Case Study

You are one of the Human Resource Managers for JJC, a medium-sized multinational in the financial services sector, focusing on providing pensions and investment management facilities for a select group of up-market clients (ranging from corporations to ‘celebrities’ with large amounts of disposable income). JJC normally interacts with its clients through intermediaries (such as banks, accountancy firms and financial services advisors).

The JJC board has made a strategic decision to open an additional office in a city more than 200 miles away from its current HQ near London. The new location has been chosen because of (a) its significantly lower labour and infrastructure costs, (b) the incentives offered by the city’s development agency, and (c) the availability of suitable talent in the local labour market, albeit without any direct knowledge of or experience in financial services. Indeed, the latter consideration is viewed as an advantage, since JJC wants to break out of its financial services ‘mould’.

This migration of a large part of JJC will present challenges for the HR department, which has no previous experience of geographical moves on such a scale.

The first challenge is to relocate a group of JJC’s senior management. Undoubtedly the ones who move will benefit from an excellent work-life balance and exceptional career opportunities (because the new site will be the hub of your company’s future and those who go there first will be in on the ground floor, so to speak).  On the other hand, some will have concerns about moving their homes and families, or will find it difficult not being near London.

Your second challenge is to run an extensive recruitment exercise in the new city. Initially you will be looking for about 100 employees, split between graduates, middle management and senior executives. The problem is that JJC will be a new organisation so far as the target city is concerned and will have low brand awareness there, both as an employer and as a business. To make things even more difficult, you do not have many people available to plan the recruitment programme.

Underpinning the whole change is your board’s desire to retain your most talented employees, and the need to ‘get it right first time’, because if you make mistakes your eventual success in the new environment will be even more problematic.

Tasks:

Produce a report of no more than 3,000 words, for your company’s HR Director in which you offer reasoned responses to the following questions.

1. On what basis should the relocation of the company’s employees (including the initial group of senior managers) be planned and executed? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the various options available? Which, in the ultimate analysis, is the one your company should choose?
2. How should the company’s planned recruitment exercise in the new city be planned and implemented, bearing in mind the factors summarised above in the case-study brief?

Assignment Guidance

Marking Guidelines

70-100% (Outstanding/Excellent)

Relocation (+ other options) and Recruitment

The material throughout the report presented, demonstrates a strong focus on the importance of business-related outcomes as a justification for promoting an appropriate HR strategy for relocation and recruitment. The student shows consistently that business priorities are crucial in order to underpin a relevant HR and Business strategy.

Knowledge and Understanding

Knowledge of the subject matter concerning HR strategies – both the theoretical/academic literature and the application case-studies, is demonstrably comprehensive. The reader can be confident that this student ‘knows his/her stuff’, with a judicious mix of factual knowledge, critical evaluation and constructive action-building.

Presentation and Persuasion

The report presented is produced in strict conformity with the guidelines contained in the assignment brief. The text is wide-ranging, the style mature, the approach measured, the presentation reader-friendly. Third-party sources are properly described, and the logic of the argument throughout the report is strongly persuasive.

60-69% (Commendable)

Relocation (+ other options) and Recruitment

The report presented has a clear business focus and adopts an evidence-based approach. There are useful references to named organisations where approaches to HR strategies, relocation and recruitment are exceptionally high and perhaps others where the levels are disappointingly low – with appropriate business consequences.

Knowledge and Understanding

The report exhibits quite a good understanding of HR strategies especially in the areas of relocation and recruitment from both theoretical and applied perspectives.  The submission is well supplied with references to and citations from authoritative third-party sources.

Presentation and Persuasion

The overall presentation of the report is articulate, lucid, structurally sensible and mature in expression. The issues of relocation and recruitment are clearly explained and the subtleties concerning its operation in practice are discussed in an appropriately logical, clinical and persuasive fashion. The references are organised conscientiously and comprehensively.

