The New Principal Managing Human Resources

Summary

McDonald’s case “The New Principal Managing Human Resources” examines human resource management from a beginning principal’s perspective. Ms. Zola, who was initially serving as an assistant principal for three years in another school district is appointed the new principal of Roma elementary school, which lies under the Suburban Public School District (SPS). At the time of her appointment, the school is undergoing a transformation to match SPS’ new goals, including reducing language instruction to offer only Spanish and English, improving technologically, and supporting instructional leadership. Ms. Zola is much aware of the challenges awaiting her as the principal and opts to visit the school prior to her first official day in the school (McDonald, 2006). It is from this tour that she notices a variety of challenges such as recruitment and selection of staff that are facing the school and plans how to deal with each of them. She goes ahead to list the necessary issues on her personal digital assistant and prioritizes the most significant aspects.

Human Resources Issues Facing Ms. Zola at the Beginning of the School Year and the Best Way to Approach Each of Them

Recruitment and Selection of Staff Problems

Recruitment of staff is among the key challenges facing Ms. Zola at the beginning of her career as a principal. On the visit to the school, she realizes that many workers were to leave the school and required due replacement. For instance, the head custodian was retiring in a year’s time, two teachers had also presented their resignation letters and were scheduled to leave at the same period, and Mr. Omar, who was sick at the hospital, required temporary replacement (McDonald, 2006). Besides, Ms. Zola was also required to enhance the creation of job description for the resource technology teacher and preside over his/her recruitment. Finally, she also required to determine the selection criterion for who between the two Germany teachers was to leave earlier. In replacement of these personnel, Ms. Zola faces many problems. To begin with, she is yet to determine the processes of recruiting new staff to fill each of the positions. The fact that she is new in the position makes it difficult for her to initiate the recruitment without sufficient knowledge regarding the relevant procedures. Moreover, she faces a problem of attracting top talents for the jobs. For example, Mr. Mac was competent and significant personnel to the institution; therefore, Ms. Zola is required to replace him with another highly talented employee, whom it is difficult to find. The principal further faces challenges in determining whom between the two Germany teachers was to leave first because they were recruited on the same day.

However, Ms. Zola will quickly understand the necessary procedures of recruitment by reading the hiring policies and consulting with the relevant authorities such as the director of HR. Consequently, the principal can attract high-quality personnel by using recommendation, examining the candidates’ experience and previous performance, and mentoring one of the junior members in the respective departments (Rees & Rumbles, 2010; Wroblewski, n.d ). Concerning the selection of the employee to retain, Ms. Zola can use the performance records, especially in situations where the workers were recruited on the same day.

Issues of Inducting New Personnel

The induction process is a significant process for any given employees. According to Brady et al. (2011), appropriate induction programs among teachers increases their competency. However, Ms. Zola is facing various challenges in her quest to induct the many new employees. To begin with, Ms. Zola lacks role clarity in various positions. For instance, there is no clear job description for the newly created position of technology resource teacher. This derails the employees’ onboarding process by confusing the workers. Additionally, Ms. Zola faces with challenges of managing change, especially with the recruitment of new workers. The fact that she is not familiar with the institution’s organizational culture makes it difficult for her to lead the new workers in familiarizing with the culture. Therefore, this is going to prolong the onboarding process, as she needs to understand it first before guiding the new employees.

Nevertheless, there are various approaches Ms. Zola can apply to sort the onboarding employee issues. First, Ms. Zola should collaborate with the relevant authorities and develop a detailed job description for the relevant positions (“Resolving 7 Common Onboarding Challenges,” 2013). For instance, she should join forces with the district technology coordinator in coming up with the roles of the technology resource teacher. With a clear description of such roles, Ms. Zola will enhance the induction process. Second, the principal can delegate some of her duties, especially on aspects involving the organization’s culture to her deputy. The deputy being familiar with the school culture, he/she will manage the change easily as opposed to Ms. Zola who is also new in the institution. As such, she will facilitate the employee induction process.

