Nestle HRM : International Employee Hiring strategies

Question

Assignment Brief :The Pearson-set theme for use with Level 4 Unit 6: Managing a Successful Business Project is

Globalisation: The OECD defines globalisation as the following:

‘’The geographic dispersion of industrial and service activities, for example research development, sourcing of factor inputs, production and distribution, and the cross – border networking of companies, for example through joint ventures and the sharing of assets.’’

The key implications of globalisation for business include:

• increasing trade across borders of goods and services,
• increasing levels of labour migration between countries,
• the emergence of global brands,
• greater outsourcing and offshoring of production,
• expansion of foreign direct investment.

Globalisation has also led to increasing competition and an economic and financial shift from developing to emerging economies. It promotes a sense of cultural awareness, international co-operation and global economic inter-dependency. Those multinational companies that are successful have had to devise and customise new strategies for doing business in emerging markets and implement new business models to stay ahead of the competition

The topic for this unit is: How do multinational companies improve the recruitment, selection and training of their employees to meet International requirements?

Scenario: The Nestlé People Development Review
Nestlé is among the world’s leading food company, with a 135-year history and operations in virtually every country in the world. According to Nestle, the company’s principal assets are not office buildings, factories, or even brands. Rather, it is the fact that they are a global organisation comprised of many nationalities, religions, and ethnic backgrounds all working together in one single unifying corporate culture. The culture that unifies people on all continents, with roughly half of their factories and people located in the developing world.

Learning is an integral part of the company’s culture. This is firmly stated in The Nestlé Human Resources Policy, a totally new policy that encompasses the guidelines that constitute a sound basis for efficient and effective human resource management. People development is the driving force of the policy, which includes clear principles on non-discrimination, the right of collective bargaining as well as the strict prohibition of any form of harassment. The policy deals with recruitment, remuneration and training and development and emphasises individual responsibility, strong leadership and a commitment to life-long learning as required characteristics for Nestlé managers (www.nestle.com)

The willingness to learn is therefore an essential condition to be employed by Nestlé. First and foremost, training is done on-the-job. Guiding and coaching is part of the responsibility of each manager and is crucial to make each one progress in his/her position. Formal training programmes are generally purpose-oriented and designed to improve relevant skills and competencies. Therefore they are proposed in the framework of individual development programmes and not as a reward (www.nestle.com)

Nestlé believes that it is important to give people the opportunities for life-long learning. All employees are called upon to upgrade their skills in a fast-changing world. The company believe that by offering opportunities to develop, they not only enrich the company, but also makes individual more autonomous, confident, and, in turn, more employable and open to new positions within the company. Enhancing this virtuous circle is the ultimate goal of its training efforts at many different levels through the thousands of training programmes we run each year.

As a business project management trainee who is interested in working for a multinational company, choose a multinational company of your choice or use the same case study scenario and produce a comprehensive project management plan, milestone schedule and project schedule for monitoring and completing the aims and objectives of the project title ‘How do multinational companies improve the recruitment, selection and training of their employees to meet International requirements?’. You must conduct small-scale research, information gathering and data collection, generating knowledge to support the project, and critically evaluate the project management process and appropriate research methodologies applied.

In the second part of the business project report, critically evaluate and reflect on the project outcomes, the decision making process and changes or developments of the initial project management plan to support justification of recommendations and learning during the project. This should include an evaluation of the value of the project management process and use of quality research applying qualitative and quantitative research methods appropriate for meeting the stated objectives, and to support own learning and performance.

Answer

Executive Summary
Human resources are currently regarded as the most valuable resource for any multinational company. Multinational companies now invest a great deal of money in improvisation of their recruitment, selection and training procedure. The current scope of analysis deals with Nestle, which is a world’s leading food company. The company immensely values its human resources from diversified nationalities, ethnic backgrounds and religion to work together as a unified culture. As the business project management trainee, a project management plan for improvising recruitment, selection, and training of employees is undertaken.

The organizations were aiming to improve its overall various HR parameters of recruitment, selection, and training. The task effectively collected a relevant and versatile range of data to arrive at suitable findings and conclusion related to the study. However, the data analysis revealed that Nestle, the UK had tremendously increased its recruitment, selection, and training in terms of several employees. However, in terms of quality improvisation, it had not achieved much. It was majorly lagging in providing adequate training to its employees and also in conducting appropriate recruitment and selection procedure.

