IMPORTANT FACTORS OF THE WORKING CONDITIONS FOR REQRUITMENT OF UNIVERSITY GRADUATES

Козлов А.В.¹, Тан Ч.²

¹ORCID: 0000-0001-9375-0262, Доктор экономических наук, профессор, ²Студент, Санкт-Петербургский политехнический институт Петра Великого

Публикация подготовлена в рамках поддержанного РГНФ научного проекта №16-32-00040

ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ ВАЖНЫХ ДЛЯ ВЫПУСКНИКОВ УНИВЕРСИТЕТОВ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИК РАБОЧИХ МЕСТ

Аннотация

Целью настоящего исследования является идентификация характеристик и параметров рабочих мест, которые считают важными и которыми руководствуются выпускники университетов при поиске работы. Знание таких параметров предоставляет возможность службам персонала предприятий и организаций использовать это знание для получения конкурентных преимуществ при продвижении собственных рабочих мест на рынке труда. Исследование базируется на разработанном опросном листе, позволяющем определить предпочтения выпускников путем опроса представителей целевой группы. Результаты опроса представлены в в соответствии со специализацией выпускников. В практической части статьи сформулированы рекомендации для служб управления человеческими ресурсами по составлению материалов по продвижению вакантных рабочих мест. Использование рекомендаций позволит повысить эффективность процесса поиска персонала среди выпускников университетов.

Ключевые слова: условия труда, управление человеческими ресурсами, поиск персонала, опросный лист, выпускники университетов.

Kozlov A.V.¹, Tan Ch.²

¹ORCID: 0000-0001-9375-0262, PhD in Economics, Professor, ²Student of Master Program, Peter the Great St. Petersburg polytechnic university

IMPORTANT FACTORS OF THE WORKING CONDITIONS FOR REQRUITMENT OF UNIVERSITY GRADUATES

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to identify the most important criteria about working condition for students who are going to graduate and looking for a job.  Gaining knowledge of attractive factors of current graduating students for working condition will allow company to attract talented candidates and to keep them from competitors. The results of this research show potential attractive factors of the working conditions which can be formed into advertising logo to print on recruitment ads for recruiting university graduating students. Survey questions have been formed, which are relating to students’ future career preferences about the working conditions. The results of interviewing were grouped by specialties of the students. The analysis of the research results allows formulating recommendations for companies’ human resources departments to make a recruitment process more successful and efficient.

Keywords: working conditions, human resources management, recruitment, survey, university graduates.

Introduction.

This paper is to investigate university graduating students’ preferences for workplace working conditions while recruiting. In order to find the most important working conditions influencing university students making selection, it is important to gain knowledge of aspects, which university graduating students think are the most important among the working conditions while they are looking for jobs. The results will in turn increase attractiveness of companies if they advertise the relevant working conditions appealing to university graduating students.

Companies need different recruiting strategies to develop human resource management during different period of time. Due to the unpredictable economy development, labor market shifts according to supply and demand, and the relationship between work force and company recruitment can vary.

To find out most important factors which influence university graduating students to select a job, a survey has been created with 20 questions. Conducting a primary research is a main method for this study. There are many aspects for human resource marketing, including surrounding environment conditions and office environment conditions. This research is focused on considering facilities in working place, convenience of food court locations, convenience of parking spaces, accessibility to public transportations, comfort of the office furniture, food service, safety of the working place, convenience of office equipment, and whether interior design is modern and inspiring.

Comfortable working conditions can make employees happy, and happy employees can devote themselves more and get jobs done correctly, so it is important to keep employees happy by providing employees with excellent working environment. Employers can become more attractive by showing prospects that their workplace guarantees a happy working environment, which also can enhance impression that the company has ability to be sustainable and be successful.

Companies make recruitment advertisement to help graduating-students to make the long-term decision for career. If company can provide employee with comfortable working conditions, company can attract promising graduating-students by advertising its workplace with the most important needs for them. All in all, to find out the important aspects while recruiting university graduating students, it is a convenient method to conduct a survey research.

In summary, the goal of this study is to find important aspects of working condition for HR recruitment among university students through survey research.

Existing literature and methodology.

During a long time period, Russian human resource management was developed from high-level manager decision to the decision of human resource department. Inside training and outside training become more popular [1, 3]. Education among employees become common and integrating to higher education institutes and universities. Human resource management becomes more strategic, more personal ability-orientated, which helps organization to achieve its goals in long-run      [2].  Recently, employers started to realize that matching company and the applicants is critical for human resource recruitment. Personal social networking websites and professionally made social networking websites lead the way for modern trend to recruitment. These networking websites have developed quickly and become smarter and smarter in finding appropriate person for organization and in providing applicants with relevant job vacancies [5]. On the other hand the job seekers are looking for a better working place taking into account the working conditions. According to Russian labor law section 10 of labor safety: “working conditions mean a series of industrial environment and labor process factors influencing employee’s working capacity and health. Safe working conditions mean working conditions excluding influence of harmful and/or dangerous industrial factors on employees. We look at the working conditions in a more broad sense taking into account not only safety and health but some other important factors as well. Extraordinary workplace is beyond safety, and with comfortable working condition employer can attract qualified personnel. Furniture, lighting, coffee room, comfortable desks and chairs are among the great items to improving working conditions. Meanwhile, due to the different job duties, various departments may have different working conditions. The major input for entry-level job whereas the starting point of personal career is students graduating from university.