Staff Development Problems

            The principal also faces staff development issues. With the integration of technology into the curriculum, Ms. Zola needs to initiate programs aiming at developing the personnel’s technology skills. However, she faces a number of problems in her efforts to enhance training and development. For example, staff development programs make the employees’ schedule more hectic, a factor that may affect their productivity. Equally, due to straining, some workers may resist from engaging in such training programs. Therefore, if not administered in the right way, the programs will become a barrier to the achievement of the school goals. Besides, Ms. Zola faces training issues due to the difference in learning habits among the teachers. As indicated in the case, Roma Elementary School has more than 25 teachers and many other workers. All these individuals have different learning abilities, making it difficult for implementation of the development programs.

Ms. Zola can use various approaches to sort the staff development issues. For instance, she can adopt a micro-learning approach, whereby she delivers significant and relevant information in bite-sized modes such as short videos, infographics, and checklists. Moreover, overworking of employees can be avoided by optimizing the training with mobility features, in such a manner that employees can access the learning material from anywhere (AZolay, 2013). Finally, Ms. Zola should conduct a needs assessment that will identify the learning preference of each worker. In this regard, she will know the best strategy for each of them in developing their skills. This will motivate the workers in taking part in the development initiatives, which is a key step towards success (De Rijdt et al., 2013).

Forecasting the School’s Future Needs for Staff

            Notably, Ms. Zola also encounters difficulties in forecasting the institution’s future needs in terms of personnel. While driving out of the school, Ms. Zola realizes that a new subdivision was under construction. This implies that more people were moving into the school’s surrounding and the school intake was definitely going to rise. In regard to this aspect, the principal has difficulties in forecasting the future personnel requirement in the school. As a good leader, she must be sensitive to what will be happening in the future.

Ms. Zola will approach aspect of the school’s future personnel needs by collaborating with the necessary authorities and come up with a detailed plan of increasing the personnel gradually. Ms. Zola should collaborate with the director of human resource and the assistant superintendent for administrative services to project the increment of students in the school within the next 3-5years as a result of the construction in progress. For instance, the leaders can brainstorm to come up with a future personnel demand forecast by considering the most relevant elements such as the surrounding’s population increment (Wicks, n.d.). Once they ascertain the increase in students, they will easily forecast the additional personnel requirement within that period.

Goals and the Expected Outcome

            As described in the case, the school administration has three main goals that align with those of the district. First is to boost the technology skills of teachers for better instruction integration (McDonald, 2006). In their attempt to achieve this role, there are various possible outcomes. For instance, leaders can introduce strategic employee development programs, which consider the teachers’ different abilities. Such a program will definitely work effectively, because teachers will feel valued and part of the development program, thereby offering their best. As such, the institution will easily achieve the set goal. On the contrary, the leaders may use an approach that never takes into account the employee differences, making their working life hectic. In such a situation, most employees will desist from participating in the program while others will participate without commitment. Resultantly, the school will fail to achieve the objective. Therefore, it is upon the leaders to ensure they use the right approach in boosting the technology skills to reduce the intensity of the intended and unintended consequences such as resistance from some teachers and poor personal productivity of teachers due to increased engagements respectively. Moreover, while working to achieve this goal, leaders are likely to face difficulties such as mismanagement of time due to variation in the learning abilities of teachers and lack of enough resources. Therefore, they should evaluate the available resources and allocate them appropriately. Finally, leaders should assess the teachers’ learning abilities to come up with the appropriate strategies that suit each one of them.

The second goal is to ensure all students increase their abilities in solving math word problems. In achieving this goal, leaders must organize the teachers in such a manner that they increase their productivity in math. In an attempt to achieve this objective, the leaders can opt to allocate more hours to math while reducing for other subjects, increase mathematics teachers, and motivate the students in learning mathematics. The leaders’ efforts may be successful in improving the learners’ abilities in the subject, especially in cases where they involve both the teachers and learners in making the strategies of working towards this goal. Contrarily, strategies such as increasing hours for math may make the subject boring for students and worsen the situation. Equally, the leaders may not attain this goal if they will not consider the learning ability variation among the students. They should use an approach that considers the key differences among the students, with the aim of ensuring each of them benefits from the initiatives. Similar to any other goal, the move to improve the learners’ abilities in mathematics is also associated with various consequences. For instance, emphasizing mathematics will see the learners lower their performance in other subjects an aspect that may negatively impact the school’s overall performance. Moreover, as an unintended consequence, the leaders’ attempt to boost the student’s math skills may pressure some students propelling them to drop or change from the school. Regarding this goal, the leaders will most definitely face the challenge of analyzing the learning abilities of each student and coming up with the most appropriate approach. Therefore, they should analyze the student’s abilities before developing the goal achievement approach.

