Recruitment After Downsizing: A Study Of Principles And Methods Used By Organizations

Problem Statement

Question:

Discuss about the Redesigning Organisation Downsizing.

Organizational downsizing has been a practice in most of the organizations across the United States since the 1000s. This is evident with over 85% of the current successful companies having engaged in a downsizing activity (Gandolfi, 2007). This practice is also observed in other major companies in various countries as a response to the increase in the global competition and has enabled the organizations to cut on their labor costs as they seek to increase their productivity (Gandolfi & Littler, 2012). While organizational downsizing is continually being used as a common practice, it lacks the theoretical backing (Cameron, 1994). Cameron call this phenomenon a common yet understudied phenomenon in the world of business (Cameron, 1994).

The generally understood meaning of downsizing is the overall reduction in the size of the work force of a firm, but this term has become almost generic in its meaning (Lee & Strang, 2006). This has resulted to several other actions such as restructuring, rightsizing, delaying, resizing, and reengineering being settled under the term downsizing. Despite all these terminologies, downsizing has become prevalent form of change to any organization that seeks to be leaner, more responsive and more flexible (Lee & Strang, 2006). This therefore calls for a more research into the field in order to comprehend more on how organizations are able to recruit new employees after the period of recession.

The purpose of this assignment is to come up with a proposal on how organizations are able to do recruitment after downsizing. This is in light to unearthing what organizations go through in getting new recruits and whether these recruits can measure up to the tasks that were handled by the previously downsized work force. The assignment is centered more on the businesses that were affected more by the 2008 recession so as to enable other business make worthwhile decisions when it comes to downsizing of their work force.

This assignment is organized into sections with each subsection marked by a topic and a sub-topic where necessary. It begins with problem statement, followed by research objectives, justification of the project, the expected outputs from the research, the conceptual framework, research hypothesis and the methodology to be used in carrying out the project. The assignment also has additional sections that comprises of organization of the study, Gantt chart and the budget of the research and finally, the list of references used in the study.

Problem Statement

Several organizations face recession at one point of their operations. During these periods, most of the organizations are affected economically and hence seek for ways to readjust in order to survive these economic hardships. One of the sure ways in which most companies and organizations settle on to cut on expenditure and other related costs is downsizing (Shama, 1993). However, the methods employed by various organizations to do the downsizing varies from one organization to another. This notwithstanding, the effects of downsizing on the organizations are similar across the organizations and these effects become more adverse with prolonged recession period.

Research Objectives

The end of recession period signifies a period when the organization picks up and begins to expand. This is the period when the organization seeks to employ more work force and to replace the work force that was laid off during the process of downsizing. However, this has constantly become a problem that most organizations since they can’t get a replacement of the laid down staff with similar experience and understanding that is important for the growth of the business. Getting the right employee for the organization and the whole process of recruitment is the most complex and more involving for the organization and determines whether it will be able to pick up after recession or not. In his book on The Paradox of Managerial Downsizing, Littler enumerates how downsizing leads a company to a period of struggle to recover from the effects of downsizing and how difficult it is to do a recruitment of new staff thereafter (Littler, 2004).

In this research, the companies that have undergone recession and downsizing of the work are studied in order to determine how the process of downsizing affected their recruitment process after the period of downsizing. This is then used to make recommendations for the organizations that are yet to do downsizing due to recession in order for them to benefit from the process rather than getting the negative effects.

In this research project, the overall aim will be to investigate which principles and management methods that organizations employ in recruiting employees after the process of downsizing, and how these principles affect the organization and their overall productivity. The study therefore will seek to answer the following questions:

1. How do organizations recruit employees after the process of downsizing?

2. How productive are the methods of recruiting employees after the process of downsizing by the organization?

3. Is there any other alternative to employee recruitment after the process of downsizing?

4. Are the downsized employees ready and willing to be recruited again by the same organization?

This research will seek to answer these questions and in the process, the research will be able to give a recommendation on how to best recruit employees after a downsizing is done by an organization.

Justification of the Project

Downsizing is a healthy act that every organization must undergo in its guest to try and survive through trying economic times (Lee & Strang, 2006). However, the risk is when the downsizing is not done in a proper manner. Several authors and researchers have tried to document ways in which downsizing can be done in a proper manner but what all these researches fail to address is how the aftermath recruitment of the work force can be done by companies that have just undergone a downsizing process. The recession experienced in 2008 was an all-time major hit to several organizations and major businesses were hit by bankruptcy in the process (Sharma, et al., 2011). To ensure that the businesses are well prepared when undertaking downsizing, this proposal will be undertaken based on a wide selection of data from major businesses and other experts taking into account the previous study in the area.

