Friday, 30 April 2010

Equal Opportunities

Equality and diversity is not about treating every one the same but be aware that people are different, being able to recognise those differences and treat people with fairness and dignity.

(purbeck [2010])


Equal opportunity emphasizes that oportunities such as education, employment, benefits, and more, should be available to people in this country regardless of their sex, age, race, politcal views and so on.


Diversity however means that people ar different and therefore an organisation should allow its employees to perform to their potential. Never force them to do more than they are capable of.




Margaret Mountford and her oppinion:
In this article from the times, Margaret Mountford, sir allans right hand in the Aprentice, states that women should earn their promotion and not just get it because an organisation needs more women to make it look like it's a fair company. she states that women cannot expect to get prometted and then get all the leaves they want and return to work and still be in their holiday mood.she also states that when it comes to team work men are more organised and get on with the task quick; whereas women spend time on stupid things such as " gettin a good team nickname". She also makes the point that women can get to the top however they don't always want to and as a result people tend to think that it is a discrimination. Women are askin leaves from companies, "they want companies to bend backward".


3 arguments in favour of Margaret Mountford:



  1. In a way when she says that women are expecting too much from the companies, she is right as menn have fewer leaves then women, and therefore it should only be fair that men get the same amount as women.

  2. Women complain about not beeing at the top of companies, but like she says; so many women have the talent to get to the top however they do not chose to get therre. If you take margaret Mountford for example, she is at the top, and therefore that proves that women can get to the top wit dedication and committment.

  3. She says that most wowen get to the top just because companies want to look like they are not discrminating. " you are just there to make numbers"

3 arguments against Margaret Mountford:



  1. Margret Mountford states that men are better than women in team working as women tend to waste time on stupid things, whereas men get on with the task. However eventhough that may be truth, women do complete the tasks given and win the prize and therefore in my point of view, she shouldn't judge the ability of one because of their sex.

  2. She also states that women are only at the top because companies need women so that they don't look like they are discriminating; however women working for companies, hardly get the chance to get to the top compared to men. Just because she got to the top it doesn't mean it is the same every where.

  3. She is talking about maternity leaves and that women should be working full time at the best of their potetial when they come back, however it is really hard for a woman who just had a kid to do so; companies should acknowledge that and allow women to have flexible times dureing the first years of their pregnacies. Margaret Mountford, of course has never experienced having a kind, and i am sure she would acknowledge the same thing if had a kid during her career.

(business.timesonline [2010])





Age legislation act 2006:


Age legislation act was introduced in October 2006. It will affect every one but mianly eldery people and young people. This legislation states that a company cannot discriminate or be unfair to any umployees due to their age. (is4profit [2010]).


This legislation was mainly introduces, as some companies started to get rid of eldery employees who were not fit enough for the job, or would even reject eldery applicants during recruitment process. Employers will obviously want a higher turnover and getting old means leas work less turnover less energy to do things. Due to this new legislation employers have to be aware that any discrminations about eldery people or younger people will cost them. One company that only employs younger people, will find it difficult to keep up employing younger people. they state that: "Recruitment is going to be a potential problem area because some jobs suit younger people, so the wording of adverts in the future will have to be more careful." (bbc [2010]). business that requires younger people are now forced to lose out as they cannot reject eldery people without a really good reason and evven that could be very hard to prove. Most companies believe that they will get more out of younger people than eldery people however it is criticised that younger people have less experience and are more like to make mistakes whereas older people have more experience and would get given tasks completed with no problem. In my point of view, practical jobs are more suitable for younger people whereas skillful jobs such as accountancy or management jobs are more suited for people with experience hence eldery people.

In order to comply with this new legislation most companies are employing younger people during time period where the most turnover is needed and employ elderies when they don't need that much turnover. For example an icecream company would employ younger people during the summer time and give eldery people vacation and when the winter comes they would give the younger employees vacation and employ the eldery ones. that is a way that a company could cope with the new age legislation act 2006.

B&Q, Asda, Tesco and their equal opportunities:

I have visited the websites for B&Q, Asda and tesco to look at how they give opportunities for their employees and how they are fair. B&Q states that it expects from its employees an open mind about changes, good customer servises passion to deliver and a flexible approach to the company; if done so they will deliver flexible approaches, a fair employer who promotes equal opportunities, freindly athmospher and support in their career development. the website is well layed wiyh pictures of people with a mixed of backgrounds of al age types. (diy [2010]). Asda calls its employees its colleagues, looking at the website i can see that there is a great mixture of people, varying from age to race and therefore i donnot belive that any discrimination is taking place, however when asda talks about its people it only has the name of its senior employees and this may feel lower level employees unconfortable as they are the main for the company's In Asda's recruitment process they do not ask any age, race or sex and therefore are giving equal chances for every one to apply for the job. (asda [2010]). Teco has the same principle as asda however is looking for commited people who are willing to complete given tasks , employees have to be passionate about the job, and most of all very motivated as Tesco is one of the worlds leading retailers. In return tesco gives employees a safeguard their future by helping them to get more from their money as well as looking after their health. even on their application form they state that they recruit reguargless of an applicants background, sex age and so on. (tesco [2010]).

overall i believe that b&Q is more successfull at keeping its equal opportunities true as it has the most simplest way to recruit wiyhout to many questions and from the website it looks like it has a mixture of people from all age and backgrounds.

