Ralph_Lauren_Human_Resource_Management

Ralph Lauren Background What began 40 years ago with a collection of ties has grown into an entire world, redefining American style. Ralph Lauren has always stood for providing quality products, creating worlds and inviting people to take part in our dream. We were the innovators of lifestyle advertisements that tell a story and the first to create stores that encourage customers to participate in that lifestyle (Lauren, 2012). Ralph Lauren does business globally through retail and wholesale markets as well as through its licensing. Human Resources We believe wholeheartedly that people hold the key to achieving our business objectives and our overall success. People constute our most important asset. We offer many exciting career opportunities and are always searching for the most talented people to join our team (HR Department, 2012). Ralph Lauren has appeared on the Most Admired for HR list for years and was number 18 on the list last year. A well-conceived strategic plan provides a framework enabling the company to effectively navigate through uncertain and complex economic periods (O'Brien, 2011). Ralph Lauren’s leadership team conducts regular surveys. They use these surveys to provide themselves with feedback regarding employee commitment. Staffing and Retention Ralph Lauren employs a large number of people from all walks of life. They do not discriminate rather will look for competant people to hire. The numbers of peole employed vary from time to time, depending on the time of year and the season. To be sure that the required number of employees are on staff management is always analyzing data. They have to be sure that they have enough employees to cover any changes that occur. It is not just numbers that they have to look at but the individual talents of all the employees. An inventory of present talent is not particularly useful for plannning purposes unless it can be analyzed in terms of future workforce requirements. On the other hand, a forecast of workforce requirements is useless unless it can be evaluated relative to the current and projected future supply of workers available internally (Cascio, 2010, p. 177). With the holiday season approaching Ralph Lauren will be hiring many employees to handle the evergrowing crowds of shoppers. I was hired a little over a year ago. It was my first experience with a group interview. To me I could not understand how they can pick qualified people when they are interviewing several people at the same time. When standing back and looking at the group selection interview from an applicant’s point of view, one may see many negative aspects, such as the perceived lack of individual attention from the interviewer, the lack of privacy within the interview, and the asking of the same question to each applicant possibly in the same order (Timothy Tran, 2006). This seems to be the norm because there have been numerous group interviews since I have been hired. I cannot say that these group interviews do not produce competant employees because of the inability to assess individual talent. They do produce competant employees and employees who continue to remain employeed beyond the seasonal hiring. I did not realize until reading the journal article that there are some valid reasons for doing group interviews. The group interview technique would be cost efficient for those organizations that need to conduct mass hiring within a short period of time. The technique eliminates most of the expense, time, and training of employing multiple interviewers (Timothy Tran, 2006). It is necessary to have adequate staffing to handle the change in business, employee terminations and separations, and seasonal boom in business but hiring too many employees will cut retention numbers. Having to spread hours out between a large number of employees is going to lead to employee dissatisfaction and employees will look for work elsewhere. Giving your current employees the hours that they are looking for will not only increase the brand knowledge of your employees it will also increase job retention. Employees who are receiving the hours they need are not going to be looking for additional work elsewhere to achieve the wage requirements that they have. It is so much better for maintaining the brand knowledge and raise the numbers on employee retention to have employees who work on a regular basis than those that only get minimal hours and have to reintroduce him or herself to the merchandising of the store time after time. Whenever you are dealing with staffing you must comply with laws and regulations and maintain a safe a fair place to work. You must comply with wage and hour regulations, OSHA requirements, prevent discrimination based on age, race, pregnancy, sexual orientation and national origin, and know the steps you need to follow to terminate employment or lay employees off. If you do not have a clear understanding of the laws and regulations you must follow and follow them accordingly you can set yourself up for a lawsuit. Employment with Ralph Lauren can be very rewarding depending on the circumstances and position you are looking for. If you are relying solely on your income from Ralph Lauren you may go through periods when you are not getting enough hours to pay the bills. Ralph Lauren can be a good source for a second income. Works Cited Cascio, W. F. (2010). Talent Inventory. In W. F. Cascio, Managing Human Resources. Productivity, Quality of Work Life, Profits. (p. 177). McGraw-Hill Company. Department, H. R. (2012). Careers. Retrieved October 17, 2012, from Ralph Lauren: http://www.ralphlauren.com Lauren, R. (2012). About Ralph Lauren. Retrieved October 17, 2012, from Ralph Lauren: http://www.ralphlauren.com O'Brien, M. (2011, December 1). HR Strategy at Ralph Lauren. Retrieved October 18, 2012, from Human Resource Executive Online: http://www.hreonline.com Timothy Tran, M. C. (2006). The Dynamics and Validity of the Group Selection Interview. The Journal of Social Psychology, 188.