50-59% (Good Pass)

Relocation (+ other options) and Recruitment

The student demonstrates a competent enough understanding of the approaches to HR strategies and issues concerning relocation and recruitment, including some of the underpinning policies which must be in place if the aspiration for relocation and recruitment and other HR strategies is to be translated into a reality so far as management and workforce perceptions are concerned.

Knowledge and Understanding

Some of the essential literature and research sources on relocation and recruitment have been consulted and are referenced throughout the notes. Occasionally the student relies upon some low-level citations; some third-party material may even be quoted without question.  The report appears quite strong on description and narrative but needs more evaluation and critique.

Presentation and Persuasion

Though the report presented is generally systematic, there are improvements that the student should have implemented, for example, over-long and discursive paragraphs or too short and fragmented paragraphs which render some pages un-reader-friendly. There is scope to make the discussion even more persuasive.

40-49% (Satisfactory Pass)

Relocation (+ other options) and Recruitment

The student demonstrates some understanding of the approaches to HR strategies, relocation and recruitment, including narrow evidence of some of the underpinning policies which must be in place if the aspiration for relocation and recruitment and other HR strategies is to be translated into a reality so far as management and workforce perceptions are concerned.

Knowledge and Understanding

Limited range of literature and research sources on relocation and recruitment has been consulted and are referenced throughout the report. There is over-reliance on low-level citations and third-party material may even be quoted without question.  The notes appear reasonable enough on description and narrative but needs a more developed approach to establish a good evaluative argument.

Presentation and Persuasion

Though the report presented is reasonably systematic, there are improvements that the student should have implemented, for example, over-long and discursive sections/paragraphs or too short and fragmented sections/paragraphs which render some pages un-reader-friendly. There is scope to make the discussion more logical and coherent to persuade much more. There is scope for the work to be better organised.

Marginal Fail/Fail (Mark Band:35-39% ; 1-34%)

Relocation (+ other options) and Recruitment

The report presented betrays some fundamental errors of understanding about the nature of HR strategies, relocation and recruitment in the organisation and the business benefits or disadvantages associated with these strategies.

Knowledge and Understanding

There is little evidence that the student has undertaken any serious study about HR strategies, relocation issues and recruitment. Instead, the report presented relies upon a very limited number of largely low-level, descriptive and narrative sources which are presented uncritically. There may be elementary errors and omissions.

Presentation and Persuasion

The structure of the report presented is unacceptable, as it deviates from the model presented in the assignment brief yet does so without any attempt to persuade the reader that such deviations might be legitimate. Section headings are not used, or do not reflect the contents beneath; the references are confused or omitted. There is scope for the work to be better organised.

Appendix A:  Guidance on academic practice

1. Good academic practice

Good academic practice is the use of ideas, research findings and text by a learner in ways that recognise where these represent the knowledge of others. It is important because it enables learners:

• To demonstrate their breadth of reading by identifying and comparing their sources of information;
• To demonstrate an individual understanding of their findings as they learn, by using their words to describe and interpret the ideas of others;
• To develop their own originality by synthesising, commenting on and structuring their argument around the contributions of others;
• To apply their reading and their understanding to a range of subjects and situations in ways that make clear their process and their conclusions.

To do this, learners are required to:

Recognise the origins of ideas and of statements, where these are not theirs, to recognise the difference between the two, and to deal with each appropriately within their own work.

• Report accurately the findings of their research (primary and secondary)
• Submit work for assessment that represents their individual and independent effort unless otherwise advised in the assessment brief.
• Doing this is good academic practice.

Referencing systems are used to identify where a writer is using the ideas and words of others. They ensure that both writer and reader are able to distinguish accurately between a learner’s own ideas, their interpretation of the ideas and words of others, and their direct use of the ideas and words of others in their own work.

2. Academic practice and learning

The University encourages its learners to demonstrate their reading and their research by making appropriate reference in their work to the ideas and words of others.

