南榮學報 第十五 民國 101 年 5 月
Journal of Nan Jeon, Vol. 15, 2012
Human Resource Management Exploration: A Case Study
Review on Patagonia Inc. to Draw the Best Practices on
Recruitment and Retention
徐郁倫 1 吳嘉浚 2 王聖文 3
Yu-Lun Hsu1 ; Chia-Chun Wu2 ;Shen-Wen Wang3
南榮技術學院 觀光系助理教授
1
德霖技術學院 休閒事業管理
休閒事業管理系
事業管理系 助理教授
南榮技術學院 餐旅管理系 助理教授
2
3
Abstract
Strategies on human resource management (HRM) have been a rough project for most business
firm operators, especially on recruitment and employee retention. Since 1972, Patagonia, a local
apparel company now represents the famous “Environmentalism” organization worldwide, and the
strategies on how they recruit and retain employees turn out the major reason what drives it to success.
This study applies the qualitative research method, mostly on deep investigations on the Patagonia, and
alternative resources to approach and draw the practical HRM strategies for management level for
re-think the way to sustain employees with highly motivation.
Keyword: Human Resource Management (HRM), Patagonia, Recruitment, Retention strategies,
Enviormentalism
Introduction
In the past, people used to operate their industries by themselves, or affiliated with
their relatives. However, things change now, because we, as humanity, will not be able to
survival by the ways we used to depend on. Due to the rapid changing environment, what
we can do is to grip our loins and deal with changing without any doubts.
Recruitment, the term represents the meaning of hiring someone, or getting someone
to be your people. Either smaller industries or global organizations, they all have one thing
in common which is that they will not survive without others’ help. That means you cannot
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just operate your own company by yourself successfully. You might need people.
Human Resource Management (HRM) is the managerial way to help people get
involved, whether you’re the top manager, or you’re the newcomer; you might have the
opportunity to approach this issue. This study choosing the famous environmental friendly
sporty apparel company “Patagonia” to be the major investigation and collect the present
strategies that Patagonia use in their system and see how these strategies lead this local
California sporty apparel company to stand up the world famous environmental friendly
organization.
Review of Literature
1. Differences between Old-school & New-school
In terms of Human Resource Management (HRM), which is functional as (1)
Coordinates personnel management with organization planning, (2) Involves a systems
approach , (3) Emphasizes environments and issues, (4) Success judged by contributions to
cost reductions and profit growth or service objectives. Back to the term “Personnel”,
which means (1) Coordinates functions of the personnel program, (2) Involves a functional
approach, (3) Emphasizes behavior and interpersonal relations, (4) Success judged by
results achieved through functions of the personnel program.
As these terms’ meaning, we might be very clear about the differences between “HRM”
and “Personnel” is that HRM focus on the whole organization, but personnel only focus on
personnel program. Definitely, in this rapid changing environment, people should focus on
the whole environment, operational system, not just focus on the old-school system.
Recruitment plays a very important role in Human Resource Management, and its
influences the entire organization. If we insist on being in old-school system, what would
that be in the future? The answer is quite obvious, we might lose the potential way to
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manage our company or we might not be able to keep our talent employees and not find the
way out.
HRM is right now the current trend that people focus on, because this new-system
improved the way they used to be, including recruitment, promotion, internal and external
relation. To clarify the significance of HRM, recruitment seemed to be the first thing that
we have to get involved, because the most important element of any organization and
company is “people”. Hiring the right person for the first time is the primary philosophy
that makes every organization succeeds.
2. Definition of Recruitment
Recruitment (2007) offered：
Employment recruitment is composed of several stages: verifying that a vacancy
exists; drawing up a job specification; finding candidates; selecting them by
interviewing and other means such as conducting a psychometric test; and making a
job offer. Effective recruitment is important in achieving high organizational
performance and minimizing labor turnover. Employees may be recruited either
externally or internally. (Recruitment, 2007, p. 6252)
According to Bennett (2008), he offered those ideas of recruitment as below:
(1) Differentiate yourself from your competitors – be innovative in where and how you
recruit: consider posting positions in local religious facilities, ethnic papers,
community centre, sports arenas, etc.
