M&S Selection Process Overview

Introduction

The selection process is referred to the process implemented by the organisations to shortlist right and potential candidates with the required qualification as well as skill set needed to fill the job post. In this report, the selection process implemented by Mark & Spencer (M&S) to shortlist and recruit candidates for the salesfloor customer assistant position is being discussed. The information for this was gathered by searching about the selection process of the job position in the official website of M&S under the option for M&S Careers. Further, the HR department of the Mark & Spencer is contacted by informing them the purpose of requirement of information regarding their selection process of salesfloor customer assistant to gain evidence of their selection process to be mentioned in the report.

Description of the Company

Mark and Spencer (M&S) is a key multinational retailer who has their headquarters located in London that specialises in selling home products, clothing and food products. They are the first British retailer who has been able to pass £1 billion pre-tax profit. In 2017, the net income of the company was £115.7 million and they earned total revenue of £10.622 billion. However, in 2018, the company earned £10.698 billion as total revenue and the net income was £29.1 million. These figures inform that the financial performance of the M&S was low in 2018 compared to 2017 as the net income has fallen in a considerable manner than the previous year. At the present (2017), there are 90,000 employees working for the company (corporate.marksandspencer.com, 2018). This informs that M&S has potential workforce to manage their business operations but they have published job position of salesfloor customer assistant in various job websites which informs that they require further workforce to improve their business efficiency and performance (jobs.marksandspencer.com, 2018).

Description of Job Role

The job role of Salesfloor customer assistant in M&S is to converse confidentiality with the customers to make them enthusiastic to buy products ranging from a cocktail dress to any special food product. The assistant also has the role to listen carefully to the needs of the customers and direct them to buy proper products so that the customers have a fun experience while shopping within the store. The assistant requires having information about the latest products and offers provided by M&S in their stores to be informed to the customers during their purchase. They also have the role to hit the sales target determined by the organisation by providing fair and effective customer services (careers.marksandspencer.com, 2018).

Description of Current Procedure

Mark & Spencer initially publish the job description for the position of salesfloor customer assistant on various job websites. The candidates are asked to apply online for the job position from which the selection process initiates. In the advertisement, M&S informs in details the job description, role to be played and salary for the mentioned job position (areers.marksandspencer.com, 2018). The person specification for salesfloor customer assistant in M&S mentions that the candidates require having the delight and sixth sense to serve customers in an efficient way with proper product knowledge and need to have integrity, innovation, inspiration and understanding of customers as key value to be able to apply for the position. The job description further informs that the candidates are to be put into training to make them work efficiently in the organisation after their recruitment. M&S has used observational job analysis to generate a job advertisement for the position of the salesfloor customer assistant. In observational job analysis, the employees are observed daily at work to develop useful information about the competencies to be mentioned for the job position to select and recruit potential candidates in the organisation (Morgeson et al. 2016).

The candidates are asked to mention their details in the curriculum vitae while applying for the position of salesfloor customer assistant in M&S (areers.marksandspencer.com, 2018). This is required for M&S to be able to contact with the candidate who is sorted to be called for interview or recruitment purpose for the job position. The candidates on a compulsory basis are asked to take an online assessment test that involves customer service based situational judgement questionnaire (areers.marksandspencer.com, 2018). This questionnaire is required to be fulfilled by the candidates to inform regarding the way they are going to manage situations as a salesfloor customer assistant in the M&S during various challenging situation. M&S shortlist candidates as per their performance in the test and based on their meeting of the criteria mentioned in the job description.

The candidates who have passed the test are then invited by M&S to a face-to-face assessment process where they are asked to take part in the role play for the job position (areers.marksandspencer.com, 2018). As mentioned by Tziner and Rabenu (2018), executing face-to-face assessment prior to employment in the workplace helps the organisation to understand whether the selected individuals are fit for managing the job position or not. This is because in this nature of assessment the candidates are placed in real work environment to provide demonstration of their skills regarding the way they are going to execute the job for the company. It assists the recruiter to understand in real situation whether or not the candidate is competent for the job position and the organisation.

In M&S, the candidates who pass the face-to-face assessment are then invited to meet the line manager for the final interview (areers.marksandspencer.com, 2018). As mentioned by Nikolaou and Georgiou (2018), interview is important for the recruitment and selection process as it helps the manager to assess the potential of the candidate to perform the mentioned job role for which they have applied. This is because through communication during the interview the manager understands whether or not the candidates have mental as well as physical skill and knowledge to be able to perform the job role. The candidates who pass the interview process with the line manager are recruited as provided employment contract by the M&S.

