Human Resource Management

FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

BBPR 2103

PLANNING, RECRUITMENT ANS SELECTION OF HUMAN RESOURCES

Name: Santhee a/p Muthusamy

Matric No.: 731203105662001

I.C. No.: 731203-10-5662

Contact No.: 017-319 0950

E-mail Address: [e-mail]

Tutor : Valerian Hansen Petrus

Leaning Centre: ONLINE LAERNING

JANUARY 2010 SEMESTER

1. Provide a brief introduction on the selected organisation, i.e. the mission, vision, objectives, nature of business and the industry in general.

My choice of organisaton would be Westports Malaysia Sdn Bhd. Westports is a seaport that handles containerized and bulk cargo. It has been operational since 1994 and handles around 3million TEUs (containers) yearly. It is a part of Port Klang, which is the 12th largest port in the world. Its location is on the Straits of Malacca which is ideally connected to more than 300 ports worldwide.

Westports is 100% private owned equity. As at now Westports has staff strength of 3000 people. Westports Board of Directors are as follows:-

Figure 1: Board of Directors

Westports Vision is to be a successful gateway for the nation’s trade inventory and the pride of the nation in terms of employee relations, customer satisfaction and corporate citizenship.

The organization Mission statement is to achieve 5 million TEUs and 16 million tonnes of cargo by 2010 with excellent returns for the employees, shareholders and customers.

Westport’s objectives include the following:-

Flexi Port As a Flexiport, Westports handles not only containers but also Break Bulk, Dry Bulk, Liquid Bulk, Car Terminal and VAS (Value-Added Service).

Fast Port Westports is also a fast port where they believe in the importance of “Time”. Therefore, they strive to maximum Cranes usage, faster turnaround for the cranes in loading and unloading the cargo. Apart from that, they also implement the electronic documentation, which saves so much time and ships are always on schedule.

Garden Port Westports is the world’s first garden port. With over 300 plant varieties and also won the National Landscape Award.

2. Identify and explain in detail the effects of external influences on the staffing process in the selected organization.

External influences are very important and something that all organization have to consider. It can impact an organization positively or negatively where it will effect the activities like management, human resource, individual/job compatibility as well as outcomes for human resource activities. External influences include economic climate, the labour market, rules and regulatios and changes in technology.

Economic Climate Economic climate has strong influence of the economic climate of an organization. This is base on the economic of a country whether is it strong or weak. If the economic is weak then it will effect direct on the organizations finances. How it will effect direct?

i. Work Merger The management will decide to merge some of the roles done by the workers. For example in Westport’s Finance Department, we had about 3 person doing the same job such as verify the accounts, issue cheques and prepare monthly report on the basic accounts currently, but due the economic turn down for the past one year the management decided to have only one person to complete the task.

ii. Voluntary Resignation Due to economic climate weak, Westport have considered to introduce voluntary separation schemes for staffs who have been with the oragnisation for more than 10 years. They were offered with a sum of money and to leave the organization voluntarily.

iii. Payment of Allowance In Westport, due to the economic down turn the allowances such as overtime, travelling allowances etc were freezed. Our office boys were the people affected much. Their mileage and petrol claims were freezed. Hope it will be back to normal once the economic increase.

The economic climate also has impacts on staffing especially from job growth perspective. The effects must be predicted, planned, adapted and managed. The human resource department of the organization is responsible for staffing including the decision making and strategic planning. Staffing includes:

i. Staffing Flexibility Flexibility in an organization refers to the duties that an employee can perform. Flexibility also allows the employees to decide hours of work, work location and the way work is carried out. It involves thinking creatively about how working lives can be better structured to match individual and business needs. We in Westport work on flexi hours, there is no fixed time for example everyone have to work from 9am to 6pm. Here we work eight hours, we can even come in early morning, we complete the eight hours the we can leave for the day.

ii. Career Path Human resource department need to design a career path to plan progression of jobs within the organization or in a professional field leading to the realization of career goals by an employee from a lower level to higher level. Career path for senior employee in Westport are bright because most of the promotion will be offered to the senior employees first and if they find there is no one then only Westport will try to look for external staffing.

iii. Manpower Shortage Human resource department to ensure that the manpower in an organization are intensively anticipated without any shortage of manpower. So far in our organization we have not face this problem since our Human Resource Department is efficient.

iv. Work Benefits Westport fulfills the benefit required by their employees for example the employees will be paid a yearly bonus even though there is a economic down turn.

Labour Market Labour market represents an external labour source for certain organization to help the organization to recruit new workers. The labour market can be seen as quantitative or qualitative. Quantitatively, when demand for labour exceed supply and the process of recruitment to be more complicated and it also involves higher costs. Qualitatively, workers refers to the qualifications needed in a job as well as fulfill the requirement by an organization. Organization will state its particular interests and needs through labour market.

i. Labour Demand a) Quantity Demand for labour is a created demand. This happens when organization’s demand for labours. They will employ and make use of the labours to produce their products and provide a better service. Statistics are collected and analysed in order to help organizations to see the patterns and make projections for the future.

