Title

Analyzing the effectiveness of the recruitment and selection

process for the getting the effective workforces needs at the
Superdrug Plc., Oxford Street Branch

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1. Introduction

"We have exhibited with Career Forums in London and across the UK and Ireland,
and have always been successful in placing candidates into management vacancies as
a direct result. We have been delighted with the calibre of candidates attending the
events and Career Forums is now an essential part of our recruitment strategy."

Caroline (2009), HR Manager, Superdrug Stores plc

Health care has been one of the profitable sectors in the UK even in times of the
recession as people never stop buying drugs and products which are of value to the
health. Hence in this research an analysis is done on the current practices at the
Superdrug, their requirements, the processes in the interviews, their style of
recruitment and analysis on their organizational effectiveness. In any practice of the
recruitment they will have to analyze with the objectives of the organization in order
to get the best work force and hence they will have to work on the process of
designing their entire practice of the recruitment based on the organizational
objectives. The main purpose of this research is to find and critically analyze the
effectiveness of this process with reference to the specific branch of the Superdrug
stores. At the Superdrug they have a direct customer interaction and they need highly
talented work force as they are selling all the health care products right from the life
saving drugs. Hence it is essential that they need highly productive employees who
clearly analyze the bills and work on giving them the appropriate drug and they need
to posses good customer interaction skills. Since hear all the process of the
recruitment are controlled by their head office and the management they have their
own design of the recruitment practices. They maintain their own HR department

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which s responsible for the process of planning, conducting, controlling the entire
process of the recruitment (Rajni, 2009).

2. Aim and Objectives

The key objectives of the researcher in this process are as follows;

Analyse the entire process of the recruitment and selection with respect to the
Superdrug Oxford circus branch
Evaluate the key objectives of their organization
Identify the gap between the objectives and their practice of the recruitment
and selection process. Compare the expected outcomes and evaluate to see
what went wrong in the process
Compare the process with the others like Tesco, Boots to see where they excel
Evaluate the process of planning for the recruitment and selection process
Work on the shortcomings to reach the plan and strategies new theories to
overcome the short falls to achieve a better and effective plan for the
recruitment

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3. Background of the organization

Superdrug began as a small store in the retail sector during the early 60s at Putney
and later the founders changed the phase of the business. At that time in London the
competition in the retail sector was higher but the competition in the health care
concept store was very minimal as only very few were in to this business and hence
the old retail store was transformed to Superdrug to meet the health needs of the
people. they have now spread all over England and province. They have gained a
good reputation for their quality of the customer services and their focus on the
customers. They have now given a new insight to the business by establishing strong
brand name compared to that of their competitors Boots. (Caroline, 2009).As they are
in the health care sector it becomes very much essential to get the employees who are
better in the communication with the customers. They need to develop strong focus on
the customers, and plan for the process of the recruitment and the selections. The
human resource department at the Superdrug is into the process of initially interacting
with the management and the customers and other stakeholders to understand their
needs and based on the requirements they plan for the process of the recruitment with
the right amount of the skills set needed. In this process they schedule the resources,
give advertisements, plan the interviews, organize them, schedule, and recruit the
employees. All the small processes are controlled by them and after this process they
work on training them and turning them as an useful resource for their organization
based on their organizational needs. Thus they do periodic monitoring of them and
work on their performance appraisal, motivation and help in the continuous
improvement. In case if they find them not matching the needed skills then they work
on all the process involved in taking out of the firm. (Fuller, 2005)

4. Literature Review

4.1. Overview on Recruitment systems

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4. 1. A. Recruitment

The process of the recruitment can be defined as the means for getting the talented
work force for the organization and they involve all the processes in the process of
hunting the best employee they need by the proper recruitment practice confined to
the laws and the regulations by the government

4. 1. B. Recruitment policy

Any organization in the process of the recruitment and the selection must take care of
the objectives of the firm and they must ensure that they get the best skilled
employees. In this process they also have their own policies like to give preference for
the experienced over the others, or give the priority for the internal forwarding and so
on but in the end they must ensure that they recruit the talent who will in no way
deviate from their objectives and future vision. (Munetsi 1998) every organization has
their own plan for the process of recruitment based on what has been successful for
them in the past and these are covered in the planning for the policies for the
organization. the policies of one organization can never be used for the other as they
are highly specific to them alone