(2) Create a recognizable employment brand – use your existing employees to spread the
word about how great the company is. Ensure every touch point of a candidate’s
experiences is a good one; they then become ambassadors for you in the marketplace.
(3) Create a strong career website – outline your missions, vision, and values; ensure it
includes elements around the importance of employees to the success of the firm.
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Highlight the benefits/ perks of working for the company. Include employee
testimonials of why they like working for the company.(Bennett, 2008, p.8)
3. The Way to Attract Applicant’ Attentions
The new-school ways of recruitment is somewhat involved in new-tech. Sally (2007)
said that “Marketers can, and do, play an important role here- helping to communicate the
firm’s distinctive advantages and branding the firm in the hearts and minds of potential
recruits”. Sally (2007) provided several ways to assist the company or organization to
attract applicants’ attentions.
(1) Website content
(2) YouTube.com, Facebook.com, Myspace.com
(3) Print materials
(4) Career fairs
(5) Ad campaigns.
Including those five ways that the author mentioned above, Youtube.com,
facebook.com and myspace.com would be considered as the so-call high-tech systems,
because social-networking is the current issue that people feel like getting involved. These
viral marketing techniques can be beneficial and marketing can help, both with the actual
movies or script and with targeting distribution list. Dealing with the new-tech seems easy
by appearance, but difficult inside. If you hired someone who is so good at using the
new-tech, you might approach the half of success. It means that you have to come up with
the idea of how to attract people’s attention, or how to catch up the potential candidates’
eyes.
4. Outsourcing Management
Hiring a HR broker to help you figure it out seems a smart way, because they got
their specialists, experiences, and consultants to help you out. You may just come to the
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broker and negotiate the price that you are able to afford.
“Have you outsourced your human resources department? If not, you‘re part of a
steadily shrinking minority. According to Culpepper Compensation & Benefits
Surveys, 53 percent of all companies outsource some portion of their HR tasks. The
market is dominated by global giants such as Accenture, ADP, Hewitt, and IBM,
which serve mainly companies with thousands of employees. ” (Mallory, 2008, p.40)
Defiantly, it’s the global-current trend that most companies would choose as their strategies
of recruitment. Mondy & Noe (2005) offered the idea of employment agencies which
included two firms:
(1) Private Employment Agencies: knows best for recruiting white-collar employees,
offer an important service in brining qualified applicants and open positions
together.
(2) Public Employment Agencies: operated by each state, receive overall policy
direction from the U.S. Employment Service. Its best known for recruiting and
placing individuals in operative jobs, have become increasingly involved in
matching people with technical, professional and managerial positions. (Mondy
& Noe, 2005, p.135)
Which agency you prefer to choose? It depends on what purpose you have. In
terms of Taiwan, due to the economy downsizing, many people, including senior and
young generation, lost their job. If they didn’t have the opportunities to shift to another
job, most of them would go to the public employment agency to look for a new one.
Either they will be able to see what the labor market is or they can be trained the
second concentration in order to find a better job in few months.
In the meantime, many candidates choose to go to the private brokers, and pay
some application fee in order to be involved in some special giant industries. Why
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those people would love to pay that kind of service fee to find a job? Is that worthy?
Personally, I knew some people who work for so-call private employment brokers in
Taiwan, and according to them. They would help the applicants to get in whatever
industries they are into and train them to be the one that the company wants so badly.
The thing is that when those candidates turn out to be the employees, they might have
to sign a contract with the private brokers. The period usually takes a year, at least six
months. In that period, the new-hired employees may have to pay somewhat
percentage wages from how much they earn. That doesn’t sound ridiculous!
As we all realized that a perfectly, completed resume is required for most
candidates to find out the next better, higher-paid, beneficial job. They would prefer
spend some more years with the private broker in order to make their resumes more
perfectly and completed. Then they would find out a better chance some day.
As we talked about earlier, outsourcing is becoming more and more popular for
most industries in the world. According to Henderson (2008), he offered the student
program. (Henderson, 2008, p16) This program is based on who are the better students
in class will turn out to be better employees in the future. He put this program into the
long-term objective, because he had a faith on those who perform better in class would
benefit the companies when they graduate. There’s not 100% right, because it doesn’t
mean that those straight A students will be the straight “ A” employees. For my
experiences, sometimes those who like to play trick and do something unique students
would become those straight “A” employees. It’s because they tend to become unique
and attract people or teachers’ attention. Of course, they would all have potential
inside, and just need someone to inspire them up.
