對Abdul Rahman Hallab & sons人力資源經理提出的三個問題

對Abdul Rahman Hallab & sons人力資源經理提出的三個問題

 

Abdul Rahman Hallab & sons是黎巴嫩最著名的東方糖果制造商。1881年它成立于黎波里省的黎巴嫩，由于糖果品質優良它獲得了良好的聲譽，其服務也高達世界標準。現在, Abdul Rahman Hallab & sons旗下大約有500名員工,每天數以百計的客戶服務。為此，公司建立一個最新的人力資源管理部門來管理大量的員工，并為員工繪出可能的工作前景。該部門處理員工的各項事務，從員工的招聘選拔到獎勵和晉升都由它負責。它的目標是“在降低金融風險的情況下實現組織人力資本投資回報率的最大化。”(Wikipedia- 人力資源)。

 

在員工被公司雇用之前，會經歷不同的階段。通過這些階段，雇主將會選擇那些擁有最優能力和最適合公司目標的職員。所有公司都致力于提高對員工的選擇，或者說他們的培訓和支付體系，而很少有人意識到所有這些都是相互關聯的。但是，隨著時間的推移，這個問題逐漸被意識到，企業也開始更關注這方面的東西。為了更好了解就職過程，我來到Abdul Rahman Hallab & sons拜訪它的人力資源經理Mr. George（他更喜歡用昵稱代替全名），并詢問他們是如何完成這一過程的，以下就是他的回答：

 

糖果制造商-Sweets Manufacturer

 

Abdul Rahman Hallab & sons is the most known oriental sweets manufacturer in Lebanon, having been founded in 1881 in Tripoli-Lebanon, it gained its reputation on the quality of sweets offered along with the service that’s up to world standards. Today, Abdul Rahman Hallab & sons employs around 500 employees and serves hundreds of costumers on a daily basis. As having this large number of employees, this company established an up to date HRM department that deals with them and with employee possible prospects. HRM or Human Resource Management is a function or department that deals with employee issues, starting from recruitment and selection and not ending with rewards and promotions. It’s objective is to “maximize the return on investment from the organization’s human capital while minimizing financial risk”(Wikipedia-Human resources).

 

問題一-Question 1

 

Before an employee prospect is hired by any company, he should go through different stages that allow the employer to choose the one with best qualifications and most importantly that best suits company’s goals. All companies focus on improving their employee selection, or their training and payment systems, but very few realize that all these are inter-related. But, as time is moving on, this issue is being more and more realized, and companies are paying more attention to this side of business. To understand the employment process, I met with the HR Manager at Abdul Rahman Hallab & sons Mr. George (he prefers no to give his full name) and asked him about how they perform it, and this is what I got as answer:#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Employing isn’t as simple as it looks; it’s not about hiring. It’s like a marriage where a company is involved, not only humans, where success is the child we’re raising. It consists of 3 successive processes, but even doesn’t end there.

 

