Reference no: EM133006586

All Events Security Solutions (AESS) is a private security firm, the largest in the state, that specializes in providing security for sporting events, music festivals, shopping centers, conferences and expos, community events and other such occasions. AESS tries to maintain a permanent staff of 870 security guards. New security guards need to have completed high school and AESS provides basic security guard training in their training center with their own training team. Pay and benefits are basic, but that is usual for this semi-skilled kind of work. The company does offer 3 more advanced security training courses which guards can take as they develop their career - an incentive to encourage retention. The company runs and pays for these short courses and employees receive a small pay increase each time they complete the course. AESS prefers to hire younger people because fitness and energy is important in security work but also AESS wants to develop their security personnel to support the AESS company culture, approach and standards.

AESS finds employees through the national government agency for unemployed people: "Job Center Plus", a huge public bureaucracy. Unemployed people register with the agency, the agency interviews them and then assigns a case worker to help the unemployed person find work. The case workers have targets they must reach. There is pressure to get people back to work as government funding for "Job Center Plus" depends upon results. The case worker searches the national jobs database and recommends jobs the unemployed person could apply for. Unemployed people must apply for at least one job every week to keep their unemployment benefits (government financial aid). After 26 weeks, all benefits stop and people who are still unemployed have no income at all. Because AESS offers semi-skilled jobs requiring only a high school diploma, "Job Center Plus" sends AESS a lot of unemployed people who are desperate just to get a job. AESS relies on "Job Center Plus" to refer suitable people to them so AESS just conducts a quick interview and hires most of the people they are sent. Usually the AESS local managers interview the job seekers referred by "Job Center Plus" over the phone from their car as they are busy traveling between events and not often in their offices. AESS doesn't ask for CVs because the work is basic and requires no real education so they think a CV is not helpful in making hiring decisions. The AESS local managers are too busy to read CVs anyway and have no recruitment or selection training. "Job Centre Plus" does not ask unemployed people to provide their CVs either; they have thousands and thousands of job seekers to manage and they are just a referral agency - not the employer.

Although AESS tries to keep its employees as long as possible, turnover is high. Employee turnover in 2019 was 38%. AESS thinks this is because of the relatively low pay, unsociable work hours and obvious dangers and abuse that security personnel experience. AESS is finding that the best employees seem to be leaving for better paid careers (e.g. joining the police, military or fire service) and the worst performing employees seem to never leave. Generally, most employees seem lazy, unmotivated and just do the least possible work they can get away with. They seem to be there just for the pay check. Many are unfit and overweight and barely able to pass basic training not to mention a lack of initiative and enthusiasm. AESS also regularly discovers later that some of their employees have criminal records - a promise AESS makes to its customers is never the case. New employees must declare on their "Job Center Plus" registration form if they have a criminal record - seems some are not truthful. Firing and replacing these people is costly and time-consuming but a lawsuit from a customer would be worse, so AESS accepts that a "few bad apples" will always find their way in. AESS is frustrated with "Job Center Plus", but their service is free to employers and that suits the AESS business strategy. Clearly, recruitment and selection at AESS isn't working and things have to change.

Question:

What are the problems with the AESS selection strategy? What would be your selection strategy if you were advising AESS?