Managing People: Research into An Organisation

Assessment task:

The purpose of this assignment is to gain an understanding of the recruitment process from an employer’s perspective. Employers are interested in candidates who are able to demonstrate clearly how they will fit into the organisation and meet the organisation’s needs.  By taking on the role of an employer, you will be able to reflect on the implications of this assignment for preparing effective job applications.  The ability to research an organisation in the manner set out in this assignment will also help you to be aware of wider issues in the labour market, which is an important part of career management.

You are a member of the Human Resource Department of an organisation that shares a number of features with the organisation in ONE of the three scenarios that follows. Your task is to:

1. Choose ONE scenario and identify a real-world organisation that bears some similarities with the one based in the scenario.
2. Identify and research the sector your organisation is located in.

• Analyse the cause(s) of labour problem, primarily the skills gap outlined in your chosen scenario. This will contribute to the rationale for producing a new role.

1. Propose a new role with the aim of solving the problem based on your understanding of the skills gap outlined in your chosen scenario.
2. Articulate the human resource solution by creating an appropriate job profile/person specification followed by details of your recruitment initiative.

Scenario A

Company A is a well-established communications service provider (CSP) providing services in landline, mobile and broadband.  UK telecoms regulator Ofcom recently conducted a recent survey of the industry dominant CSPs to assess customer satisfaction levels with each of the three services (i.e., landline, mobile and broadband). Company A received the lowest satisfaction score overall.  For broadband, it scored a 72% satisfaction rating, performing particularly badly at handling complaints from customers.

The company has nevertheless managed to secure new customers, and the Sales Team are noted for being passionate high achievers who succeed in meeting sales targets year on year.  Recently, an equally passionate Sales Director joined the team and has carried out a review and analysis of the sales performance.  A few important findings are identified:

• The Sales Director struggled to find a consolidated tracker or database that shows all customer and sales records.
• In the process of collating all sales records, it was discovered that information about sales contracts did not always match up with the information in customer complaints handling.
• The analysis shows that the team have consistently excelled at reaching out to new customers but seriously underperformed regarding repeat business with existing customers, such as moving customers to a more suitable broadband package.
• The analysis shows that the team have succeeded in selling broadband contracts but underperformed in respect of selling support to existing customers (such as upgraded routers).

A new headcount has been made available to the Sales and IT Departments.  The Sales Director has invited a Human Resources colleague to look into the findings established.  If you were the HR colleague, what role would you create to address the problems identified and help improve the sales performance?

SCENARIO-A Report

Executive summary

This report is based on an evaluation of managing the people, especially when recruiting new employees in the organization. This report is based on different parts. In the first part the introduction is made, and in the next section the scenario is linked with the organization selected and this section evaluates the company and sector. The skills gap identified in the company by reading scenario A and a new role is recommended to the sales director. The third section is based on the recruitment approach of the new role, and in the end, the conclusion is made.

Introduction  

This report is based on understanding the role of the human resource department in managing people for increasing the sales of the company. The main area of focus in this assignment is to understand the recruitment process. There are different aspects considered in the assignment. The objective of this reporting assignment is to evaluate the causes of the labor problem in the selected organization and to identify the skills gap due to which the problem is faced by the organization. The next step in the report is to suggest and propose a new role for the organization in respect of resolving the issues or problems facing the company organization.

This particular report is based on Talk Talk which is one of the well-established companies in the communication service provider sector. Broadband, mobile, and landline are three segments of the services that are provided by the company. This report discusses the issue that is facing by the company in retaining and increasing sales due to the skills gap. This first section after introduction is based on understanding the skills gap and proposing new job role. The recruitment approach towards the suggested job role is discussed in the next section (Talk Talk Group, 2018).

Organizational background and Identification of skills gap     

Talk telecom groups are one of the well-known companies in the telecom sector. The main services of the company include television services, mobile, voice telephony, and broadband services. In the context of considering the history of the company then it has been seen that in the year 2003 a customer brand was launched with the name of Talk Talk. The company issues free calls for the first time between the customers of Talk Talk of the year 2004.

The company transformed the UK market in the year 200 by launching free broadband. The company started its expansion in the year 2009 when Talk Talk purchased Pipex and Tiscali. The company was registered on the stock exchange in 2010.  HomeSafe services were launched in 2011 due to which the company was the first internet provider. Similarly, the company launched different services that resulted in a good customer base for the company and according to the report presented in 2016, there were 4 million customers (Talk Talk Group, 2018).

