such huge workforce diversity (Greenidge et al., 2012). The retailers often maintain huge workforce diversity for gaining more creative ideas for achieving a competitive position in the marketplace. The huge workforce diversity is also required for effectively carrying out the business operations in various retail divisions. As such, Wesfarmers also maintains wide workforce diversity and therefore face issues in developing a healthy work environment where employees belonging to diverse background are able to work in co-operation with each other. The human resource managers have to develop effective strategies for managing conflicts and promote a spirit of tolerance and teamwork among the employees belonging to different ethnicity (Fui and Yazdanifard, 2015). Also, the company in this context is facing issues of recruiting women in senior leadership roles as it does not have women candidates in its workforce team. The human resource department has to develop effective strategies for recruiting the women candidates at the senior leadership position (Retaining talent is biggest challenge: Wesfarmers Managing Director, 2017). The human resource manager of the company has also to face age-related concerns of the workforce diversity. The company has to invest largely in providing training to the old employees reading the use of innovative tools and technologies implemented. Also, the productivity of the company is also impacted to large extent by the ageing workforce and therefore HR managers have to develop recruitment strategies that aim to hire young employees (Zinyemba, 2014). The ageing workforce is bound to increase employee turnover in the future. It has been surveyed that 35% of the employees are likely to get retire in Australia in the coming year and thus leading to increased employee turnover due to ageing workforce. The recruitment strategies of a company are also largely impacted by its organizational image (Australian Recruitment Practices, 2014). The image of a retail company plays a significant role in attracting and retaining the quality employees at the workplace. This is because applicants mainly apply in retail companies due to their good brand image and values. Therefore, Wesfarmers have to develop and implement strategies for strengthening their brand image at an international level for attracting quality staff from various parts of the world. Moreover, the human resource department of the company has to also overcome recruitment challenges for developing a competent and committed workforce. The challenges include removing misconceptions from the workforce diversity about the work environment of the retailing companies such as long hours working, low benefits and pay and also presence of limited growth opportunities. The human resource managers as such are required to provide proper motivation to the employees that aim at removing all their misconceptions and tend to improve their organizational commitment (Qureshi, 20 13). Recommendation of Recruitment Strategies for Overcoming the Identified Challenges As discussed above, Wesfarmers employers are facing major challenges such a tight labor market, economic pressures and demographic issues for attracting and retaining right type of workforce diversity at their workplace. The company is thus recommended to develop effective recruitment strategies for overcoming the above mentioned recruitment challenges and thus attaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace. The recommended recruitment strategies are as follows: Online advertising: The recruitment strategies of businesses are undergoing major changes on account of introduction of online technology and device for attracting the right type of candidates for the available job position. As such, the company is recommended adopting the use of online advertisement platform in order to reach out the right type of candidate (McGuire and Cross, 2003). For example, the company can adopt the use of online job board for placing the job advertisements about the available vacancies. The job board can be regarded as an online platform where the employer pays to advertise on online platforms such as websites about the presence of one or more vacancies. These advertisements are less expensive than print media and also effective in reaching to large number of applicant in short period of time. Also, social media platform such as Twitter and Facebook are emerging as the core platforms for companies in order to attract and retain right type of candidates. It ha s been reported that Australian companies incorporates less use of social media into their recruitment practices. It has been surveyed that only 26% of companies in Australia adopts the use of social media in comparison to the 925 of the US companies. As such, the Australian companies are recommended to adopt the usage of social media platform in developing their recruitment practices as it proves to be an instant medium of communication between the employers and applicants (Australian Recruitment Practices, 2014). Employer Branding: Employer branding is also regarded to be an effective recruitment strategy for the businesses in order to attract quality workforce. This involves designing and implementation of strategic activities in an organization that aims to improve its