The Case of Barnie’s Burger

Barnie’s Burger has a chain of restaurants throughout the United Kingdom. However, in recent years Barnie’s Burger has had to contend with resourcing and talent management problems. Its new employees barely last more than three months. Barnie’s Burgers has an employee turnover rate of circa 80 %. Also, the planned closure of three-loss making restaurants is expected to further contribute to the redundancy problems of the entity. In the same regard, some of the critical unfilled positions in crucial restaurants of Barnie’s burger are unfilled. Arguably, all these points to a chaotic and shambolic Resourcing and Talent management process. This report illustrates that the first step towards remedying Barnie’s burgers situation is reinventing the employee recruitment and selection process. Specifically, the paper highlights how ineffective the online advertisement recruitment tools used by Barnie’s Burgers are. Gum Tree and Indeed; online job advertisement tools, all of which are used by Barnie’s Burgers are filled with ‘jokers’. As such, Barnie’s Burgers has to invest significantly in the screening process before the firm can identify its pool of needed workers. Other strategies such as performance, management system could also minimise the high employee turnover rates. Specifically, the report illustrates how a performance management system encompassing induction, performance appraisal system and talent management is necessary to resolve the resourcing and talent management problems in Barnie’s Burgers. Explicitly, the report shows that one of the reasons why Barnie’s Burgers has high employee turnover rates is because of the shallow induction process that Barnie’s Burgers employs. Also, the report shows how a performance appraisal system would lead to the motivation, development and retaining of high performing employees in Barnie’s Burgers.

Resourcing and Talent Management

Introduction

Resourcing and Talent management process refers to the process of recruitment and management of the labour force within an organisation (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). The process concerns itself with the way an enterprise recruits new workers, trains, promotes and retains them (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander, 2015). An inefficient resourcing and talent management process precede high employee turnover rates as illustrated in the case of Barnie’s Burgers (Wehrmeyer, 2017). Barnie’s Burgers has an employee turnover rate of circa 80 %. Besides the enterprise, plans to close down three loss-making restaurants which are expected to add on to the high ratio of employee turnover. In the same breath, the company has some vital operational positions in some of its restaurants located at hot points, which are all unfilled. The commonly cited reasons by the employees quitting Barnie’s Burgers are long working hours and different job duties and specifications to those listed in the job descriptions. The case of Barnie Burger’s is an embodiment of an inefficient resourcing and talent process. Some of these problems can be solved with the right pre-recruitment and performance management strategies. This report contains information that illustrates how a robust resource and talent process can address the challenges faced by Barnie’s Burgers. Besides, the article also offers recommendations outlining the necessary improvements needed.

Internal Labour Market Analysis

Internal Labour market refers to administrative units within organisations through which the distribution and pricing of labour in the organisation are governed through a set of managerial rules and procedures (Chung & Kim, 2017). The internal labour market also refers to the process through which an organisation looks internally for a suitable candidate for a particular position instead of looking for external candidates (Chung & Kim, 2017). Internal labour markets usually have a set of underlying features, which will be illustrated through the case of Barnie’s Burgers. First, in ILM, the remaining jobs are filled by the employees who have already gained entry to the organisation through either transfers or promotions (Chung & Kim, 2018). Besides, ILM is predominantly characterised by long-term relationships and promotions within the enterprise (Chung & Kim, 2018). Moreover, ILMs have distinct ports of entry for hiring. Besides, the wages are usually tied to jobs and not individuals because of the weak influence of the ELM (External Labour Markets).

Barnie’s Burgers does not have a well-developed internal labour market system. As mentioned in the case study details, although the Barnie’s Burgers intranet has continually been a popular medium among the employees, the company has had a relatively small degree of success in internal successions and talent management. Herein, it is clear that Barnie’s Burgers has had to rely on external labour markets to fill in positions left by departing employees either through dismissals or through resignations. The fact that the selection of workers in the organisation is a relatively short process which illustrates the disorganised nature of the Barnie’s Burgers internal labour market. In addition, the Human resources managers in Bernie’s Burgers have often employed non-structured interviews. Managers have also taken references on an ad-hoc basis. It is apparent that this depicts an organisation that does not have in place the right structures to promote employees within it. The enterprise seems not to have an appropriate succession framework in place.

