Recruitment Strategies And Selection Criteria For A Bakery Manager Essay.

BreadTalk: A Unique Bakery Brand

Question:

Discuss about the Recruitment Strategies Of BreadTalk.

BreadTalk is one of Singapore’s most famous bakery brands, founded in 2000 and listed in 2003. BreadTalk not only expanded to nearly 1000 retail stores across 17 districts in Singapore but also had its bakery outlets in other countries across Asia such as Malaysia and Hong Kong, and even in the Middle East. Besides its bakery outlets, the company also owns and operates other brands like the Din Tai Feng restaurant based in Singapore and Thailand, or Food Republic food atria based in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China and Taiwan. They aim to delight their customers with a blend of unique concepts which envisions new food cultures across the bakeries, restaurants and food atriums. Other than that, they also aim to work with an international line up of consultants from a few countries in Europe and Asia such as France, Japan, and Taiwan, to bring out the best combination of culinary skills from an Asian to a Western culture, which delivers a world of taste to their customers. They combine the best flavors of Asian and Western with a perfect blend of local culture using quality ingredients and their chefs’ idea inspirations from the latest food trends in the world. (“BreadTalk Group Strategy,” n.d.)

From the research on the internet, I believe hiring a bakery manager will undoubtedly benefit our next outlet as a bakery manager carries numerous responsibilities, all of which are important to a well-functioning bakery so that the aspects of the bakery are maintained, and the customers are satisfied. First of all, the manager needs to be capable of baking large quantities a wide range of breads, pastries, and cakes to meet the needs of the market and also maintain the quality of the goods in the standard. Most importantly, they must have impressive ideas in making innovations which meets the latest food trends and also create unique products that would make them an advantaging competitor among the field. Besides creating ideas, they also have to be detail-oriented and have an eye for aesthetics as excellent baked goods must look appealing to impress the customers. Secondly, bakery manager plays a role in merchandising baked products and quality. Additionally, overseeing inventory is also part of the manager’s job that includes ordering and rotating ingredients such as flour, sugar, butter, etc. and unloading or receiving deliveries of stocks. Another task that is part of their job is tracking the required inventory and calculate the proper amount of ingredients necessary for the production of baked goods. It is important to them to ensure that the bakery is well stocked with enough to produce products to meet the demand everyday. Besides that, they also have to keep track of the popularity of each kind of pastry in order to know how much to supply daily; this is to prevent wastage of products. The bakery manager is also responsible for ensuring the profitability of the bakery in which they have to maximize the sales within the confines of the budget. Budgeting involves how to price the products, inventory costs, and labor.  Furthermore, bakery manager also have to manage the standard of the bakery. Hence, they have to make sure that all the staffs comply with the customer service and safety policies. Lastly, bakery manager is also in charge of hiring, developing and terminating bakery staffs. Not only that, but they are also responsible for scheduling employees’ working hours and make sure their payroll stay within the budget. (Andrine Redsteer, 2013) For a qualified bakery manager, he is required to have a high diploma in pastry or culinary arts; it will significantly be an advantage if he is holding an associate’s degree. Besides that, he must have excellent knowledge of the food and beverage products and trends in the industry, also, at least four years of working in the food and beverage industry. All in all, he must have exceptional leadership skills to lead, manage, train and motivate the bakery staffs. It is also very important to have excellent interpersonal skills. For language-wise, he has to be fluent in English to ensure great communication skills.

Roles and Responsibilities of a Bakery Manager

A baker or a bakery manager has to work under hot conditions around hazardous products for long hours; they also might sprain their back by lifting heavy sacks of flour or slipped on wet floor. Due to the risk of potential risks, it’s necessary to keep bakery health and safety. But how can we maintain and improve the health and safety of the bakery to make sure everyone work safe and happy. From the research by Health and Safety Exclusive of UK, the major accident happen in a bakery are heavy lifting, slipping, exposure to harmful substances, machinery, hot equipment, and even flour dust.  (“Bakery Product,” n.d.) First of all, we have to keep the bakery clean. Water, flour, and sugar create slippy paste; oil and butter will make the floor greasy, so make sure floor are mopped, the surface of the equipment is regularly wiped and no standing water. Besides that, put some anti-slip mats to prevent slippery floor. Other than that, keep the equipment out of the way when not being used so that others baker won't trip over. Furthermore, Hot sugar or ovens create the risk of burns. Bakers are the most important resource of the bakery much more the bakery manager. To avoid injuries, we can provide kitchen towels so that bakers can protect their hand when moving from task to task and encourage teamwork when lifting the massive object. To beat the hot environment, we can install the cooling systems to keep the bakery in cool and comfortable surroundings. Finally, the most important thing is the placement of the equipment and ovens. Good use of the of kitchen's layout can provide staff an efficient and safety workspace.  (Shoes For Crews Europe, 2017) Other than create a health and safety workplace.

There are various recruitment strategies which can be used for appointing adequate bakery manager for the next outlet. There are two key ways i.e. internal recruiting and external recruiting. Both of the ways are effective enough. But in case of the bakery, there will be used the external recruitment method which will include advertisements in newspapers, social media, direct applicants and referrals (Abraham, et al., 2015). The first recruitment strategy is the social media recruitment. There will be advertisement posted on social media sites so that there higher number of individuals can be aware of the vacancy and can apply for the same. There are social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. which attract young individuals. People spend the major part of their time on all these social media sites and thus it is a digital platform to attract the potential candidates (Jeske and Shultz, 2016). Displaying the job position ads in between the posts and the articles are considered as the best way to reach the maximum number of potential candidates for the job. The second recruitment strategy which will be used is advertisement in the newspaper and magazine as the newspapers are the key source of information for the masses (Rees and Rumbles, 2010). The newspapers have the maximum reach. Thus, an advertisement will be published for the vacancy. There are various hotel management institutions comprising of individuals undertaking hotel management courses. There is also supply of magazines in those institutes; therefore, to gain the attention of the potential candidates, an advertisement will be published for the vacancy in those magazines.

