Human Resource Management Assignment

Task 1:Develop Recruitment, Selection and Induction Policies and Procedures

Recruitment, selection, and induction are crucial functions of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM), because these functions help to develop competitive advantage and achieve organisational objectives. One of the biggest challenges that organisations face today is how to attract and retain the best human resources. The human resources function is an element of the strategic planning function of the organisation in view of the importance and value of good staff to the success of any operational activity. The overall human resource management activities include demand forecasting, supply forecasting, job analysis, preparing job description, developing selection criteria, strategic recruitment, strategic selection, and training and development. The development of recruitment, selection and induction policies and procedures are very important. These policies and procedures will need to be documented and drawn up in the form of guidelines and protocols, which can be referred to by relevant staff for recruitment, selection and induction activities.

Assume you are a human resource manager of a large transport organisation and it has five departments such as customer service, finance, marketing, operations and human resources. Each department has a departmental manager. Currently there are 700 employees. Management has requested a written manual to covers policies and procedures for recruitment, selection and induction activities to cover all staff.

The following information needs to be covered in the manual:

1: Introduction:

1. 1. 1. An introduction to recruitment, selection, and induction activities.
      2. Definition of policies and procedures.
      3. The importance of effective policies and procedures for recruitment, selection, and induction activities.
      4. Policies, procedures and time scale to be covered to the following activities:

         1. Identification of a vacancy. (identifies a vacancy for a position)
         2. Preparing position statement and advertisement
         3. Determine recruitment strategy (method of recruitment)
         4. Establish selection procedures
         5. Short Listing
         6. Selection methodology
         7. Reference check
         8. Selection decision
         9. Make offer
         10. Induction

      5. Communication

   Effective methods to communicate the proposed policies and procedures to relevant staff and obtain support from management.

Task 2:Develop a Strategy to Recruit, and Select Staff

Based on the above policies and procedures for recruitment and selection, you have been asked to develop a recruitment and selection strategy for the transport organisation. Your proposed strategy should cover the following:

1. Methods to determine future human resources needs
2. Information to be included in the job description
3. Information to be included in a job advertisement
4. Required policies to be considered when advertising a vacant position
5. Legal requirements to be considered when advertising a vacant position
6. List all the selection procedures to be followed according to the organisational policy and legalrequirements.
7. List any two recruitment specialists who may assist you in recruitment. Discuss what types ofassistance they may be able to provide in this regard
8. List all information to be provided in a contract letter

Task 3:Design an Induction Training Program

Induction Training is absolutely vital for new starters. Good induction training ensures new starters are retained, and then settled in quickly and happily to a productive role. Moreover, induction training offers many advantages such as opportunity to establish clear foundations and expectations in terms of ethics, integrity, corporate social responsibility, and all the other converging concepts in this area that are the bedrock of all good modern responsible organisations. A professionally organised and delivered induction training is your new employees' first proper impression of you and your organisation, and so is an excellent opportunity to reinforce their decision to come and work for you. Proper induction training is increasingly a legal requirement.

The transport company recently recruited an accounting assistant. You have been asked to design an induction training program for the new recruit. The following information need to be covered in the training program:

Aim (definition of induction training, objectives of the induction training, benefits to employer and employees

• Contents (topics to be covered and discussed in the training, duration)
• Method(s) (methods of conducting training. example: lecture)
• Execution (who is going to provide, where, resources required)
• Evaluation (purpose of evaluation, evaluation method )

Apart from defining critical and creative thinking, Halx & Reybold (2005) examines applications and perceptions for developing undergraduate and tertiary education techniques. The study interviews eight different faculty members on how critical thinking influences pedagogical choices, culture, and ideologies among the learners within the institution. The result was resistance in critical thinking among some faculty members while others believed on mastery of content as the best way of learning. The study, hence reported that it was clear that little is done to impact the critical and creative thinking abilities of learners, hence minimizing their understanding of the value of critical thinking.