Justification of the Project

This study will therefore be viable and of greater benefit to major organizations and businesses because of the following advantages:

• It will be beneficial to organizations that wish to understand how recruitment after downsizing affects the organization.
• The research proposal will enable the interested parties widen their mind on how recruitment after downsizing influences the activities and performance of the business as a whole.
• The managers of the organizations and the human resource department can make use of the strategies and techniques presented in this research study when recruiting new work force after the organization undergoes downsizing.
• The results presented from the analysis of data collected in this research will form the basis of future studies and will be of great benefit to business owners, policy makers and other interested stakeholders.
• The proposal will be of great benefit to new ventures and startups as they are able to gather information on the best practices and what to expect when the organization is on the path of downsizing.

Expected Research Output/Outcome

This research proposal will result to a framework that will act as a guide to recruiting a new work off as a result of organizational downsizing. This framework will act as a road map for small organizations and startups to follow when experiencing difficulties that might be as a result of recruiting new staff after a massive downsizing in the organization (“Life after downsizing”, 2002). Different organizations undertake their recruitments of staff differently and in fact, downsizing is defined in a much different way in various organizations, but this document will act as a general picture that will help the businesses understand the whole picture of recruitment after an organization undergoes downsizing. Small business adjustment and execution all through such circumstances depend upon a few variables simply like the available assets and outside impacts together with item, work and capital economic situations. These elements can have an orientation on the last result of this examination. All the investigation destinations/questions as known in the proposition can be addressed construct for the most part with respect to the information accumulations, discoveries and examination that might be administered for consistent. These examination yields are seen as essential instructive work for the matter that has been known for this investigation proposition. Likewise, this examination can benefit future house proprietors of new businesses/new pursuits before they start up their undertaking.

Conceptual Framework and Research Hypotheses

In this paper we tend to consider 3 key variables that affect the methods downsizing sways advancement: velocity of downsizing, level of downsizing and rationale in downsizing. Beneath we have a tendency to talk about the levelheaded for picking the issues and expect the effect each variable has on advancement.

Like most key activities, the effect of downsizing is extensively impacted by the methods it’s implemented (“Who Suffers Most after Downsizing”, 2008). The methods associations actualize downsizing changes from a stun associate in nursing stunningness or enormous detonation vogue wherever downsizing is authorized in an extremely focused on time allotment to a progressive usage approach wherever downsizing is implemented over a developed sum. Mitchell observed that ninety four of the human asset chiefs had however 2 months to set up and execute downsizing at interims their association and accordingly they were compelled to utilize a tremendous blast vogue (Mitchell, 2004). On Associate in nursing general premise, high chiefs as a rule endeavor for rate in actualizing downsizing to restrain the outcomes of imperviousness to that that may postpone or wreck it.

Cameron et al., (1993: 32) depict the gigantic blast technique as “like tossing a bomb into a crouched range, shutting the entryway, and anticipating that the blast should kill an exact offer of the men. It’s troublesome to foresee accurately WHO are killed and WHO can remain”. Because of the rapid execution, it’s modest to contend that administration wouldn’t have sufficient energy to expect the procedure through and impart it legitimately to staff. In addition, laden of your time, administrators may choose WHO to cut back in Associate in nursing optional means or utilize an unrefined general guideline like rank, and wage levels (“Why Does Health Decline After Downsizing?”, 2008). This could conjointly prompt downsizing the “wrong individuals” like to a great degree rehearsed staff.