5. New Concept of Recruitment
In this bad economic society, whether you like it or not, everyone needs to prepare
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some sorts of skills that cannot be substituted. As to the company position, they definitely
want to hire the right person in the first time, because that would reduce labor cost. It’s not
just about money, because hiring someone who is able to handle tons of work would be the
best choice that company needs. You wouldn’t doubt it, because it’s so competitive and
challenging to make profits for most companies right now. In other words, company could
reduce the cost on recruitment or found out someone who is eligible and capable to do
many jobs at the same time. How come they would pick up someone who is only open for
doing some assigned works? That’s good news, isn’t it? The hiring process can be a
powerful tool to cut costs, improve productivity, expand quickly and avoid employee
lawsuits. Bennie (2003) offered the steps which could help any company or organizations to
recruit employees.
(1) Define the job: (1) describe tasks (2) specify employee qualities (3) pinpoint the job
context
(2) Describe the ideal candidate: (1) Tangible Functional skills (2) Intangible attitudes and
attributes.
(3) Recruit: Bennie (2003) mentioned some suggestions to find out the idea person.
(a) Resume databases
(b) Public employment agencies
(c) Executive search firms
(d) Outplacement centers
(e) High school and vocational school placement offices
(f) College and professional school placement services
(g) Referrals from your own employees
(4) Analyze application: (a) Screen resumes (b) Check references
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(5) Interview and test applicants: (a) the interview (b) the context effect (c) signaling (d)
comparing apples to oranges (e) lack of listening skills (f) Halo effect (g)
order-of-interview effect. (h) pre-employment test
To sum up, through those journals that we might be able to get deeper understanding
of how recruitment works, and what better ways to access better recruitment are. Even
though the labor market in Taiwan is totally different from United States, yet somehow in
common. The downsizing of economy and many companies face the truth of dismissal for
their employees. The author would rather say that whether you have a job in U.S or in
Taiwan, you’d better be strong enough to be involved in this challenging society.
Methodology
Since 1972, Patagonia, a local sporty apparel company founding in Ventura, California,
is a very smart business firm. Since this company is very famous for its high quality sports
clothing and gears but the most important reason the author choose this company bases on
its reputation referring to “Enviornmentalism” and the spectacular strategies to recruit and
retain their labors. This study utilizes the qualitative research methodology by using deep
investigations from the official website of Patagonia, the internet forums, and the
alternative scholar resources. HRM strategies remain the most important factors to sustain
this company’s success and the investigation on the best practices of recruitment would be
recognized as the result and conclusion.
Results on Reviewing HRM Strategies from Patagonia Inc.
The more we talked about recruitment, the more we could perceive the significance.
We might start to be curious about what types of companies would attract people’s attention,
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and those people are extraordinary? Patagonia Inc. is a very good example to define the
company that people love to get involved in during their entire life. Based on the website,
“Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement
solutions to the environmental crisis.” (Mission statement of Patagonia)
It’s not a judgment what Patagonia does to protect our environment and earn the
profits back to contribute the society. It’s very difficult for most industries to make up,
because profit is everything in front of the society where they start. Patagonia offers 1%
revenues to help this society and they respect re-using those materials forever.
Before recruitment, what kinds of motivation could retain their people? It’s obviously
benefits. According to Goff (1999), during the interview, they figured out the so-call
benefits that help Patagonia retain their people and when one position is open, maybe 900
applications come to them. In Patagonia, employees seem to be their investment and
respect them as part of this organization.
(1) Philosophy: Let my people surf. That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? In Patagonia,
employees could choose either become part-time or full-time and enjoy working with
flexible hours. They might go surfing during the noon and back to work at the
evening.
(2) On-site daycare: parent career is so difficult to balance among family and job. As you
have chance working for Patagonia, you can just bring your child at work. When
during the break time, you may just go all the way to visit your kids and give them
the best care what parents can do. You don’t have to split the time to balance work
and family, besides there will be no worry about who will pick them up after school,
or kidnapping by criminals.