1.0 Introduction
Human resources management encompasses a range of functionalities including recruitment, selection, and training of employees (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright, 2017, p 58). These functionalities enable companies meeting international requirements. The current scope of analysis deals with Nestle, which is a world’s leading food company. The company immensely values its human resources from diversified nationalities, ethnic backgrounds and religion to work together as a unified culture. As the business project management trainee, a project management plan for improvising recruitment, selection, and training of employees is undertaken (Burke, 2013, p 2). The analysis here includes conducting small data research such that the project management goals can be met. An evaluation of the project outcome is conducted to provide recommendations for the final project.

2.0 Project aims, objectives and time frames
2.1 P1. Project aims and objectives: The project aim is, ‘To enable Nestle to meet international requirements through recruitment, selection, and training of employees’.

In adhering to the above project aim, the following project objectives will be met;

• Project Objective 1: To identify the importance of human resource within a multinational organization
• Project Objective 2: To identify the ways multinational companies improvise recruitment, selection, and training of its employees
• Project Objective 3: To analyze ways in which the above improvement strategies enable meeting International requirements

2.2 P2 Project Management Plan
2.2.1 Cost: The project to be conducted will require a significant amount of costs from the collection of data other various other costs (Kerzner, 2017, p 85). A schedule of cost break-up along with a rough estimate is provided as below;

Table 1: Cost Schedule

2.2.2 Scope: This project is conducted by a business project management trainee and involves analyzing the data for the project (Mir, and Pinnington, 2014, p 200). To attain success in the project, there will be a collaboration amongst varied stakeholder group. The stakeholders of the project comprise of;

• Business Project Management Trainee
• Project Approval Committee
• Human Resource Department
• Employees from different department of Nestle

The project will aim at finding a solution to the plan that aims at improvisation of recruitment, selection, and training at the organization.

2.2.3 Time: The project will be aimed to be completed within a designated schedule of 6 months starting of the project planning procedure. Each task within the project will be divided and subdivided into small categories such that the project can easily be monitored and its outcomes can easily be achieved. Moreover, the project in this manner will be in schedule and can easily be completed within its time frame.

2.2.4 Quality: The project will be monitored for its quality continuously. At each stage of the project, it will be matched against a similar project that has been conducted with other multinational organizations. This will help achieve quality outcomes and deliverables for the project.

2.2.5 Communication: The project will be communicated to the senior members of the organization, especially the human resource department. Since the project concerns the internal aspects of the organization, permission will be sought from the Board of Directors as well as senior managers from various departments of the company. Moreover, all employees of the organization on whom the study will be conducted will be informed regarding the project status, deliverables and finally the outcomes and recommendations (Cascio, 2015, p 84). Once accomplished the project can be published such that it can be referred by other multinational organizations.

2.2.6 Risk: The project does not bear any significant risks. The most prominent risk that the project bears is that of non-participation from employees risks and schedule risks. Both the risks can be managed, as non-participation from employees can be managed by obtaining permission from senior managers of the organization, whereas falling out of schedule risks can be obtained by forming an appropriate monitoring plan (Bratton, and Gold, 2017, p 58).

2.2.7 Resources: The project will require considerable resources in terms of access to a computer, database of last 5 years recruitment, selection, and training schedule of the company (Meredith, Mantel Jr, and Shafer, 2017, p 200). The project will also require data analysis platform such that the small data collected can provide results easily.

P3 Work breakdown structure and a Gantt chart of the project
The project will be divided into separate work and time frames. The work breakdown has been formulated keeping in mind the various research objectives that have to be attained in the project timeline (Larson, and Gray, 2013, p 81). The work breakdown structure has been grouped under separate headings to understand the various tasks of the project.

The work breakdown structure and Gantt chart for the project is depicted as below;

Figure 1: Work Breakdown Structure
Source: Author

Figure 2: Gantt Chart
Source: Author

3.0 Research, information gathering, and data collection
P4 Small-scale research: Human resource is the most crucial resource for most multinational companies. For Nestle UK, it becomes imperative that it analyses data about recruitment, selection, and training processes (Guest, 2011, p 10). To conduct this research, data were collected from middle-level managers and employees from Nestle UK. The study conducted primary research or first-hand data for arriving at the findings of the study. There will be data collection related to qualitative as well as quantitative in nature. In this research, data is collected first and then interpreted using qualitative and quantitative techniques.

