Kraftanlagen Romania S.r.l

Abstract

The recruitment process is one of the most important aspects in the performance of a company’s activities, being well known the fact that the personnel represent an extremely valuable asset within an organization and every business' heart is represented by the ones who make it beat: the employees. The main objective of this paper is to observe and analyze the theoretical aspects involved in the recruitment process of Kraftanlagen Romania SRL and, thereafter, to make recommendations and further improvements which may help the company to grow.

Keywords: recruitment, employees, job analysis, improvement, strategy, human resource

Table of Contents

Introduction

There is a rumor saying that if you choose a job you love, you will never have to work a day in your life. We think that it is a cliché many people, who found their suitable job, won’t disagree with.Starting from this statement, we believe that in order to get the perfect job, not only you have to search for that specific description you can handle and deal with, but you also have to look for that company that puts emphasis on your potential as a human and for which your personal and professional development is being part of their mission. In this changing world, only companies that value their staff can survive. Thus, they have to find the greatest prosperity for the dream to become reality which, indeed, is represented by humans and the potential they have in order to make things possible.

Because the key to success of any business is the employee, most companies are being more and more focused on the recruitment and selection of the appropriate candidates for a job, in order to deploy their entrepreneurial activities. Besides, the increased competitiveness in a worldwide level of analysis necessitates all employees to have advanced capabilities throughout the organizational hierarchy. In effect, these businesses adopt and develop contemporary processes for their employees’ recruitment and selection, in order to ensure increased productivity and effectiveness in an unstable economic environment. The development of the appropriate schemes of selection and recruitment, in line with the ongoing investment in education, skills and training is absolutely necessary, the aspects mentioned before being the determining factors to the prosperity of the businesses. (Ghinea, 2011)

These processes are two of the most important functions of personnel management. Recruitment precedes selection and helps in choosing a right candidate for a specific position. Recruitment is a procedure to discover the sources of manpower in order to meet the requirement of the position. Moreover, it is important to employ effective measures for attracting that manpower in adequate numbers needed to facilitate further the selection of personnel. Every organization needs to take into account the recruitment and selection processes both in the initial period and thereafter when additional manpower is required due to expansion and development of business activities.

The continuous success of companies depends on their ability to recruit and select high quality staff at all levels. It is, therefore, essential that the recruitment and selection process is properly planned, organized and conducted in a way that is most likely to achieve this.

Our opinion is that a company can succeed only when working within an environment that gathers together a group of attitudes and behaviors, that taken individually may seem very different but, as a whole, they complete each other in a way that benefits the company’s objectives and strategy. The basic principle in recruitment and selection is that there has to be an adequate person for any job.

Description of the company

Kraftanlagen Romania S.R.L was found in March 2007 as a 100% daughter company of KraftanlagenMunchen GmbH. With company headquarters in Ploiesti and factories in Pitesti/Arpechim and Brazi/Petrobrazi, Kraftanlagen Romania S.R.L. is already well positioned on the Romanian market.

Their range of services not only includes maintenance, inspection and overhaul tasks, but also the construction of entire plant sections, with special emphasis on the construction of complex piping systems.The combination of expertise and a high level of commitment in their over 200 qualified employees ensure that our customers are always satisfied. They are a reliable partner offering the highest possible level of performance and quality. They offer their customers individual solutions and implement these using leading technologies.

As a subsidiary of the German company KraftanlagenMünchen GmbH, they and their customers too, of course – benefit from many years of experience in the field of piping and plant construction.

In June 2011, Romania meets Burghausen. For exchanging experience, an assembly team from KAR, composed by plumbers, pipe men and one first-line manager is sent to Haiming and Burghausenfo three months but the subsidiary from Burghausen were interested in extending the intervention.

In Oct 2012, Dr. Edgar Beer was changing the position to Manager General. In previous years, he was very activ in severa

l international companies, being employed as Project Manager and even General Director. In 2012, KAR had obtained the biggest turnover in KAM history. With 1400 workers, the working ended succesfully in only four weekes.

In 2013, KAR expands its operating area with another production site and develop their social center. During the project „DAV2/Coker Revamp“ KAR built temporal departments and offices besides Petrobrazi refining plant. They were developed to become nowadays a stable production shed. The headquarters from Ploiesti also developed its surface with another floor to make room for the personnel which is running the E&P projects.