(3) Dress code: the most Patagonia employees don’t have to think of dressing, especially
at work. They might be able to wear sandals or nothing during work. That sounds so
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free, but the majority of their employees wear their own brand stuffs. That is so
significance how Patagonia so successful, because even their employees are also their
loyal customers.
(4) Workday: “Staggered hours, between 6:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m. the ones who work late
and early are mainly the operations staff who ensure that nightly jobs are completed
successfully.” (Goff, 1999) that means they all their duties to complete their jobs, and
they seem to enjoy being part of this duty.
(5) Directly communication: employees are able to talk or email to their CEO directly. I
thought that’s the hard one for most companies, because people might be more
concerned about what the title they have or cross the boundaries or not.
(6) Safe & Active working environment: Patagonia provided the safe and active working
environment, because they value every employee as part of them, and respect them as
family.
(7) Internship: in Patagonia, employees all have the chance to be part of internship. They
might be sent to other states or cities to see the different things, including current
issues that related to their working positions or condition. After the certain period of
internship, they all have to prepare certain things to report. That is also a good way of
learning, because employees and employers can both be benefited by these real
experiences, and also help the employers open the vision and mind deeply.
(8) Other on-site amenities: as I mentioned earlier, the employees may go surfing during
the noon and back to work at the evening. “Almost all of our restroom facilities have
showers, so you can go out running or surfing on your lunch hour and take a shower
afterward.” (Goff, 1999)
Reflective Conclusion
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Things change or things can be changed by people. When people are still using the
old-school system, personnel, to operate their people, It doesn’t seem any improvement or
any precise significance that happens, because we all realized which way is the direct and
right path that we tend to follow. It’s not just about imitation; it’s more about innovation.
Besides, back to the 2008 presidential election, the candidates utilized the internet
resources, especially Barack Obama, who is the most obvious example. He totally realized
how to operate the internet resources to express his primary idea of change and hope.
People can just type in “Obama” and will figure out the website that he operates. To
compare with the other candidates, it can be seen the different candidates have different
thoughts about that so-call new system. When you just check the Obama’s website, you
might easily to sign in to be the volunteers or sponsors, because through what he provides
is so closed to our daily life, we seemed not have excuses to say no. I’m not just into the
presidential election but also focus on how Barack Obama utilized the whole new ideas of
innovation. Based on survey, many people are gradually accustomed to read e-newspaper
rather than newspaper (old-school), because things change and Barack Obama makes
changes so obviously.
In terms of HRM department, HR professors should totally realize how important
they are, because they’re no longer personnel. HRM can represent the higher position of
any organization. Recruitment is not just to hire someone then fire him some other days,
because that will cost you a lot of money. As Mondy & Noe (2005) mentioned in the book
“Human Resource Management”, they expressed the importance of recruitment for
diversity on page.141. “Because of past unequal opportunity, women, minorities, and
individuals with disability may not be present in traditional recruitment source nor respond
to traditional recruitment methods. A firm might ignore those group altogether using a
typical recruitment process unless it takes specific action to attract them” (Mondy & Noe ,
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2005, p.141) The reasons that the author should refer to those issues is because
recruitment in the old way system is preventing those special groups from recruitment.
Obviously, new-school system can align these biases, because things change as the author
always mentioned. Through internal references, people might be able to find out some of
their people may be capable of fitting the higher positions, and they can just promote them
to the seat. If things are not clear, they might just use the external resources to find out the
people they want. HRM brokers, online recruiter, advertisement by internet…etc, are
recognized as the innovative production which can benefit people’s management in
business or somewhere else.
To conclude the external and internal recruitment, they both have one thing in
common which is to find the right people to fit right position. Recruitment is kind of the
first step when people decide to open a store, assemble an organization or run a company.
When you hire the right person the first time, as HRM managers or employers, we are
almost half of success, because no one could skip the right person at companies or
organizations.
References
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Henderson, H. (2008, April). HR outsourcing offers bottom line benefits. (cover story).
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database.
Kardon, B. (2008, March). THE NEW RULES OF RECRUITMENT. Marketing News,
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42(4), 19-19. February 01, 2012, from Business Source Complete database
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