Recruitment is the first process we go through. It’s the process of finding or attracting possible candidates for a certain vacant possible position. Most companies would post an advertisement in a newspaper to attract external prospects or just inform a sector of employees whom they find suitable to do the job. Once they hear about the vacancy, they start sending their CVs. It’s not the case here. We don’t advertise to get employees. We don’t deal with CVs. We accept applicants anytime. All they have to do is to fill some application, and, based on our needs we contact possible candidates. Today our company holds more than 3000 applications. Let’s consider we are short on cashiers. We start looking through the applications we got (organized applications facilitate our job), we pick the most appealing ones, contact the possible candidates and ask them if they are interested to come and fill a new application because we updated our system (which we didn’t). The purpose of this “lie” is to catch them off guard. As food and beverages organization, we couldn’t care more about the look and the behavior of our employees as they are in direct contact with costumers and with food, and any wrong step could mean big loss financially, and in terms of reputation and costumer relations. They come to our HR office and instead of finding applications, they find me waiting to interview them. This way, we get a clear idea on where they stand in term of looks, and can evaluate their reaction in cases of sudden events occurring to assess how they are able to deal with high-tension situations. Usually, we don’t stop here. After passing their first interview and being evaluated by the HR manager, they go through 2 other interviews, one with the manager responsible of the job they would be performing if accepted, and one with the owners of the enterprise. This is a part of the selection process. While interviewing, we can find out who’s the most competent and the most suitable for our company among the applicants and this selection didn’t start with interviews, as choosing the most appealing applications stated before is a part of the selection process. A job seeker who doesn’t meet the required qualifications should not be considered. Selection should be based on job-related qualifications including but not limited to: education, experience, knowledge, skills, abilities and also looks. In addition to the information sited in the application, and after checking for their truth, applicants, and during interviews are subject to testing, and the more they score during all 3 interviews, the more they have the chance. Yes I say the more they have the chance because it’s not always the case that the applicant with the highest score will get the job, because sometimes, applicants are found overqualified for the job and therefore, are ignored. During this selection process, it’s my responsibility to ensure that all applicants are treated the same way, there’s no discrimination regarding religions, sex or race, what makes the difference is the level of competence. And as we are looking for cashiers, previous job experience is very crucial, as cashiers should be very loyal and trustworthy, so we ask them for a certificate from their previous employer stating their performance, or we contact one of the references applicants include in the application to get a clearer view, and finally we choose our new lucky employee, but even with those not reaching the employment stage, we use them for our benefit. Don’t get me wrong here. HR is also about marketing and public relations. As the applicant tries to convince us with his qualification, we convince him with ours, and try to leave the best impact, as this will definitely help us spread among new costumers. Issam, you should note that the recruitment and selection processes differ among companies, and even in the same company, different jobs require different evaluation methods. There are companies that prefer the usage of certified tests; others consider 1 interview to be enough. This is a part of the company’s policy and it’s sure, that different companies adopt different policies.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Now, after passing these 2 processes and being chosen for the job, the new employee finds himself in a new environment, with a new boss and new coworkers. It’s the HR department’s job to process the induction and the socialization of the newcomer.

 

Induction is the process of providing the new employee with the necessary skills, knowledge and ability to carry out his new tasks efficiently, while socialization is the process of getting him to meet his coworkers, boss, and to learn more about the company’s culture. This process begins with recruiting because new employees have already started to build their expectations from the very first step of filling the application. They continue to develop their expectations as they pass from an interview to another and we should help them by providing clear information on what to expect in the organization so that they don’t over estimate. This is not only necessary for newcomers. Even if the recruits were from the same company and just switching jobs, they will be facing a new boss and a more or less new environment. It’s also important to start training new employees from their very first moment, as time is precious. Our new employees are subject to a 3-month probation period, where they are trained, and monitored step by step through an orientation and training program that makes them familiar with the organizations philosophy and objectives, and give him expertise necessary to exceptionally perform his requested duties.

 

The process of socialization has an influence on the productivity of the new employee and his commitment to the company, if they don’t fit in, they would leave costing us unnecessarily, this is the same case of loss if they don’t perform their job up to the standard.

 

These 3 processes are inter-related, and any wrong step taken while performing one of them will cost the company dear, so there’s a big responsibility on the HR manager, who should take care of all the details even the smaller ones.

 

問題二-Question2

 

Over the past 10 years, the change in our company is more obvious than anywhere else. Other organizations, and before having an HR department, used to have a personnel department that dealt with employees as workers, took care of their welfare, rewards, time checking, and employing, but dealt with each of these tasks separately, and once introduced the HRM concepts, everything changed.