In the context of the evaluation of the market position of Talk Talk, it has been seen that there is a very high level of competition in the telecom sector. BT, Vodafone, and Openreach are the main competitors of Talk Talk. It is noted that the in respect of landline and broadband services, the Talk Talk is considered as a worse service provider because according to the report of Ofcom there was 72% satisfaction ratings core of Talk Talk which was lower in comparison to other companies. The Talk Talk is positioned as smaller players in comparison to the giants of the sector which are Sky and BT.  The position of Talk Talk for a landline is also weak in comparison to Virgin Mobile and Vodafone because in landline service sector these two companies have gained good position (Craft.Co, 2018).

The trends in the telecom sector revealed that the main focus of the companies is to increase the level of profits by considering different options and aspects, for example, rethinking the 5G transition, automation of network and new investments. The current trend indicates that companies in the telecom industry are facing certain problems because the profit of larger companies is also decreasing due to higher expectations of customers and higher competition in the industry. It is the reason that trends show that big telecom operators like Sky and BT and Vodafone are making investments in new opportunities that are beyond their traditional services.

The focus of the companies on approaches of open source to legacy networking is also observed as the part of the latest trend in the telecom industry. The modern trend in the industry attracted the companies to think outside the box for increasing their revenue and sustaining their competitive position in the market. Another trend is the development of the youth because it is observed by the reports that by the end of 2020 there would be 29 million devices connected to the internet, and this would be effective for the companies in the telecom industry because the communication which is used by the people will change that eventually costly for the telecom companies (Nolle, 2018).

It is very important to understand that the future of the telecom sector is associated with the need for making a high investment in the context of providing 5G services. It is also expected that in the future the telecom services will be based on the core fiber network that will also require a higher level of investment. In the future, the telecom sector will require having legacy IT systems which would be costly assets for telecom service providers in the future (Racknap.Com, 2018).

There are different levels of the skills required in the telecom sector because of the reason that the Internet of Things is just around the corner in this sector. Some of the most important skills that are required by Talk Talk in telecom sectors are given below:

• The people working in the telecom sector are required to have multitasking skills because it is observed that in this sector several customers might need to be served at the same time, so this is the reason that effective communication along with analytical skills helps the employees in this sector to answer the questions of customers effectively. For example, customers always expect that the company will provide effective and timely customer service.
• The employees in this sector are required to have certain soft skills, for example, interpersonal and commutation skills that enable the personnel to deal with both the customers and colleagues in a professional
• The people in this sector are required to have value-adding skills, both to the personal development and the company’s in the case of Talk Talk, it is observed that the company is facing certain problems in retaining the customers, so there is a need for those people who have value-adding skills (Chong, 2015).

According to the results of the Ofcom survey, it is observed that Talk Talk is the company which has the lowest customer satisfaction level of 72%.  The survey results identified that Talk Talk is facing critical issues and problems in effectively providing customer services.

According to the survey, it is observed that customers are not satisfied with the management of Talk Talk because they pointed out in the survey that their complaints are not resolved by the company. In the scenario A given in the case study it is mentioned that the company has a satisfaction rating of 72% and it is also the part of the scenario that the company is facing issues and problems in the sale department and customer service which is happening in Talk Talk. Therefore, in this way Talk Talk is linked with scenario A in brief (Black, 2018).

According to the sales director, it has been identified that there is no specific professional in the company to deal with the complaints of customers. By evaluating the scenario, it is observed that there is a skills gap of handling the complaints and questions of current customers and other skills gap is that the employees in sale department are not using latest information management techniques due to which issues in data management is facing by the company.

It would be recommended to the sales director to hire a customer service representative because CSR will provide friendly and exceptional customer services by working in conjunction with the sales manager.  By hiring this position in the company, both the existing and new customers would be managed effectively. He could also work on management of switchboard, handling the calls of complaints and most important IT and telecom technical issues would be handled ineffectively because of the relative knowledge and understanding (Blimegger, 2017).

The key aspect is recommended to hire customer service represented by a minimum of 3 years of relative experience in customer service. CSR will play an important role in handling customers by working in connection with the sales manager, which will help in finding the right solution for the customers. Another important thing is that the CSR will liaise with the customers in understanding the main concern of the customers so in this way the consolidated database will be maintained that will show the sales record according to the respective customer (Bicheno, 2018).