Maintaining Health and Safety in a Bakery

Another recruitment strategy which will be used for the recruitment of the bakery manager will be referrals. Referrals can be described as a recruitment strategy in which the existing employees or staff members of the bakery will suggest a person for the vacancy. Referrals are considered as one of the best recruitment strategy as the referred candidates are already pre-scanned by the existing employees and have a good understanding of the work to be done (Ofori and Aryeetey, 2011). They are not the trained recruiters but still they give an assurance for the referred candidate, regarding the personality of the individual, ability to be culturally fit in the organisation and also to have the competence to manage the work (O'Meara and Petzall, 2013). The referral recruitment not only saves time and cost but also helpful in enhancing the retention rate of the staff. A referral bonus will be provided to the employees if the candidate referred is been shortlisted and stay for a specific time period. Lastly, direct applicant recruitment strategy will be used as there will also be selection of the candidate through direct interview without any source or through any organisation. Thus, all these external recruitment strategies will be used for the appointment r the recruitment of the brand manager at the bakery.

Once the recruitment is done, it is essential to have effective and sound selection strategy so that right candidate can be selected for the job profile. Following are few of the selection strategies which will be used

Interview

It is one of the most used and common selection strategies which help in predicting the future job performance of the candidate on the basis of the oral response of the individual. For the selection of the candidate, interview as a selection strategy will be used for determining the social skills and the communication competence for managing the bakery work. It will help in checking the verbal fluency of the candidate as well as will also help in obtaining the supplementary info of the individual. The job knowledge of the candidate will be assessed in the interview and the compatibility of the person will also be checked. The interview assists in gathering the actual knowledge of the candidate through one-on-one interaction (O'Meara and Petzall, 2013). Therefore, for the appointment of eth bakery manager, interview is one of the best selection strategies and the most reliable one also.

Recruitment Strategies for Hiring a Bakery Manager

Work Samples

The next selection strategy is work samples. This is used to determine the candidate’s standard as well as creativity. in this strategy or section test, there is a task which is given to the candidate which stimulates the practical job experience. The key aim of this strategy is to asses that how well and effectively the person can perform as well as learn the task. In the work sample there will be given few tasks to the candidate in respect with the management of the bakery. Those tasks will be the work sample for analyzing the competence and ability of the person to manage the work. The work sample can check the accuracy and correctness of the performance of the candidate in respect with the future job profile (Ekwoaba, Ikeije and Ufoma, 2015).

Cognitive Ability Test

The next selection strategy will be the cognitive ability test which will be used for the selection of the candidate. There will be a number of tests which will be conducted in order to judge the personality of the personnel such as the verbal comprehension to check the communication ability, visual pursuit, word fluency, symbolic reasoning, space visualization, etc. All these tests will help in analyzing the mental and perceptive competence of the candidate for managing the work and future job profile in an effective manner (Abraham, et al., 2015).

Personality Test

Another selection strategy which will be used in order to check the ability of the candidate for maintaining balance among the existing employees is the personality test. There is a need to check whether the candidate will be culturally fit as well as have adequate characteristics in respect with openness to other people, conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional ability and extroversion (Ekwoaba, Ikeije and Ufoma,  2015).

Conclusion

From the paper, it can be concluded that the bakery can be benefitted by adopting adequate recruitment strategy and selection strategy. It is necessary that there must be an appropriate candidate for managing the business operations of the bakery. If the candidate passes the various tests in the selection process, then it will result in final selection of the individuals. The tests show the ability of the person to manage the bakery operations. Thus, it can be concluded that a proper job analysis, job design, recruitment strategy and selection strategy must be used for effective bakery management.

References

Abraham, M., Kaliannan, M., Mohan, A. V., & Thomas, S. (2015). A Review of Smes Recruitment and Selection Dilemma: Finding a'Fit'. The Journal of Developing Areas, 49(5), 335-342.

Andrine, R. (2013, April 25) The Top Five Responsibilities of a Bakery Manager. Retrieved on: 11^th January, 2018, Retrieved from: https://work.chron.com/top-five-responsibilities-bakery-manager-19947.html

Bakery Product.(n.d.). Retrieved on: 11^th January, 2018, Retrieved from: https://www.hse.gov.uk/food/bakery.htm

BreadTalk (n.d.). Retrieved on: 11^th January, 2018, Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BreadTalk

BreadTalk Group Strategy. (n.d.). Retrieved on: 11^th January, 2018, Retrieved from: https://www.breadtalk.com/strategy/

Ekwoaba, J. O., Ikeije, U. U., & Ufoma, N. (2015). The Impact of Recruitment and Selection Criteria on Organizational Performance.

Jeske, D., & Shultz, K. S. (2016). Using social media content for screening in recruitment and selection: pros and cons. Work, employment and society, 30(3), 535-546.

Ofori, D., & Aryeetey, M. (2011). Recruitment and selection practices in small and medium enterprises: Perspectives from Ghana. International Journal of Business Administration, 2(3), 45.

O'Meara, B., & Petzall, S. (2013). Handbook of Strategic Recruitment and Selection: A Systems Approach. Emerald Group Publishing.

Rees, G., & Rumbles, S. (2010). Recruitment and selection. Rees, G. and French, R. Leading, Managing and Developing People, 169-190.                                                                                                       

Shoes For Crews Europe (2017, July 3). How to Improve and Maintain Health and Safety in a Bakery, Retrieved on: 11^th January, 2018, Retrieved from: https://blog.sfceurope.com/how-to-improve-and-maintain-health-and-safety-in-a-bakery