Participants: The scholar or the trainee will collect data from a maximum number of employees present at the middle level of the organization, post obtaining permission from the HR manager. Data will be collected from employees, who have been with the organization for at least a minimum period of 5 years or more. The focus of the data collection procedure will be to collect data from diversified employees at the middle level of the organization.

Male and female participants will be selected for the study. A total of 500 employees will be approached directly to take their input for the study. Employees from diversified nationality, gender, sexes, abilities will be approached for conducting the study. The age criteria for the participants of the study will be a minimum of 30 years to a maximum of 55 years of age. Exclusion criteria for the study will be employees who have not been 5 years with the organization or employees who have already submitted their resignation.

The data related to overall recruitment, selection, and training procedures will be obtained from the HR department itself.

Method: Amongst the various data to be collected for the project the most important once are those variables related to HR functionalities of recruitment, selection, and training of the employees. Any previous year data that is being found form the company will be charted and then tabulated to arrive at a consolidated data for the research. The study will be conducted in the survey format in small groups of 15 employees. A list of questions or prefixed questions for the survey will be posted to the participants of the study and then data from the employees will be collected in printed sheets. The study will be conducted from a total of 300 employees finally selected after the exclusion criteria. The study procedure for data collection will last for 24 days conducted in various shifts. This time will be taken to ensure that valid and reliable first-hand data has been collected from the participants. Each survey will take approximately 15 to 20 minutes to be conducted. Special permission will be obtained from the senior managers to ensure that the employees are allowed to take part in the study. At the end of the study, the employees will be given a certificate as a token of participation from our university. They will also be thanked for providing their valuable time in the study procedure. All possible ethical guidelines will be followed in the study to ensure that it abides by the ethical criteria of the university.

Procedure: Post obtaining permission from the senior managers and HR manager of the organization Nestle, UK, all middle-level employees will be provided with a seminar regarding the study. The seminar will be conducted by me and will include the study aims and objectives being highlighted to the employees. The study's benefits will be communicated to the employees in case the project is successful. Then a prefixed schedule will be allotted and divided amongst the 500 employees over the working week so that they can take part in the study. Amongst all the employees 65 expressed their objections to taking part in the study. 50 of them had prescheduled engagements and 45 people wanted to be excluded from the study. Hence out of 500 employees, only 340 managed to take part in the study. 40 employees feedback had to be excluded as they had provided "No Comments" as their answer and it is not an acceptable answer for taking part in the study. The survey design was arrived by using feedback from the employees of the company. The employees of the company were asked to provide feedback on whatever aspects of recruitment, selection or training they felt was important. They expressed a few points which were considered in the survey questions.

The study was conducted in small private groups of people, who were asked various questions in the survey method and I entered their answer in a paper. After each survey concluded, I checked and validated each answer and entered them back into my system.

The feedback from the HR managers and their department was scheduled at the end of the survey procedure. They provided their data from documents which could be tabulated with ease.

Data: The data collected for the study included recruitment, selection, and training that has been conducted by Nestle, the UK in the past 5 years to understand its trend. This trend analysis will depict if there has been an overall improvement in the recruitment, selection and training processes. The following is data collection for the past 5 years for recruitment, selection, and training.

Table 2: Past 5-year Data for Nestle, UK

Data was also collected from employees to understand their understanding levels in training procedure and satisfaction levels at the training. The various data collected revealed the following details;

Table 3: Information on HR Improvement

The above data collected revealed several HR trends existing in the company. These collected data will need to be analyzed to understand any conclusive results regarding the data.

P5 Analysis of research and data
There was a wide range of data and versatile that was collected. Data was obtained both in qualitative and quantitative formats. For the sake of simplicity, the data collected was tabulated using Ms. Excel so that it can easily be understood with ease by everyone.

Analysis 1: The first data to be analyzed is from the HR department related to trends in recruitment, selection, and training across overall departments. The below graphical representation depicts that all the three trends related to recruitment, selection, and training have been upward in the last five years from 2014 to 2019.