Approach to Recruitment

The approach to recruitment would be based on different steps. The first step in recruiting, customer service representative is to give an advertisement for the vacant post in Talk Talk. The advertisement for the post in the company would be based on the newspapers. A specific date will be mentioned in the advertisement of the job to apply for the post in the organization.  The HR manager will be responsible for collecting the applications made by the applicant. The most important regarding the recruitment process will be that managers in the HR department need an evaluation process with the help of which the interpersonal and technical skills of the applicant will be evaluated on a fair basis. The further process of recruitment will be based on the following steps:

• After collection of the applications, the first step will be to conduct a written test to separate talent and suitable candidates.
• According to the written test results, the candidates will be shortlisted for interviews. There will be two different interviews that need to be conducted. The HR manager will conduct the first interview and then the final interview will need to be conducted by the panel of a senior manager in the company.
• There would be scenario-based questions asked of the candidates in which a situation will be given to the candidates, and his or her response will be evaluated and measured. When scenario-based questions are asked of the candidates than it will help in assessing the communication skills. The scenario-based question will specifically be based on managing people and responding to customer complaints and questions.
• The soft skills of the candidate will be evaluated to understand how the candidate will talk with the people in resolving their issues and problems.

Conclusion    

It is concluded that the main reason for the loss facing Talk Talk is that the management has weaknesses in providing customer services to the customers. Customer service needs to be provided professionally because of the satisfaction of the customers; the company could not sustain the current customers. A similar thing has happened in Talk Talk in which customer complaints are resolved ineffectively due to the existing customers being lost to the company, but the number of new customers is increasing.

For the management of people, it is very important to have the required skills. The HR department of every company has great importance because of the abilities and skills of the HR department to identify the skills gap due to which the issues are facing. New recruitment should be carried out according to the skills gap. The people management becomes high quality when there are those people who have all the required skills. Simply, when the customers are not happier with the manager or employees than it indicates there are a certain level of skill gap that needs to fill by the company.

References 

Bicheno, S., 2018. We need to talk about TalkTalk – Ofcom. [Online] Available at: http://telecoms.com/489504/we-need-to-talk-about-talktalk-ofcom/ [Accessed 22 October 2018].

Black, H., 2018. TalkTalk rated worst provider for broadband and landline service. [Online] Available at: https://www.moneywise.co.uk/news/2018-05-03/talktalk-rated-worst-provider-broadband-and-landline-service [Accessed 22 October 208].

Blimegger, L.G., 2017. For Today’s Telecoms Companies, Customer Experience Is Just As Important As Download Speeds. [Online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/outofasia/2017/09/14/for-todays-telecoms-companies-customer-experience-is-just-as-important-as-download-speeds/#44eea39c24dc [Accessed 22 October 2018].

Chong, D., 2015. 5 Key Skills Telecom Engineers Need to Meet Industry Demand. [Online] Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-key-skills-telecom-engineers-need-meet-industry-demand-chong [Accessed 22 October 2018].

Craft.Co, 2018. Talk Talk. [Online] Available at: https://craft.co/talk-talk [Accessed 22 October 2018].

Nolle, T., 2018. Midyear 2018 telecom trends: Operators broaden their focus. [Online] Available at: https://searchtelecom.techtarget.com/tip/Midyear-2018-telecom-trends-Operators-broaden-their-focus [Accessed 22 October 2018].

Racknap.Com, 2018. Top 5 challenges and trends in the telecommunication industry in 2018. [Online] Available at: https://www.racknap.com/blog/top-5-challenges-trends-telecommunication-industry-2018/ [Accessed 22 October 2018].

Talk Talk Group, 2018. Our History. [Online] Available at: https://www.talktalkgroup.com/talktalkgroup/about-us/our-history [Accessed 22 October 2018].

Appendices

Job Title

Customer Service Representative

Organization Information            

Talk Talk is one of the well-established companies in the communication service provider sector. Broadband, mobile, and landline are three segments of services that are provided by the company.

Job Description – may include:

We Talk Talk Telecom Corporation is looking for a customer-oriented representative who will act as a liaison between the company and the customers. The customer service representative will have to provide all the necessary information to the customers and resolve all the issues identified by the customers through complaints. He would also be responsible for keeping an accurate record of complaints and sales.

Nature of Contract

The job will be based on I year contract and it would be extended based on performance

Reporting Line

• Management of customers’ complaints
• Attending and answering the incoming calls
• Generation of records regarding the sales and complaints
• To identify the needs of customers that will increase the satisfaction of customers
• He will have the responsibility to keep records ineffectively by using the right method and tools.
• Work in cooperation with the managers of other departments to inform the managers regarding the complaints of customers.
• The candidate should have minimum 3 years of experience in a similar post in telecom sector organization