HR Planning and Recruitment Labour Market-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Identify and Discuss HR Planning and recruitment in a particular sector of the labour market. Answer: Introduction There has been unprecedented increase in the various job vacancies all around the world, which has showed the need for planning of the workforce across all the industries. The workforce planning can be defined as the process of analysis of the future needs of the organization as far as its employee skills, locations and numbers are considered (De Bruecker et al., 2015). This also makes the organizations realize how they can fulfill the unmet needs through the process of recruitment and selection. It is also important to determine the likely demand of additional staffs in the various departments of the organization. The thesis statement for this paper is to determine the planning and recruiting of the workforce for retail industry in Australia. The selected company for this paper is Coles Supermarket and it belongs to the retail industry. The aims of the report are understanding the various factors of planning as well as recruiting of workforce. It strives to explore the different workforce planning challenges for retail sector. The different recruitment strategies along with the challenges would be analyzed in detail. Recruiting trends in retail industry of Australia The retail sector has undergone several changes in the recent years and stiff competition has led to the formulation of effective human resource practices. There has been a sharp increase in the big data as well as omni-channel employment channels (De Bruecker et al., 2015). The online retailers of Australia are starting to open brick and mortar stores and this has also affected their recruitment patters. The omni channel employment seeks to recruit people for both their online activities as well as for the different physical stores. This kind of employment service aims to put the manpower in all channels such as mobile applications, online sales, physical stores and others. Another significant demand in the retail sector is the job roles concerning big data. The strategic planners analyze the various facts and figures so that they can purchase at the right point of time and clear their stocks effectively (De Bruecker et al., 2015). There has been 5 % increase in the job advertisemen t in SEEK for the retail sector and it is also observed that the candidate availability is fairly stable in this sector (Seek.com.au, 2017). There has also been an increase in the planning job roles in the retails sectors, as the job role involves the incumbent to liaison between finance and purchasing functions. There has been an increase in the job demands for retail assistants and this can be attributed to the store expansion in different locations. HR strategies of retail sector The retail organizations have realized the fact that the level of their success is dependent on the HR strategies of the organization. The retail sector focuses a lot on the brand building and sales of the company. The sector is particular about the various types of recruitment sources that they utilize for sourcing manpower (Rathi Lee, 2015). There are various sources from which the organization can procure talented employees for their organization. There are direct applicants, advertisements, referrals, internal recruitment, public/private employment agencies, campus recruitments and others (Sauter, 2014). The HR department of the retail sector also aims to develop a work-unit activity analysis so that they can better design the different job vacancies. It is also important to understand the different functional and divisional structure that would be used in the organization (Rathi Lee, 2015). The job analysis helps the HR managers to do proper HR planning and also do proper work redesign. This would also help the managers to plan different learning and development initiatives for the employees. The career planning and the job evaluation are some of the important objectives of the job analysis. The HR managers are using various information in the job analysis information such as job specification, job description, human capital, skill, knowledge, ability and others (Rathi Lee, 2015). The modern-day HR department is also considerate about the different legal, safety and ethical duties of HR. The legal environment in Australia concerns with the constitution, state, arbitration system and the different wage systems (Rathi Lee, 2015). The HR should formulate strategies according to the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), which is the attempt of the government which makes sure that all the individuals get equal access to the employment (Cao,2014). The HR person should also be able to address the cultural differences by adhering to different suitable strategies. HR planning challenges for retail sector The HR planning challenges is concerned with the short supply of future ready manpower who would be delivering high performance in the organization. The companies can recruit manpower with the help of various strategies but they find it hard to retain the employees (Connolly Jr, Connolly Feinstein, 2017). The increased liberalization has given the employees sufficient options to switch over to their favorite jobs over short period of time, thereby increasing the attrition rate of the firm. The declining labor supply has also forced the HR managers to plan for their manpower requirements in advance. The following are the main challenges of HR in retail industry of Australia- Poaching threat- The employee poaching is considered to be very high in Australian retail industry (Angrave et al., 2016). The competitors are able to attract the manpower by offering them more compensation and benefits. This often leads troubles to the HR as they are in constant fear of attrition of their talented manpower. High attrition- The retail industry has high attrition rate and the HR managers try it hard to make the employees stick to the organization (McGraw, 2014). The HR department has a hard time in planning about the different ways that can be used for retaining the employees (Cao,2014). Working culture issues- The retail industry demands that the employees work for long hours, which may cause boredom in the employees, which is ultimately a major demotivating factor (Pandey, Singh Pathak, 2016). The long working hours and less compensation as expected may cause severe lack of motivation among the employees, which reduces the overall employee productivity (Cao,2014) Recruitment Strategies for retail sector The recruitment sector in the retail industry is full of fluctuations as there is a high degree of staff turnover rates. This enables the managers to create a strong organizational culture in which the employees are highly motivated (Pandey, Singh Pathak, 2016). This enables that the application process is simple and the recruiter should decide whether they would require employees for the holidays. The sector relies on internal labor markets for satisfying their manpower needs (Schramm-Klein, Morschett Swoboda, 2015). They believe in the fact that the local talent would be able to cater to their job positions in a better manner. The HR professionals find that the retail duty hours are long and hence the workers often feel frustrated. This makes the employers conduct frequent motivation sessions which would engage the employees in constant learning and development activities (Price, Bailey Pyman, 2014). The recruiting manager in the Australian firms makes sure that the candidates a re well aware of the different aspects of the job role. The selection process takes into account the different qualifications, skills and knowledge of the employees along with the cultural fit (Pandey, Singh Pathak, 2016). The employees are being tested whether they would fit into the companys unique organizational culture. Recruitment challenges for retail sector The retail sector employment faces number of challenges in their day to day functioning, which are discussed as below- Lack of qualified manpower - The retail industry is one of the vastest manpower recruiting industry which needs large candidate pools (Moore, McDonald Bartlett, 2017). But there are rare combination of skills, knowledge and expertise of candidates to work in this industry. Highly decentralized- The HR matters of Coles Supermarket and other retail organizations are often handled by person who have less experience in niche area of recruitment (Pandey, Singh Pathak, 2016). They may have overall long years of experience in the HR domain but they may not enough recruitment experience. Lack of formal specialized education- There are a lack of formal specialized courses for retail candidates and the employees mostly depend on the on the job training programs (Weller, 2017). This also makes it recruitment process less fruitful. There is more dependency of the candidates on the in-house training, which delays the time the employees become actually productive. Increased competition- There is an increasing competition in the market which has led to severe talent shortages in the market (Sardana, Zhu Veen, 2016). The retail company like Coles Supermarket, find it hard to retain their best talent. They are in constant fear that their employees may be taken over by their close rivals (Pandey, Singh Pathak, 2016). Conclusion The human resource is important for overall growth of the organization in the retail business sector. The organized retailers have understood the importance of implementing suitable HR practices policy and recruitment initiatives. The HR planning should take into account all necessary HR parameters such as recruitment, selection, training and development, performance appraisal and overall organizational culture of the organization. There are several problems that are faced by the HR professionals working in the retail sector. These are lack of qualified manpower, high decentralization, lack of specialized education and increased competition. The HR planners face the issue of poaching issues, high attrition rate and issues with the working culture. 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