• It requires learners to use a referencing system (see http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/guides/referencing), and it expects learners to use this system fully and accurately as a way of making clear to readers where the ideas and words of others have been used.
• It recognises that learners need to develop their use of referencing systems as part of their learning process, within the subject area(s) they are studying.
• It also recognises that the importance of acknowledging the ideas and words of others as a requirement of good academic practice is new to some of its learners.

In this context, the University outlines the responsibilities of learners as follows.

1. The responsibilities of learners

• To identify accurately where they have used in their work the words and/or ideas of others.
• To use referencing systems accurately in that identification.
• To avoid practices that may give rise to academic concern and/or suspicion of academic offence.
• To read this policy, and to attend and make use of the guidance and support offered at induction (or the additional/replacement guidance and support sessions offered for late arriving students).
• To make use of the further guidance and support offered at each study stage in advance of the first deadline for submitted work.
• To seek assistance if they are, for any reason, unable to take advantage of the standard guidance and support offered.
• To complete and sign the assignment coversheet for each piece of work submitted, confirming that they understand this policy and its requirements
• To take full responsibility for work that is submitted in their name
• To bring to the attention of an invigilator any circumstance or event that might be evidence of, or suggest, a breach of academic discipline.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND PSYCHOLOGY

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

JJC Company is a firm which operates in the financial sector. The company provides pensions and investment management facilities to its clients. The company has recently planned to start expanding its business by introducing a new office that would be located in another city which would be at a minimum distance of 200 miles from the headquarters. As this is the first time the company has decided to expand its business, the management is concerned about the human resource management issues that they would likely face while carrying out the expansion. The first issue in the expansion program will be to relocate a number of senior executives from the headquarters to the new office for occupying higher job profiles while the second issue that the company will face is the recruitment program that it would have to carry out in the new city for its new office. The company is desperate for a success as a failure would be very damaging to the employee morale and future strategies. As a result, this report has been prepared to address the issues that the company would likely face while trying to introduce a new office in another city.

INTRODUCTION

JJC is a medium sized multinational company that operates in the financial service sector and provides pensions and investment management facilities to a select group of up-market clients ranging from corporations to famous celebrities that have a huge amount of disposable incomes. The company uses intermediaries, such as banks, accountancy firms and financial advisers in order to interact with the clients. JJC has formulated a new strategy that aims at opening an additional office in a city which is a minimum of 200 miles from the headquarters. The decision has been formulated in order to operate from a location that has lower labour & infrastructure costs, incentives that would be offered by the local development agencies and the availability of suitable and qualified workforce that would help the company in carrying out its operations.

The human resource department of the company has had no past experiences related to such a big geographical move and is expected to experience a number of problems in the management. The first challenge to the department would be the relocation of a number of senior executives from the headquarters to the new city. The second challenge to the human resource department would be to carry out an extensive recruitment exercise in the new city, in order to fulfil the human resource demands of the new facility. The human resource management of JJC comprises of fewer people and it would not be possible for the company to allocate a large number of people in order to plan the recruitment process. Further, the company has high expectations from the new strategy and wants it to be successful right from the beginning as a few failures in the beginning would interfere with their chances of success. Therefore, this report has been prepared to address the human resource challenges that the management at JJC Company is likely to face in the near future while trying to open up a new office in a new city.

SELECTING EMPLOYEES FOR RELOCATION PROGRAM

Relocation or expatriate programs are those strategies that a company uses when it wants meets the staffing requirements of its foreign subsidiary by sending capable employees from its headquarters. Success of relocation and expatriate programs are very crucial for all business organisations as a lot of resources and efforts are put on stake when such programs are undertaken and failure of such a program can cause financial losses, wastage of resources and loss of productivity and employee morale. JJC Company will also have to design its relocation program in the best possible manner so that it can increase the chances of success of its new strategy and meet its organisational goals (UK Essays, 2014). The basis on which the employee should be relocated from the headquarters is given below:

TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES – the first and the most important basis, on which the relocation of employees should be based, is the technical capabilities of the employees. The management should consider those employees for the relocation program who have the right technical capabilities and knowledge that would be required for carrying out day-to-day operations of the company in the foreign office smoothly. On the other hand, employees with inadequate technical knowledge, if relocated to the new office, might reduce the chance of success of the company’s new strategy. An important advantage of selecting technically capable employees for the purpose of relocation is that it would become easier to promote the organisational goals and objectives in the new office and increase the chances of success of the overall strategy. On the other hand, employees lacking technical capabilities will act as a disadvantage as they would be unable to carry out the necessary operations of the office. Further, selecting too many technical experts from the headquarters for the relocation program might reduce the number of technical experts in the headquarters once they are relocated (Birken, n.d.).

CULTURAL ADAPTABILITY  when planning for relocation of employees to different cities or states, one of the greatest issues that the companies experience is the lack of ability of the employees to adapt to different cultures. JJL Company might experience a difference in the cultural backgrounds of the two cities that it would operate in i.e. its headquarters and foreign subsidiaries. The foreign subsidiary can differ in culture and the employees might face issues in carrying out their day-to-day operations and while working with the local employees. As a result, the employees that should be considered for relocation to the new office should be capable of adapting to a different culture. One of the greatest advantages of choosing employees with high potential to adapt to different cultures is that they would be able to foster a better work environment in the new office and establish a better co-ordination between the host city and home city employees (Lin, Lu and Lin, 2017).

ALLOWANCES  one of the major factors that governs the selection of employees for the purpose of expatriation or relocation is the allowances that the company will have to provide to the employees while they are away on a foreign assignment. Expatriates that work in foreign locations in order to fulfil the work assigned to them are offered some additional benefits and allowances in exchange for their services. Allowances, such as family allowances, housing allowances, maintenance allowances, standard of living allowances, hardship allowances, etc. are to be borne by the management that is sending the employees to a foreign location. Therefore, to bring down the operating costs, it becomes important for the company to consider those employees for the expatriate program who have fewer liabilities in their hometown and would not require much allowances while working on a foreign assignment.  The advantage of selecting employees demanding lesser allowances is that the company would not have to make heavy financial investment in the relocation program while a major disadvantage of selecting people on the basis of allowances is that the company might have to reject people with high technical capability and cultural sensitivity in order to curb the operational costs required to pay allowances to them (LADIMEJI, 2012).

FAMILY BACKGROUND  business organisations operate on the basis of their human resources, which comprises of people coming from diverse cultural backgrounds and different age groups. It has been observed that young employees find it much easier to adjust in a foreign location as compared to elder employees as the younger employees are more technically advanced and have the ability to adapt to various situations. Another factor that would play an important role in the selection of expatriates is their family backgrounds. If the employees being sent to the new office are the only earning hand in their families and have an extensive family to look after, it becomes very difficult for them to relocate and to concentrate on their work while being away from their homes. Further, the company would also have to look after the needs of their families once they are sent away on a foreign assignment. On the other hand, people with lesser family obligations can concentrate more on their jobs and the company would not be required to look after their families all the time. Therefore, the advantage of choosing people with lesser family obligations is that the company will be able to bring down its operating costs to a considerably lower level while the disadvantage of choosing people with more family obligations is lower productivity, reduced concentration and failure of relocation program in extreme cases (Sanders, 2016).

JJC Company should carefully conduct an analysis to identify the employees that meet the required criteria for being considered for the relocation program. The company should chose the employees based on the criterions discussed above and should ensure that they have the desired capability to increase the chances of success of the company’s new strategy to start a new office in a different city.

