Name- Yashvi Bansal

CASE ANALYSIS OF RECRUITING FOR A MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISE IN CHINA

Q1. What shortcomings do you see in the personnel selection system used in this
company?

 The company lacks a formal process for hiring. This is a significant issue, as it can be
seen that the employees are still not clear about the proper job profiles or qualities
they need to look for in a person.

 The team is very diverse, and is not as welcoming and accepting of ideas as it should
be. The team is divided into people who want to change and try to do things
systematically, and the ones who want to select people and instinct basis, who they
find more appealing, as in who looks like they will “look” good for the job.

 The company lacks effective communication as well, as we can see Smith had to kind
of repeat his points to the team several times, as he thought his idea was ignored by Li
as she said it was too costly, this shows lack of trust of the employees in one another.

 The selection method, was not properly defined, this is the first basic step of planning,
to define the goals clearly, and then to choose the best of the may alternatives present.
The goal was defined ie hiring 85 people within a short span, but they were not able to
choose one definitive method to reach it.

 A lot of good ideas were ignored, such as the one where Hoffman suggested they
should make a position-specific criteria because different positions require different
criteria as they entail different skill sets.

 I personally believe that, as the employees belonged to various different fields, such
as marketing, finance and HR, they would have able to different perspective to the
table but weren’t able to do so, because of lack of commitment. As we can see, Li was
ready to leave work because she wanted to meet her daughter, another employee
wanted to just write protocol because they thought they were less experienced. You
could sense the lack of enthusiasm and commitment for the work. This also showed
how unskilled the employees were, and only the employees, but the lack of correct
decision making power of the authority which selected this team in the first place.
Lack of motivation was also fuelled by the ambiguous and sub-conscious signals the
authorities were giving, such as when they added a few statements like the “50% pay
cut” into Hoffman’s contract in Chinese language.

 They were more focused on deadline rather than quality of the work, which was
because of the time-constraint, they didn’t think they were letting down the quality
standards as we can see they already set the standards too low, by not preparing a
proper job analysis, and a definite way to filter all the people that weren’t suitable,

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 because we could see in they end they were trying to decide on the people who should
be selected in the end.

 Also, the recruitment method they selected, did nothing about the already evidently
visible flaws in the company, the recruitment occurred on last minute basis. The
promotion method wasn’t transparent, and the arbitrary power was a major source of
the supervisor’s authority.

 The company decided the almost same level of the interviews to be taken, which was
a very full-proof method as all positions were different in hierarchy. Also, the location
of the interview wasn’t well thought off and checked before, as there was a delay in
the factory tour, and they had to sit closer than they thought. All of this points towards
lack of proper planning.

unethical
corporate culture

lack of job tasks, unskilled and not

job role and dedicated
responsibilites staff/employees

Absense
of formal
hiring
process

The error factors in the interview process used by the team:

First Impression: As there is no procedure that regulates the interview, what the
interviewer thinks is important. And there is no discussion regarding the search for
background of applicants who can benefit or not for the company. this case emphasizes how
interviewers have a first impression on the interviewee. And hence this cannot be controlled
even by the applicants themselves.
Candidate Order: candidate-order isn’t explained. there is no comparison of one applicant
with another applicant and how one should be selected other the other, thus using
elimination method until they filter to the best ones.
Misunderstanding the Job: interviews were conducted with the same level with all applicants,
even though what the company needed to be placed in various fields and levels. So in this
case the interviewer cannot adjust whether the applicant is to be placed in which field and
which level because all applicants go through almost the same stages. but it can be considered
that there is an assessment to become a production manager.
Q2. Which methods of personnel would you use to select managers and workers in
context to the case ?
This is the proper method that should ideally be followed for the recruitment and selection of
employees :

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 (all of these parameters should have a basic structure and defined likewise BEFORE
the process begins, and not left to be figured out along the way as the process takes
place.)