image among the general public (Nalla and Varalaxmi, 2014). The employer branding can prove to be a significant strategy for the retail companies such as Wesfarmers as most of the consumers of the company can become its job applicants in the future. The job applicants in retail companies are often attracted by the image and values of a specific brand. The applicants strive to pursue a job in the company that promotes a healthy workplace environment with increased benefits offered to the employees. Thus, as such it is very important for Wesfarmers to promote its goodwill globally for attracting quality applicants from all parts of the world. The technique of employer branding has proven to be very useful for the companies in e nhancing the quality and quantity of applicants. Wesfarmers need to develop a differentiating position as an employer in the competitive retails sector of Australia for attracting and retaining quality employees (Australian Recruitment Practices, 2014). Employee Value Proposition: The term Employee Value Proposition refers to representing the employer branding of an organization to the current and potential employees so that interested candidates can foresee the benefits of working with the company. The HR managers in Australia are largely implementing the use of EVP as a part of their recruitment strategy. Thus, it is recommended to Wesfarmers to largely incorporate the use of EVP for communication to the external applicants about the benefits of working in the company. The technique of EVP can be used by the company in engaging jobseekers online and communicating the key aspects of the organizational culture thus promoting its brand image globally (Louw, 2013). Gaining Support from Private Recruitment Agencies: The Company can also seek the help of recruitment agents that will enable it to reduce its operational costs involved in planning and execution of recruitments strategies. The company can outsource its recruitment processes for recruiting permanent employees with the help of recruitment agents. There are various recruitment agencies in Australia that are providing help to the businesses in outsourcing their talent pool such as Hays Talent Solutions, hyphen and HrX (Australian Recruitment Practices, 2014). Internal Bulletins: the company can also adopt the use of internal bulletins for disseminating information to the internal employees about the available job positions. This will help the companies in attracting the internal candidates who are willing to change their job position ad also seeking referrals from the employees. This will prove to be beneficial for the company in saving the time and money invested in developing and planning of recruitment strategies (Pandey, 2013). Conclusion Thus, it can be summarized from the overall report that development and implementation of effective recruitment practices is one of the essential funaction of human resource management. The recruitment process of an organization refers to the methods and practice adopted by its human resource department (HRD) for attracting retaining and motivating the candidates. The companies are facing increasing challenges with reference to attracting, retaining and motivating the right type of candidates for their job positions. Wesfarmers, as such is also facing biggest retail challenge of attracting and retaining the quality workforce diversity. The major challenges as analyzed from the overall discussion in the report faced by the company for recruiting the workforce diversity are shortage of skilled employees, ageing workforce, organizational image and managing the workforce diversity. The report has recommended the company to adopt recruitment strategies such as employer branding, employee value proposition, online advertising, use of social media platforms, internal bulletins and outsourcing the employees for overcoming the identified recruitment challenges. The report has helped in developing an understanding of the recruitment challenges that organizations in present business environment faces and the need of overcoming these challenges for ensuring their sustainable growth and development. References Treadgold, T. 2016. Wesfarmers facing retail challenge. Retrieved 31 May, 2017, from https://www.businessnews.com.au/article/Wesfarmers-facing-retail-challenge Retaining talent is biggest challenge: Wesfarmers Managing Director. 2017. Retrieved 31 May, 2017, from https://www.ceda.com.au/news-articles/2013/11/27/wa_wil Ekwoaba, J. O., et al. 2015. The impact of recruitment and selection criteria on Organizational performance. Global Journal of Human Resource Management 3(2), pp. 22-33. Fui, W., and Yazdanifard, R. 2015. Opportunities and Challenges in the World of Retailing and the Importance of Adaption to the New Markets. International Journal of Management, Accounting and Economics 2(9), pp. 1110-1121. Greenidge, D., et al. 2012. 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Retrieved 31 May, 2017, from https://smartworkplaces.org.au/smartworkplaces/portals/0/reports/4/1_Australian%20recruitment%20practices%20report.pdf Australia Recruiting Trends 2017. 2017. Retrieved 31 May, 2017, from https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/talent-solutions/resources/pdfs/Australia_Recruiting_Trends_2017_c.compressed.pdf