Case Study# 1

Introduction to HRM (B)

Topic:

Case Study Analysis of Recruitment for a multinational in China

Submitted By:

Muhammad Arslan Hashmi L1S18BBAM0003

Hafiz Umar Ikram L1S18BBAM0004

Haider Baig L1S18BBAM0005

Muhammad Mohsin Waqar L1S18BBAM0007

Aleena Hayat Malik L1F17MBAM0017

Submitted To:

Ms. Quratulain Muqarab

Date of Submission:

26th April, 2020

Answer the questions after reading the case study:

1. Analyze the case and point out the problems as per your understanding.

The CEO of a multinational company wanted a new HR team that operated in Guangzhou,
China to recruit and select 85 individuals at different positions in the company. These positions
included finance managers, production managers, security guards, factors workers, secretaries and
interns. The members of the HR team that dealt with these tasks were highly diverse in terms of
their educational as well as their countries of origin (China, Canada and Germany.) The team had
to deal with a number of problems and faced many issues during their recruitment process.

The first and most important problem which is seen in the case is that the company is a
multinational operating in different countries, but it didn’t have any pre planned and effective
recruitment and hiring process. The employees were not hired and promoted on the basis of job
requirements and their performance but on the basis of his or her relations with his boss. Job ads
were not being advertised on the basis of job requirements. Job descriptions and job specifications
were not being used for the hiring process. Moreover, there were no selection methods in practice.
There are different selection methods that could be used by any company for its recruitment and
hiring process which include work sample tests, integrity tests, biographical and educational
questionnaires and employee referrals. None of the mentioned techniques were being used in the
organization.

Thirdly, the time frame of four weeks to hire 85 personnel was very less. Some of the positions
were executive in nature and needed proper time and planning to do recruitment. Moreover, there
were cultural barriers between the team members which was a big hindrance in their work. They
belonged to different countries with different cultural backgrounds and values. For example when
Hoffman took a file from the shelf by standing on a chair wearing her shoes, it was taken a negative
act by her team members because this was not considered ethical in China. In addition to this, there
were language barriers too between the members. Hoffman was not able to understand Chinese
because she had problem understanding it and she requested her team members to communicate
in English. When they communicated in Chinese, she was not able to understand what they were
saying and so was not able to take part in the group discussions more actively. When she received
her joining letter via mail in Chinese and was asked to sign it, she didn’t because she couldn’t
understand many parts of it and in addition to this they added some more clauses which were not
written in the previous letter which was in English.

Another problem was the ineffective leadership style of the CEO, Robert Stingl. He delegated
his authority to the team members by making a team leader and himself spent most of his time in
Zurich and used to communicate via Skype. As a CEO and a team leader, it was his duty to take
his team along and should give them suggestions to improve the recruitment process. Instead he
only gave orders to complete the tasks within four weeks. Moreover, the expectations of the CEO
were unrealistic. He asked the HR team to recruit 85 Personnel within four weeks including some
executive positions and that too without any pre-defined or used process. The team had to develop
a process, interview them and then hire the candidates all in four weeks which is completely
unrealistic. Furthermore the CEO directed his team to not take help of any outside recruitment firm
in this process. If they would have taken some help, it would have made their tasks easier. Another
problem was the lack of experience in the members of the team. Most of the members were not
qualified enough and didn’t have the required knowledge to do effective recruitment. They were
giving suggestions to recruit on the basis of looks and appearances and how well the candidates
have arranged their resumes etc. Due to this there was no effective team leading during the process.

2. If you were Robert Stingl, what would you do in this situation?

Robert Stingl is the CEO of this company and he has hired a team to do recruitment and
selection of the new employees. As a CEO and team leader he has not performed his duties well
and he gave all the responsibilities to the team and didn’t helped them out as they were low at their
experience. There were some improvements that I would make if I were at his place. First and the
most important task that I would do is to stop the recruitment process because there is no proper
planning that should be done in order to perform the tasks. First of all I would help the team in
designing a proper recruitment process and would be available for them whenever they would
need, I will try to give some suggestions as well instead of just giving orders, because being a
leader is more effective than being a manager. Secondly, the time frame given to the team is very
less. Some of the vacancies are of the managerial position. For such positions there should be
proper planning of who should be hired. For such positions I could go for internal recruiting and
see if any of the existing employee have the abilities of doing the job. Other alternative to this
could be the employee referrals. The time frame would be increased so that the HR team could
develop a process and then go for recruitment in more effective way. Thirdly, the lingual and
cultural barriers between the members also have a negative impact on the process because the
recruitment process and the discussions could not be done in a more effective manner. So, as a
CEO and team leader I would try to take some measures to help the members to overcome this
issue. They would be given time to know each other and each other’s culture in a better way to
have effective communication. Furthermore, as a CEO of the company, it is my duty to see that
the team would be able to perform the job in time or not. As, the team didn’t have any past
experience of such situations, I could go for outsourcing the recruitment by taking help of some
external recruitment firm. They could do the job of recruitment or help in the recruitment process.
A proper process of recruitment methods would be employed to hire the new candidates.
Furthermore, there would be no team leader among the members to make them feel free to give
their suggestions. I would be the team leader. Members would freely give their suggestions and
decision would be taken with detailed discussions and with everyone’s consent after looking into
the pros and cons of a suggestion.

