Analysis on the Recruitment, Selection and Induction Procedures – CIC Holdings PLC

Introduction

This following assignment represents a discussion and a critical analysis in relation to the Recruitment, Selection and Induction procedures of the executive level employees of CIC Holdings PLC. The rationale behind the selection of this company is due to the fact that it is one of the long-standing, leading blue-chip and locally as well as globally renowned conglomerates in Sri Lanka.

Company Profile

Established first in 1964 as ‘Imperial Chemical Industries Limited (ICI)’ and later on reformed as CIC Holdings PLC, initiated its maiden operations through manufacturing agricultural pipes and marketing an array of locally manufactured paints. With a history and experience of over 50 years, CIC has expanded its operations into a range of local industries such as Agri Businesses, Animal Feed, Farm Produce, Veterinary Medicine, Day Old Chicks, Agro Chemicals, Adhesives, Consumer Products, Industrial Raw Materials, Pharmaceuticals, Packaging, Herbal Products and Health and Personal Care Products and has also tackled the global sector for a range of agri products such as Rice, Banana, Industrial and Agro Chemicals and Writing Instruments. With a vision to be an innovative Group of companies creating value through effective fulfillment of market needs and with a mission to enhance the quality of life of people in the region by developing a diverse portfolio in Healthcare, Industrial, Consumer products, Crop solutions and Services, driven by customer satisfaction and improvements in technology. We will harness the potential of our people to derive competitive advantage and to add value to stakeholders whilst safeguarding the environment, CIC has proven its position to be renowned as one of the leading companies in Sri Lanka and is thriving towards the peak in delivering quality in every operation they undertake. 

Recruitment, Selection and Induction Procedures of the Executive Level

Recruitment

The concept of recruitment refers to the procedures or the process an organization follows in order to find and attract applicants possessing the required characteristics and qualifications for a specific job. Referring to CIC Holding’s executive level recruitment process, the company foresees the need for the identification of job vacancies mainly due to two reasons which are the budgeting of new positions due company expansions or to fulfill sudden vacancies derived by unexpected resignations and deaths. In relation to a resignation of an executive level employee, the employee has to inform his resignation through using a letter of resignation to his immediate supervisor or the head of the respective department and If he/she decides that the vacant position caused by the resignation should be filled, a Position Request Form (PRF) is raised under his signature to the HR department of CIC Holdings. Once received the General Manager of the HR department investigates the organizational charts and assesses the criticality of the requirement before confirming the vacancy and provides the approval prior to sending it to the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in order to get the financial backing regarding the request. In order to attract suitably qualified personnel the immediate heads of the specific departments as well as the General manager of HR in charge of CIC Holdings’ executive recruitment initiates a collaborated effort in order to establish the job requirements as they possess the clear cut idea of the tasks, duties and the human requirements needed to be performed for the relevant jobs.

They also discuss on various factors creating an affect for the programme such as whether the recruitment programme to be initiated is within the HR budget of CIC to be carried out in formal and organized manner maintaining the company’s standards, whether the programme is in line with the organization’s recruitment policy, rules and regulations and also the whether the nature of the supply in the employee market is advantageous at the time. Regarding job application forms, CIC provides a standard template in order to ensure the smooth flow of the recruitment operations. Based on CIC’s company recruitment policy, recruitment is done internally as well as externally.

Regarding executive level employees, the main internal source of recruitment CIC adheres to is the use of the intranet system and email. Through this, job vacancies are first advertised among the internal CIC family through their website prior to releasing or sharing it to the public and also emails are circulated within the employees to create awareness and interest regarding the vacancies. Also in some instances as an informal practice, the Facebook group created for only CIC managerial level employee communications is used to convey reminders of the vacancies as well. In addition to this CIC also carries out Job postings where the available vacancies are published on the company notice boards as well as in internally distributed articles and magazines.

The key external sources of recruitment used by CIC are employee referrals where they take potential candidate recommendations from existing employees and internet advertising or rather E-recruitment where their job vacancies are posted online on a website known as ‘Top Jobs’. In addition to this CIC uses the ‘Sunday Observer’ to advertise their vacancies and they also use an executive search firm or rather a headhunter known as ‘Job Enrich (Private) Limited’ where the company sends their requirements to this firm and they select suitable candidates from their pool of CV’s and sends them to CIC. The company also considers recruitment requests from various professional institutions for example the Chartered Institute of Accountants of Sri Lanka (CASL) where CIC’s HR department relays the gained requests across their departments and if those departments are in need of vacancies they call in those candidates. CIC provides consultancy jobs for past employees in order to gain their influence and experience in to the operations as well. Once the recruitment process is executed, CIC has a special team consisting of outsourced and insourced HR specialists and the GM of HR evaluating the whole procedure under various indices such as Cost per Recruit, Numbers recruited, duration taken etc.

