Managing Human Resources In Myer: Challenges And Strategies Essay.

Challenges faced by Myer in Human Resource Management

Question:

Discuss about the Demands of Market Selection Process.

The report discusses the various ways of managing the human resources within the business organization Myer in Australia. Management of human resources includes the recruitment and selection of individuals within the business organisations, who are considered as major assets of the organisation to improve the production level and organisational efficiency. Management of human resources is essential for improving the performance of employees as well, and it is only possible when the right and skilled employees are recruited within the organisation. Recruitment of individuals can help in making the company gain a competitive advantage as well as improve the cost and efficiency of products and services properly delivered through differentiation of products too (Alfes et al., 2013). 

The report will discuss the major challenges that are faced while recruiting the workforce for a particular organisation like Myer in Australia. As the topic of the report is concerned with the human resources management, so the supply and demand of labour, organisation image, demographic issues and other recruitment related barriers would also be included in this report. The various strategies for recruitment of individuals will be illustrated here as well including the most effective employer branding and different advertising techniques (Myer.com.au, 2017). Thus, the main purpose of the report will be to address the challenges and issues faced while recruiting individuals as part of the workforce of Myer, Australia.

The major things that are taking place in the last few years in the areas of recruitment are shifting towards the online resources. Various trends have emerged for the online advertising regarding the vacancy of a job within the organisation.  Recruitment process of Myer is managed for identifying the vast pool of candidates and obtain the most suitable individuals who have relevant skills, knowledge and expertise as part of the workforce. It is done for filling up the job vacancies for the particular position for which the organisation has provided advertisement and other job-related information to attract the most skilled and knowledgeable candidates (Anderson, 2013). The purpose of the recruitment process is to select the right individual for the right job position and provide them with the greatest scopes and opportunities to work within Myer as well as contribute fully to the organisational effectiveness. The selection process is done after the recruitment process is complete where a large number of candidates are selected. The selection process includes interview sessions, reference checking and testing for ensuring that the best individual is selected for the roles within the organisation through utilisation of fair and effective assessment methods and recruitment strategies (App, Merk & Büttgen, 2012).

Recruitment Strategies and Techniques

Few major challenges are faced during the process of recruitment such as immense competition level for searching the right talents based on the demand and supply of labour, lack of skilled and knowledgeable individuals, poor retention rate and less time to fill up the vacancies in the job. The employers of Myer believe that the biggest challenge has been the lack of ability to recruit the most skilled and qualified candidates as part of the qualified talent pool. The job market has faced the professional deficit and to overcome this issue, the job vacancies have been filled with candidates who possess low level skills, knowledge and expertise (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). The high level of homogeneity in demographic conditions also makes it difficult or challenging to recruit and select the most skilled candidates as part of the workforce. Due to some loss faced in business, Myer has also created bad customer's experiences, which can also attract less number of candidates to become part of the organisation. Nowadays, individuals are less committed to a single job or career choice, and so the company shall manage interview coaching to train the workers and ensure that the workforce is managed properly (Beardwell & Thompson, 2014). Retention of existing candidates has also become a major challenge or issue for the employers. Thus, coaching and regular assessment sessions should be done for making sure that all the needs and requirements of the candidates are met, and good relationships between the employees and employers are developed to avoid these kinds of challenges (Bratton & Gold, 2012).

There could also be the mismatch of skills within the labour market of Australia, which might further result in problems related to the data and information gathered during the processes of recruitment and selection. This would also hinder the achievement of skills that might be required for managing and enhancing the efficiency of the workforce. The over skilled attributes pf individuals would create an adverse impact on the labour market, create penalties for the wages, and furthermore leads to job dissatisfaction and higher turnover of employees at Myer (Brewster & Hegewisch, 2017). Thus, the mismatching of skills could also be considered as a major challenge faced by employers to recruit the suitable candidates and fill up the job vacancies with ease. Myer has struggled to match the demands of market salary for the skilled individuals and the present demands for highly professional employees have the potential to increase wages for them furthermore. In case the demands for skilled individuals is greater than the supply, there will be challenges related to the increase in wages during the process of recruitment (Brewster & Hegewisch, 2012). Employers often face difficulty in attracting candidates when the organization has a bad image or reputation among the customers, maybe due to bad quality products or services or even due to lack of diversification of business approaches (Myer.com.au, 2017).

