Introduction
Organizations deploy employees as the most crucial tools for attaining organizational competitive advantage. To achieve organizational goals, objectives, and aims, businesses have to ensure that they recruit the most qualified staff to carry out their functions. Apart from recruitment, an organization sets appropriate remuneration packages and benefits, seeks mechanisms of ensuring that the recruited employees are motivated and constantly in line with the mission of the organization. All these issues surrounding the development of a talented and capable team of employees fall in the docket of human resource management. As the chief human resource officer (CHRO), I would be in charge of overseeing all these tasks related to recruitment and subsequent training and development of employees. As part of my mandates, this paper provides the steps involved in recruiting staff at a new office.
Steps for recruitment of staff
Recruitment of the most talented and qualified staff is accomplished through a number of steps. The first step is to provide a description of the job opening followed by its advertisement through social media, print, audio, audiovisual, or even internally through posters within an organization. Secondly, legal considerations on government regulations on the new job opening are considered. Qualifications, the definition of responsibilities, setting of remuneration packages and benefits, and looking for mechanisms of enhancing the performance of the employee is then considered.
A new job opening
A position has arisen in Turner Construction Company for administrative assistants or secretaries. There are two positions within the department of human resources in one new regional office of the company in North Carolina within the United States. Turner Construction Company wishes to fill these two openings with a self-motivated and self-driven person who can work effectively and efficiently with minimal supervision. Candidates qualifying for this position will be based in the North Carolina office located at Charlotte in Raleigh.
Legal considerations in the context of government regulations
In all countries, governments enact legal provisions to guide the process of hiring people. In the United States, the U.S. Department of Labor has prepared and documented such laws. The most fundamental way of government involvement in compensation and benefit allocation to workers is through setting minimum wages and salaries, which are applicable in both public and private sectors (Lambert & Vicki, 2012). Through the Fair Labor Standards Act, the U.S. government sets a requirement for all workers to be paid a particular minimum wage and overtime.
In spite of the variation of figures for wages from state to state, the general formula for arriving at the pay for overtime remains the same across the states. However, depending on the financial position and rewarding schemes deployed by any company, employees could be compensated higher than the level set by the government. This minimum overtime wage is one and half times the applicable hourly rate (Lambert & Vicki, 2012).
In different sectors, the government of the U.S. sets laws to regulate the way organizations select their workforce. For example, in the construction industry, a government restriction is in place that organizations should not discriminate on a gender basis especially the most preferred persons necessary for recruitment for new job openings. The enforcement of this legal requirement is implemented via executive order 11246 (United States Department of Labor, 2012). In the effort to comply with this legal requirement, persons qualifying for the positions of secretaries are not selected based on gender since both men and women qualify for the positions. The only requirement is that they possess requisite credentials.
Responsibilities
The secretaries working in the department of human resources will execute office duties involving file maintenance tasks, for instance, payroll files, invoices for suppliers, summary for billing the organization’s projects, invoices for contracts to suppliers, and blueprints. The HR department handles a large number of information related to employees’ documentation including an accounting of accounts payable to the employees together with billing. As administrative assistants, the secretaries are expected to help in the execution of these roles via engagement of tasks including reviewing invoices and clarification for accuracy in calculations of material costs together with the costs of subcontracting (Christensen & Media, 2013). The administrative assistants will also review the timecards for employees besides updating the expense reports and payrolls. For successful performance in their range of tasks, secretaries will also have to execute duties such as using software applications to ensure tracking and maintaining of costs related to employees up to date for every project manned by the employees of the company within North Carolina.
The administrative assistants will also aid HR to update the information required to construct proposals together with budgetary reports. Knowledge of software applications applicable in the HR department is also a very crucial requirement for the human resource secretaries (Hudson, 2007) by virtue of the fact that successful candidates will use the applications programs to keep up to date and/or track the cost of the materials used in building and execution of the Turner Construction Company’s projects.