Table 4: Analysis of Past 5 Year HR Trends

The upward trend in several employees that are being recruited, selected and trained by the organization is growing gradually and this trend is consistent with current trends in globalization. Over the years, it can be seen that various multinational organizations have grown and expanded their operations worldwide. similarly, Nestle, the UK to has expanded and increased its operations in the UK and also elsewhere in the world, this has tremendously increased workload and needs for human capital (Armstrong, and Taylor, 2014, p 76). The increasing number in employees to be recruited, selected and to be trained across various departments have also increased. Nestle, the UK to support its ever-expanding operations needed to intake more and more employees. This exact trend is seen in the graphical representation as shown in the above chart. However, the increase in trend in recruitment, selection, and training merely shows that the organization has grown tremendously with growing needs. It can be said from the above data analysis that Nestle has adequately expanded about its growing trends, demands, and needs in the International scenario. Thus, it can be concluded that employees recruitment, selection, and training needs to increase with expanding international markets and demands. It does not adequately reflect any improvisation in the trends which can easily be analyzed from the second findings arrived at.

Analysis 2: The second and most important analysis of this entire project is in the data that have been gathered from employees at the middle level at Nestle in the UK. The second data collected from surveying employees included answers in yes or no. There were various questions posed in the survey related to the qualitative nature of the actual recruitment, selection, and training that was taking place at Nestle, UK.

Table 5: Data Collected from Employees

This data once expressed qualitatively was transformed into metrics to arrive at a visual representation. This was deemed to be important as the core aim of the study was to arrive at the improvisation in recruitment, selection, and training strategy if at all has been achieved by Nestle, the UK over the years. Though the findings were conducted across middle-level employees only, yet the findings were anonymous. The data did not reveal any specific trend however the usefulness of the findings in the areas that need to be focused upon as expressed by the employees of the organization. The study helped reveal the gaps in recruitment, selection, and training strategy that was being faced by the organization and which the employees valued. Though the organization wanted to attain improvement in HR dimensions yet the study revealed it was lagging.

4.0 Recommendations and conclusions
P6 Recommendations and meaningful conclusions
The organizations were aiming to improve their overall various HR parameters of recruitment, selection, and training. The task effectively collected a relevant and versatile range of data to arrive at suitable findings and conclusion related to the study. However, the data analysis revealed that Nestle, the UK had tremendously increased its recruitment, selection, and training in terms of several employees. However, in terms of quality improvisation, it had not achieved much. It was majorly lagging in providing adequate training to its employees and also in conducting appropriate recruitment and selection procedure. After overcoming several limitations, the study has been successful in understanding how the identified aspects can improve the organization in the international sphere. Hence the recommendation for the organization includes;

• Including more versatile, diversified and widespread training programs for its middle-level employees.
• Conducting more inclusive recruitment.
• Incorporate selection procedure, considering more versatile aspect to be able to make it more effective and efficient.

P7 Value of undertaking the research
This research provided me with tremendous learning and experience. It also provided a basis for undertaking further research in the future. From this study, I understood that collecting fist hand data and analysis is crucial for every research. It allows developing a concrete understanding of the underlying problems in the study and arriving at suitable conclusions thereof. Only first-hand research has the potentiality to provide an in-depth understanding of the situation at hand, to be able to formulate suitable objectives and aims. Then the course of the research can be designed carefully using appropriate project management pathways. This research provided tremendous value as through project management initiatives a major human resource challenge or problem was analyzed for the company. The solution was designed using a data set collected with the application of suitable data analysis and representation technique. I feel if I had not taken this research project then I could not have been able to embark on the journey to undertaking research. My professor helped me tremendously and also guided me to attain this impossible tasks. Nestle HRM assignments are being prepared by our HR assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable assignment help online service.

5.0 References
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers, pp. 72-150. Retrieved on 16th July 2019 from https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=TCwoAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR2&dq=human+resource+management&ots=wAmjZoUV0v&sig=PfwLx-LYhSYDL7-jkEJdAT4WQi0#v=onepage&q=human%20resource%20management&f=false

Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave, pp. 10-74. Retrieved on 14th July 2019 from https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SJpMDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=human+resource+management&ots=YvTxRav2l1&sig= 9k_RirMbu498eUxFcXWv0ugcGc4#v=onepage&q=human%20resource%20management&f=false

Burke, R., 2013. Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA, 26, pp 2. Retrieved on 16th July 2019 from https://wiki.rit.edu/download/attachments/67469449/International+Project+Management+Journal+,1999.pdf#page=81

Cascio, W.F., 2015. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill, pp. 48-96. Retrieved on 16th July 2019 from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/05da/d8dc13d3b16932070ee01a6654f82540355d.pdf

Guest, D.E., 2011. Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers. Human resource management journal, 21(1), pp.3-13. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-8583.2010.00164.x. Retrieved on 15th July 2019 from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1748-8583.2010.00164.x