ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE DETERMINED BY

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES OF EMPLOYEES

Introduction

With a growing competition among businesses, it became evident that organizational

performance is to a large extent determined by the knowledge of its employees, their
skills and abilities (Breaugh & Starke 2000). The employees these days are the real
assets of a company as it is the employees who contribute towards the success of a
company/organization.

The changing demographics of the working environment from the last decade have
witnessed a growing trend among employees to change employers. This created a
situation wherein employers were left short of talent and experience by the sudden
departure of staff(s). There is also a current skill shortage in the global labour market
and it is very difficulty to get the right person with the right skill and attitude for a job. As
a result of this organizations are involved in a talent hunt and fierce competition for
skilled professionals in the market (Katoen & Macioschek 2007). It was realized by the
employers that they needed to come out with something very attractive to attract future
employees and keep the current workforce (employees) happy.

Recruitment and retention of a skilled and talented workforce is a major challenge faced
by organizations these days and is recognized as a strategic business challenge
(Gurtheridge et al 2005). One of the ways to enhance recruitment and selection is to
use the company as a strategic tool to attract employees. Employer brand is one of the
strategic tools and plays a crucial role in businesses these days. It is one of the most
powerful tools used by companies to attract employees. Brand stands for a particular
standard and quality of product or service that a company or organization produces or
delivers. Customers like to purchase brand, employees like to work for brand names
and investors like to invest in established brand names.

Employer brand is used by HR practitioners frequently these days as a tool to attract

new recruits into joining the company and hence it plays a significant role in the
recruitment and selection processes. Employer brand in HR is analogous to the fulcrum
of a lever in mechanics, and using this brand HR professionals market the company to
its potential employees. The concept of employer branding clearly differentiates
companies in today's business world and provides them the necessary impetus to
approach, attract and retain the most talented employees (Katoen & Macioschek 2007).
It helps build the concept of 'employer of choice' among potential and present
employees.

Not only it attracts and recruits new people, but it also helps to retain talents in the
organization, which is very vital for businesses to grow and sustain. In the words of
Sally Humpage, CIPD employee relations and diversity adviser, "Employer branding is
increasingly being used to help attract, recruit and retain talent within businesses,
issues which are seen as top priorities for HR. Attracting and engaging the best
individuals is no easy task in a continuing tight labour market." (Peacock 2007)

The better the quality of employees and new recruits, the more advantage an
organization has over its rivals, i.e gives them competitive advantage over its rivals.

Research Aim & Objective

The aim of this research is to find out the impact an employer brand has on attracting
employees to a company, i.e the extent to which employer brand can be used to
influence recruitment and selection.

The objectives of this research is to find out about the concept of a brand employer, the
power of a brand, how brand is used as a tool by employers and the benefits that
organizations reap from developing an employer brand.

Research question

The research questions follow from the research objectives and are as follows:

How to build and develop a brand?

What are the advantages of being a brand employer?

How does employer branding enhance recruitment and selection?

Chapter 2: Literature review

2.1Brand

The American Marketing Association defines Brand is "a name, term, design, symbol, or
any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of
other sellers. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller"
(Kotler 2003)

Kotler (2003) defines brand as a complex symbol that can convey up to six levels of
meaning in reference to the attributes, benefits, values, culture, personality and the type
of the user of a product/service.

A brand identifies itself with its services or products and differentiates itself from its
competitors (Kotler & Pfoertsch 2007). The stronger a brand is the more profit it makes
and the easier it becomes for it to attract employers, customers and investors.

2.2 Employer branding

CIPD (2010) defines employer brand as an organization marketing activity with regards
to it existing and potential employees in what it has got to offer them. It is a very
powerful tool used by organizations for attracting employers and for people
management.

In the context of this assignment employer branding can be defined as the image of the
company that is portrayed through the eyes of its employees, present and potential
future employees.

Employees look for brand names and look to enroll with an employer that is a known
brand and has a good reputation among employees.

2.3 Creating and managing an employer brand

These days companies are very much aware of the importance of creating an employer
brand and effective branding strategies to manage employer brand.
Creating and managing a corporate brand is a challenging role for HR professionals. A
proper management of corporate brand ensures that the reputation of the company is
intact and even enhanced. This reputation is that which is perceived by the general
public about the company, not what the company thinks about it. It gives the company
competitive advantage over its rivals which helps to attract employees and talent and
also retain them.

According to Balmer (2001) there are three virtues in managing a corporate brand,
namely clearly communicating the promise of the corporate brand, differentiate the
corporate brand from its competitors and enhancing the reputation of the brand.

2.4 Applicant attraction (Recruitment & selection)

In today's competitive business environment, every company wants to recruit the best
candidates for the job. This is not an easy task as currently there is a global skill
shortage in specialized fields and companies are competing with each other in talent
hunt. Thus there needs to be a special appeal to employees to join a particular
company (a brand).

"Recruitment is a process of attracting potential candidates to the organisation" (L.V.D.