Qualifications
Eligible candidates should:
- Have skills in time management to help them in setting priorities
- Have skills in the administration of various tasks such as management of payrolls and supplier invoices
- Be able to produce timely supply reports when needed
- Be capable to work in standalone environments and in a professional way
- Be able to work with information secretly and in a private manner
- Have experience in letter drafting
- Possess incredible interpersonal and intrapersonal communication skills as they will handle directly the employees in the extents of documentation of their pleas before they are forwarded to the CHRO
- Be highly knowledgeable in computer applications applicable in HR department
- Demonstrate accuracy in documents typing
- Possess a degree in business administration and a one-year experience in the handling of construction-related secretarial duties
Compensation and benefits package
Compensation and benefits packages constitute the initiation point for recruitment of the most qualified persons to fill new job openings. Employee compensation and benefits packages comprise a number of elements including variable pay, compensation based on equities, guaranteed pay, and benefits (Lambert & Vicki, 2012, p.307). Guaranteed pay involves all monies that are accorded to an employee in terms of wages or monthly salaries. For the proposed secretarial positions, the guaranteed pay is the basic salary arrived at from the minimum statutory pay set in the state of North Carolina as provided for by the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics. This salary is $30,830 (Christensen & Media, 2013, Para. 4)
In addition to the basic salary, secretaries will also be eligible for a variable pay package. It includes bonuses, commissions on sales, and the money paid for overtime jobs (Lambert & Vicki, 2012). In the case of the Turner Construction Company, secretarial positions’ variable pay will encompass overtime allowances and bonuses. Overtime is paid based on the extra hours worked per week.
For every hour above 40 hours worked in a week, the secretary will be eligible for hourly pay of 1.5 times more than the normal hourly pay. This formula is based on the BLS standards. Other forms of gifts and payments given to employees on a special occasion are bonuses given even in secretaries’ absence at work. For example, if they are on holiday or ill. The job positions will involve working even in odd hours particularly when there are urgent meetings. Hence, eligible persons will not be limited to working for specific hours. Candidates applying for the positions should be prepared to work even during those odd hours. They only need compensation for the extra time.
Other benefits to enhance the performance of the employee
Employees are crucial in an organization to ensure the attainment of organizational goals and objectives. Their performance can be improved through a myriad of mechanisms including training and development (Brockbank, 2003). The need to keep the employees motivated and hence increase their performance outputs underlines the significance of the human resource department within Turner Company. Indeed, the company recognizes that, in an immensely developing world, people constantly deserve better jobs especially when salaries and other remunerations offered to an employee cease being the primary sources of motivation. For the improved future performance of the secretary, safe working conditions and giving reasonable and fair payment packages remain significant strategies for making secretaries committed to their duties.
In the modern approaches to human resource management, employing an individual translates to inheriting the personality and professionalism attributes of the employee. Therefore, in an attempt to increase the performance of a worker, HR has the responsibility to handle personal challenges that may conflict with the organizational goals and objectives (Brockbank, 2003, p.340). Hence, Turner Construction Company needs to incorporate secretaries into the counseling programs and other workers’ assistance programs. This strategy helps all Turner Construction Company’s workers including the secretaries in managing and resolving their conflicts at workplaces together with enhancing performance in their personal roles.
Reference List
Brockbank, W. (2003). If HR Were Really Strategically Proactive: Present and Future Directions in HR’s Contribution to Competitive Advantage. Human resource management, 38(4), 337-352.
Christensen, M., & Media, D. (2013). Job Description for a Construction Company. Web.
Hudson, M. (2007). A Part or Apart: Is HR in Partnership with the Business? Web.
Lambert, C., & Vicki M. (2012). The Top Three FLSA Violations and How to Avoid Them. Journal of Human Resource Management, 12(3), 306-313.
United States Department of Labor. (2012). Summary of the Major Laws of the Department Of Labor. Web.