Expected Outputs from the Research

In qualification to the gigantic blast methodology, once administration require some serious energy to execute downsizing, they will deliberately, impart the clarifications and system of usage to staff and by along these lines doing ensure that workers’ positions and feelings square measure dropped at bear on level and procedure of downsizing. It’s most likely that understanding would be expanded underneath long run execution since staff feel that some of their issues are self-tended to. Assention among the different gatherings is essential to achieving the degree of common duty, acknowledgment and bolster important for prospering execution of key activities (Sheng Tzeng, 2014). Dooley and Fryxell (1999) reported that once amasses require some investment to determine question all through the execution of vital activities they tend to have higher responsibility to the decision, and positive states of mind to vary subsequently expanding the change of a prospering usage. Probably, the higher than said negative ramifications of expedient downsizing would be less once downsizing is authorized over a broadened measure of your time. Furthermore, investigation by Tsai and Shih (2013) found that once downsizing was presented over a broadened measure of your time, staff were prepared to remake their development systems and linkages and had room schedule-wise to repair the system once it lost key players. Subsequently, organizations weren’t exclusively prepared to kill the negative impacts of downsizing on development, however were likely to support their advancement capacity (Tsai & Shih, 2013). Upheld the higher than, we have a tendency to suggest that downsizing over a brief measure of your time is a great deal of unsafe to advancement yield than that implemented over an expanded measure of your time. Consequently, we tend to place that:

1.Pace of downsizing is adversely identified with development yield.

2. The size of men lessening is adversely identified with development yield.

3. Cut downsizing methodology is adversely identified with development yield. Center downsizing technique is totally identified with development yield.

In order to accomplish all the research aims and questions of the research proposal, a number of methodologies will be employed. These are methodologies that have been proven to deliver consistent and accurate information hence will aid in arriving at viable conclusion. These methodologies are discussed in details below:

Review of the literature: it is definite that various studies have been done in this field. To be relevant in the study and research, it is only reasonable enough to consider these studies and previous researches by doing an in-depth literature review. This will be based on books, journals, internet sources and other materials. This will act as a base for the subsequent study and research into the subject.

Data collection methods through surveys and questionnaires:

The various literature reviewed has several information and data that has been collected before. Other data are available with survey organizations and government agencies. These data will be scrutinized and analyzed for some consistencies and their results used as a base and guideline for the data to be collected. It will also act as a format guideline for the collected data.

Conceptual Framework

The above data will act as a base for collection of data for the study through questionnaires and interviews. This data will be seeking to understand how organizations and businesses are recruiting their new work force after they face a period downsizing (Tuazon, 2008). The questionnaires will be designed in such a way that they will be easy to interpret and presents data in a simple manner to ensure that during analysis, less work is involved.

Observation of the Key Indicators: Inspecting key information from the National Bureau of Economic investigation that focuses on the study and correspondence of monetary conditions inside the U.S.A. they require laid out beyond any doubt key pointers that encourage live subsidence well heretofore all together that organizations will create cautious strategies to counter the aftereffects of retreat before it at long last hits. (Research, 2015).

Data Analysis Methods: two methods of data analysis will be used in this research proposal, Qualitative and Quantitative. Qualitative analysis will utilize online forums and surveys with recruitment advisors, whereas Quantitative analysis uses figures, excel sheets, pie charts, mathematical and statistical analysis modelling which are available online with the help of the scholarly articles.

The strategies utilized for dissecting quantitative data can be clear insights (getting the distinct measurements for the mean, middle, change and dispersion of the key variables to see however singular qualities group around the mean) and theory testing that can ponder the possibility of sort I and sort II mistakes (which identify with regardless of whether the information bolsters acceptive or dismissing the speculation). Additionally, multivariate investigation can be utilized to check, say for e.g., “To what degree will economy affect the efficiency of the association?”

For investigating qualitative data, thoughts from writing can be utilized as a supply of encourage to set up the discoveries and connections can be inspected upheld the answers from on-line discussions and studies.

This study will use a mixture of the above mentioned methodologies so as to ensure that an accurate solution for the problem stated earlier is arrived. This will involve an in-depth review of the literature to get an in-depth understanding, the consideration of the responses that will be obtained from the questionnaires and surveys carried out, which will enable the deduction of relevant findings from the data collected. These data will be arranged and grouped together using various factors as their basis of groupings.

Organization of the Study

This study will be organized based on the standard organization of any research. This means that the study will be organized in chapters and each chapter will have a particular topic under study. The proposed organization will be as follows:

This will comprise the research proposal as outlined in this assignment.

This chapter will delve in an in-depth case study that describes the topic under study in details

This chapter is made up of the methodology that will be used in the study and specifically describes; literature review, data collection and analysis techniques

This chapter will discuss the findings and analysis done in the previous chapter of the proposed research.

This chapter will give a summary of the important findings from the research and their implications on the recruitment by the organizations immediately after undergoing the downsizing process.