Zakus, Dwight., David Cruise., and Allan, Edwards. 2007. "Critical and Ethical Thinking in Sports Management: Philosophical Rationales and Examples of Methods." Sports Management Review. Vol 10, no. 2: 133-158 https://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=2807e916-0b56-4824-8739-82f015fbad02%40sessionmgr111&vid=0&hid=123

The author recognizes critical thinking as essential central competency in various professional fields. It expounds on the value and need of creative thinking pedagogy in alignment with sound moral, ethical thinking, and behavior. Zakus et al. (2007), in their work hence identifies the central aspects of critical thinking in ethical, conceptual and scientific terms. According to him, most learners in the tertiary field rarely get the opportunity of thinking and acting as they please. However, action without critical thinking is dangerous and chaotic in the society; hence, call for a serious conscious thought. The authors conclude that critical and creative thinking is vital in determining the morals of an individual not just in the learning process but even in their future life.

Chan, Zenobia CY. 2013. "Exploring critical thinking and creativity in innovative and traditional problem-based learning groups." Journal Of Clinical Nursing 22, no. 15/16: 2298-2307. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed March 17, 2016).

The study aimed at exploring the attitude of students towards creativity and critical thinking, problem-based learning, and nursing education relevance in the clinical practice. It sampled semi-unstructured innovative and standard focus groups. The results showed that problem-based learning had a significant increase in problem-solving and critical thinking for the learners. The study thus recommended that critical and creative thinking is necessary for conventional problem-based learning process not only in nursing, but also in other different social, scientific, and economic fields. It hence calls for the design and development of appropriate curriculum to prepare professionals for future practice in their respective fields.

Higgins, Steve1. 2014. Critical thinking for 21-century Education: A cyber-tooth curriculum? Prospects (00331538)44, no. 4: 559-574. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed March 17, 2016).

Many learning institutions suggest a fundamental change in the curriculum as well as the learning and teaching approaches globally in educating the “net generation” or the “digital natives” as a result of the advent of digital technologies. The study carries out a deep analysis of the 21st-century concept of the century creative thinking and skills with the aim of understanding how the concepts can be incorporated to develop an understanding of the generation of the value of creative thinking. It finds out that education needs to fit local context of the diverse specific needs of different learners globally for the betterment of education.

Janssen, Frole., & Hullu, deE. 2008. A toolkit for productive thinking stimulation. Journal of Biological Education, 43(1):21-26. https://www.ascilite.org/conferences/Wellington12/2012/images/custom/parsons,_nigel_-_from_shed.pdf

For students to be equipped with valued critical thinking ideas, they need thinking skills and different tools that can enable them to actively and accurately carry out an in depth examination about scientific phenomena. The tools will enable them to know the kind of scientific problems and challenges to solve and how to reach or find a solution to the challenges. Jansse and Hullu (2008) present a “12 thinking tools” toolkit enabling students to ask and find solutions concerning biological phenomenon in varying perspectives. The tool is essential for designing and teaching lessons to stimulate deep thinking among the students from multiple perspectives concerning biological phenomenon.

Beyer, Brooks Jehn. 2012. How to teach thinking skills in history and social studies. Social Studies, Vol 99(5):196-201. https://dailycollegian.com/2012/10/17/social-media-subverts-critical-thinking/

The journal presents guidelines that are vital for the provision of instructions in creativity thinking skills in social studies and history at any tertiary grade level. The paper describes using examples the three main components of creativity thinking skills that are vital for learners and presents different teaching methods or techniques to make the components explicit. He further outlines while explaining different strategies to organize creative thinking and principles required employing the techniques. He then concludes by presenting principles for presenting the techniques and factors that need to be considered in the implementation of critical thinking skills.

Benjamin, Ray. 2011. The Case for Comparative Institutional Assessment of Higher-order thinking skills. Change, 40(6): 50-55. Retrieved from https://www.learningoutcomeassessment.org/documents/HerringPaperFINAL1.pdf

In acknowledging the reasons as to why institutions of learning cannot be compared by critics, Benjamin (2011) believes that higher order thinking attributes is necessary to compare and address. It is for this reason that many institutions do not know how the instructors within the institutions approve the value of critical thinking skills and abilities. The problem is experienced in the market place where the employees complain many employees are not flexible in their thinking. As a result, they do not understand the value of creative thinking that is very vital for the job market especially with the current stiff competition.

