HR Recruitment, Retention, and Development of New Employees

LUKE Human Resource within the Company Human resources: Luke & Associates Three of the most critical ways in which a human resource department can leverage a competitive advantage for an organization is through the processes of recruitment, retention, and continuing development of new employees. Particularly given the technical demands of Luke & Associates, it is critical that Luke uses innovative strategies to recruit top-flight employees. Successful IT companies such as Google have made recruitment a critical part of their business strategy.

For example, "in order to find the right people for the company, Google typically gets candidates to go through four rounds of interviews…During one or more of the interviews, Google presents candidates with a problem and asks them to solve it" (Shead 2014). Google makes a considerable investment in finding the right employees because the cost of having a bad employee far outweighs the expense of finding a good one.

Talent is the lifeblood of a creative company, particularly a company which requires its workers to operate with a great deal of autonomy. According to the essential values of Luke & Associates: "We value our employees and recognize the importance each brings to our success. We invest the time, resources and leadership in our employees to ensure consistent growth and stability. Satisfied employees are more productive, reliable and will become long-term Luke employees." The duty of HR is to ensure that these values are put into effective practice.

But it is not enough to simply hire the best people: a good company also knows how to keep them. Employees must feel as if the company honors their needs: this includes allowing employees to have a reasonable work-life balance and rewarding them fairly based on their efforts: flexible hours, on-site daycare, and even free food as well as more conventional techniques like stock options and bonuses are all examples of ways in which companies have attempted to create a more welcoming environment for employees.

However, beyond such transactional rewards, the company must also create a compelling vision and ethos of which good employees wish to remain a part of: this includes having mentorship opportunities for ambitious new workers "Mentoring can improve employee satisfaction and retention, enrich new-employee initiation, make your company more appealing to recruits, and train your leaders" (Kessler 2010). Mentorship is also a way to develop workers and developing the knowledge and skills of workers is the final, critical component of HR efficacy through training and performance review systems.

Investing in the continuing education of workers is particularly important given the knowledge-based sector of Luke. Regular training in critical functions to update skills is an example of continuing education as is sensitivity training to ensure the company staff is compliant with current laws pertaining to diversity. Finally, performance reviews must be structured to there is dialogue between subordinates and superiors.

Performance reviews must be held frequently; be clearly linked to organizational goals; and be based upon objective criteria for employees to take them seriously and to truly benefit from them (Studernot 2015). Ultimately, employees should always be moving through the company -- whether that is up, laterally, or 'out.' Stagnation of employees results in a stagnant.