A survey research analyzing the ways to attract graduating students is the most convenient way to conduct the investigation. Current recruitment campaign focus on successful brand, team building, and potential monetary benefit, but there is a little information mentioning providing excellent working condition to attract students’ attention. Therefore, it is necessary to gather opinion from people who are going to graduate from universities. In order to evaluate most important physical aspects about the working conditions from point of view of university students, conducting a survey research is the best methodology. To conduct the research it is necessary to find an appropriate method for collecting data as the second step of the research. First step in selecting a method is to define the population and sample size of the targeting audience. Next step is to find the best way of reaching the target audience. There are many choices, for example, mail survey, telephone survey, face to face survey and computer assisted telephone survey. After selecting the method with considering the target demographic factor and intention, choosing survey questions is equally crucial.

Modern technology in conducting survey research is developing in a direction of more convenient and more focused manner. Web survey or internet survey helps researchers to collect data more easily and more time efficiently. In addition, there are many free web survey service available. Survey questions among this type of data collection are mainly close-end questions and the length of question must be short to minimize the burden for respondents [4]. There are many companies provide internet survey services, according to the rating from pcmag.com, top ten online survey tools are SurveyGizmo, Campaign Monitor, Checkbox Survey, FluidSurveys, Survey Monkey, WorldApp, Outside Software, SoGoSurvey, Zoho, Survey Planet [6]. However, many services are expensive, such as Survey Monkey, its survey service is not free if the survey has more than 10 questions. Wenjuan.com has been chosen because it provides free service with similar functions as Survey Monkey can provide.

The developed survey consists of two general questions and 18 topic related questions, including 7 closed questions, and 11 multiple choice questions. Sample group for the study is located in Peter the Great St. Petersburg polytechnic university. This university has total number of students 26673, including 4540 foreign students. 53.5% students are studying engineering, technology and technical sciences, and 36.2% students are studying social sciences, and the rest are studying natural science, humanities, art and education [7].

The target group is the students who are going to graduate 2015/16 academic year. They are already starting to look for jobs or already have job offers. The age difference for graduating students is not large. 21 to 22 years old should be graduates students of undergraduate level, and 23 to 25 years old should be students of graduate level. Some of them are married but others are single. Therefore, most targeting audiences should be born after year 1990.

Findings and results.

59 surveys have been collected from students from the target audience. They are senior students at undergraduate level, graduate level, and doctrine level, who majoring in engineering, economics and business. Public transportation is convenient for most people who live in outskirt of city. Some people drive to metro station and park their cars in parking lot next to metro station, and then they use public transportation to commute to workplace. It is difficult to park cars inside cities. Therefore, parking is a big problem for people who own cars. Alternative is popular that people can use public transportation quickly travel to workplace. Traveling with private car is necessary for people who work in factory located remotely away from city for reaching workplace. For the way to get to workplace, it is recommended providing advantage of public transportation, and parking places for private cars, since private car is also a very popular transportation method especially for young generations. At the same time, in case the workplace is located at heart of city without any convenient access for parking, employers should provide employees allowance for parking.

When applicable, public transportation should be mentioned first for the newly graduate students, especially for companies which located in big cities such as St. Petersburg, where metro plays most important role in transportation. Metro system in St. Petersburg transports 2.3 million passengers a day. The system includes 67 stations and there are 1600 trains currently in service [7]. The underground metro service is always on-time to have being serving many generations. In another hand, for certain employees, such as corporate sales personnel, companies may also provide allowance for taking taxi.

It is common situation that around metro station is noisy where full of all kinds of people, such as beggar and street singers. Noise is not the only issue, but also there may be theft and police car siring around. It seems that maybe it is convenient for workplace locating next to metro station; the noise from the metro may not pleasing for most students. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that workplace is better to close to main transportation station but not to be next to it. For the acceptable distance from working place to public transportation station, within 800 meters get the most respondent opinion, following with option within 200 meters and 500 meters. Employers should mention if their workplace happens to be located close to metro station within 800 meters.

City center has the most access of public transportation systems; companies should address location if they located between 5 to 10 kilometers from city center. Most respondents are not willing to work in city center but somewhere in the middle between outside of city center and ring road. Meanwhile organizations should provide commuter bus to employee. It is common to see shuttle buses with company logo on it on street.

