Employee selection process at Atea Software

HR Portfolio Project

Human Resource Portfolio Project -- Selection Process at Atea Software

The modern day business environment is extremely challenging and the mounting forces of globalization have further increased competition and made it fiercer than ever. Not only do economic agents compete against each in terms of customers and the adjacent market share, they also compete in terms of financial resources or human resource as a means of gaining a competitive advantage. This particular competition for the human resource, coupled with the numerous changes that have affected the field of HR, such as the fact that the staff members are no longer perceived as the force operating the machines, but as the most valuable asset of the organization, has materialized in the development of numerous HR strategies, policies and practices.

The selection of the employees is a process with its origins in the commencement of economic and business operations; yet, the contemporaneous selection is the result of numerous changes which have emerged along the years. Today, incremental emphasis is being placed on the linkage between the organizational needs and the skills and abilities of the candidates, in the meaning that a new employee is not only expected to complete his professional responsibilities, but is asked to do this in a way that adds more value to the employer.

The aim of this report is to develop the selection process within software producer Atea. In order to achieve this desiderate, it is first necessary to assess the needs of the organization in terms of staffing. Then, we will provide an analysis and description of the job to be filled, followed by the actual listing of the criteria to be met by the new occupant of the position. Finally, the overall selection process will come together and will be presented throughout the sixth section. The report will come to an end with a section on concluding remarks that will restate the most important findings.

2. Company Needs

Atea Software has a decade long existence and a total number of 100 employees, out of which 35 are administrative staff (managers, secretaries, sales force, human resource specialists and cleaning personnel) and the remaining 65 are programmers. The management at Atea has placed an increased emphasis on non-financial incentives as a means of increasing employee on-the-job satisfaction. This was achieved through training programs, the creation of a friendly working environment or the organization of outgoing events for socialization. The human resource strategies were mostly based on Herzberg's dual factor theory, which argues that wage and other financial stimulants are not able to create motivation and satisfaction, but only maintain it.

The theory adopted by Atea focused on offering non-financial incentives, such as recognition of efforts, prestige and professional advancement, as a means of motivating the staff members. While this approach is highly successful for young programmers (junior developers), who find Atea as a great means of learning how to do the job, senior developers argue that there is not much the company can offer them anymore, and, coupled with the fact that salaries are slightly lower the industry average, they commenced to leave the organization. Given this status quo then, the Human Resource Department is now in charge of selecting five senior developers to occupy key positions within the company's various projects. The primary need of the company is that these senior developers be skilled and capable to handle the workload, while in the meantime revealing an ability to become integrated within the working environment.

3. Job Analysis

The methodology used in constructing a job analysis has been a combination of observations and interviews. The observation part of the analysis materialized in two directions. First of all, the members of the Human Resource Department studied the behavior of senior developers, placing the greatest emphasis on how they interact within the working environment and how they relate to their colleagues and subalterns (the junior developers). Other matters of interest for the HR team were constituted by the commitment of the senior staff members and their relationship with the customers. This analysis was conducted directly within the working environment of the senior developers. The second stage of the observation process was conducted within the HR Department exclusively and it first saw the gathering of sufficient and relevant information to be studied by our team. We assessed both previously developed job analysis charts as well as the weekly charts sent in by the seniors, in which they detailed the tasks they had completed throughout the respective week and the time it tool to complete the respective chores.

Despite the intense efforts of the human resource team, fact remains that some technical details were difficult to understand, given the different nature of the HR and it fields. In order to reduce the chances of mistakes and clarify the features which were not entirely understood, as well as to gain insight into the actual professional life of a senior software developer, the members of the Human Resource Department organized interviews with several senior programmers at Atea. These senior programmers play the role of our technical subject matter experts (SME). The questions in the interview were organized as follows:

For how long have you been an employee within Atea and what is your general input regarding the organization?

From your standpoint, is Atea able to attract and retain senior developers, and if not, why is this so?

Please describe an average work day.

What are your main responsibilities? What is the proportion of each of these tasks within the overall workload?

From your standpoint, how much experience and education does a senior developer need in order to cope with the technical requirements of Atea?