RECRUITMENT PROGRAM FOR NEW OFFICE

As the company has decided to start a new office in a different city than its headquarters, it becomes obvious that the company will have to carry out recruitment procedures in order to fulfil the human resource needs of the new office. This is the first business expansion initiative that the company has taken so far in its timeline, which makes it imperative that the expansion strategy of the company is a success as a failure would be damaging to their morale and any future business expansion propositions. Further, the city in which JJC Company is planning to expand its business is new for the company and even the company, as an employer as well as a business, would be new for the local citizens. Therefore, it becomes highly important that the organisation designs and executes an efficient recruitment plan that requires minimum resources and would also help the company in increasing the brand awareness in the new city. The planning and execution of recruitment exercise in the new city is discussed below:

First of all, the management at JJC Company needs to come up with an efficient recruitment panel that would lead the entire recruitment program. This panel would comprise of the human resource department of the company along with some senior level executives and managers. It would be there responsibility to design and execute the recruitment program and to report the progress of everything to the organisational leaders (Businesscasestudies.co.uk, 2017).

Secondly, the management at JJC Company should analyse the human resource demands of the new facility by keeping in mind the number of employees that would be relocated from the headquarters to the new facility. The employees relocated from the headquarters to the new office would be occupying the higher positions whereas the new recruits will be required to work under them. It is important to conduct a thorough analysis of the human resource needs of the new office because it would increase the efficiency of the recruitment process and it would become easier for the panel to hire the right number of employees rather than recruiting more or less than the required number of employees.

Thirdly, once the management has identified and analysed the human resource demands of the new office, it should prepare job specifications and descriptions for the various posts that have been identified and for which the recruitment process will be carried out. The job description and specification for each post should provide a detailed account of all the requirements that the company is looking for in the candidates and the responsibilities that the employees will be required to fulfil. The job descriptions and specifications for each vacancy would also define the pay structure of the employees along with the allowances and benefits that will be offered to them by the company. An important key point in the job descriptions and specifications should be that the candidates applying for the jobs should be having some previous experience in the same industry in which the JJC Company operates. This would ensure that the employees recruited are talented and have sufficient technical knowledge to help the company in achieving its organisational goals and objectives (Snell and Bohlander, 2010).

Fourthly, the recruitment panel of JJC Company will have to design the selection or the screening process. The idea of using different sources of media to advertise the job openings will help the company in creating a large candidate base i.e. to have a large number of applicants for all the job openings. This step will also include the designing part of the entire screening program. The recruitment panel can start the designing of the screening procedure by deciding all the psychometric and personality tests that they would use to test the applicants in terms of job related skills and personal skills or qualities, which are required for the job position that they have applied for. Further, the panel will also have to consider various options that it will use in order to make the final selection from the candidates that it has screened, such as personal interviews, telephonic interviews, Skype interviews, etc.

Fifthly, once the initial planning is complete, the panel would then advertise the available job openings using different sources of media. The recruitment panel will be taking help of newspapers, pamphlets, online websites, e-mails, etc. to advertise the job openings and would also consult third party recruiters in order to save time and to find the best fits for the job openings in minimum time (Hr.ucr.edu, n.d.). By advertising the job openings through different sources of media, JJC Company would also be able to increase the brand awareness in the new city. Using different sources of media to target almost all customers and displaying advertisements along with the services being offered would also come in handy while trying to increase the brand awareness.

Sixthly, once the applications for job openings start to arrive, the recruitment panel would then hold a recruitment event where it would first carry out an initial screening using different psychometric and personality tests in order to reduce the number of applicants by eliminating the ones that are least suitable for the job roles that the company is searching for. The candidates who will pass the screening process will then be called upon by the company for personal interviews, telephonic interviews or Skype interviews. Once the candidates are shortlisted, they will be informed and will be offered the job for which they had applied (Breaugh, 2017).

Lastly, the recruitment panel, along with the human resource management of JJC Company, will also design a training program for the new employees that have been recruited in order to fulfil the human resource demands of the new office. The training program would be preceded by an induction program where the new employees will meet the existing employees and learn some important work related information from them. In general, the first few days in the new office would involve getting to know each other and observing the things that are required to be done in the workplace. If the recruitment panel deems it to be fit, it can also design an on-the-job training program where the new recruits will have to undergo certain courses that would be aimed at increasing their technical knowledge and skills so that they can become aware about the tasks that they would have to perform while working with the JJC Company.