As mentioned earlier, Barnie’s Burgers has a high employee turnover rate of circa 80 %. Most of the new employees usually quit employment within three months after being hired, which succinctly illustrates an enterprise bereft of an active talent management program. As mentioned earlier, a majority of these employees cite extended working hours and different duties to the ones described in the job description as their chief reasons for quitting employment. In addition, the chaotic nature of the ILM in Barnie’s Burgers further gets depicted in the scenario where three Barnie’s Burgers restaurants have been highlighted for closure, yet no arrangements are in place regarding the employees despite it being apparent redundancy situations are likely to emanate. In addition, there have been dismissals on some of Barnie’s Burgers essential restaurants leaving important operational positions unfilled within a short notice. All the above highlight an entity that has a disorganised and tumultuous internal labour market. There are no well laid out frameworks for internal succession and talent management, and this is one of the reasons behind the high employee turnover rates.

External Labour Market Analysis

External Labour market refers to the process by which companies recruit candidates for the senior most roles and positions in organisations through open competition (Wood, 2016; Marchington, 2016).In ELM, companies look outside their organisational setups for the individuals capable of filling in senior most positions (Atkinson & Storey, 2016). ELM is a contrast of ILM, where employees are usually promoted internally to take the senior positions in the enterprise. ELM has some features, which are unique to it. As mentioned earlier, positions and openings in ELM are filled by outsiders (Wood, 2016). Besides ELM are predominantly characterised with short-term relationships (Wood, 2016). Also, ELM lacks distinct ports of hiring. In addition, in ELM, the wages are usually tied to individuals as opposed to jobs because of the weak influence of the ILM (Wood, 2016).

The Hospitality industry in the UK relies heavily on the ELM (Baum, 2016). The case of Barnie’s Burgers illustrates this as the enterprise has to continually hire new workers after every three months. As seen from the case of Barnie’s Burgers the enterprise lacks any internal succession mechanism. The company’s labour force is primarily composed of outsiders. The over-reliance of the firms in the hospitality industry on the ELM has contributed to the high employee turnover rates experienced in the industry (Baum, 2016). Most of the firms do not have effective talent management practices to integrate new employees (Baum, 2016). Also, as depicted in the case of Barnie’s Burgers most employees in the hotel and tourism industry complain of long working hours and intolerable working conditions. It is on this basis that hotel and tourism industry workers in the UK have continually fought against what they term as under-appreciation by their employers (Boella, 2017). The chaotic nature about the ELM in the hospitality industry in the UK further is exemplified when looking at the various concerns raised by hotels after Brexit. For long most of the positions in the hotel and tourism sector were filled by citizens of the member nations of the European Union (Markova et al., 2016). As such, after Brexit, there were added restrictions on these EU nationals regarding working in Britain. The result was the shortage of staff in hotels and tourism industries in the UK (Markova et al., 2016). Various parties in the hospitality industry urged for the relaxation of the restrictions and rules on the EU nationals to prevent the shortage of staff.

Pre Recruitment

The pre-recruitment process often happens in large organisations and it precedes the overall recruitment process. In this process, the need for an employee for a particular position in a company first goes through a hierarchical framework where the manager approves the need for the specific employee, before the beginning of the recruitment and selection process (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). The pre-recruitment cycle first begins with the analysis of the existing pool of human resources and comparing it with the organisation goals and missions (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). After the assessment, the human resource department establishes whether there is a need or recruiting new employees or not (Wehrmeyer, 2017). Consequently, the HR department makes the budget for the recruitment and selection before the firm’s overall recruitment strategy is rolled out (Wehrmeyer, 2017). In the case of Barnie’s Burgers, as mentioned earlier, it is apparent that the entity lacks a well-defined pre-recruitment process as evidenced by the relatively short process of the recruitment process and key unfilled operational positions in various restaurants situated at hot points.