Kraftanlagen Romania SRL is a company having as the main activity object the Installation of industrial machinery and equipments. The CAEN code is 3320. This industrial sector represents an important branch of the national economy, contributing to the supporting, development and modernization of the other branches.

The industry is based on know-how, research, development and innovation, being a customer-oriented area, as well as supplying equipment for big enterprises. There is a long tradition in the installation of machinery and industrial equipment and a big diversity, therefore there is a great flexibility to satisfy the requirements of the market and increase the added value of the materials. What is more, this industry is characterized by modern technologies, introduced by the capital investments in this field. The industry is also marked with qualified workforce with a high level of stability and with potential for the continuous professional improvement in skills.

The company’s mission regarding the personnel is:

Group-wide training opportunities;

Take into account internal resources when recruiting;

Hold all staff appraisals in the first quarter of 2015, evaluation of result and determination of potential improvements.

Following, there are some of the company’s strategies, which include also ideas concerning the company’s staff:

Professional competence, flexibility, reliability and motivation of staff;

Upgrade of co-operations into partnerships;

Set-up of cross-project knowledge management;

Practice of a site-directed know-how transfer;

Intact business, project & quality management;

Foster their network amongst customers and partners;

Strong financial background opens up chances in selected business segments-not only in Germany.

After analyzing the company’s internal situation, we have considered the following strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths

Excellent internal communication between departments.

High qualified and self-motivated staff in the financial department.

Good sales staff with strong knowledge of existing products.

Creative team with impressive technical skills.

Proper way of keeping and maintaining all information about customers by gathering their data.

Efficiently ensured customer satisfaction by making them more dependent on the organization.

Good knowledge about potential customers and buyers.

Well versed in the supply chain.

New and updated plant and equipment.

Very good use of IT.

High and recognizable brand and image in the industry.

The industry is based on know-how, research, development and innovation, being an area customer-oriented, as well as supplying equipment for big enterprises.

Weaknesses

Not having a well-defined marketing plan.

Lack of personnel speaking German.

Current situation of the chosen theoretical issue

Kraftanlagen Romania S.R.L. is a company that is continuously seeking for performance in respect with the work process and internal development of personnel. In this respect, they are very professional in what concerns the recruitment and selection of their employees. The employees that work in the Human Resource department are specialists in this area, having past experience in the domain. Thus, every recruitment and selection process is clearly and strictly organized, with the intention of obtaining efficiency in this respect.

The Human Resource department is one of the most important departments in the organization, as it is always aware of the company’s needs as regards the workforce needed to perform the activities, both in the production area, and in the headquarters departments. The work inside the Human Resource department is divided in between three major positions, respectively the manager, who is keeping track of contracts, recruitment and selection processes, another person that is in charge with keeping records of employee rewards and compensations, and the assistant manager, helping the manager with deciding upon the training programs, motivation aspects and evaluation of employees.

Recruitment process

One of the main tasks of the human resource department, playing the role of a crucial activity within the operations and processes of the company is the recruitment process. This is done according to some standards coming from the mother company Kraftanlagen Munchen.

Therefore, there is on one hand the recruitment of the personnel working in the main departments of the headquarters from Ploiesti, and on the other hand is carried a recruitment for the vacant jobs of the workers for the factory in Brazi. Moreover, there has been implemented a recruitment process for satisfying the need for welders coming from Germany.

Firstly, due to the fact that one of the major attainable objectives of the company is to maintain a competitive advantage, the HR manager builds the best practices to attract talented external and internal candidates and to have the best pool of qualified workforce so that it can compete globally. Therefore, the company has developed a Competence Centre in Cluj to supply the need for welders coming from the mother company. The mission of Kraftanlagen Romania’s new Competence Centre in Cluj is to train highly-skilled welders in a state-of-the-art facility where both students and staff remain motivated to excel in the education process in order to meet the changing needs of the welding industry and the demands on the construction sites. The recruitment process for this course is done by using formal methods such as direct advertise in newspapers and on the internet, direct research and also with the help of educational establishments such as schools, colleges, universities. Moreover, the whole process is supervised by a third party, who is taking care of looking for the trainees and also acts like a head-hunter for the mother company, in order to select the best candidates for a position in the mother company in Munchen.