Selection

Selection can be identified as the process which is used to minimize the pool of applicants to the best few or rather the process involved in determining the most suitable applicant for the job. In reference to CIC Holdings’ executive level selection procedures, the board of selectors consists of highly experienced and professional individuals such as the General Manager of HR, the head and the divisional director of the specific department and depending on the position taken into consideration the Chief Executive Officer of CIC and an expert in the relevant field. This board adheres to various ethics, company policies, rules and regulations in order to maintain the standards of the organization and to ensure that only the candidate’s suitability and qualifications for the specific job influences the selection decision. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of CIC maintains a collaborated effort with this selector board to guarantee that a substantial budget is allocated towards the programme to enhance its success and effectiveness.

CIC uses various methods in order to select the most suitable applicant to the job taken into account. CIC provides a standard template of the application forms in their website which is downloadable and once the filled applications are received within the given deadline, the evaluation of these employment applications with the supervision of the selector board is commenced. Marks are allocated for various criteria with reference to the evaluation outline scheme made by CIC’s as well as outsourced HR experts. Based on the results of this evaluation a final report is prepared by the HR manager and is produced to the selector board for further decisions and analysis. CIC also conducts various tests on their executive level candidates. The key tests are the Knowledge Intelligence (IQ) test and Personality and Aptitude test which are done through providing a questionnaire each to be answered within 40 minutes. Through these tests CIC expects to assess the candidates on various factors such as their ability to arrive at effective conclusions, patience, familiarity and knowledge regarding the field, ability to fast adapt and learn competencies of a job etc.

When it comes to interviews regarding executive level employees, CIC holdings’ undertakes three stages of interviews. First the candidate is put through an individual interview with the immediate supervisor of the department he is applying for and is known as the primary interview. Secondly a panel interview consisting of the board of selectors is conducted with the candidate which is the intermediate interview. Once completed, as the final post interview the candidate goes through an interview with the CEO of CIC. All interviews are conducted in the mixed format where they include structured as well as unstructured questions and the final interview mainly comprises of situational questions. In addition to this CIC Holdings’ consists of expatriates working for Johnson & Johnson India since they operate as the sole distributor of Johnson & Johnson products in Sri Lanka. Due to this, when it comes to the selection of the country manager, the CEO as well as the board of selectors of CIC conducts video interviews through the usage of Skype technology with the specific foreign candidates. In relation to background investigations practiced by CIC regarding executive level employee candidates in order to get a clearer picture about their past performances, character, accuracy of the information and qualifications provided in the CV’s, they mainly conduct referral checks through telephonic conversation with the referees the candidates have provided in their CV’s.

In addition to this, candidates are requested to provide a police report as well as a ‘Gramasewaka’ report. In order to determine whether the applicants possess a sound health condition to perform the job effectively, full body medical checkups are conducted at the expense of CIC at Hemas hospitals. Once the Executive level employees are selected, they are provided with an insurance scheme which is up to LKR 200,000. Also they are provided with various medical amenities as CIC reimburses medical expenses (OPD claims) up to LKR 75,000 every year for each employee. In addition to this CIC provides a Funeral Grant Scheme (FGS) which the employee can choose to participate or not. Through this if a family member or an in-law of an employee enrolled in the FGS passes away, a sum of LKR 400 is deducted from the salary of all the participants and the accumulated amount is provided to that employee.

Induction

Induction can be defined as the measures taken by an organization in order to familiarize or rather orientate the new employees regarding their work and their work environment. Subsequent to the selection function of the executive level employees, the specific candidates selected are called in for a discussion with the board of selectors at CIC where they are subjected to negotiations regarding the benefits, pay scales, incentives, health and safety, leave and various other policies prior to being provided with the appointment letter. Once the appointment letter is officially provided, within a time period of one month CIC Holdings initiates their formal induction programme. This programme consists of ten brief presentations which are conducted by the heads of CIC Holdings. The first presentation is allocated for organizational induction and is conducted by the General Manager of HR at CIC where he will be covering the company overview, history, vision & mission, strategies, goals, organizational set up and where the organization stands today or rather the current status.