RECOMMENDATIONS

First of all, the company will have to design and launch an expatriate program in order to select the employees that would be relocating from the company’s headquarters to the new office in a different city. There will be four key factors that would be governing the selection of expatriates for the new office. These factors are technical capabilities, cultural awareness or adaptability, allowances and family background. The company would weigh the pros and cons of each and would then make the final selection of employees for relocation.

Secondly, the company would implement a seven step model in order to design and execute a recruitment program in the new city and hire employees to meet the human resource demands of the new city. The seven steps are listed below:

• Forming a recruitment panel
• Analysing the human resource demands of the new office
• Preparing job descriptions and job specifications for the vacancies identified in the second step
• Designing the screening process, such as choosing psychometric and psychological tests for testing the applicants and different methods of interviews to make the final choice
• Advertising the job openings using different sources of media
• Executing the screening or the recruitment program in order to select the best suitable candidates out of all the applicants and offering job letters to them.
• Planning and executing induction and training programs for the new recruits in order to introduce them to the company and its work.

CONCLUSION

The increasing competition amongst rival firms along with the concept of globalisation has made it important for business organisations to expand their businesses in different cities and countries to remain competitive. One of the biggest issues that business organisations face during expansion of their businesses is the human resource factors as companies have to carry out relocation programs and extensive recruitment programs in order to fulfil the human resource demands of their new business units.

JJC Company’s initiative to expand its business operations by opening up a new office in a different city is a great option to increase its customer base, reduce its operational costs and to outperform its competitors in the market, which makes it important for the company to increase the chances of success of its strategy by addressing the human resource management issues that it would face in the starting up of a new office. JJC Company should follow the above mentioned criteria for selecting employees for the relocation program while it can use the seven step model to design and implement its recruitment program in the new city. Using the above mentioned recommendations, the company would be able to increase the chances of success of its new strategy.

REFERENCES

Birken, E. (n.d.). 6 Options If You Need to Relocate and Can’t Sell Your House. [online] Moneycrashers.com. Available at: http://www.moneycrashers.com/relocate-cant-sell-house/ [Accessed 12 Jan. 2017].

Breaugh, J. (2017). Employee recruitment: Current knowledge and important areas for future research.

Businesscasestudies.co.uk. (2017). Recruitment and selection Recruitment and selection business studies and business english | Business Case Studies. [online] Available at: http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/business-theory/people/recruitment-and-selection.html#axzz4VZBmZ49Z [Accessed 13 Jan. 2017].

Businesscasestudies.co.uk. (2017). Recruitment and selection Recruitment and selection business studies and business english | Business Case Studies. [online] Available at: http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/business-theory/people/recruitment-and-selection.html#axzz4VZBmZ49Z [Accessed 13 Jan. 2017].

Hr.ucr.edu. (n.d.). Human Resources: Recruitment & Selection Hiring Process. [online] Available at: https://hr.ucr.edu/recruitment/guidelines/process.html [Accessed 13 Jan. 2017].

LADIMEJI, K. (2012). How To Pick the Right People for International Assignments. [online] Recruiter. Available at: https://www.recruiter.com/i/how-to-pick-the-right-people-for-international-assignments/ [Accessed 12 Jan. 2017].

Lin, C., Lu, T. and Lin, H. (2017). A different perspective of expatriate management.

Sanders, S. (2016). Employee relocation – a helpful guide for employers. [online] Changeboard.com. Available at: http://www.changeboard.com/content/2487/employee-relocation-a-helpful-guide-for-employers/ [Accessed 12 Jan. 2017].

Snell, S. and Bohlander, G. (2010). Principles of human resource management. 1st ed. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning.

UK Essays, A. A. 2014. Expatriation. [online] Available at: http://www.ukessays.com/essays/human-resources/expatriation.php/ [Accessed 12 Jan. 2017]