Employer Branding

The effective recruitment strategies could result in making the organisation successful and manage its business operations and processes with ease and effectiveness. The processes of recruitment and selection can sometimes become costly as well as ineffective if the strategies are not managed in a systematic and proactive way. There are various recruitment strategies including the employer branding and various kinds of advertising that can not only help in ensuring that the organisation to achieve the desired set of skills, knowledge and attributes but also becomes capable enough to meet the present and future strategic needs and requirements of managing business operations properly (Buller & McEvoy, 2012). The supply should meet the requirements for demand and furthermore ensure that the pools of talents are increased largely. These strategies are also considered as useful for improving the process of selection and ensure that the candidates who can meet the position requirements are selected for further investigation at Myer.  Employer branding defines the proposition of value for the employees for the purpose of enhancing brand image and name (Brewster & Hegewisch, 2016). It could promote the entire organisation as well as enable choices made by the employer for a desired group of people, that the company will need to recruit or select.

One of the major issues with the employer branding is that it attracts more candidates that attracting the most desirable candidates for the concerned post. At Myer, employers have faced the challenges of obtaining the perfect mix of talent, because the economy enables the company to grow rather than finding out the most skilled labour for the workforce (Myer.com.au, 2017). Myer consistently diversifies its products and services, and so the employers need to select the candidates with skills and knowledge that the brand might never have thought of attracting. The internationalisation of companies like Myer has enabled it into new geographic locations and a labour market that are quite different from the home location where the company has been functioning (Jiang et al., 2012). To enhance the brand image during globalisation, the Human resource management teams often fail to recruit the most effective candidates for enhancing the efficiency of the workforce. To overcome such challenges, Myer needs to adopt strategies for enhancing its brand image like it used to previously for employment branding rather than trying something different to achieve globalisation within the business environment. Other challenges that are faced by employer brand professionals are lack of alignment with the internal business operations, poor abilities to overcome the negative brand image and reputation and failing to find out the best approaches to use the employee-generated content (Kumari, 2012).

Online Advertising

The advertisements are published online and on newspapers to attract more candidates for managing the recruitment process. With the advancement in technology and communication, the advertisements on newspapers have fallen drastically than the advertisements and promotions done online. There are few challenges of online advertisements as well like for managing online job boards, huge costs are incurred, and the employer of Myer must pay for the advertisements of more than one posts for job vacancies (Leekha Chhabra & Sharma, 2014). The online advertisements also grab the attention of large numbers of candidates rather than just focusing on the candidates who have the necessary skills, knowledge and expertise level, which is another challenge during the process of recruitment. The employers of Myer have faced several limitations and challenges with the tight labour market and pressures of the economy along with the continuous change of business environment after the global financial crisis (Myer.com.au, 2017). To overcome these challenges, the recruitment strategies are implemented through the management of internal business operations and organisational assets including the employer branding.

There are issues related to demographic conditions as well including the ageing population, changing views of generations and diversity. It has been seen that ageing workforce often deteriorates the organisational performance and reduces the production and profit level too. Due to this, the existing ageing workforce needs replacement with young and energetic individuals who possess the most relevant skills and knowledge to contribute to the organisation largely. Thus, one of the major concerns of ageing people entering the labour pool or workforce is potential age discrimination (Purce, 2014). Often the old workers are not properly reviewed and assessed during the interviews, which ignores certain areas where the individuals have strengths and can benefit the organisation as a whole. Though the ageing workforce brings wisdom and vast amounts of experiences for providing value to Myer, the production level may suffer, which is a major challenge. Lack of diverse talent is another demographic issue which often hinders the company functioning and make it incapable of gaining huge profit and competitive advantage in business (Sivertzen, Nilsen & Olafsen, 2013). To overcome these challenges, the job vacancies, positions and other job related information must be advertised in many places such as community boards, employment services centre, newspapers, cultural community groups and even online through the use of social media. This would attract more candidates who could be reviewed prior to the selection process and might even improve the visibility of the organization within the community and prevent challenges and misconceptions about employment within the retail sector of Australia (Anderson, 2013).

Demographic Challenges

Conclusion

The report was presented to discuss the major aspects of managing human resources, which were considered as major attributes of success for the organisation Myer in Australia. The challenges that were faced during the processes of recruitment and selection had been included in this report along with the major strategies of recruitment to address these challenges as well. There were certain challenges faced as it could be seen when the demands for professional employees exceed the supply. Due to bad reputation and image, there might also be challenges faced as candidates would less likely try to get into the organisation. The other challenges faced had been related to the employer branding, various kinds of advertising and demographic issues such as ageing workforce, i.e., workforce consisting of old workers with a high level of experience though lesser ability to increase the production rate for Myer. Other challenges were faced when the company tried to attract a diversified pool of talent and form an effective workforce to enhance the organisational efficiency. Therefore, all these challenges must be overcome for ensuring that the human resources were managed properly and the organization could bring out positive outcomes in terms of profit and competitive advantage in business.

References

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