Question

Case: Irasen Foods and Beverages is planning on opening a new plant in 18 months. You have been invited to prepare a plan to hire, select and train almost five-hundreds new employees that will be needed over the next two years.

1. Prepare a plan outline of how to hire and train an entire staff of new employees below the second level of management in one year and have them ready to open the new plant?

2. How should you go about procuring the balance of the five-hundreds  workers needed to staff the plant by the projected full-operations date?

Answer 1

Irasen Foods and Beverages has plans to open a new plant in the coming 18 months. To make this possible it intends to hire 500 employees below second level of management of which some shall be hired in the first 1 year and rest shall be deployed in the last 6 months.

1. Following hiring and training process should be implemented at the company to acquire and train the resources in the first phase of hiring.

a. Defining a resource plan: A comprehensive resource plan should be developed with inputs from all key stakeholders. They include senior stakeholders from operations, marketing & sales, manufacturing etc., Resource plan shall contain number of resources required for each job, job descriptions, selection criteria and approved budgets. This plan also contain schedule for all the activities from hiring and onboarding to completion of training for all employees.

b. Developing a hiring plan: Based on the resource plan a hiring plan is developed. it involves identification of hiring platforms, strategy for hiring like outsourcing to others, campus hiring, conducting job fairs etc., It also helps in identifying priority hiring requirements like operations and manufacturing teams who require sufficient training before they start their jobs. Other positions like marketing and office administration can be hired in second phase of project.

c. Hiring process: Based on the strategy finalized, Hiring is conducted through various sources and the offer letters are issued to selected employees.

d. Developing a training plan: Based on the skillsets of people selected, training plans and requirements are created and customized. This can be done through expert opinions or surveys from the employees.

e. Onboarding and Training: Employees are hired, and subsequent formalities are completed at this stage. All the employees are assigned based on their department, seniority, skillset etc., and subsequently sent for training through various programs like classroom trainings, online trainings, on-job trainings etc.,

2. Once the hiring and training of first priority employees is streamlined, Irasen Foods and Beverages should focus on taking up second phase of hiring process. As described above, staff with minimal training requirements can be hired closed to the operations date. Staff responsible for administration, accounting, marketing and sales etc., are hired in the second phase. These people can be a mix of experienced and junior professionals who can join and augment the service offering in shorter period of time. Accordingly, training programs are designed and implemented upon the selection and joining at the firm.