Job Analysis

Job analysis refers to the process of gathering all the job-related information together, which aids in preparing the job description and specification (Snell, Morris & Bohlander, 2015). Job analysis can also be considered as the overall process concerned with the studying and collection of all the pertinent information regarding the responsibilities and operations of a specific job. As mentioned earlier, most of the new employees in Barnie’s burgers who left the company after three months cited the long working hours and different duties to the ones given under the job descriptions as their primary reason for quitting. As such, it is apparent from their assertions that the enterprise lacked appropriate job analysis procedure, which brought about the inconsistencies in the job description and specification. Therefore conducting proper job analysis is one of the ways through which Barnie’s Burgers can address the problem of high staff turnover rates.

Job Description

A job description, otherwise known as a JD refers to a document, which offers a description of the general tasks and responsibilities of a particular position (Wood, 2016). A job description can be considered as a summary of the essential duties, qualifications and skills for a specific role (Wood, 2016). A good job description should encompass the vital details of an enterprise. Some of these crucial details include the enterprise mission and culture. It also consists of the benefits the company offers to its employees. A JD also specifies the salary range for a particular job (Wehrmeyer, 2017). In the case of Barnie’s Burger’s one of the cited reasons for the high employee turnover rate was inconsistent job duties and responsibilities with the details offered in the JD. Most of the employees leaving Barnie’s Burgers three months after they were hired complained of the inconsistencies and the long working hours. The example of the Job roles of Barnie’s Burgers provided in the case study shows insufficient details. The day to day duties are not specified. The tasks given therein are general and are not linked to the company mission and culture. It is apparent this is one of the contributing factors to the high employee turnover rates (Bratton & Gold, 2017). One of the ways through which Barnie’s Burges can remedy the situation is by having detailed job descriptions that comprehensively inform the prospective candidates what is expected of them (Rahim, 2017).

Human Resource Planning Activities

Human resource planning refers to the process by which enterprises identify their present and future human resource needs to meet organisation objectives and goals (Akey, Dai, Torku, Antwi, 2017). Multiple scholars argue that Human resource planning is a decision-making activity, which combines three essential activities (Storey, 2014). Firstly, the identification and acquiring of the right number of employees bearing the needed skills and expertise (Storey, 2014). Secondly, motivating the acquired employees to achieve better performance (Storey, 2014). Lastly, establishing interactive relationships between business objectives and human resource planning activities (Storey, 2014). In summary, human resource planning activities generally concern itself with four main activities namely, analysis and evaluation of the present labour supply, predicting future labour demand, and balancing forecasted labour demand with the existing labour supply to supply the organisational goals (Chand, 2016).

It is apparent from the high employee turnover rates, the relatively short interview process, and the ad hoc reference shown in the case study that Barnie’s Burgers lacks a well-developed Human Resource planning framework. For instance, as mentioned earlier, Barnie Burger’s plans to close three of its loss-making restaurants soon, a situation which is likely to lead to redundancy problems. In the same breadth, Barnie’s Burgers has some critical operational positions, which are unfilled in some of its restaurants located at some of the vital points. As mentioned in the preceding section, a core tenet of Human resource planning is forecasting labour demand (Storey, 2014).Barnie’s Burgers needs to find ways through which the employees in these three restaurants can be transferred either to the unfilled positions in the restaurants in the hot point locations and other restaurants under its umbrella (Lussier & Hendon, 2017). Barnie’s Burgers should also come up with a structure, which matches the human resources with the organisational goals. An example of this structure is a clear description of the job duties and tasks, and appropriate training and development among others to minimise the high employee turnover rates (Wilton, 2016). Herein, it is clear if Barnie’s Burgers can forecast accurately its labour demand match it with the existing supply, then some of the compulsory redundancies can be minimised.