Secondly, the company uses also informal methods for recruiting the personnel needed for the managerial positions in the headquarters in different departments (offers, legal, financial, procurement, etc.). This process is done by following some steps:

The HR manager identifies the vacancy and evaluates the need by taking into consideration the strategic goals of the department to see if there could be some upcoming changes that may impact that role;

Further on she conducts a short analysis of the core competencies to see if there can be made a replacement of the position from within the employees of the department or if the tasks could be divided between the employees;

The next step is developing a clear job analysis by the HR manager together with the help of the line managers, which implies a job description where there can be found information about the duties, responsibilities, working conditions and so on and a job specifications with the requisite education, skills, personality and other desirable characteristics of the person;

The HR manager has the responsibility to advertise this vacancy on different job centers which helps the company reach diverse employees across the country, this being cost effective and also quick. Furthermore, the company is filling the vacancies by personal recommendations because there is a higher likelihood that the candidate be better suited for the job or that he/she already has a referee or a mentor, which is seen as being an advantage. Another source for recruitment is represented by the graduates that had an internship or were collaborators with the company. This is an advantageous method practiced by the company because it reduces the time and integration costs, because of the previous experience in which most of the aptitudes and abilities have already been carried out.

The same process of recruitment is used for filling vacancies when there is the case for the workers in the factory from Brazi, but in this case the difference is seen in the competency profiles of the candidates and the further process of selection.

The organization faces constant change in its competitive business environment and always finds ways of maintaining a competitive advantage over rivals. One way of doing this it was to build up the organization's core competences. These competences comprised the organization’s business strengths and include the resources of Human Resource department that managers use to counter threats from competitors and to help the company take advantage of any opportunities that arise. 

Good decisions come from good managers. In order to have a good advantage upon the competitors, the managers of the company take the right and the proper decisions and stem from recruiting and developing high quality people and placing them in the right position within the organization, thus maintaining and developing its position within the global marketplace.

Critical analyze of the recruitment process applied within Kraftanlagen Romania S.R.L

Because, as mentioned many times before, the Human Resource is one of the most important departments of any organization, and because the employees are the most valuable asset of a company, the recruitment process should be handled correctly and with great attention. This process’ final purpose is to find the proper persons on the respective positions that are vacant within the company, those persons that fit best with the job description and job specifications. It is also recommended the chosen candidates to be interested in what the company is offering as an employer, and finally fitting in the company’s culture.

The first think we have observed when critically analyzing the recruitment process applied within Kraftanlagen Romania is the positive aspect of having recruitment policy. This was established by the mother company in Germany. In theory, a recruitment policy is a set of standards that the company must respect in a recruitment process, in order to be in line with the mother company’s objectives.

When recruiting personnel for a vacant position, we have observed that the company uses the following possibilities: the recruitment of a new employee, without having any previous contact with the organization; the possibility of actual employees working in the company to move on the vacant position. However, we think that the Human Resource manager and assistants should take into account, whenever possible, the alternative of choosing the form of job enrichment, that is especially focused on giving employees more responsibilities, on different level in the company. The job enlargement is another form that might go along with the purpose of covering a vacant position. Our opinion is the use of any of these two solutions could lead to better efficiency, due to the increased motivation of the employees that were given more responsibilities. It will be as well less costly to keep the employees the company has at present, than to bring new personnel in the company, implying more costs not only with the recruitment process, but also with trainings and education period in order to fit within the company.

We have understood that, in case of the back-office positions, the company owns all the departments, meaning that it does not need to sub-contract any additional workforce, in any of the respective departments. We think that this is a positive aspect of the company, because the lack of control and the risks related to this issue do not exist, this giving the sense of security and homogeneity within the organization.

Related to the job analysis, meaning job descriptions and job specifications, we believe that the Human Resource manager and assistants are really professional and attentive to the core of this problem, leaving no critical analysis to be done in this respect. Whenever there is need to recruit a further employee, the Human Resource department consults with the other managers of the company, in order to have a clear understanding of what the job requires, so that they can recruit the best candidates. However, we would have liked to find out that, in order to collect information about a specific job, the company is using sources such as employees work agendas, interviews with employees, or even using questionnaires for employees to complete with the necessary information on this issue.