1. Job Analysis

2. Job Description

3. Identification of Recruitment Resources

4. Means to Recruit

5. Recruitment Campaign

6. Selection

7. Hiring Decision

8. Socialization

I believe the recruitment of the right employees as the right place at the right time, requites
a balance in the system. As we know the hiring process has three components which are the
recruitment of people, selection and then socialisation.
Recruitment and HR depends on the balance between Labour Supply and Labour demand:
Labour supply: is the availability of workers who possess the required skills that an
employer might need. It includes the external and internal labour market.
Labour demand: is the number of workers an organization needs. Demand(or change in
labour demand) is subject to many factors like the Evolution of the demand for products
and services, the Evolution of the organization of work , the Turnover within the company,
the Voluntary Quits and Retirements, Strategic Decisions etc.
Hence, first of all, I would properly make the job descriptions which will tell about the role
and the expectations from the employee. It will include :

 Job title which will clearly tell what is required from the employee.
 Location, as in the department and the establishment etc
 “Responsible to” and “responsible for” will be made very clear to avoid any doubts
and confusion.
 The main purpose of the job along with responsibilities
 The working conditions and all the duties will be told before hand
Also, different job profiles would be made for the different jobs we are recruiting
for.
The basic selection method with similar process which I would follow will include
the following steps :

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 I. Preliminary Screening(after Inviting and receiving applications) -the
candidates would be invited for applying for the job, this could be done by
putting up ads, posters, in the newspaper and in the restaurants, wherever the
target market is more likely to be found. Online ads could also be put and we
could attract employees from the overseas as well. Now from the detailed
applications have been collected from the potential candidates, relevant to
the job, about their personal amd their professional lives, we can begin with
the preliminary screening and remove those which are incomplete.

II. Reviewing the applications and screening- the applications which do not fit
the job profile are filtered at this stage.

III. Psychological tests/Aptitude tests- the written test would be conducted to test
the technical knowledge and the attitude, aptitude and the interest of the
candidates, this method is very useful when the number of candidates is
huge. And the wholistic test would be conducted as the aptitude test would
be complimented by the psychological test, which would tell us about the
skills and the qualities of the person which can be done via a personality test.

IV. Employee interview- those who pass the above tests, would now go through
personal interviews and group discussions, this will help us to know if the
person on the CV and the candidates in front of us match, as in how truthful
they were in the CV the y submitted. Will help to know also know more
aboyt the candidate using non-verbal language.

V. Background reference check- this helps us to know the background of the

candidates, to see how they were in their past job, if they have any criminal
records etc.

VI. Medical examination- candidates also require physicsl fitness to work for
long hours and despite checking all the boxes, they can be rejected due to
bad health as they have to be fit in order to provide maximum efficiency in
work.

VII. Final selection- the candidates who pass all the above mentioned tests and
full all the criterias, hence would be selected for the job. The appointment
letter with all specifications like job title, salary, tenure of employment etc
can be given at this point.

VIII. Placement- the job can be allocated to the assigned candidate after they have
accepted the job offer and the company can also see if there is any on or off
the ground training they would like to provide to the employees. If not, they
can start their work.
Q3. How would you characterize the leadership style of the CEO ? Given the theory of
transformational leadership, what is evident in the CEO’s leadership style?

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I believe that the CEO is using Autocratic Style majorly (he also shows some qualities of
Pacesetting Leadership style as he also believes in “do what I say”, as he tries to set the pace
for the employees to follow, and also gets them hurt in the process.)
As an Autocratic leader, CEO also believes that he is the smartest in the room, and it is
clearly visible in the tone he uses to talk with his employees. He showcases a patronizing
tone, is rude and loses temper very easily. He tries to control the team from far away but
visibly fails. He tries to ram down his opinions on others, rather than trying to make them
understand the reason and logic behind his viewpoints and goals, he simply scraps down
other people’s opinion when it doesn’t matches with his own. He simply gives orders, and
more orders to rectify the mistakes by the employees.

He shows the employees the final goal but doesn’t help in creating a proper path.

This command-and-control approach is typical of leadership styles of the past, but it doesn't
hold much water with the new talent.