The schedule for this project is as shown in the Gantt chart below. The project will take approximately seven months.

Task Name	Start Date	End Date	Duration (Days)
Project Proposal	04/03/2016	18/03/2016	14
Literature Review	18/03/2016	03/06/2016	77
Data Collection	03/06/2016	05/08/2016	63
Data Analysis	05/08/2016	02/09/2016	28
Final Report Submission	02/09/2016	30/09/2016	28

Project Budget and Budget Justification

For this research proposal to be done to completion, some expenditure is necessary. It is upon the person undertaking it to justify the expenditure of the research in the proposal for its sponsors to buy the idea and accept to finance it. The overall cost of the research is estimated at $6050 and financing is necessary for the project to be completed in the proposed timeline. The justification of the project budget is as follows;

• The literature review to be undertaken involves the use of materials such as books, journals and online resources which do not come free hence requires some money to acquire them.
• Collecting data also involves a lot of movement and materials such as questionnaires and surveys requires to be printed which also cost money. The materials have to be taken in person and others posted to remote people and organizations managers for timely response.
• The analysis of the data can be done using software analysis which requires experts and expensive software are involved, hence money has to be spend also in the same.

This expenditure is summarized as;

Purpose	Estimated Amount
Literature Review	$1250
Data Collection	$2300
Data Analysis	$2500
Total Budget Estimate	$6050

References

Cameron KS, Freeman SJ, Mishra AK. 1993. Downsizing and redesigning organizations, Organisational change and redesign, in Huber G. and Glick W. (eds) Oxford University Press, New York: 19-63.

Cameron KS. 1994. Strategies for successful organizational downsizing. Human Resource Management, 33: 477-500.

Dooley, R. S. and Fryxell, G. E. 1999. Attaining decision quality and commitment from dissent: The moderating effects of competence and loyalty in strategic decision-making teams. Academy of Management Journal, 42: 372-388.

Gandolfi, F. (2007). How do large Australian and Swiss banks implement downsizing?. Journal Of Management & Organization, 13(2), 145-159. https://dx.doi.org/10.5172/jmo.2007.13.2.145

Gandolfi, F. & Littler, C. (2012). Downsizing is dead; long live the downsizing phenomenon: Conceptualizing the phases of cost-cutting. Journal Of Management & Organization, 2244-2267. https://dx.doi.org/10.5172/jmo.2012.2244

Lee, C. & Strang, D. (2006). The International Diffusion of Public-Sector Downsizing: Network Emulation and Theory-Driven Learning. International Organization, 60(04). https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020818306060292

Life after downsizing. (2002). Human Resource Management International Digest, 10(3), 19-21. https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/096707302760052510

Littler, C. (2004). The Paradox of Managerial Downsizing. Organization Studies, 25(7), 1159-1184. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0170840604046314

Mitchell Williams, S. (2004). Downsizing – intellectual capital performance anorexia or enhancement?. The Learning Organization, 11(4/5), 368-379. https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09696470410538260

Research, 2015. Measure a Recession. [Online] Available at: https://m.wikihow.com/Measure-a-Recession [Accessed 1 June 2016].

Shama, A., 1993. Marketing Strategies During Recession: A comparison of small and large firms. Journal of Small Business Management, I (1), pp. 62-72.

Sharma, D., Garg, S. K. & Sharma, C., 2011. Strategies for SMEs after Global Recession. Global Business and Management Research: An International Journal, III (1), pp. 58-66.

Sheng Tzeng, D. (2014). Physical Quality of Life among Military Health Care Workers in Downsizing Organization. Occup Med Health Aff, 02(01). https://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2329-6879.1000144

Tsai, P. & Shih, C. (2013). When responsible downsizing strategy meets employee-oriented leadership: Implications for downsizing performance. Journal Of Management & Organization, 19(05), 583-597. https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2014.1

Tuazon, N. (2008). Survivor guilt after downsizing. Nursing Management (Springhouse), 39(5), 19-20,22–23. https://dx.doi.org/10.1097/01.numa.0000318060.48716.49

Who Suffers Most After Downsizing. (2008). The Back Letter, 23(12), 140. https://dx.doi.org/10.1097/01.back.0000343828.23223.3e

Why Does Health Decline After Downsizing?. (2008). The Back Letter, 23(12), 141. https://dx.doi.org/10.1097/01.back.0000343829.93580.35