D360 Task 1 Culture and Recruiting Assessment Example

Hired by Word of Mouth, Gone by Spring: Assessing How a Composite Nonprofit Food Bank's Culture Shapes Its Recruiting and Retention, With Recommendations

Student Name

School of Business, Western Governors University

D360: HRM Capstone, Task 1

Course Instructor

Month Day, Year

Hired by Word of Mouth, Gone by Spring: Assessing How a Composite Nonprofit Food Bank's Culture Shapes Its Recruiting and Retention, With Recommendations

The Organization

Harvest Commons Food Bank, a composite nonprofit, was founded 11 years ago by a retired grocer, Martha Ellison, who still serves as executive director. It collects donated and purchased food, stores it in a leased warehouse and distributes it to 70 partner pantries across four rural counties, reaching about 22,000 people a month. It has 38 employees, including 12 warehouse coordinators who manage receiving, inventory and deliveries, 8 drivers, and staff in partner relations, development and administration, plus several hundred volunteers. Its mission is to make sure no one in its service area goes hungry. There is no HR department; the finance manager handles payroll and benefits, and managers hire their own staff.

Current State of Recruiting and Retention

Recruiting is informal. Most openings are filled through personal networks: staff and volunteers suggest friends, the director mentions openings at church and community events, and a notice goes on the food bank's social media page. There are no written job descriptions for most roles, no standard interview process and no consistent onboarding. Pay for warehouse coordinators is about $16 an hour, below the $18 to $19 offered by two distribution centers that opened nearby.

Retention is the larger problem. Over the past two years, 9 of the 12 warehouse coordinator positions turned over, and six of the nine departures came in the first four months on the job. Turnover among drivers was lower, and administrative and development staff have stayed for years. Exit conversations, informal and unrecorded, suggest that new coordinators felt overwhelmed, unsure what was expected and unsupported during the busy fall and holiday season, when donations double.

How Culture Shapes Recruiting and Retention

Organizational culture can be understood at three levels: what can be seen, such as routines and structures; what people say they value; and the deeper assumptions nobody questions anymore, which often trace back to a founder (Schein & Schein, 2017). Harvest Commons' culture is clearest at the level of assumptions.

The first assumption is that commitment to the mission is enough. The food bank was built by people who would do anything for it, and its leaders assume that anyone who cares about hunger will figure out the job. This explains why there are no job descriptions or onboarding: structure feels bureaucratic and unnecessary. It also explains recruiting through personal networks, which bring in people who share the mission but not necessarily the skills to manage inventory for 70 pantries.

The second assumption is that the founder knows best. Decisions flow through the director, and managers rarely act without her approval. New coordinators who ask questions often wait days for answers, which during the holiday season means problems pile up.

The third assumption is that every dollar should go to food, not overhead. This value is admirable and important to donors, but it has kept pay below market and prevented investment in training or an HR function, which in turn drives turnover and its hidden costs.

Strengths to Keep

The culture also has real strengths. The mission inspires loyalty: long-tenured staff describe their work as a calling, and volunteers return year after year. The informal network brings in people who understand the community and its needs. Staff feel like a family, and they help one another during crises. Any changes should protect these strengths rather than replace them with a corporate model.

What Research Suggests

Research on new employees explains why early turnover is so high. Bauer et al. (2007) pooled 70 samples of new employees and showed that three things, knowing clearly what the role requires, feeling able to do it and feeling accepted by the team, largely explain whether early socialization leads to satisfied, committed employees who stay. Harvest Commons' new coordinators have social acceptance, because the staff is welcoming, but they lack role clarity and the confidence that comes from training. Turnover research also shows that people leave for reasons organizations can influence, including the job itself, how they are treated and better alternatives nearby (Hom et al., 2017), and the new distribution centers offer those alternatives.

How the Assessment Was Done

Because Harvest Commons keeps few HR records, the assessment rebuilt the picture from several sources. Payroll records gave start and end dates for every employee over three years, which produced the turnover figures. Interviews with the director, the operations manager, four current coordinators and two former coordinators who agreed to talk explained how hiring and the first weeks on the job actually work. A short anonymous survey of all staff asked which things made their first three months easier and which made them harder. Finally, a comparison of job postings from nearby employers showed the pay and schedules coordinators could get elsewhere. The interviews were especially revealing: every coordinator described learning the job by asking whoever was nearby, and both former coordinators said they left not because of the work, which they believed in, but because they never felt they knew what they were doing.

Recommendations

First, write simple job descriptions for every role, starting with warehouse coordinators, stating duties, the skills needed and how success is measured, so that recruiting targets the right skills and new hires know what is expected.

Second, keep network recruiting but add structure: post openings on regional job boards and with the workforce center, and use a short structured interview with the same questions for every candidate.

Third, create a 90-day onboarding plan: a written checklist, a peer buddy, a week of shadowing before working alone and weekly check-ins with the operations manager. Avoid starting new coordinators in October, when the holiday rush begins, where possible.

Fourth, delegate decisions: give the operations manager authority over warehouse staffing and daily decisions so that new staff get answers quickly.

Fifth, raise coordinator pay to $18 over two years, presenting it to the board and donors as an investment in reliable distribution, since each coordinator who leaves costs time, errors and lost food.

Harvest Commons will track 90-day and one-year retention, time to fill and new hires' confidence at 30 and 90 days.

Conclusion

Harvest Commons' recruiting and retention problems grow from a culture that assumes commitment is enough, routes decisions through its founder and avoids spending on overhead. Those assumptions built a devoted organization, but they leave new coordinators unclear, unsupported and underpaid. Keeping the culture's strengths while adding clarity, onboarding, delegation and fair pay can turn new hires into long-term staff.

References

Bauer, T. N., Bodner, T., Erdogan, B., Truxillo, D. M., & Tucker, J. S. (2007). Newcomer adjustment during organizational socialization: A meta-analytic review of antecedents, outcomes, and methods. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(3), 707-721. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.3.707

Hom, P. W., Lee, T. W., Shaw, J. D., & Hausknecht, J. P. (2017). One hundred years of employee turnover theory and research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 530-545. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000103

Schein, E. H., & Schein, P. A. (2017). Organizational culture and leadership (5th ed.). Wiley.