The value of critical thinking and creativity in social, scientific, and tertiary education

Critical thinking is understood as the ability of an individual to think rationally and clearly about what to believe or what to do through the engagement of an independent and reflective thinking. It enables one to examine and understand the logical connections of ideas in the process of evaluating thoughts and ideas identification. It is essential for an individual to identify the importance of relevant ideas and reflect in the justification of an individual’s own values and beliefs. It hence enables us to strengthen our arguments, improve our theories, and acquire the necessary knowledge to improve social performance and enhance work process.

On the other hand, creative thinking is the process of developing unique ideas that are useful, and relevant for further elaboration. It is a way of viewing challenges and situations from a different perspective that suggests solutions. It can be stimulated by both structured and unstructured processes of brainstorming and lateral thinking respectively. Creative thinking hence gives us a risk-taking attitude that can be risky but will have a major impact in case they succeed. Creative thinking makes an individual alert and gives him a sense of humor that is essential in the learning and working processes to find solutions to various social, economic, and scientific problems. Students need to be equipped with both valued creative and critical thinking ideas that can enable them think actively and accurately in examining scientific phenomena. This paper examines the value of critical and creative thinking in the tertiary education, social, and scientific fields.

Many of the articles above show clear indications that critical thinking and creativity are two major learning processes that should be incorporated in all learning fields. Creativity is essential for exploring various solutions and adopt to complicated learning, social, and scientific settings and promote quality education and career development. Implementation of creative problem-based activities promotes the cognitive attributes and reflection of students hence engaging them in learning (Chee & Pou 2007, p.4). Creativity is found to be very important in the social environment of learning as the students meet their fellows with different characters and behavior, and from different cultures. They are hence able to reform individual assessment strategies and inspired internal motivations for decision making and a lifelong learning environment.

In the process of learning, many researchers suggest that in-depth and focused critical and creative thinking adds on the performance of the learners and increase their scores in different levels of standardized assessment. By adopting critical and creative thinking ideas, the learners are better gains a proper understanding the reason of something occurring as opposed to what has occurred. The deeper understanding enables learners to have a good understanding and analysis of the circumstances that occur in the surrounding as they balance with the differing viewpoints concerning their occurrence.

Critical thinking can successfully be infused into the curriculum and lessons in all disciplines by the utilization of evaluation and in-depth questioning of both resources and data. For instance, involving students in tracking pattern a of information in a scientific research forces the learners to view information as a learning process rather than just information that should be memorized, thus helping then to develop skills or prediction and recognition. Evaluation of the source of information thus enables the learners to understand the appropriate procedures to enable them find and utilize credible information and help them to learn appropriate and acceptable way of discretion. Such skills are vital for finding solutions to different problems in the surrounding for standardized scientific assessments in solving many environmental challenges.

The role the of educators in developing creative and critical thinking

For proper engagement of students in critical thinking, the instructor is required to facilitate the whole process to allow discussion thus encouraging a free thought process and contribution by learners. The learning activities to be facilitated can work in institutional time or even through the utilization of other resources such as in-class discussions, online discussion boards, or other alternative modes of assessment within the classroom setting. It is an essential method of giving the learners an understanding of the value of critical thinking in the process of learning. It also enables the educators and scientists to have a critical thinking of their methods of teaching as a good starting point for introducing the creative thinking ideas in the process of learning. As a facilitator, the educator encourages a peer review process that helps the learners to understand appropriate responses to evaluating conflicts and opinions.