Employee Recruitment

Recruitment refers to the overall process of finding and hiring the most qualified candidates both within and outside the organisation for the various job openings, in both a time and cost-effective manner (Bamberger, Meshoulam & Biron, 2014). In the case of Barnie’s Burgers, this can be considered, how the enterprise advertises the vacant positions in Indeed, Gum Tree and the Intranet, before subjecting the prospective employees to interviews to choose the most qualified. The recruitment process encompasses multiple activities such as evaluation and identification of the human resource needs of a particular enterprise, the advertisement for the job openings, finding the right individuals for the specific positions, and the introduction of the most qualified candidates to the organisation(Collings, Wood, & Szamosi, 2018). Barnie’s burger has employed multiple recruitment tools to varying degrees of success.

Online Advertisements

As seen from the case study, Barnie’s Burgers continually advertises new job openings online on sites such as Gumtree and Indeed. However, the high employee turnover rates experienced by the entity show these means are not successful. Although Gumtree and Indeed are appropriate avenues for sourcing new prospective employees, they are prone to misuse because of their loose frameworks. In fact, numerous employers have always complained of pseudo profiles on these sites. It is equally tricky distinguishing jokers from serious individuals from these sites (Linos & Reinhard, 2015). Besides, the sites do not allow employers to conduct sufficient background checks (Linos & Reinhard, 2015). However, a possible way of remedying this situation is using Linked In and Social media sites. Linked In, in particular, has a premium feature, which allows the users to have updated resumes and connect them to prospective employers and acquaintances in the same industry (Ployhart & Weekley, 2014). By using Linked In, Barnie’s Burgers can narrow down its pool of potential new employees to only those individuals who are more suited to the job opening. The use of social media as a recruitment tool has grown in importance in recent years, owing to the huge platform it offers employers to conduct sufficient background checks (Farndale, Nikadrou & Panayotopoulou, 2018). Social media sites such as Facebook, and Twitter among others can be appropriate tools for recruiting the right employees.

Recruitment Agencies

As seen from the case study, Barnie’s Burgers has used recruitment agencies to a relatively small degree of success. However, this can be attributed mainly to the disorganised nature of the HR department of Barnie’s Burgers. Recruitment agencies are valuable sources of human resources because of the extensive networks the agencies have and the experience of the recruiting committees. In this regard, Barnie’s Burgers needs to reconsider how it uses the recruitment agencies. Rather than assuming a peripheral role in the recruitment process, Barnie’s burgers should be involved in the recruitment process together with the recruitment agencies to ensure that the entity acquires the employees it needs and not those required by the recruitment agencies (Linos & Reinhard, 2015).

Employee Selection

Employee selection refers to the overall process of interviewing and assessing prospective candidates for particular job openings and choosing a specific candidate for employment based on a specific predefined criterion (Hensvik & Skans, 2016). Although superficially, employee selection seems a straightforward process, it is sometimes complicated. In the subsequent section, the report shows some of the employee selection tools employed by Barnie’s Burgers and others, which the entity can use, highlighting their respective merits and demerits (Hensvik & Skans, 2016).

Interviews

In HRM, interviews refer to the one on one conversation between prospective candidates and recruiters, whereby potential candidates are required to demonstrate to the recruiters that they have the prerequisite skills to perform a particular role. Barnie’s burgers use unstructured interviews in its employee selection process, and this has primarily contributed to the human resource problem in the enterprise. Although interviews have the advantage of being relatively inexpensive in that they can be conducted over the phones or briefly, they also have the demerit that insufficient piece of information about the employee gets obtained from the interviews (Ladkin & Buhalis, 2016).

Skills Assessment

Skills assessment is an appropriate employee selection tool, particularly in instances involving technical tasks. It is clear interviews may not reveal much about the culinary experience of a chef. However, skills assessments can (Ladkin & Buhalis, 2016). As such, Barnie’s burgers need to employ the skills assessment as a selection tool to ensure that the enterprise only acquires employees who know what it takes to be a chef.