 

In Abdul Rahman Hallab & Sons, we have incorporated these changes and even done better than the others in this field, but before that, we didn’t have a personnel department. All the processes previously mentioned were carried out but the owners of the company. It was the owners’ task to control, supervise and award the workforce. Now we don’t call it workforce. We are more into Human Capital. That’s why we started giving more importance to the human aspect of the employees. Let’s compare these changes in the employment processes.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

First of all, the employment processes (recruitment, selection and induction) were never applied. Whenever the company needed “workforce”, one of the owners would look for a person to fill this vacancy focusing on his abilities only. There were little if no importance to the fact that this new employee should be in harmony with his coworkers and the company goals. He wasn’t interviewed. He’s just contacted by the owner, and given the job, and, in order to learn his duties, the owner himself teaches him, or someone of the employees. So, he wasn’t interviewed, there was no selection process to perform, and no socialization was applied. This led, in most of the cases in problems rising inside the company, between the owners and the employees or between the employees themselves, which has affected our productivity and cost it dear. In addition to that, the owners also handled the reward and welfare systems. So, can you imagine, a couple of persons handling all these tasks and not committing mistakes?

 

Now, with introduction of the HRM concepts, it’s the HR manager’s duty to handle the recruitment, selection and the socialization processes in cooperation with other managers in order to achieve the best possible outcome for the company. It’s also to note, that all the tasks concerning the Human Capital we employ, are not done separately as before, we have now realized how important it is to perform then in coordination, as it was proved in most cases that an employee, chosen carefully, introduced to the company and helped socialize in. would give all he can and would be rewarded and if there was a mistake in this chain, all the chain would be broken. So now we can never separate any of these tasks.

 

The company can never succeed without the cooperation between the HR manager and other managers to perform HR duties.

 

問題三-Question 3

 

Most employee/organizational relationships fall somewhere between tough control and cooperation. Being a tough manager could serve best in assembly lines, but it makes employees unmotivated towards the company, so their efficiency goes on the decline, and it proved to be very costing, while a very friendly approach would lead to discipline problems.

 

As we are trying to achieve both employee satisfaction and discipline we apply both rewarding and punitive systems. For us, the managers, we expect the employee to be well disciplined and stick to the general rules, and for them, the employees, they expect to be recognized for the hard work they do, and thus get rewarded by a bonus or a salary increase. It’s all about expectations and not written in any contract. We call this a psychological contract that is based on implicit expectations on promises and any violation of the psychological contract would lead to increased costs.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

If employees feel they are treated unfairly and that the managers have violated the psychological contract, they become less motivated and more likely to leave the company, and when the employees themselves break it, there will be punitive actions by the managers, which would cause unrest in terms in relationship.

 

In Abdul Rahman & sons, we realize this importance of a healthy relationship with our employees, so we have implemented revolutionary systems to achieve the best combination of employee satisfaction and discipline in order to ensure respect for the psychological contract, because we believe that an unhappy employee, when dealing with a happy and demanding costumer, would frustrate him, so we will lose a costumer, and we will never tolerate losing any single costumer, as they are the key to our success. So, we reward high efforts, we reward loyal employees after 3 years of work to minimize the risk of them leaving the company, we increase salaries on a yearly basis, we treat all our employees equally so we expect them to be highly motivated and performing, but when something goes, there will be a punishment waiting. Timing is important, so any late showing if repeated would cost them a fine, and unhappy costumer would result in an unrewarded and maybe fined employee. And at the end of each season (our season ends at the end of each summer) we organize a party where all the owners, managers, and employees meet to share good times and feel closer to each other, and to even improve the relationship between managers and employees, employees are given at the end of each year the right to evaluate their managers, their job conditions and their overall satisfaction, this way, even managers are punished when they go wrong.

 

A healthy psychological contract means a happy employee and a happy costumer, and a bad contract means extra costs and extra losses. This is why employment relationship is a major factor in the success of any company.

 

參考文獻-References

 

Ashly Pinnington, Tony Edwards. Introduction to Human Resource Management. Oxford.

Course Slides, Block 2.

George. Abdul Rahman Hallab & sons.