The Coca-Cola Company Recruitment and Selection Plan

The Coca-Cola company

The company is an American Corporation that was founded in 1982. The company’s primary engagement is in the manufacture and sale of Coca-Cola syrup. This sweet carbonated beverage reflects the culture of the United States of America and is a global symbol of American taste. Additionally, the company produces and distributes other soft drinks and beverages. It has more than 2800 products and is available in more than 200 countries across the globe. The company stands out to be the leading producer and distributor of beverages and forms one of the main corporations in America. The company’s headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia. As of 2020, the company statistics stated that they employ more than 7000000 employees worldwide (“Equal Employment Opportunity Employer Reports | The Coca-Cola Company,” 2022). The company also has approximately 225 bottling partners. In consideration of the intensive production of the company, the hiring of additional employees is expected in their day-to-day operation.

Recruitment and selection

The hiring process is an essential component of any organizational success. It involves identifying the right talent for the right job. Individuals possess different skills and abilities. Some people perform better in one area of work or learn faster than others. Talent identification, recruitment, and selection processes are Human Resources roles that should be aligned to the organizational strategies and organizational culture. Recruitment is an essential HR responsibility that involves attracting qualified candidates for a given job position. It goes hand in hand with other areas such as employee engagement, employee development, employee retainment, and data management (Kumari, 2013).

On the other hand, the selection process is involved with identifying the right person for the job. Hiring the wrong person causes a costly employee turnover in an organization. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a strong recruitment and selection plan. This paper investigates the recruiter’s role in Coca-Cola company and suggests a sound recruitment and selection plan that the company could adopt to achieve further success and beat their competitors.

Recruitment and selection at Coca-Cola Company

The company pays keen attention to the recruitment process. Like any other company, the recruitment strategies are set in line with the company goals and objectives. Mainly, the company conducts recruitment processes to search for highly qualified and educated employees, improve the quality of their products and services (Keyton, 2004), and gain more profits as it extends to other parts of the world. Recruiters in Coca-Cola company are no exception; their roles are similar to what other recruiters do. They are experts in searching, finding, screening, and attracting candidates for the available job opportunities in the company. They are in charge of the whole process that concerns talent acquisition. Recruiters in the company are in charge of advertisement of the new job opening, revision the resumes, interviewing candidates, and closely working with the hiring managers to identify the best fit for the job. The recruiter first investigates the staffing needs of the company and determines the roles that need to be filled. He or she then creates a recruitment strategy that will help them find the right person for the job. When the job opportunity is posted, the recruiter then receives resumes that will require screening (Kibble, 2022). The screening process has nowadays been made easier due to the existence of software. The recruiter has to perform interviews after the screening results and conduct company assessments. The recruiter is after that able to attain the best candidate for the job. Apart from the recruitment processes, recruiters in the company have the duty of attending hiring events and managing background references.

Coca-Cola’s opportunities and challenges

Globalization and technology are among the main opportunities for the company. Free trade and foreign direct investments have enabled the country to open branches in other countries. Technology has increased the production efficiency, contributing to high-quality products. Through the internet, the company has met a variety of customers and potential employees. Based on the information provided on the company’s website and other online platforms, the recruitment process at Coca-Cola is based on professionalism and is free from biases. Individuals from any race, religion, and gender are treated equally in the recruitment process (“Equal Employment Opportunity Employer Reports | The Coca-Cola Company,” 2022). The company is constantly increasing their production rate; therefore, they are constantly in need of more employees in various countries. In observation of their recruitment websites, its recruitment procedure is simple. Still, it requires many professional skills from any of the applicants, no matter the position they are applying for. Applications to the company can easily be sent through mails, using the internet. The company established online application platforms to simplify the recruitment process. Therefore, the number of applicants across the globe has increased, saving time for recruiters who previously invested a lot of time in the recruitment process. However, the company faces challenges in its international operations, such as legal restrictions and the transfer of managers from their home companies (Zambrzhitskaya, 2020). The recruitment, selection, and training processes are hindered by cross-cultural ability, scarcity of highly expert professionals, technical competence, and training compensations set in other countries. Multi-skilled and flexible workers are constraining the company’s job experience.

To take advantage of the available opportunities and curb the challenges, the company should follow the following recruitment process:

1. The recruitment planning-The planning stage should involve a comprehensive description of the job specification. The job’s major and minor responsibilities should be properly outlined. The job description should be clear on what skills and experience they are looking for, whether the job vacancy is temporary or permanent, and any other specifications.
2. Strategy development- after settling on the required number of candidates, recruiters in the Coca-Cola company will have to agree on the most suitable strategy to adopt in the recruitment of the candidates. The company could decide to source candidates internally or externally. The strategy formulated should identify the recruitment method, what geographical location to search, activities to follow after recruitment, among others.
3. Searching- it is upon the company to decide whether to source for candidates internally or externally, then start the searching process.
4. Screening- Despite some companies considering screening as part of the selection process, screening plays an essential role in the recruitment process. At this stage, applications are screened per the qualifications, skills, abilities, interests, among other job specifications. There are various screening approaches such as preliminary applications, screening interviews, and de-selection tests that the company could opt for.
5. Evaluation and control- this is the last stage of the recruitment process. It involves an analysis of the salary paid to recruiters, the time spent, cost of outsourcing if applicable, administrative costs, among others. The company will therefore analyze whether the recruitment method applied was efficient.