The final goal that the leaders are expected to focus on is to integrate Spanish instruction in the curriculum within the next two years (McDonald, 2006). Under this goal, the leaders are supposed to initiate a change in the program by stopping offering other language instructions such as Germany and concentrating on Spanish. This is a complex goal, as it involves much, especially regarding the organization of employees. The leaders should come up with a plan of laying off the Germany teachers and recruiting the Spanish ones. The attempt to achieve this objective is also associated with various situational outcomes. For instance, changing young learners from one language instruction to another can easily delay their learning and development abilities, a move that will hinder the organization’s efforts to attain the goal. On the other hand, the leaders can initiate the curriculum change gradually, thereby realizing the goal. However, the leaders are also likely to experience both intended and unintended consequences such as interfering with the children’s learning progress and poor performance respectively. While working towards realizing this goal, leaders are likely to face various challenges, including lack of competent teachers. In this regard, the leaders should employ appropriate recruitment strategies to obtain highly competent teachers who are going to enhance goal attainment.

Best Practices Approach

            As a leader, one requires to be highly committed to achieving the set goals. The approaches put in place highly determine the result. Therefore, in my case, I will ensure I utilize the best strategies when working towards the school’s objectives. My approach will utilize three main elements. First, I will engage all the involved stakeholders, including teachers, children, and other staff in developing strategies of working towards the three main goals. According to Noland and Phillips (2010), stakeholder engagement is significant in determining the success of any given organization. Therefore, the involvement will highly boost my efforts as a leader to attain the goals because the involved individuals will consider themselves as part of the initiatives, thereby offering their best. Besides, there will be minimal resistance from the employees and students, as they will feel the sense of owning the initiatives. Second, I will improve the supervision of teachers, especially in implementing key initiatives contributing to the achievement of the set objectives. Appropriate supervision will ensure proper control, optimum utilization of resources, increased discipline, improved motivation and communication, and timely feedback (Omisore, 2014). With such development, I will easily assess my progress towards realizing the goals and make appropriate changes for a more suitable result. Finally, I will ensure I have the necessary resources before initiating the required changes. As indicated, the objectives are resource intensive, especially by involving a change of personnel alongside requiring relevant materials. I will collaborate with the relevant parties in ensuring that there are enough resources to push the school’s agenda forward. With enough resource, I will be able to use competent personnel and the best strategies, thereby attaining the set goals.

References

AZolay, H. (3 December 2013). The 3 most vexing employee development problems—and how to overcome them. Association for Talent Development. Retrieved from

https://www.td.org/insights/the-3-most-vexing-employee-development-problemsand-how-to-overcome-them

Brady, P., Hebert, L., Barnish, M. E., Kohmstedt, J., Welsh, H., & Clift, R. T. (2011). Inducting new teachers in Illinois: Challenge and response. Action in Teacher Education, 33(4), 329-342.

De Rijdt, C., Stes, A., Van der Vleuten, C., & Dochy, F. (2013). Influencing variables and moderators of transfer of learning to the workplace within the area of staff development in higher education: Research review. Educational Research Review, 8, 48-74.

McDonald, J. A. (2006). The new principal: Managing human resources. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 9(4), 1-10.

Noland, J., & Phillips, R. (2010). Stakeholder engagement, discourse ethics and strategic management. International Journal of Management Reviews, 12(1), 39-49.

Omisore, B. (2014). Supervision – essential to productivity. Global Journal of Commerce and Management Perspective, 3(2), 104-108.

Rees, G., & Rumbles, S. (2010). Recruitment and selection. Rees, G. and French, R. Leading, Managing and Developing People, 169-190.

Resolving 7 common onboarding challenges. (14 August 2013). Connect the Dots Consulting. Retrieved from

http://www.connectthedotsconsulting.com/whitepapers/resolving-7-common-onboarding-challenges

Wicks, D. (n.d.). How to forecast a firm’s demand for employees. Chron. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/forecast-firms-demand-employees-10346.html

Wroblewski, M. (n.d.) Problems in recruitment & selection. Chron. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/problems-recruitment-selection-61696.html

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