Based on the answers gathered from seven senior developers currently leading seven individual projects, as well as our direct observation of the working environment and the responsibilities attached to the senior developers, we have concluded that the job analysis contains the following elements:

Functions: a senior developer at Atea generally handles five specific functions, as revealed in the table below. With the assistance of the SMEs, we have also assigned points from 1 to 5 (1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest) in terms of importance of the respective task (IMP) and the difficulty of learning how to best handle the given task (DIFF). The final column in the table reveals the criticality of each function (CRIT), which is obtained through the multiplication of the importance of the job by the difficulty of learning it. The criticality column is important as it links the previous two criteria in a means that simplifies the selection process. To better explain, a certain function is more desirable as it has a higher value of the criticality component, meaning that it is both important as well as difficult to learn. If on the other hand, a function is pivotal, but easy to learn, it can be easily overlooked in the selection process.

Function

IMP

DIFF

CRIT

1.

Research and document the software projects

5

3

15

2.

Write code on the current software projects

5

5

25

3.

Ensure maintenance for older projects

4

5

20

4.

Offer support to junior developers

4

4

16

5.

Communicate with customers

5

5

25

4. Job Description

The description of the senior developer position is based on the functions identified throughout the previous section, with the specification that new and more complex features and information are introduced.

Job Title: Senior Developer (this entitling is to be used in reference to the position and will also be contained in organizational documents, including business cards)

Job Summary: The senior developer is mainly expected to contribute to the writing of software applications and in doing this, he/she is expected to meet the in-place standards. Additional requirements may include assisting junior developers, communicating with the owners of the software applications or ensuring maintenance of older projects.

Functions

The table below restates the five most important functions in the job of a senior developer and adds new information relative to the amount of time they are supposed to spend on each category of chores -- in percentage -- the expected accomplishments and the standards to be met.

Function

Time (%)

Expected accomplishments

Standards to be met

1.

Research and document the software projects

20

Conduct four researches per year and coordinate the juniors with their research

In-place quality standards

2.

Write code on the current software projects

40

Write technical specifications, follow and implement them and coordinate juniors with their tasks

In-place quality standards

3.

Ensure maintenance for older projects

10

Ensure small numbers of bugs and that the unit tests are in place and not violated; keep consistence with the overall application design

In-place quality standards

4.

Offer support to junior developers

20

Assist them with understanding their tasks; training and knowledge transfer

In-place quality standards

5.

Communicate with customers

10

Ensure the functional requirements are correctly understood; clarify all issues and notify them when problems occur or tasks are completed; keep in touch during development to see if specifications change

5. Assessment and Selection Criteria

Directly linked to the analysis and description of the senior developer position are the criteria which have to be possessed by a candidate who wants to occupy this position. Otherwise put, the assessment and selection criteria are directly pegged to the functions which have to be completed by the senior programmer. The table below reveals the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA) required in completing the five functions described throughout the previous sections.

KSA

Functions

IMP

DIFF

CRIT

ENTRY

1.

High degree education

2, 3, 4

5

5

25

5

2.

Previous expertise (at least 5 years in a similar position)

1, 2, 5

4

5

20

4

3.

Analytical approach to completing tasks

1, 2, 3, 4

5

4

20

4

4.

Good communication skills

4, 5

4

4

16

5

5.

Team spirit and focus on team accomplishments

2, 3, 4

5

4

20

5

6.

Focus on customer needs and satisfaction

3, 5

5

3

15

5

7.

Strategic planning capabilities

3, 4

4

4

16

4

8.

Instrumental coping

2, 3, 4, 5

5

4

20

4

9.

Control of the team

3, 4

5

5

25

4

10.

Self-management

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

5

5

25

5

The first column lists the KSAs necessary; the second column states for which of the stated functions this KSA is necessary (the functions are numbered from 1 to 5, based on the table in the Job Analysis section); the third column reveals the importance of the criteria; the fourth deals with the difficulty of acquiring the respective skill, knowledge or ability; the fifth column represents the criticality of possessing the respective KTA and finally, the sixth column, ENTRY, reveals the importance of possessing the respective KTA at the time when being first hired with Atea.