Wagen 2006). A recruitment campaign involves identifying the human resource needs
of the company, placing advertisements, job specification and details to source
candidates. The better the reputation of the company (brand), the easier it is to attract
employees. An important problem faced by a lot of companies/employers is the volume
of applicants applying for a job and a significant number of them being not the level of
expertise and experience required by the employers. Employer brand and its reputation
helps to filter a lot of unwanted applicants and hence enhance a streamline process of
attracting applicants.

Employees are essential to success of any organization and it is very important that
quality applicants are attracted. Recruitment and selecting employees incur a significant
cost in attracting new talents to the company. The stronger the brand is, the higher the
profile of the company and the more attractive it is seen as an employer (Miller & Muir
2004). Employer branding influences the labour market by attracting applicants. As a
result those companies do not have to devote much resources to attract talent.

Selection
"Selection is the process of choosing the most suitable candidates" (L.V.D. Wagen
2006). This process starts when the candidate is interviewed for the post and the
process ends with the candidate being offered the contract of employment. It is much
easier for a brand employer to select the right candidates from a pool of candidates
because people want to work for brand employers.

2.5 Employer Value proposition

"The reason why a talented employee would want to join and stay with an organization"
(David Maister 2010). Employers need to create an environment as such so that
employees value them and realize that there is a chance to learn, develop and grow
inside the organization. Every employer, be it current, new or potential employer wants
to see it in a brand. It helps to attract talent (new employees) and also creates an
atmosphere of stability (retention) among current employees.

2.6 Employer of choice

An employer of choice comes from creating a great working environment where every
employee feel valued and respected, in which a bondage develops between the
company and the employee where that extra effort is put in by every single employee to
strive for the best (Joyce 2004). In order to become an employer of choice, an
organization needs to be more professional in recruitment activities in the mind of skilled
and experienced job seekers (Katoen & Macioschek 2007), offer an attractive
employment or employer brand (Martin et al 2005). Being an employer of choice can
make a significant difference to organizational performance, in attracting new recruits to
work for the company (their employer of choice).

2.7 Motivation

Motivation of employees plays a big part in organizational performance and success of

an organisation. Employer brand is a motivation in itself and more and more talented
people will be in a position to take up employment with a brand employer, considering
the offer is attractive enough (Telfer 2008). A brand employer would be in a better
position to offer attractive employment offers to its employees. Along with the financial
package, career progression opportunity is also regarded as a key motivator. With
branded companies there is the scope for career progression and future development.
The ease of communication of today's world spreads this message spreads very quickly
into the labour market and acts as a motivator for future employees.

2.8 Talent retention

There is a current global shortage of talented and skilled people. Hence it is very
important for companies to retain quality staff, i.e the specialist skilled people. A good
work environment and satisfaction at work place for employees is key to them staying
with their employer (Mitchell et al 2001). Brand employers value the importance of
specialist skilled people. It also goes to show that the employees are satisfied with the
employer and sends out a positive signal to potential employees.

2.9 Financial performance

The financial performance or financial strength of a company/brand is indirectly related

to Human resources practices like recruitment and selection in company. The employer
brand value increases with its financial performance. This does increase organizational
health which in turn provides job security (Paauwe & Boselie 2005) by attracting and
securing talented employees.

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

The chosen company for research is Wipro Technologies, India

The desire of the researcher should be to achieve the desired research results, or to put
it into otherwise, answer the research questions and to satisfy the research objectives.
In this chapter the research approach will be discussed, the type of research that will be
chosen, the methodology adopted, the choice of research strategy and the data
collection methods and techniques. Lastly the ethical issues involved and the limitations
in conducting the research will also be explained.

3.1 Research Approach

The research approach is often regarded as the first step towards a research design.
Hence it is very important to choose the right research approach as it influence the
methodology chosen for the research and also the data collection methods and
techniques.
The approaches are classified as inductive and deductive. In the deductive approach a
hypothesis is stated (Applied Research Methods for Business Management, MBA
Coursebook, Version 2.0, University of Sunderland. P.42) and a research method and
strategy is designed to test the hypothesis (Saunders et al 2009). In the inductive
approach the researcher collects the data, analyses it and develops a theory based on
the data analysis (Saunders et al. 2009). The approach that will be chosen here is the
inductive approach. This is because the research is an investigation into the perception
of employer brand in an organization and the extent to which it influences recruitment
and selection. This research can't be possible without collection of data and analysis of
data. The importance of employer brand and the extent to which it enhances
recruitment and selection can then be based on data analysis. Also inductive research
is particularly suited to study of human behaviour in organizations (G. Lancaster 2005)
and offers flexibility with regards to sample size and data type in a research (G.
Lancaster 2005).

3.2 Type of research

According to Lekvall and Wahlbin (1993) there are mainly five types of research, i.e
descriptive, explanatory, exploratory, predictive and prescriptive. The nature of the
problem that is researched determines the choice of the type of research (Zikmund
2003). In this research the researcher is unsure of the precise nature of the problem
(Saunders et al. 2009) which points out to the fact that this research is exploratory in
nature. An exploratory study is also a valuable means of finding out "what is happening,
to seek new insights, to ask questions and to assess phenomenon in a new light"
(Robson 2002).