Conclusion:

Equal opportunities are in every companies, however most companies would not be so generous without these legislations that protects employees and most of the time companies only recruit and employ people to cover themselves from discriminating from the media and the public.

References:


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Thursday, 29 April 2010

Selection

Selection is the next process after recruiting. Once the organisation has this pool of people, it is then time to get the relevant applicants and eliminate the ones that don't have the necessary skills to go through with the job. This process is time consuming, however worth it as the best applicant needs to be selected carefully.



Selection Method:


  1. Interviews are one selection method that is commonly used by most organisations, when employing staff or even to go into universities. The advantage of this method is that the interviewer has full contact withe applicant, and is able to make judgements, during the interview period and would be able to make a conclusion. However the downside is that the judgment will be made over on interview, and if the applicant had a bad day and didn't so weel it doesnt mean he/she is not good enough for the job. The same way a person that is alright may do a little better and get the job.

  2. Psychometric tests are another way of selecting the right applicant. this method is mainly used when the organisation has a group of people with similar skills that are hard to compare. This method consists of tests to measure inteligence, apptitude for specific tasks, to see which member of the group use their skills efficiently and so on. they'll be also tested on decision making skills, problem solving skills and so on. This method is really good on finding out who is better in a group of similarly skilled applicants. However this method dosen't always shows if the selected applicants will perform well in the future; It can only be used if it is proven that it needs to be used and only a qualified member can monitor the test. Its also costly and therefore could be a waste of money if no suitable applicant has been found.

  3. Another method would be assessment centres, this would include activities such as working in teams, doing written axercises, presentations, they could even go through a psychometric test. This method could take a couple of days to complete. This method would only be used by big organisations to select really senior staffs such as managing directors. This is a really god way of selecting, However it is really expensive to set an assessment centre and this method is mainly used for groups of applicants and won't be suitable for only one or two applicants. Another problem with this method, is that it is time consuming and and managers have so much to do aswell as monitoring the assessment and they might get to point where they don't take account, which would result in a waste of money on the assesment centre.

(businesslink [2010]) (hrmguide [2010])


My interview to get in BP:


When i applied for a job in BP i had to call their recruitment line, where they took my details and asked me in which area i wanted i job. after that they put me trough a phone test straight away. They would ask me questions such as: "what would you do if a customer asked you for milk when you are in the middle of something?". Fortunatly i passed and i was told that my details would be passed on to the stre that had vacancies.couple of months later i was called for an interview which I attended. There the manager asked me simple questions such as where i worked before if i have any experience and so on. And at one he asked me hw i heard about the job and i told him that my mate told me and i stated his name; and as soon as he eard the name he closed the books n i told me that i had the job. Apparently my mate worked for him previously and he used to do excellent jobs and always complete every tasks on time and due to that i must have assumed that i would be the same since i was his mate and he gave me the job. This interview was really innefective as the manager that was interviewing me wasn't really paying any attention on the interview, and him assuming that i would be the same as my mate costed him quite a few pounds.


Personality Test in a selection procedure?


I asked a member of my familly whether organisations should include a personality test in a recruitment and selection procedure. He replied saying that it would be discrimination. In his point of view an organisation needs labour to do work and complete tasks for them, so why would they want to know about your personality. He replied saying that having a personality would make the process unfair as managers may favorise with applicants that have similar personality. However he is not against a personality test within the organisation. But one before would be unfair on the applicants.

Recomendation to BP on its selection process:

i personnally would recomend BP to improve its selction process, by maybe allowing applicants to participate at the store for a day or two to see their abilities. I would mainly recomend them to stop assuming that a freind of an excellent employee, would be good a good employee.

Conclusion:

Selection is a very expensive process aswell as an expensive one, it is therefore crucial for an organisation to select the right applicant for the right job. Labour is very hard to find now days and therefore organisations should select a person that is willing to progress in that organisation. Overall the selection process is very costly and time consume; the results are not always successfull but when they are succesfull, good results can be seen.

