Business Organization Environment

Introduction

In today’s hypercompetitive business environment, an organization’s sustainable competitive advantage is largely derived from intangible assets: human, social, and intellectual capital. Intangible assets are produced by skilled, capable workers. Human resource professionals enable current and future organizational competitiveness by maintaining an adequate supply of people with the skills, knowledge, and abilities needed to produce these resources. Human resource professionals accomplish this through workforce planning, recruitment and selection of top-quality talent, and effective employee-relations management.
As a human resource professional, your ability to effectively identify your organization’s need for employees, plan and implement employee recruitment and selection strategies, and manage employee relations will directly contribute to your organization’s success.
Scenario

You are the newly appointed director of human resource management for the fire department of a city in the northeastern United States. Your organization has struggled to hire new firefighters for some time. Your predecessor attempted to increase recruitment and selection of new firefighters by implementing an employee referral plan. However, the number of new hires through referrals has fallen short of hiring goals. The need for firefighters intensified when your city’s newly elected mayor promised to combat wildfires by increasing the number of firefighters in areas with higher wildfire risk. The fire department has met the need for increased staff by assigning existing firefighters the additional hours and paying overtime wages. As the number of hours worked and overtime payments increased over time, this practice—originally intended to be a short-term remedy—attracted unwanted attention.
A front-page article in your city’s newspaper has revealed that three firefighters earned higher annual salaries than the mayor, due to excessive overtime. Stung and embarrassed by this disclosure, the mayor fired your predecessor and put you in his place. Both the mayor and your boss have given orders to “reduce overtime by hiring new firefighters immediately!” This mandate requires you to plan and implement new strategies to hire 25 new firefighters.

Fortunately, the former director of human resources left behind several documents that will help you perform these tasks. Refer to the following documents in the “Supporting Documents” section as directed when you perform the requirements below: (1) “Memo on Proposed Employee Referral Plan,” (2) “Job Description of City Firefighters,” and (3) “Data on Recruitment Sources and Methods.”
Requirements

Your submission must represent your original work and understanding of the course material. Most performance assessment submissions are automatically scanned through the WGU similarity checker. Students are strongly encouraged to wait for the similarity report to generate after uploading their work and then review it to ensure Academic Authenticity guidelines are met before submitting the file for evaluation. See Understanding Similarity Reports for more information.
Grammarly Note:
Professional Communication will be automatically assessed through Grammarly for Education in most performance assessments before a student submits work for evaluation. Students are strongly encouraged to review the Grammarly for Education feedback prior to submitting work for evaluation, as the overall submission will not pass without this aspect passing. See Use Grammarly for Education Effectively for more information.
Microsoft Files Note:
Write your paper in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) unless another Microsoft product, or pdf, is specified in the task directions. Tasks may not be submitted as cloud links, such as links to Google Docs, Google Slides, OneDrive, etc.  All supporting documentation, such as screenshots and proof of experience, should be collected in a pdf file and submitted separately from the main file. For more information, please see Computer System and Technology Requirements.
You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.
Create a report (suggested length of 5–10 pages) in which you address the following:
A. Analyze factors in the internal and external labor market that influence the supply of and demand for firefighters by doing the following (refer to the scenario above and the attached “Memo on Proposed Employee Referral Plan” to complete these tasks):

1. Discuss three factors that are influencing labor demand.
2. Discuss three factors that are influencing labor supply.
   B. Design a recruitment plan for firefighters by doing the following (refer to the task attachments and your knowledge of best practices to complete these tasks):
3. Identify three recruitment objectives for your organization.
4. Develop a recruitment strategy for attracting job applicants by doing the following:
   a. Determine the size of the applicant pool needed to produce 25 viable candidates (job offer-ready) using yield ratios and the recruitment data in the attached “Data on Recruitment Sources and Methods.”
   b. Recommend two types of individuals who should be targeted for recruitment (i.e., the target groups listed in the attached “Data on Recruitment Sources and Methods”).
   i. Justify each of your two recommendations.
   c. Describe two effective methods for reaching each target group.
   C. Design a selection plan for firefighters by doing the following:
5. Recommend three appropriate selection methods for all target candidates.
   a. Justify each of your three recommendations.
6. Describe two selection tests you will use to assess a candidate’s suitability for the job of firefighter.
7. Identify two background verification checks that should be used in the selection process including the following:

• type of check
• when the check should be conducted in the selection process

1. Discuss four methods of evaluating the overall effectiveness of your recruitment and selection plans.
   D. Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
   E. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.