Let me start with the demand part, I would say that the trend analysis shouldn’t be used as a reliable source of forecasting labor at all today, in fact, it should just the most generic description of what could be the employment needs. Staffing ratio could be useful, but it also seems like the thinking inside of the box, because maybe there’s no need for the same number of people there was in the departments, someone may be capable or smarter to replace two people. Even though the managers know their people and the customers doesn’t mean that they will be able to predict the upcoming talents because people change, and the example I’m aiming at is the millennials, and no one predicted their behavior and the way they shifted the business world. As far as forecasting labor supply, talent inventories could be a helpful way of knowing what the company needs, but you shouldn’t be drawing lines there, because you don’t know what the people are capable of, and you just might disregard the next Steve Jobs because of the talent inventories. Replacement charts are maybe the most unreliable source because you never know the real successor, you can assume, but the beauty in people is that they are unpredictable. In other words, I don’t think companies should bother to use these as methods as main guides because people are changing, your company may have the same policy for years, but there aren’t two identical people in the world.
People like to know their “future”, what they can expect from the job, what they should behave like, etc. I think this should be looked at from both points of view, the employees and employers. They both have the same interest, to make each other happy, and to meet their needs. Job design should be taken seriously and should be designed for each department separately, if not for each person. For the employer to be able to do well on the job design, he should know his employees and have highly developed soft skills to be able to understand the person who’s getting that job. You as an employer should be able to detect the potential satisfactory factors and the ones that drive people away. It’s not an easy job to do. As from the employee’s side of the story, I will take myself as an example. I would say that the right job design is the strongest motivation tool for workers. I know that if I am unhappy with the situation my employer is implementing on me, I won’t be able to work and be as efficient as I would be if I was to feel relaxed and calm. People today believe they deserve a luxury in a sense of being themselves, feeling relaxed, and fulfilled. I think that’s what job design is meant to for and that’s what gives the employees the sense of high motivation.
Critical incidents techniques could be used best when (just one of the examples) the team is working on something crucial and they need a motivation, a clearer picture of how to efficiently do the job, or just to see what the basis of the job and the outcomes could be, as well as what kind of behavior is present, etc. There is no point in telling that to only one person because that person will be frightened either way, by success or the failure. Job elements method might just be used the most in the construction work and similar types of fields. The managers come together and try to realize what makes construction workers successful at their job. Construction field is tough, and people are usually there because they want to be, but they also need to be lead properly. Managers need to determine how well educated the workers must be in order to be good at their job, what characteristics they need to have not to be a liability, can they operate heavy machinery, or do they need education, etc. The type of an analysis based on characteristics and individuals is difficult especially if you don’t have the metrics.
Structured interview technique is quite often used in today’s interview sessions. The best situation for the usage of this method would be the first interview with the potential employee. The reason behind is that the employee wants to find out most of the information on the first encounter. It gives the employer the ability to analyze the reaction of the employee and therefore to create opinions and expectations based on those reactions and answers. Task inventory approach is a method I experienced when I was applying for the co-op this summer. Basically, the situations that this method is mostly used in is when the employer wants to put a generic, but not too broad, job tryouts. I think that P&G does it. In this way, they can have a larger number of participants, eliminate some, before they pass on to the interviews, but at least they know that some of those people will surely fit the organization. These people show that they are better than the rest of the applicants (for P&G of course) and that their selection is worth a while.
Structured questionnaires should be used when the manager (or anyone else) wants to find out certain information for the whole department or even the company. Let’s say that there are departments with more than ten people in an IT company. The manager wants to find out everything there is about the people working there to measure (to some point) what kind of a job they are doing, how many job titles relates to what, what kind of an education is mostly present, and how long is the expectancy of a person to hold on to a job. This way he/she gets all the information needed to conduct a research for recruiting new members, make changes in the department, know his employees better. I would say that the most appropriate time to use this method is the recruitment of the new member or gathering information about the current employees for certain projects or situations.
I honestly don’t believe that there is a pattern to follow in order to get the best candidates. If the person is active in their job search, the company might get lucky and hire a brilliant person for that job, but there is no guarantee that that individual will be better than the one who is a passive or semi-passive job seeker. There has been a large number of situations where a person accidentally met the company who was searching for the right person and they turned out to be the perfect match. From the company’s point of view, this characterization of job seekers is benefiting them in a way that they know where to look for potential candidates, how to behave towards those certain groups, etc. Organizations can go by these patterns just to approximately know what they can expect, like how many people will apply or where could it lead or how successful each pattern turns out. I currently take the position of a passive job seeker because I don’t think I need to worry about a job just yet. In fact, I have other plans regarding further education and career change, but if a great opportunity comes along I will gladly take it.