Reference:


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Wednesday, 28 April 2010

Recruitment

Recruitment
it is the process of identifying a pool of suitable candidate for the available job vacancy. Labour can be recruited externally or internally.
(businessdictionary [2010] recruitment)

As stated above, recruitment can be done inernally or externally.

Internal recruitment:

Internal recruitment, is when an organisation recruits within its own employees, to fill up its available job vacancies. Organisations do this when they may feel that they already have the right people with the right skills already and therefore will not waste time to look for more people. these vacancies are mainly advertised within the organisation on staff notice board, or their intranetnetwork, or even their company newspapers.

Advantages:

  • It gives existing employees a chance to improve and move up the ladder in their career.
  • More promotions will motivate staff, since staff would work hard if they know that there is a promotion at the end of the line.
  • Training and induction times are all saved as the employee will know most things already.
  • It is more safer as employer will already know about the person and about his/her abilities and are avoiding the risk of recruiting a new unknown candidate.
  • It saves time and money.

Disadvantages:

  • When recruiting internally, there is only limited applicants to chose from.
  • Applicants from outside may be better suited for the jobs. (have more skills)
  • when a staff gets promoted, his/her place will become free and will have to be filled.

(tutor2u [2010] recruitment- internal recruitment)

External recruitment:

this is when the organisation recruits labour from outside its organisation, most businesses regularly recruits externally, especially the growing ones. external recruitment is mainly done through recruitment agencies, job centres, headhunters, advertisement and so on.

Advantages:

  • By recruiting externally the company has more power on which candidates to chose from as they will have a larger amount of people to chose from and therefore this gives the organisation the advantage.
  • By bringing newer people from diferent background will give a good image to the organisation discriminationwise.

Disadvantages:

  • New employees may not be as good as they said they were, resulting in a lower turnover.
  • By employing a new workforce, time and money may need to be spend in trainning them.
  • New employees are not guarenteed to stay with the organisation and may decide to leave, this would be costly for the organisation as they would have wasted their time and money on training these employees.

(tutor2u [2010] recruitment- external recruitment)

Review of an online recruitment site:

In this part of the report i will go on a online recruitment site and analyse it to see wether it is attractive, easlily accessible and so on. the website that i have chose to look at is www.monster.co.uk.

website layout:

The website has a job search section with a location search section. This is great for quick simple searches and it saves a lot of time. The more you go down they have different sections that gives advice on how to create a CV, that has onl;ine resources such as company profiles, and even better, you can create your own online profile which will be looked at by potential employers and they may contact you if they like your profile. It saves a whole time compared to CV handling.

Accessibility of jobs:

This website is really good at searching for available jobs in the desired areas, however every single available vacancies that came up were for jobs such as management, engineers, accountants, basically only high qualified jobs. Even when i typed in Tesco Sainsbury's they only management jobs. This site is really good for skilled labopur with qualification to look for a job, however for the unqualified ones this site would be useless.

overall this site is good for qualified people looking for jobs, but useless to unqualified people. It is really unfair, but then again there are higher demand for qualified labour compared to unqualified ones.

Advantages of online recruitment:

  1. It is quick and saves a lot of time for the company as well as for the applicant
  2. Recruiting online will give the organisation good applicants to chose from, as it will eliminate people that are not suitable for the jobe as they are less likely to apply for it.
  3. It saves a lot of money as advertising costs will be taken by the online recruiting agencies.
  4. Comunication is easier through the internet.
  5. Everything is managable from one place.

Disadvantage of online recruitment:

  1. The employer never knows if the applicant is genuine or not, and therefore is takin risks of taking their own time to interview these people and if they were not suitable at all, it would be very frustrating.
  2. popular online recruting sites may be expensive to advertise in and if the organisation do not get any applicant, that would be a waste of money on advertisement.
  3. The organisations advert should be in the top ones as thats where people normally look at, and if the organisations advert is right at the bottom it may never be looked at.
  4. when recruiting online, comunication is done by email and sometimes employers rather prefer to speak on the phone to an applicant to derive their committment to get the job by the way they speak and so on.
  5. if the onluine recruiting site is not attractive enough then the organisation is wasting its money on it.

Psychological Contracts:

When joining a new organisation, an employee has a legal contract with the organisation on the way he/she should behave, attend and so on, and any breach of these contract terms may result in diciplinary actions or the sack. A Psychological contract however, is a unformal contract between the employee and the manager. These would be things such as completing a prticular task everyday or trainning someone and so on. The manager will tell the employee who agrees to do the job. However these unformal agreements between managers and employees cannot be strictly enforced or be punished if whatever that was agreed was not completed by the employee.

(cipd [2010] The psychological Contract)

Conclusion:

Overall recruitment is a good way of finding suitable applicats however if not done properly, the prcocesss could be very costly and time consuming; which could be a real waste for the organisation.

References:

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