The methods of recruitment that the company was primarily using were both formal, through direct advertise, in newspapers and on internet, even head-hunters for the positions in the mother company, and also informal methods such as recommendations, hiring former interns or consulting the portfolio with hiring requests. We are a little bit doubtful in what concerns the head-hunting, because we think that it is a costly procedure and it could be replaced with more usual and simple methods, being maybe as efficient as the above mentioned method.

Personal recommendation for possible improvements

Even if it seems that the company does not need anything to improve, we thought that in any organization should be a continuous improvement of the processes and that there could be found many gaps that need to be filled anytime. For this reason, we consider that the recruitment process could be better organized and some innovative methods could be used.

A first recommendation is for the Competence Centre in Cluj to communicate in a better way their job opportunities and information by using not only online advertising, but also commercial advertisements, board ads or getting help from an advertising agency which could develop a complete campaign due to the fact that visual management is being used more and more efficiently and creates attention, attracts and maintain interest. This can be done with the help of unusual headlines, salary and location clearly displayed, like maybe an effective illustration or striking artwork and also a distinguishable location for the advertisements which gives to the development a visible added value.

Another suggestion which we think that will make a difference is the fact that even if the process of training developed in the Competence Centre is supervised by a German manager who acts like a head-hunter for the mother company, Kraftanlagen Romania could participate more in the recruitment negotiations. By doing this, the transfer to the new work place could be facilitated.

What is more, the chain reaction of the transfers and promotions of the employees within the departments’ positions will actually imply a vacancy. Due to the fact that the recruiting process encouraging fresh candidates to apply for the job will take longer and it will involve some costs, we consider that a good and quick idea would be to employ an ex-employee which will inevitably be aware of the procedures and could faster settle into the operations of the organization.

An efficient and successful recruitment process will have, as well, some positive influences over the company’s main goal that is to have a good overall image among employees, customer, competitors and other third parties involved. The following results are to be mentioned as important:

– Positioning/imagining as a strategic partner (with business partners, and employees) in terms of credibility, role and strategic situation;

– Increasing credibility in the eyes of the next employees;

– Identifying and attracting talented candidates.

Also, by sustaining the development effort of talents within the organization, improving employee motivation between recruitment and selection, could also lead to better results concerning this aspect of the business. It is important to be aware of any small detail that can make the difference in the end.

The company should improve the recruitment process for a more accurate prediction of performance, development and implementation of initiatives / projects / strategies / policies with visible added value : from an efficient recruitment effort through a better use of available media communication to the development of effective assessment systems ( both recruitment processes and performance management, bonus systems etc.), building and strengthening the employer’s brand, efficiency of internal processes that enable a consistent presence in the labor market.

The contribution to the construction and implementation of a structured system , easy to use, especially for performance evaluation undertaken to management objectives is necessary for all the parties involved in the company’s performance of activities.

Conclusions

In conclusion, we consider that our chosen company is continuously seeking for performance, evolution in respect with the development of the work process and internal productive growth of personnel.

Kraftanlagen Romania S.R.L is always focused on the recruitment process of the appropriate candidates for a job within the company, in order to distribute their entrepreneurial activities and to ensure increased productivity and effectiveness in an insecure economic environment. The managers of the company, especially the HR department are convinced that a continuous success of their company depends on their ability to recruit and select high quality staff at all levels. It is, therefore, essential that the recruitment process to be properly planned, organized and specific in a right and ethical way in order to have a prosper evolution and to obtaining efficiency.

Research has shown that no diversity in an organization might result in poor creativity and decision making, whereas too much diversity can also hinder creativity. However, a great competitive advantage of Kraftanlagen Romania SRL is that they have succeed in balancing the pool of culture, attitudes, behaviours and race differences, making them all integrate in a proper working environment so that they could make the most of their potential.

The process of recruitment involves not only the Human Resource department, but it also implies the General Manager and the line managers who are seeking to benefit from their team, gaining from an adequate flow of communication not only knowledge, but also performance.

This organization treats its personnel as being a one big family in which everyone has a word to say, find together the right practices to develop a proper cicle for the objectives to be met.

Bibliography

Ghinea, V. M. (2011). Conducting the company . Bucharest: Editura Bren.

Appendix