3.3 Research strategy

In choosing the research strategy the most important thing to remember is whether the
chosen strategy will be able to answer the research questions and meet the research
objectives (Saunders et al. 2009). There is also no fixed research strategy attached with
descriptive, exploratory or explanatory research. In the words of Saunders et al. (2009),
these research strategies are also not mutually exclusive. The strategy used for this
research is a survey (questionnaire) strategy. It is quiet a popular strategy in business
studied related researches. It is "frequently used to answer who, where, what, how
much and how many questions" (Saunders et al. 2009). It also facilitates the economic
collection of a large amount of data from a large number of respondents (Saunders et
al. 2009). The questionnaire will be sent to the employees, recruitment managers and
HR managers at Wipro technologies. About 40 sets of questionnaires will be sent to
obtain a sizeable sample.

3.4 Methodology adopted

The methodology is normally chosen from quantitative, qualitative or a combination of

quantitative and qualitative methods often called the mixed method. According to Clark
(1998), while quantitative methods involve measurement of some kind, qualitative
methods are concerned with verbal responses. In this research, the quantitative data is
very important as without it the researcher cannot form any idea about the importance
and perception of brand with Wipro Technologies and to how much it would enhance
recruitment and selection at Wipro Technologies. However quantitative data is numeric
in nature, while the responses that will be gathered for the research from the HR
department of the 2 branches of Wipro will move towards a qualitative approach for the
research. The qualitative data is also an important ingredient for the research analysis
as it would obtain information such as views, attitudes, opinions, behavior (Malhotra
1996) Eriksson & Wiedersheim-Paul 2001) of the respondents in the research and to
get a better understanding of the research problem from within (Denscombe 2003). It
was decided that a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods would be
suitable for this research.

3.5 Data collection

The primary data will be collected using the survey (questionnaire) strategy.

The questionnaire will be sent out in an email to the HR department of the 2 branches of
Wipro Technologies in Kolkata and Pune. There is limited work on the perception of
employer brand and its use as a strategic HR tool to enhance recruitment and selection,
especially in the context of Wipro Technologies. There is also very less secondary data
available on this research topic in the textbooks. However the various articles, journals
and publications, research work done by previous students on employer branding
provide a thorough understanding of the literature for this project.

3.6 Data analysis

The raw data available from the survey (questionnaire) need to be converted into
information that is meaningful satisfies the research questions and meets the research
objectives. G. Lancaster (2005) concludes that important and relevant information may
be missed if data is not analysed properly and the research will give results that will not
satisfy the research objectives. This will lead to a complete waste of time, effort and
money (if any involved) on part of the researcher. Hence it is imperative that data is
analysed effectively so that meaningful conclusions can be drawn that are consistent
with the research objectives.

The primary data for this research will comprise both qualitative and quantitative data. It
is quiet clear the quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques will be used for
the respective data types. The quantitative data for the research will be analysed using
tables, diagrams and charts, which in a way will facilitate the comparisons among the
various variables used for the research which will help to draw the research findings and
conclusions. The raw data will be tabulated and plotted using spreadsheets (excel).

3.7 Ethical issues involved

One of the primary things that the researcher should consider when embarking on the
research is the ethical implications that come along with the research. The ethical
considerations might start from choosing the topic, but in most management research it
is largely involved in the data collection from the target population. As Saunders et al.
(2009) points out that the most important ethical issue to consider from a researcher's
point of view is that the choice of research topic, the data collection for the research
should not cause "embarrassment, harm or any material disadvantage" to the
respondents/participants/target population in the research.

3.8 Limitations to the research

One of the main problems associated with conducting this research has been the
geographical difference between the researcher and the company of choice for
research (Wipro Technologies in India). The researcher is in London, while the data for
the research is coming from India. It was very hard to focus the research on a UK based
company because of the stricter corporate regulations and the data protection acts in
UK. The researcher comes from India, has associations with people in Wipro
technologies in India, hence has chosen the company for the research. Wipro
Technologies has many branches in India and the time frame available for the research
was also not enough to get response from all metropolitan city branches. The
researcher wrote to the HR departments of 6 major branches of Wipro, Kolkata,
Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. While there was positive response as regards
to the survey (questionnaire) that was to be sent, in the end only the HR departments of
branches in Kolkata and Pune responded to the questionnaire. The responses from the
HR departments (email response) also took time. The other major problem was the four
and a half hours of time difference existing between UK and India. This caused some
delay in communication.

Source: http://davidmaister.com/blog/229/Employer-Value-Proposition.

Source:
http://www.cipd.co.uk/Bookstore/_catalogue/CorporateAndHRStrategy/1843980576.htm

Judith Leary Joyce, 2004, Becoming an Employer of Choice

Mitchell, T.R., Holtom, B.C., & Lee, T.W. (2001) How to Keep Your Best Employees:

Developing an Effective Retention Policy. Academy of Management Executive, 15

(4) :96-

107.

Philip Kotler, Marketing Management, eleventh edition, 2003, Prentice Hall

Article name: Organizational performance determined by knowledge, skills and

abilities of employees essay, research paper, dissertation

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