The conclusions drawn indicate that the pivotal skills, knowledge and abilities that must be possessed by the future senior developers at Atea are a degree in higher education, with an it specialization, good communication skills, team spirit, focus on customer satisfaction and self-management. The rest KSAs of expertise, analytical approach, strategic planning, instrumental coping and control of the team are also important, but less so as they can be developed throughout the employment period.

6. The Selection Process

The selection process at Atea is organized onto six consecutive steps, as follows:

(1) Resume review - once the curriculum vitae-s have been received, the specialists within the Human Resource Department commence to analyze them and select those of them which forward the desired qualifications necessary for the job (the selection criteria). Particularly, they look for the candidates who have a high education degree in computers science, previous expertise in a senior position and describe themselves as having good communication skills, team spirit and an inclination towards management and control. The candidates which do not reveal these capabilities are no longer considered part of the selection process.

(2) Background check -- once the HR specialists have selected those candidates which meet the technical requirements to occupying the senior developer position, we run a background check on them in order to ensure that the information in the CV is accurate; we for instance contact the university, to ensure that they have in fact graduated, or their former employees; also, we conduct verifications to see if the candidate has a criminal record. The candidates which are proven to have forwarded false accusations are removed from the selection process.

(3) Interview with a HR specialist -- the next step sees that a member of the Human Resource Department meets face-to-face with the so far selected candidates in order to present the employment opportunity as well as test the characteristics of the individual in terms of sincerity, communication skills or personality. We will also strive to identify if the candidate would be able to become integrated within the Atea culture and working environment and whether or not he/she has the potential to increase organizational value. Since most of our team members possess degrees in higher education psychology, we are able to identify the nature and potential of a candidate, but in order to give everybody a fair chance and rule out the possibility of judging someone based on a first impression, the interview with the HR specialist does not make for a decision point in the meaning that most employees move forward to the next stage of the selection process -- the technical interview

(4) Technical testing -- this part of the selection process is handled by senior developers with a long employment period within Atea and whose word is not only important, but also who possess a vast technological education and expertise. This process has two primary targets, of varying importance. The first and stated aim of technical testing is that of identifying whether the candidate possesses the required technical knowledge to complete the organizational tasks. The second and more salient goal is that of observing the candidate and striving to identify whether he/she would be able to become integrated within the team and whether he/she would be able to sustain and even improve company performances. If the candidate fails the technical test, he/she is ruled out of the selection process.

(5) Psychological evaluation -- throughout this process, the candidate is engaged in one-on-one conversations with the psychology specialist within our Human Resource department team, after which he/she is asked to participate to a series of personality and IQ tests. The aim of this process is that of ensuring that the candidates possess the essential mental functions. If they do not, they will generally be excluded from the selection process.

(6) Interview with the top manager -- considering that the candidate has come this far in the selection process, only one more step stands in his way of being hired at Atea. The interview with the top executive is generally perceived as a means of closing a deal -- the top executive thanks the candidate for being interested in the organization, and vice versa, and then he makes an employment offer, to which the candidate might offer either a positive or a negative response. Despite the fact that such situations are rare, there exists the possibility that the top manager exercise his veto right against the hiring of an individual who has passed the rest of the selection stages. Whenever he is not sure on whether or not he should the candidate, the top executive will ask for the results of the interview with the HR specialist. In most cases, if the results are negative, chances are the employee will not be hired.

The chart below reveals a visual presentation of the selection process. Except for the interview with the human resource specialist, which is not an eliminatory stage, all other steps represent decision points. The acronym DNH stands for Do Not Hire, as clear indication that the candidate which failed the respective stage will be excluded from the selection process.

7. Conclusions

Software producer Atea is constantly aligning to the emergent needs of the contemporaneous business community. These efforts are obvious at all organizational levels, including the Human Resource Department, which amongst other things, is also in charge of the selection process. In order to offer a consistent proposition on the selection of our future employees, it was necessary to identify the characteristics of the job throughout the sections of Job Analysis and Job Description. Following this, we revealed the criteria required from the future occupants of the senior developer position. Finally, the plan for the implementation of the selection process constitutes of six stages, five of them being decision points.