The main aim of this presentation is to provide all the new employees an overall idea regarding CIC. Subsequent to that the departmental presentations will be conducted by the specific department heads and they will stress on key factors regarding their specific departments such as its structure, rules and regulations, policies, etiquette, relevant functions, objectives etc. Following the above two presentations which are conducted for all the new employees commonly, once they are completed the employees are divided depending on their department and are taken over by their immediate supervisors who will be conducting a few presentations to orientate the employees regarding their job. Factors such as the various tasks, responsibilities and the nature of the work environment of the job they have to perform is made aware of in this presentation. Finally the supervisor takes measures in order to introduce the new employee to his/her colleagues. Further the new employees are also provided with an employee handbook and an on site contact personnel in order to refer to whenever needed.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Procedures Analyzed

Recruitment

Strengths

• With the experience of more than 50 years in the field, CIC Holdings are the pioneers in many sectors and are renowned to be the employer of choice which gives them a competitive advantage in the employee market as executive level positions will be highly attractive due to the company’s recognition. This makes CIC easier to attract highly qualified and suitable candidates.

• Since continuous and up-to-date evaluations are conducted by outsourced specialists with the supervision of the HR head of CIC, measures in order to eradicate areas with flaws and increase the effectiveness and success of the company’s recruitment process can be initiated in advance prior to any issues.

Weaknesses

• CIC holdings does not adhere to procedures such as social media recruitment or social media referrals which if practiced would drastically cut down their recruitment costs and increase the efficiency as well as the effectiveness of their recruitment process as the use of social media is free of charge unlike various search firms or agencies and as through using social media a higher count of responses from various geographical locations possessing various requirements can be targeted at the same time and gained in a faster and easier manner compared to traditional approaches and also because the usage of social media has become a trend or rather an essential norm practiced in the present society.

• Though CIC Holdings conducts employee referrals, in an instance where those recommendations are considered by the management, the provision of various rewards and benefits for the employees providing those recommendations is not practiced. If they could take this factor into consideration and implement a rewards system for the providers of the recommendations, the probability to gain accurate and suitable referrals as well as the ability to decrease the amount of superfluous recommendations will increase as the employees would be highly motivated regarding the gain.

Selection

Strengths

• Since CIC uses a well-organized three phased interview system regarding the selection of the executive level employees, the candidates are evaluated and assessed thoroughly by different layers of professionals and experts prior to being selected. This ensures that CIC is able to make the optimum decision or in other words find and employ the cream or rather the most suitable and qualified employee out of the best lot recruited for the relevant job.

• CIC gives the main priority to the ideas of the GM HR as well as the ideas of the respective department heads when it comes to making the final selection decision. This way CIC can ensure that the selected employee is the best fit for the organization as well as the relevant job.

• Once selected CIC provides an insurance policy of LKR 200,000 to all their executive level employees which are unheard of when it comes to other competitors in the industry giving them a fine competitive edge.

Weaknesses

• When it comes to background investigations, CIC conducts employee referrals only over the telephone which at some instances would not be effective taking into consideration where the information is not given accurately or where the referee being contacted is busy to be contacted. In order to avert this, CIC could make use of many other methods of referral checking such as through e-mail, by post or by assigning specially trained personnel to conduct in person meetings with these referees through appointments.

• Since CIC’s board of selectors comprises of highly professional and high ranked individuals in the organization,
• in most instances due to their tight work schedules they would be busy in order to attend to every single stage of the selection process. Due to this the workload of these officials would be immense and they will be subject to various work overload stress decreasing the effectiveness and the efficiency of the programme conducted.

Induction

Strengths

• One of the main focuses of CIC's induction programme is to provide each and every new employee the knowledge on how the company generates it's profits and how this profit benefits the employees in return; with reference to various bonuses etc. This ensures that the new employees are highly motivated and more dedicated towards providing their maximum effort and achieving these benefits and it also creates a fruitful work environment and develops healthy employer-employee relationships.

• CIC conducts its organizational induction and its departmental induction presentations on an overall basis where it is concentrated on all the new executive level employees at the same time not depending on their specific department or business segment represented. This ensures that all the employees are aware of the overall picture of the organization and that their knowledge is not limited to only their active field of work or department.

Weaknesses

• The only component of CIC's induction programme are the presentations they conduct. This programme maximum extends up to a single working day. Many other organizations competing in the arena adheres to various other programmes such as guided tours of the building, in person introductions with key personalities of the company and various outbound training programmes which all extends to about 2-3 work days. If CIC could include these procedures into their induction programme they could initiate a far more effective and all round orientation function which is more beneficial for the organization as well as for the new employees.

• CIC does not practice any procedure towards evaluating their induction programme which decreases the level of its effectiveness. They could develop a special questionnaire, form or a brief examination for the inductee to go through in order to asses on whether the expected outcome from the company's induction programme was achieved and make alterations depending on their responses.

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