Critical Analysis of Procedures

As per the current selection process adopted by M&S, not all the competencies are well-mentioned by the company regarding the position for salesfloor customer assistant. This is evident as the company does not mention the minimum educational qualification required by the candidates to apply for the job position. Moreover, they do not specifically inform about the skills that the candidates are allowed to get developed while training after selection. As asserted by Iammarino and Marinelli (2015), lack of proper information about the educational qualification to be owned by the candidate to get selected for the job position makes many confused whether or not to apply for the position. This is because candidates could not understand whether or not they are eligible for such position. The job analysis is seen to be well undertaken by the M&S as it is seen that the skills to be required by the candidate to apply for the salesfloor customer assistant job position are in true sense needed to work in the position. It is evident from the study of Higgins (2017) where it is mentioned that salesfloor customer assistant requires having the zeal to offer customer services and need to have the sense regarding the way to manage customers so that they have good experience while shopping. This is similar to the informed skills to be owned by the salesfloor customer assistant in the M&S ensuring the job analysis is executed well to retrieve proper information. As mentioned by Roulet et al. (2017), if the employees are aware of the situation they may act differently that may lead to wrong job analysis by the organisation. Thus, while executing the observation M&S avoided the employees to be aware of the situation. As argued by Darrat et al. (2017), all the job duties cannot be observed while implementing observational job analysis. Thus, by taking only this nature of job analysis may have led M&S to be unable to mention proper and detailed competencies regarding the job position of salesfloor customer assistant in the job description.

In relation to training, M&S does not inform about the way and duration of the training to be given to the candidates to help them execute their job in the salesfloor customer assistant position in the current selection procedure. Thus, the candidates who are selected are not sure about the way and within how much time they are going to develop proper skills to be able to provide excellent quality services to the company. There is no research mentioned to be done by M&S to support the reliability and validity of the selection techniques in the recruitment process of salesfloor customer assistant. M&S is seen to provide equal opportunities to all the candidates to be able to get selected for each job position under the Equal Opportunities Policy (areers.marksandspencer.com, 2018). This is evident as M&S provide help to the disable or individuals with learning difficulties along with others in regarding solving any issues they face while applying for the job position or undertaking online tests. Thus, M&S is able to avoid ethical issues related to discrimination in the selection process by implementing the policy guidelines of their organisation regarding equal opportunities.

The advantage of interview in the selection process is that proper communication with the candidates can be developed by the manager to understand their psychological competence, opinions and perception regarding the job role (Nikolaou and Georgiou, 2018). This helps the manager to understand whether or not the candidate is emotionally competent to be recruited in the mentioned job position, in this case, salesfloor customer assistant in M&S. As stated by Stephenson-Famy et al. (2015), interview in selection of candidates helps the managers to ask detailed question to ensure competency of the individual. This helps the manager to avoid recruiting irrelevant employees, in turn, managing proper employee retention. As argued by Bragger et al. (2016), the disadvantage of interview process is that they are time-consuming and costly in nature. This would lead M&S to take increased amount of time and money in fulfilling the needed employees for the job position as they have to pay and provide time for an interviewer to interview each candidate. The advantage of testing candidates by using a pre-employment questionnaire is that large number of individuals can be evaluated within minimum time and economically as well as with ease (Feeney and Goffin, 2015). Thus, M&S can select more candidates within less time. However, the disadvantage of using questionnaires is that little information about the actual competency and perception of the candidate regarding the job is understood by the organisation (Chapman et al. 2017). Thus, using it may lead M&S to select wrong candidate who may appear to be competent for the salesfloor customer assistant position but are actually not. The advantage of face-to-face assessment in selection is that the organisations are able to understand which of the candidates are more competent in real-life situation to be recruited within their company. However, the disadvantage is that the assessment requires increased amount of time for selection of candidates (Cook, 2016).

Recommendations

The recommendations for improving current selection procedure of salesfloor customer assistant in M&S:

Detailed job description: M&S require mentioning in more details about the skills and knowledge the candidates require to have while applying for the position and that can be developed after getting recruited. Moreover, the duration and the type of training to be provided to the candidate after selection are to be mentioned in details while advertising for the job position.

Data Protection: M&S need to develop the initiative in protecting the personal information of the candidates who are applying to them for their job position. This is because the publicity of the personal data of the candidates may lead them to face harassment or abuse in society.

Ensure reliability and validity: M&S require analysing their selection process involved in each recruiting candidates for each job position to ensure they are reliable and valid in nature. This is to ensure proper selection of candidates in an effective manner.

Questionnaire and interview job analysis: M&S require implementing interview and questionnaire job analysis procedure apart from observational method in framing the job description. This is because the mixed use of the methods helps to resolve the disadvantages face while using them as only procedure.

Conclusion

The above discussion informs that the job description of salesfloor customer assistant in M&S is developed through observational job analysis. M&S asks the candidates to apply online and require participating in customer service based situational judgement questionnaire test. Later, based on selection they are allowed to involve in face-to-face assessment test and interview. M&S is seen to face issues with mentioning proper competencies in job description, managing reliability and validity of the process and others for which recommendations are provided.

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References

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