3. Being the HR expert suggest a selection method to Jiao Li and also advise
her that how she should manage her teammates.

Selection is a process of HRM that starts after recruitment. Recruitment is just the creation and
development of a pool of CVs of different candidates among which are the potential candidates
that are to be hired. So, to hire a candidate, selection process starts. The process consists of eight
steps starting from initial screening and ending at formal job offer. Initial screening is done through
the data provided on the CVs and checking the candidates that comply with the necessary job
requirements. Application forms could be filled online also to only allow those candidates to apply
who fall in the required criteria. Some employment tests could be given to the candidates and those
fulfilling the criteria would be called for an interview. Interview is the most important part of the
selection process and most of the times selection depends on the interview given by a candidate.
After qualifying for further steps, a candidate could be hired for a job.
 So, to hire the right person for the right job, the HR manager should go for semi structured
interview as a tool for selecting the candidates. Through interviews only a person’s ability is
revealed. So better the interview technique, better the candidate would be selected. So, an interview
should be conducted in such a ways that candidate shod feel free to talk and his abilities and
knowledge be conveyed to the interviewer. It is suggested that the HR manager Jiao Li should go
for semi structured interviews. Semi structured interview is a mix of structured and unstructured
interviews. The manager should make a list of the most important questions he had to task. Those
questions are to be asked to every candidate, the order being changed as per the situation. The rest
of the questions are to be asked in a free flowing conversation. A discussion should be started to
make the candidate easier and questions are to be asked randomly and are asked from the
discussion going on. Such questions arise spontaneously in a free flowing conversation.

There are a number of reasons for which semi structured interviews are better and should be
used in the recruitment process for this company. Firstly, it is mix of structured and unstructured
interviews, so it has an essence from both the worlds. The data or the answers cold be compared
which were written down like in a structured way, while candidates knowledge, abilities skills and
confidence is checked during free conversation. Also, starting with a free conversation and asking
questions in a relaxed manner, it would be easy to know about the candidate more effectively. So,
the candidates get time to adapt in the environment and when the candidate adapts, the interviewer
can ask some important and serious questions. Moreover, as a semi structured interview is more
like a discussion, interviewer can get to not only know the answers for his various questions but
also the reasons for them, so the answers are justified with proper reasoning. Also, the candidates
could be given some situations and asked about how would they act in such situations and then
analyzing the effectiveness of their answers and the employees could be tested accordingly.

To have an effective selection criteria, a team should be competent as well as communicative.

A task is performed well when all the teammates are motivated enough and they are willing to do
the job in a more effective manner. Jiao Li is the HR manager and thus the leader of the team
tasked to have a recruitment process to recruit for the 85 vacancies. As it can be seen in the case
the team is not being managed in an effective way because they are not communicating well. The
team comprises of people from different countries having problems in communication. First thing
they can do is to communicate in English, so that all the members can understand each other and
participate in more effective way. The communication should also made transparent and each
member should talk in the presence of all the members of the team, so they are not hiding secrets.
Moreover, the tasks to be done, the duties hence everything should be delegated to the team
members equally. Employees want to be kept in the loop about ongoing projects, goals and
deadlines, so it is essential that the team leader should communicate well with them and inform
them about goings-on within the organization. In case of a query or a problem he should be
available to his team members whenever they are in need. Moreover, the HR manager could ask
reasoning questions to the members and ask for the solutions to the problems. He could also
motivate them by giving appraisals on any positive suggestion because motivation is one of the
most important tool of managing a team member. But, he should listen to everyone’s ideas and
suggestions even if they are not worthwhile so that the members should not feel discomfort.
Moreover, as an HR manager Li should be as transparent as possible to avoid any favoritism
because once a team mate would feel that the manager shows favoritism, he would not work well
for the company and would try to pull legs of other members. Furthermore, he should act like a
leader not like a manager and do the tasks himself and set an example for idealism to the members
to motivate them.