(b) Quality Labours will be measure according to the qualitative characteristics. Employers give priority to quality of labour or the predicted shortcomings can help and organization set expectations about quality.

ii. Labour Supply a) Quantity Quantity of labour supply can be measured through manpower survey.

b) Quality Quality of the labour supply can be indentified through KSAO characteristics display. Anyway this can be difficult to identify and measure .

iii. Labour Market Effects on Staffing Supply and demand can provide staffing opportunities or pose threats to an organization. Firstly, older workforce. Employees who have worked for a long time will be able to contribute more to the organization on their duties. Their commitment towards the job will be so much better than the new ones. Secondly, the perspective of an overflow of supplies which will facilitate an organization’s sourcing and selection activities. Example, when there is a recession in economics there will be a lot of unemployed graduates. This will be an advantage for an organization because they will receive a lot of applications and from there they will be able to choose the best for their organization.

Workers’ Unions Workers’ unions objective is representing its members' interests, primarily through improving pay and conditions, and provides a variety of services. In organizations many people will join the workers’ union because they are the one who will protect and represent employees on matters pertaining to the relationship with the employers. They also will involve in the negotiation of benefits for the employees. Westport workers’ union will always protect their employee.

i. Labour Agreement This refers to a valid mutual agreement that needs to be implemented between employers and workers’ unions to represent all the employees.

ii. Effects in Staffing First effect of labour agreement between employer and employee and the second effect of the workers’ union on staffing in general.

a) Employers’ Right Labour Agreement does not include notice to the employee by the employer because this will cause difficulty in case there is changes in the work place.

b) Job Structure Structure which covers the job boundaries as well as movements between jobs.

c) External Staffing Union will not take interest in external staffing because it does not lead any job movements for existing staffs.

(d) Internal Staffing Union will be more interested to actively involve in the internal staffing because union can lead the existing staff in career development and promotions.

e) Aggrievance Procedures Allowed when there is difference in interpreting and applying clauses to the agreement.

(f) Guarantee towards Discrimination Agreement should be prepare without any clauses that prohibit discrimination towards race, sex origins of descendants and disability.

Technology Westport’s human resource department using the human resource information systems in the recruitment process where all the database of the workers are easily accessed. Since the technology has been so advanced, the organization is saving in advertisement for jobs in newspaper or job agencies.

Government Policies Government policies also have a lot of influence on staffing. The individual who is handling the staffing process has to be the one who understand the government regulations and policies. For example, in Westport we need to employed a lot of foreign employees to work at the port. Our personnel here is a person who is well known in the government’s regulation’s in employing foreign staffs.

Globalization i. Culture Adaption Candidates must understand some cross culture. This is a very important factor because if you see in Malaysia and India the cultures are different.

ii. Personal Traits The veteran employee, who is best performer in the origin country, can also be the bad performer in a different country due to the culture differences.

iii. Communication Skills An employee should be able to read and write if they are an expatriate.

iv. Individual/Family Factors If an employee to be an expatriate, the organization has to consider on both the family and the individual factor. Organization also has tp make things clear on the job scope.

v. Needs of the Organization Managers knowledge of the organization and their operation in important as well as the culture adaption.

3. Conclude the assignment by evaluating the current position of the organization and put up recommendations in order to overcome the negative impact of external influences in staffing process.

I feel that generally, Westports has taken appropriate measures to recruit the best employees. However, I also feel that Westports can take better measures to improve external recruitment.

Below are some of the measures that can be taken to improvise the recruitment in Westports:-

i. Use Westports Website to recruit Candidates Instead of typical, dryly written job listings about available positions, Westports website needs to include a vision, mission, values and culture of the company that sets Westports apart from others in the industry. The job listing should sparkle with personality so a potential candidate will think that this is the organisation that they would like to work in.

After getting the candidates attention to apply for the job, there should be an easier online job application for the applicant to submit their resume. This method is not only helpful to attract the best candidates but it is also the fastest way to recruit.

ii. Offer ‘finders fees’ to anyone who refers an individual who is hired Westports should not confine this offer to current employees only, it should open up to third party, such as suppliers, customers or the general public.

I believe that the more people you have searching for you, the more choice you’ll have when filling positions

iii. Fresh Graduates Westport should open up the vacancy for the fresh graduates as they are still young. Fresh graduates that I am addressing are the children of the senior workers. One senior staff is retiring then the job can be offered to the child which will help the family indirectly and also the child who is looking for a job will not have to search for a job whereby he/she knows that the organization in reliable. There will be no second thought for them.

REFERENCES

OUM Module - Topic 2: External Influences: All Sections

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Chai Yune Loong
Director

Fauziah Yaakob
Director

Chan Chu Wei
Director

James Steed Tsien
Director

John Edward Wenham
Director

Ahmayuddin Ahmad
Director

Dato Haji Badri Bin Masri
Director

Tan Sri Datuk Nik Ibrahim Kamil
Director

Tan Sri Datuk G Gnanalingam
Executive Chairman