The survey indicates that noise, lighting and temperature are the top three important factor influencing employees’ work efficiency. Workplace with low noise, good lighting, and air conditioner should be mentioned. Reasonable low noise level is helpful for employees conducting their job correctly. Other than poor location might provide a lot of noise, certain job position may require employee to wear noise proof headphone for protection, such as construction, and airplane maintenance. Poor lighting makes people sleepy; it can encourage employees to be less motivated. Temperature is another important factor since people cannot be productive in a too cold or too warm environment. Certain position requires people wear warm clothes such as the auditor of ice cream factory. In addition, smell from food can cause people feeling hungry, which in turn may decrease employees’ productivity. Unacceptable smell may also come from sewage, and toilet. Interior color is not noticeable while normally it is white. Some other colors may decrease or increase working efficiency.

Lighting as an important factor provides employee good visibility and improve performance of workers. White color lighting is popular among different organizations. Almost half of the respondents prefer the warm white as their working environment light. It is highly recommended that warm white lighting should be mentioned by recruiters, the same for white interior coloring. Please do not mention black or red interior color since they are the least popular color for graduating students. The combination of white interior color and warm white lighting make the most popular working environment. Most of the employees prefer to stay in 21 to 23 degrees’ centigrade environment. Preference of temperature depends on industry and personal preference, and it seems that the workplace temperature should not be too warm.

As more and more people have realized the importance of barrier-free communication within organization, open concept and big office space become more and more popular. Unexpectedly, majority of Russian students believe it is better to separate different department. Companies should adapt workplace, where there are separate rooms for gathering colleagues from the same team or department. Open concept office setting should not be mentioned. Meanwhile, big office space should be mentioned.

Office furniture is an important indicator of a good employer especially for some industries such as banking where a long time sitting is a requirement. Medical chair provides extra lumber support and release pressure from spin, thus providing pain release from person who suffering shoulder, spin, and hip problems. It is recommended that companies can provide medical chair for their employees.

Providing food service in another important way employers show hospitality and consideration for their employees. Employers should also provide food service in work place, as welfare is an important factor to make employees satisfied. There are some company giving employee allowance for lunch, but organization own cafeterias can provide healthier food for employees. Location of company’s cafeteria can be integrated into workplace or it can be located somewhere nearby, for example, in another separate building as workplace. Coffee machine, water and soft-drink vending machine should be equipped in coffee room. It shows that it is not common to bring food to workplace and store food in fridge among Russian students and may indicate they prefer to have lunch provided by employers.

Companies should provide strong security control around work place. The rest of the interviewees do not like the strong security control situation. To be secured in work place is important for employees’ families and even some control may increase difficulty when in need of accidently leaving office for a while, strong security is necessary while giving employees peaceful mind while working.

By providing playing area for employees for relaxing, companies can explain its consideration towards welfare of their employees. Inside workplace, green area where plants should be planned.

Conclusions.

The goal of this study is to identify and present favorable working conditions while recruiting university graduating students. Job advertising is to appeal to potential talented candidates. In order to increase brand awareness, company can advertise its comfortable working condition to applicants. Campus job fair usually connects companies with students who can meet company’s expectation in terms of compatible characteristics and professional knowledge. As a part of HR recruitment development, improving working conditions becomes more and more important. Experience from western multi-national companies tells that the positive relationship between spending on employee and the return of benefits. While employer attracts applicants, applicants select employer. Beyond safety, qualified personnel are attracted by comfortable working condition.

Historical development for human resource recruitment experienced change from early concept of necessary labor to work to two-way matching process, and studying historical development helps gaining understanding for causes and effectiveness in human resource management. Russian companies have variety of backgrounds and they closely connected to international HR recruitment development. As a main source for Russian labor market, it is important for companies to develop certain strategy to attract talented university graduating students with matching characteristics for HR recruiting. Showing applicants the favorite working conditions may increase the likelihood for them selecting companies.

To find out the preferable physical working conditions for university graduating students, it is effective by collecting data through online survey. Due to the difficulty to gather data over all Russian students in universities in Russia, in convenience, non-probability sampling has been adapted, and a sample of students have been drawn from Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. Questions asked are relating to factors such as transportation, office furniture, and security control. Questions types are closed questions, so that it is easy to analyze data.

Data has been analyzed by grouping sample according to industry of chosen. Results are interesting and recommendations have been suggested that it is important that employer provides shuttle bus, parking space, medical chair, food service, play area, and green area, meanwhile providing white interior color, well lighted workplace and low noise to ensure maximum working efficiency for graduating students.

Economic effects of using of the working conditions to attract undergraduate students draws attention on recruitment cost saving while retention ratio increasing. In addition, applicants may become brand ambassador to cut advertising cost. Furthermore, with more employees care about company felt through provided good working conditions, more devoted personnel may do a better job to create bigger revenue.

Литература

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References

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