One of the major problem faced in the organizations is that they fail to focus on the
needs of the employees and they go in for the process of the recruitment with out the
objectives being clearly stated and as a result they suffer mainly because they never

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look in for the proper needs. All they need is to fill in the position in that point of the
time. They need to look in for the strong focus on the vision, and rather they can go in
for the alternatives than speeding the process(Torrington & Hall, 19995)

1. 2. A. Selection methods

many of the organizations go in for the process of selection with the carefully crafted
psychometric analysis to evaluate if the target is suitable for the position based on
checking his attitude, mind set and how he reacts to the things. In this process not
only the other abilities like the analytical, problem solving are tested but the main
focus is on the attitude of the employees and the test to check if they will align with
the organizational goals. (Willams et al 1993)

5. Justification for selecting the topic and the organization

When undergoing the masters in UK the researcher has developed a strong liking for
the HRM field of management and he has a strong thought to work in this field. Since
he wants to develop a strong career in this researcher has chosen this topic.
He has his friends working in this Superdrug Plc, Oxford Street Branch and this
serves as advantage to collect the data needed for the research and this makes the
valuable reason to choose this specific organization for the study.

6. Methodology

Research design

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It explains the topology of the research, how it is to be conducted any research must
be of benefit to the society and it should in no way do harm to the people involved.
All the process in the research must ensure the confidentiality of the users involved
and a clear research design should explain the process of data collection, analysis of
the data, sampling methods, type of the research methodology and all the processes in
relation to the research must be clearly defined.
(Hussey & Hussey 1997)

Exploratory Research

This research is slow and explains the purpose of the research by preventing in to
coming on the false conclusions by rushing on the data. This kind of the research is
highly used when the subject is of more investigative in nature.

Descriptive Research
As the name implies it focuses on the characters involved in the research, the
processes, and only from the analysis of the situation it tries in coming to prove the
hypothesis under the study.
The recruitment and selection in Superdrug is highly successful?
This is a hypothesis which can or cannot be true and in order to prove this they need
to collect substantial evidence from all the people involved like the stake holders,
describe the current environment and situations surrounding Superdrug and finally
based on the descriptions propose a firm solution for the problem.

Conclusive research
This research is used to compare to different entities and derive at the conclusions
based on the analysis. This in short is more focused on the conclusion on how one is
affected by the other. (Hakim, 2000)

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Data collection method
Secondary data
The data which is used to support the primary sources or the research, even though
they are not directly used in the research are called as the secondary research as the
name implies and they are mostly based on the articles form the HRM text books,
magazines, paper articles on the HRM laws / Super drug etc.., the other part of the
data can be collected from the sources which supports the research like the manuals
on the HR practices and the other reports released in specific to the organization under
the study which are mostly the internal sources and the sources like the global laws
and government rules like the modified Equality act, etc.., which are released by the
governments.

Primary Data

This data is directly used in the research and they are used for the purpose of the
analysis of the data. In this process under the current research the primary data is
collected by the telephone, interviews and the emails.

Questionnaires
The main purpose of this is to understand the views of the HR people, employees, and
the new recruits, and that of the management. Questioners will help in the process of
collecting their opinion on the topic under the study which can lead to further
analysis. They are conducted based on a specific group of the population and are used
to analyze and generalize the results on a broader space like here the results are
collected for one specific branch of the Superdrug and they are generalized on a broad
space. (Schein, 1999)

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Observations

The real time procedures in the process of the interview in the Superdrug, their
process of planning, recruitment, selection and all the other processes are observed
either directly or by the recorded interview sessions as the organizations record all the
processes for transparency purpose. This helps to gain insight of the practices in this
organization as this is more specific on one particular branch and their practices
(Chishnall, 1997))

Primary data Sources:

Telephone or the Email with the managers, functional managers, and people in
the higher authority to plan the recruitment in the HR department
Direct observation or indirect by the recorded videos
Scheduled shop floor and the normal Interviews on all the employees and all
the other stake holders in the process of recruitment and selection

Data analysis

Use of the multi method:

