EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The report is aimed at helping the management to know and understand the need for having additional employees for an expanding landscaping company. The main problem however is whether the company should add more employees as it expands. The need for more employees was realized as there was a decrease in rate of customized service provision. An objective was formulated to help sustain the analysis. The objective formulated was to determine whether more employees were recommended for an expanding company. It was to help the management make decisions relating to employee recruitment. The study was limited only to the expanding landscaping company. Questionnaires, interviews and observation were used as data collection instruments, but were limited to the objective. A sample of 30 respondents was derived using stratified sampling method. It was found out that for an expanding landscaping service company to remain competitive in service provision; more employees should be added for customized and personalized service provision. Based on the findings, it is concluded that an expanding company should hire an additional human capital. In addition basing on the findings, recommendations of the study was that the company should hire more employees for it to remain competitive in landscaping service provision.
INTRODUCTION
This report presents a Landscaping Company’s need for more human resources. Landscaping Company is a two year old company that provides landscaping services in New York, United States of America. The company’s performance is on the increase since its inception. It has had successful financial performance for the last two years. Human resource expansion is thus crucial as the company size has increased tremendously. It thus intends to expand its employee base to help match the ever increasing demand for its services in New York City. The accumulation of human resources is the pillar of its economic growth. This is due to the employees’ significance to both the demand and supply side of the landscaping services offered. For each and every company, the employee base should equal the services offered for satisfactory service provision. In order to increase its size to meet the market demand, the company has needs to increase its employee base to a tune of 2,000 more employees. This report thus shows why the company needs to absorb more employees for service provision and satisfaction.
The information relating to the need for adding more employees was gathered within the company using three methods of data collection. Questionnaires, interviewing and observation were used to jointly answer a central question of why more employees should be recruited into the company. Each data collection instrument is discussed as follow.
An interview is a two way purposeful conversation initiated by an interviewer to obtain information relevant to a particular are of interest.This involves the presentation of oral questions and oral responses. The type of interview used was mainly face to face interview.
Face-to-face interview was conducted with the two senior managers of the company with the aid of an interview schedule consisting of open-ended questions. The rationale behind the incorporation of interview is necessitated by the following advantages:
i. It gives a more satisfactory result as verbal communication elicited more answers from respondents and allowed for further probing where necessary.
ii. Supplementary questions can always be added in order to get in-depth data
iii. The interviewer can work around the question in a different way so that an answer can be achieved in situations where the respondent feels the difficulty in answering certain questions.
Questionnaires
This involved the use self-completion questionnaires which involved a combination of both closed and open-ended questions. The open-ended questions ensured unlimited views from the respondents. The use of questionnaires was found advantageous in the following ways:
i. In business setups, many if not all the staff members are committed in carrying out their duties. Finding time to interview them is therefore very difficult. It was therefore appropriate for them to be given the questionnaires to go and complete at their free time.
ii. The problem of recollecting the questionnaires was quite easier since all the respondents were stationed within the company during daytime when the study was being carried out.
iii. It helped save time since the questionnaires were completed contemporaneously thus a lot of data was collected within a very short time span.
Observation
Observation of why the need for more employees was needed was undertaken. It was chosen as a complimentary tool in collecting data that strengthened the findings obtained through interviewing and questionnaires. It was used as a justification of the findings produced by other data collection instruments. It enabled the researcher to see firsthand the need for additional employees and judge whether it is in line with ever increasing demand for service provision. An observation checklist was used to guide on the specific areas/things that were to be observed such as employee job description and level of job specification.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSSION
Human capital, also known as human resources, was found to be useful in generating continued competitive advantage to the company. It was found out that the company employees have promoted the company’s competitive advantage through their provision of qualitative services to the clients. An increase in the company’s size demanded an increase in employee base. Therefore, for adequate and customized service provision, it was realized that the company should add more employees.
A total of 86.7% of the respondents were for the opinion that more employees be added. This implies that the number of available employees was wanting as the company was expanding. The reasons cited included: improved employee performance, employee job demarcation, better employee job description and performance; and customized service provision. Of the interviewed human resource mangers’, 80% were not satisfied with the level of employee base as the company was in the verge of expanding. Also, 90% of the junior staff argued that they were being over worked and thus not satisfied with available number of employees.
CONCLUSION
The study shows that the company needed more employees. Among the reasons why additional employees were required was basically that companies with larger employee base have better competitive advantage in the landscaping market. This is due to the fact that with more employees, customized service provision is guaranteed to the customers and hence company competiveness and profitability.
RECOMMENDATIONS
For the company’s competitiveness in the landscaping service provision and for customized service provision, it is recommended that the company should hire additional employees as it expands. This will offer the company a superb competitive edge as compared to other companies as it will be able to offer customized services to its customers.
Reference
Business Plan. Retrieved at http://sbinfocanada.about.com/library/glossary/bldef-bizplan.htm
Jeremy, H., and Fraser, R. (2003). Beyond Budgeting: How Managers Can Break Free from the Annual Performance Trap. Harvard Business Press.
Peter Schwartz. (1996). The Art of the Long View. Currency-Doubleday.
