Week 4 - Leadership Training as a Human Resource Function?

Leadership development should be supported by the Human Resources department, however, it should be led by direct management personelle. When developing a leadership plan for employees, the HR department should lead the development of the plan and the implementation. The HR department should confer with both lower management and upper management to develop a plan that works and fits with the goals of the company before giving the finalized plan to management personelle who will be developing their employees into leaders.

Once the plan is finalized, it should then be turned over to management to implement. At this point, HR should become a supporting role, there to help either management or the employee trainees with whatever issues may arise. This will allow management to develop their leaders to their specific roles, while also freeing up HR to work on other issues within the department. However, HR should be the department leading performance and program reviews to make sure the leadership programs are being followed properly.

If you look at how the HR department would run if this were the department to completely run the leadership training and development programs, I believe it would weight down the department. The key here, once the program is in place and agreed upon by HR, upper and lower management, is to delegate the jobs for the development of leaders. HR should then do periodic reviews - quarterly or bi-yearly - to make sure that both management and trainees are meeting expected outcomes of the training. These reviews will let HR know that these programs are either being followed and are successful, or if they need to be altered in some way.

Week 2 - Blog Post

• Are employee referrals a good recruiting source? What might keep you from referring friends and/or acquaintances for a position at an organization where you work?
  Over-all, employee referrals are a good source for new hire leads. This sort of lead generating should not be the only tactic used when looking for a new hire, but is can be a useful one to employ. Often, employees may know other people in the same field and can refer someone best fit for the job who already has experience. It is also a good way to minimize sorting through resumes, because most employee referrals are already going to have some, if not most, of the skills needed for the job. According to David Hakala, employee referral programs can also be a morale booster for current employees; Hakala states that "[an employee referral program] reinforces the tendency to refer high-quality candidates to one’s own company, even when no positions are available. This helps to establish an ongoing recruitment process" (2008).
  
• What are some primary differences between new workforce entrants, unemployed workers, and currently employed workers? How can organizations best recruit these different types of job seekers?
  New workforce entrants may have little-to-no actual on-the-job experience, outside of internships. However, these recent graduates may be able to add fresh ideas to an organization, and their modern education could be of great use when looking to bring in new hires to eventually replace older employees as they phase out or retire from the company. These types of employees would be good to hire in as entry level employees with the goal of working their way "up the ladder".
  Unemployed workers can be both good and bad. These workers may hold valuable workplace experience and knowledge, and can be very beneficial to an organization. They may not have "new knowledge", but they could bring knowledge into the workplace and be able to "hit the ground running" with very little training time. On the other hand, it also depends on how long the worker has been unemployed. A worker who has been recently unemployed will be a better fit than someone who has been unemployed for several years.
  On the other hand, currently employes workers can be utilized by an organization in many ways. These employees can be up-to-date on industry knowledge, and if they are currently employed by the organization, they may be able to move up within the company easily because they know how the organization works.
  
• Identify one organization you believe does a good job of recruiting talent. Provide two examples of their recruiting strategies to support your answer.
  In an article written in 2006 and published on the Bloomberg Businessweek website, Julie Gordon describes some great hiring practices done by JP Morgan Chase. The article describes the hiring adventure of Sarah Breiner, who says that during her job search, she chose JP Morgan Chase over other employers because they put employee satisfaction at the forefront of the hiring process and the recruiter stayed professional during the hiring process, instead of focusing solely on the organizations needs.

Sources

Gordon, J. (2006, August 9). Best (Hiring) Practices. Retrieved from Bloomberg Businessweek website: http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2006-08-09/best-hiring-practices

Hakala, D. (2008). The Pros and Cons of Employee-Referral Programs. Retrieved from HR World website: http://www.hrworld.com/features/employee-referral-pros-cons-081208/