With the advancement in technology, learning has been made easier by the use of different learning software that impacts different skills to the students. For instance, utilizing wikis, a web application enhance the technological skills of the students thus equipping them for both the education process and workplace productivity (Zakus et al. 2007, p. 7). It is a holistic process for more critical thinking that requires corporation among the learners, educators, and the external environment. The development of such technological skills is applicable in sciences, social learning, and tertiary education level. The technological skills are vital for finding solutions to different problems across all fields and spheres of learning. It is hence evident that critical and creative thinking enable learners to compare and contrast different challenges and carry out a self-evaluation that can enable them arrive at the required answers that will provide solutions to such problems.

Evidences of the values of creative and critical thinking

When learners are equipped with proper critical thinking skills, there is increased performance, creativity, and literacy within the confines of the environment and increased awareness of challenges that are experience in the process of learning. Challenging students to think critically also gives the educators a platform to think critically about line of profession. Chan (2013) in his study explored the attitude of students towards creativity and critical thinking, problem-based learning, and nursing education relevancy in the clinical practice. It sampled semi-unstructured innovative and standard focus groups. The results showed that problem-based learning had a significant increase in problem-solving techniques and critical thinking among the learners.

According to Chan (2013), critical and creative thinking is necessary in conventional problem-based learning process not only in nursing, but also in other different social, scientific, and economic fields. It hence calls for the design and development of appropriate curriculum to prepare professionals for future practice in their respective fields. For this reason, Higgins (2014) finds out that many learning institutions suggests a fundamental change in the curriculum as well as the learning and teaching approaches globally in educating the “net generation” or the “digital natives” as a result of the advent of digital technologies. The study carries out a deep analysis of the 21st century concept of the century creative thinking and skills with the aim of understanding how the concepts can be incorporated to develop an understanding of the generation of the value of creative thinking. It finds out that education needs to fit local context of the diverse specific needs of different learners globally for the betterment of education.

Results of critical thinking

Learning institutions that impact the learners with critical thinking skills has shown promising impacts for the educators, learners, as well as the job community. For sciences and social studies, critical thinking gives students a better understanding of scientific processes. It hence gives the learners opportunity to become more experimental in handling different aspects of scientific investigations and challenges in their immediate environment and beyond. For students to be equipped with valued critical thinking ideas, they need thinking skills and different tools that can enable active and accurate thinking in understanding scientific phenomena. The tools will enable them to know the kind of scientific problems and how to reach or find a solution to the challenges. Jansse and Hullu (2008) present a “12 thinking tools” toolkit enabling students to ask and answer challenges concerning biological phenomenon in varying circumstances. The tool can be used by teachers in designing lessons to stimulate deep thinking among the students from multiple perspectives concerning biological phenomenon.

Well equipped students in various filed have the ability to establish creative social and scientific skills and creative methods of solving problems, thus making them competent in their fields of specialization. As a critical competence, creativity and critical thinking are found to be the foundation social and scientific education where theory has to be correlated to realistic environmental challenges. Learners, scientist, and community in general should be in a position and willing to co-construct their theoretical framework and knowledge in challenging and stressful working conditions. Innovative teaching styles should hence be used in nurturing reasoning and logic models and like conceptual linkage and land maps to enhance autonomy and independent thinking through the elimination of possible obstacles in the hierarchical cultural or traditional and social cultures.

Conclusion

In conclusion, adopting teaching innovations and tools that can promote creativity and critical thinking is vital for various fields in education. Engaging learners in different activities positively influences their awareness of critical thinking for positive social and scientific implications in the job market and the society as a whole in terms of applying innovative strategic solutions. Scientific challenges require accuracy in providing solutions. Environmental issues like conflicts, pollution, diseases outbreak, and terrorism among others are just but a few examples of challenges that requires critical and creative thinking. Appropriate strategies are hence necessary to shed more light on such challenges in a manner that will be beneficial to both the current and future generation. There is hence a need for a designed curriculum that prepares students for such challenges, thus require their physical, psychological, social, environmental, and economic preparedness. Critical and creative thinking are domains for thinking skills that is vital in the new knowledge economy for self-reflection, innovation promotion, and a foundation of science and social democracy.