The process of the research here covers the use of both the numeric and the non
numeric data. Because it uses the theoretic data collected from the interviews and also
the statistical data from the performance or the effectiveness of the recruitment. They
also involve the analysis of the satisfaction levels of the people involved hence this
work uses a multimode approach

7. Limitations

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Gaining the support of the management of the Superdrug for the study is difficult as
now one will like intruders to analyse the internal happenings of the organization. The
research has to follow ethics in all the dimensions right from the data collection and
employees will fear to speak of their management.
Support from all the employees and contacting the HR manager or the other higher
official is very difficult in their busy schedules. The total timespan for such a large
work is very small and the student has to spend on all the resources which are
consuming more cost and burden

8. Ethical Issues
The researcher is responsible for maintaining the secrecy of all the data of the people,
he has to use the proper channel and should ensure all the policies of the research
should never involve in collecting or selling the confidential information to the others.
Researcher has to come in a agreement with the management on the way of the
interview which should never be overcome in the process

9. Gantt charts

Month June JULY AUGUST SEP

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Week 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Formulation of the Research
idea
Verification from the
supervisor
Secondary Data collection

Formulation of research
questions
Verification from the
supervisor
Analysis
Improve the focus of the
questioners based on
comments
Interviews

Digitalize the collected data

Improve them use SPSS for
analysis
Formulate results and
findings
Rough draft dissertation
report
final findings
Results
Continuous improvement
based on the feed back from
supervisor
Prepare full report
completed
Analyze them internal and
external

Improve them
for submission
Final review

Submission.

Gantt chart for the Research.

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10. References

1. Barnett, V., 1991. Sample survey principles and method. London: Edward
Arnold.

2. Baruch, Y. 1999. Response rates in academic studies- a comparative analysis.

Human Relations. Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 421-438.

3. Blumberg, B., Cooper, D. & Schindler, P., 2008. Business research methods.
Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education.

4. Brewster, C., Dowling, P. & Grobler, P. 2000. Contemporary Issues in Human

Resource Management: Gaining a competitive advantage. UK: Oxford
University Press.

5. Caroline, C., 2010. Exhibiting: Superdrug Testimonial. [Online] Career

Forums. Available at:
http://www.careerforums.co.uk/exhibiting/testimonials.asp [Accessed: 10 June
2010].

6. Cascio, W.F., 1995. Managing Human Resources: productivity, quality of

work life, profits. New York: McGraw- Hill.

7. Fuller, G. 2005. Superdrug moves its recruitment online. [Online] Personnel

Today. 26 October. Available at:
http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2005/10/26/32244/superdrug-moves-
its-recruitment-online.html [Accessed: 10 June 2010]

8. Glaser, B. & Strauss, A., 1967. The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago: IL
Aldine.

9. Hussey, J. & Hussey, R., 1997. Business Research. UK: Macmillan Business.

10. Kervin, J., 1999. Methods for Business Research. 2nd ed. New York: Haper
Collins.

11. Leap, T. & Crin, M., 1993. Managing resourceful people: Human resource
policy and practice. Kenwyn: Juta.

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12. Obiago, D., 1992. Recruitment and selection: a good practice guide. Luton :
Local Government Management Board.

13. Patton, M.Q., 2002. Qualitative research and evaluation methods. 3rd ed. CA:
Sage.

14. Raimond, P. 1993. Management project. London: Chapman & Hall.

15. Roberts, G., 1997. Recruitment and selection. London: Institute of Personnel
and Development.

16. Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A., 2009. Research Methods of Business
Students. 5th ed. England: Pearson Education Limited.
17. Schein, E. 1999. Process consultation revisited: building the helping
relationship. Reading: Addison-Wesley.

18. Superdrug Plc. 2010. Superdrug history. [Online] Superdrug Plc. Available at:
http://www.superdrug.com/About-Us/Superdrug-
History/page/superdrughistory [Accessed: 10 June 2010].

19. Superdrug Plc. 2010. Welcome to the Superdrug Careers Site. [Online]
Superdrug Plc. Available at: http://www.superdrug.jobs/index_new.htm
[Accessed: 10 June 2010].

20. Torrington, D. & Hall, L., 1995. Personnel Management. 3rd ed. London:
Prentice-Hall.

21. Wright, M. & Storey, J. 1997. Recruitment and Selection. 2nd ed. London:
Pitman.

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