This style is usually used when the employees are new or inexperienced. Which is the case
with a few team members, as they belong to different fields before they were made a team.
As for the case of transformational leadership, the leader here, in the case, works with the
team to identify the change requires, tries creating a vision to guide the change, but these
should be done by inspiring them, not scolding them.
The CEO would have been a transformational leadership if he tried to deal with them in a
positive and proper manner. I believe he is a bad example of a transformational leader and
there are a few instances in the case to support my point.
As we can see, the CEO changes the person in position from Hoffman to Smith, this should
how inaccurate the CEO himself is in decision making. He thinks he made a mistake in
appointing Hoffman as the in-charge and hence shifts towards Smith. This shows that the
CEO himself did not analyse properly, and to do such a important task in such a short span of
time, changing the person in-charge can disturb the whole flow and the rhythm of the team.
Also the emails that they received, he sent different emails to everyone, asking one employee
what they thought of each other, asking another if they thought the company was on the right
path, asking someone to show their full potential, it showed how divided his thoughts were.
He was trying to motivate them but it wasn’t successful s we saw how Hoffman thought she
would consider the work done for the day after a certain number of hours etc
I believe he was a bad example to follow as he wasn’t able to navigate them properly, he was
just giving them orders and wasn’t open to accept new ideas. He was very rude to his
employees and all these small things made them more less interested in the already so
difficult task. He also set unrealistic tasks for such a non-experienced team in recruiting
before.(as some members were new to HR department)
Although he tried to be involved, he kind of let the team float in different directions as when
the interviews were happening, there still wasn’t a proper job profile made, a proper list of
criteria to judge the employees upon and even though everything was passed though him,
even he failed to take care of these things. He ordered Hoffman to make a questionnaire list,
which was necessary but at the end of the day, his team still wasn’t aware of the proper job
roles and the exact set of qualities they should look for in the prospective candidates.

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Hence, I believe he failed to select the right members for the team, as he wasn’t able to
manage their diversity in thoughts as he wasn’t physically present there.
Q4. If you were asked to consult with the project team regarding teamwork, what
would you recommend?
As we could see, the team was quite inefficient, and it was because of several factors, which
contributed to them not being very cooperative and hence lack team work.

lack of
cultural
sensitivity

unrealistic inefficient language

expectations barriers
team

ineffective
leadership

I believe the company is diverse, in terms of talent and ideas and also diverse in culture.
Hence, we have the boundaries of culture as well as the approach between the new and the
old players in the game. Hence, I would propose the idea of integration classes and also
language classes.
I. Integration classes for all new and foreign workers- this will help the employees
understand each other, understand the methods of how others function and hence can
find a way to put forth their points most effectively. this will help to destroy any
rivalry/disagreement between employees so that they can learn to work together and
put up their differences and learn a way to find the middle ground. this bring several
positive points for communication, but must be managed by the leader in order to
promote teamwork in the company. It helps to share objectives and goals and
demonstrate the commitment to help improve the processes and the responsibility that
each one has to carry out their activities. It may involve cost to the company measured
in time and money. It generates some benefits of knowledge and communication
between employees, it provides opportunity for integration among employees by
sharing time and experiences during learning.

Also, they need to respect each other’s culture, as we could see several times when Li
and Hoffman shared some harsh comments about “this technique will not work for
Chinese market” or to get rid of the German attitude and mentality, and how they
should adapt. these retorts should not be tolerated and hence they should learn to

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 respect each other’s differences and work a way to move past it, so that they can
deliver quality work.
II. Language reinforcement workshops for all new foreign workers- as was evident in the
case of Li, even Hoffman noticed she wasn’t comfortable in speaking the language
and how Hoffman had to spend extra money to get the Chinese contract translated.
hence to avoid that, this barrier ,must be rectified, as it is quite evident that language
barrier is one of the significant issues that the company faces. Language courses will
be the communication key in order that foreign workers can learn the language and
develop their communication skills so they will be able to speak and understand what
the native workers are asking or saying to them. Language reinforcement workshops
mainly focus on improving communication skills among employees as there are
resources from different countries.

III. Sort out the loopholes in the structure- Another difference that I could sense among
the employees was the sub-conscious assertation of power of the authorities over the
juniors, especially the was Li was dodging the questions about why and who added
the statement about the 50% pay cut in Hoffman’s contract. This was a major cause as
it disrupted trust among the employees. And the employees could see the improper
promotional tactics, the lack of structure for recruitment etc. Hence we need to
improve the perception that exists in the company about the model that the HR area
follows for hiring and promoting employees. Hence the company needs to sit together
to before working together and try to find middle grounds to their disagreements
rather than letting the whole task be compromised in terms of quality.

Thankyou