Selection of managers/ supervisors

Supervisors and managers play a crucial role in the organization’s performance, and the wrong selection of such executives would cost the company a fortune (Torres, 2018). Therefore, the company should start with having a sound recruitment process in place. Then a thorough preparation of the interviewing team should be done. Every interviewing candidate should be well equipped with interviewing skills. After the preparation, all interviewers should develop a common list of what they expect of the role. The next step is to prepare interview questions in advance and decide which interviewing candidate will ask each. The last step is the interview. The interviewer should make the candidates feel comfortable. Questions asked should be behavioral and based on the position requirements. Extensive cross-referencing of potential candidates should be done at this stage. The ‘halo effect’ is one of the common errors when it comes to the selection of CEOs. The halo effect is caused by prior information on the candidate from the press, TV, or other platforms. Hiring decisions do not have to be made on the first interview. It is advisable to take enough time. Scientifically validated pre-employment assessment tools can be used to avoid selection bias errors.

Best practices

The recruitment plan will only be successful. Coca-Cola’s reputation stands out among its competitors, such as Pepsi. Before employing the best candidates, Coca-Cola recruiters could use the skills test, competency assessment test, or culture test. The skills test identifies the hard and soft skills of potential candidates per the job requirements. The competency assessment is mainly carried out during interviews where candidates are asked questions to gauge their response, behavior, stress management, and communication skills. The culture test is not only meant to identify the cultural fit of potential candidates but also can be used to expand the cultural growth of the company (Lievens, 2010). The company should tell potential employees why they should come work for them. The company culture should be eye-catching and flavorable. The company should emphasize what workers should look up to and what benefits they will gain from working. Coca-Cola should paint out the leading models of the company and its values. Employee surveys can be used to identify whether the organizational culture is fitting. It would be better if the company emphasized corporate social responsibility initiatives. It portrays their concern for the community. Other than a good-working environment, the company should clearly outline the employment benefits associated examples could be flexible working schedules, training and development programs, paid holidays, insurance benefits, retirements, among others (Lievens, 2010). The company should work on making their employees their brand ambassadors. The employees have a better understanding of the products and have various social media avenues to spread the information. Online platforms such as linked-in, Facebook, Google for jobs, CareerBuilder are among the most common platforms to post the vacant positions.

Legal considerations

Coca-Cola needs to be aware of possible legal allegations. Questions asked during the interview should be carefully analyzed to eliminate the possibility of discrimination. Recruiters should not include any discrimination concepts to their candidates in the application forms or job postings. Discrimination could be in terms of race, religion, country, family status, sex, age, political belief, among others.

Selection metrics

Before evaluating the success of the selection process, the company needs to define what success means to them and indicate the objectives they want to achieve. The recruiters cannot entirely depend on intuition. The data-driven approach can be of benefit when it comes to this subject. The recruiters can evaluate the success of the selection process by tracking the time used in hiring. The shorter the spans provide the company with a better chance of attracting and hiring the most potential candidates. The cost of hiring can also be used. A deeper analysis of the internal and external costs could be carried out. The number of qualified candidates who pass the screening tests can also be used as a metric the metric indicates how good the candidates they are attracting (Sangeetha, 2010) are. The company could also analyze the effectiveness of the channels they used to advertise the job opportunity and decide on the best one. Lastly, the company could evaluate the quality of hires. High-quality employees lead to more productivity, improved culture, less costly turnover, and better organizational performance.

References

Equal Employment Opportunity Employer Reports | The Coca-Cola Company. The Coca-Cola Company. (2022). Retrieved 21 January 2022, from https://www.coca-colacompany.com/policies-and-practices/equal-employment-opportunity-employer-reports.

Keyton, J., King, T., Malachi, N.M., Manning, J., Leonard, L.L. and Schill, D., 2004. Content analysis procedure book. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas.

Kibble.org. (2022). Retrieved 21 January 2022, from https://www.kibble.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IMS-SBD-QUA-003-Document-Extract-Selection-and-Recruitment.pdf.

Kumari, N., & Malhotra, R. (2013). A Study of the Recruitment and Selection process: SMC Global. ZENITH International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 3(2), 244-254.

Lievens, F., & Chapman, D. (2010). Recruitment and selection. The SAGE handbook of human resource management, 135-154.

Sangeetha, K. (2010). Effective Recruitment: A Framework. IUP Journal of Business Strategy, 7.

Torres, E. N., & Gregory, A. (2018). Hiring manager’s evaluations of asynchronous video interviews: The role of candidate competencies, aesthetics, and resume placement. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 75, 86-93.

Zambrzhitskaya, E. S., Tikhonova, A. V., Isaeva, M. I., Lami, T. A. M. G., & Goutorbe, A. P. (2020). CLASSICAL MANAGEMENT IN THE CONDITIONS OF MODERN COMPANIES: OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS. Корпоративная экономика, (2), 14-24.