Other selection tools that can be employed by Barnie Burgers to a higher level of success include screening tools and background checks. The screening will ensure that Barnie’s burgers only attract prospective candidates who meet its billing (Ladkin & Buhalis, 2016). Background checks, on the other hand, will ensure that Barnie’s Burgers obtains sufficient information on its potential employees (Ladkin & Buhalis, 2016).

Performance Management

Performance management refers to the process of supervision and administration of various departments and employees to ensure that the objectives of the organisations are sufficiently met (Buckingham & Goodall, 2015). It is a continuous process and encompasses activities such as induction, performance appraisal and talent management among others.

Induction

Induction refers to the overall process in which enterprises introduce and integrate the new workers into the workplace for their comfortable working. An appropriate induction framework precedes high employee retention rates (Mester, Andrews, Allen & Chiozzi, 2018). In the case of Barnie’s Burgers, most of the employees quit within three months after being hired. This can be attributed to an inefficient induction framework. Barnie’s Burgers can slowly integrate new employees into the enterprise by assigning them tasks that are more straightforward. Barnie’s Burgers should assign the new employees, mentors to guide them. Through this, the enterprise can minimise the complaints of the long working hours and also ensure that the new employees are fully informed of what is required of them.

Performance Appraisal

Performance appraisal refers to the evaluation and documentation of the job performance of various employees (Bach, 2013). Barnie’s burgers lack a clear performance appraisal system. The enterprise needs to incorporate a performance appraisal system, which ensures that the job performance of its employees is evaluated regularly. Arguably, this is necessary, as it will give the employees an overall focus and direction in line with the goals set. Also, it will allow for the training, education and development of those employees who do not demonstrate the prerequisite skills to perform a particular job (Bach, 2013). A performance appraisal system will also incorporate a reward system, which is crucial for Barnie’s burgers employee retention.

Talent Management

Talent management encompasses the overall HR process of attracting, motivating, developing and retaining high performing employees (Bach, 2013). Talent management process aligns the organisation workforce with its objectives and goals. The high employee turnover rates illustrated in the case of Barnie’s Burgers shows an organization that lacks an appropriate talent management framework (Bach, 2013). The firm needs to ensure that it has the right recruitment and selection tools to attract highly qualified employees. Barnie’s Burgers also needs to ensure it has the right performance appraisal framework to ensure that it motivates, develops and retains high performing employees.

Turnover/ Retention

As shown from the preceding sections, minimising the high turnover rates experienced by Barnie’s Burgers begins first with the recruitment and the selection of the correct employees. Barnie’s Burgers should ensure it has workers who need to be employed and not those who see the entity as a stop-gap solution.Also,as shown earlier, the application of the appropriate performance appraisal system by Barnie’s burgers will precede reduction in the high turnover rates, as Barnie’s burgers will be able to attract, motivate, develop and retain the needed workers.

Conclusion

To sum it up the paper has looked at resourcing and talent management issues experienced in Barnie’s Burgers chain of restaurants. The article has particularly shown how the high employee turnover rates of Barnie’s Burgers emanate from inefficient R & TM processes, and in particular talent management. The recruitment tools employed by Barnie Burgers are largely ineffectual by themselves. Also, the selection tools used by the company are inadequate. The enterprise also lacks a performance appraisal framework. The report has shown the first step toward ensuring high retention of the employees is improving the recruitment and selection process using the highlighted ways. Also, the article has demonstrated a comprehensive performance appraisal system is needed to lower Barnie’s Burgers high employee turnover rate.

Recommendation Table Summary

RECOMENDATIONS

IMPLEMENTER

TIME SCALE

COST

Revamping of the Employee recruitment and Selection Process

Human Resource Department

One Year

N/A

Introduction of a performance management system

Human Resource Department

Three months

£ 500

Improve Social Media presence and Linked in profiles

Human Resource Department and IT department

Four Years

£ 2500

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