Reference no: EM133007550

CASE STUDY:

As the Office Manager at Modern Carpet Cleaning (MCC), Mike must handle a wide range of responsibilities. As the company has grown to over sixty employees, the human resource management practices of the company have become a more significant part of his role. Mike has had little formal education or training in human resources management, but works hard to ensure that the company manages its staff and hiring effectively.

With a new fiscal year approaching, Mike is examining many aspects of the company's budget. As he reviewed the payroll budget, he noted some wide variations in pay rates of the carpet cleaners across the company's seven locations. He is also trying to more accurately budget for the new hires the company will need to bring on board if they want to continue growing at the rate of two new locations a year. He has noted that in some locations the pay rates of his current employees seemed to be higher than what the competition pays; in others, the rates seem much lower. Pay rates and pay increases are determined at each location by the local supervisor and as a result, there is not consistency in the company's pay practices. Further, some of the pay differences may be justified. Different locations work on different types of assignments and the jobs the carpet cleaners do may be different. For example, some locations work primarily at residential clients. Cleaners at these locations work directly with the clients and need strong sales and customer service skills in addition to carpet cleaning skills. Whereas locations that work primarily on commercial property have very little client contact, but they face tougher cleaning challenges and must have stronger technical skills. However, Mike does not have a good understanding of which locations have which kinds of responsibilities. His research on the SHRM website suggests that a good starting point for examining the company's compensation practice would be to conduct a job analysis and create written job descriptions, followed by a job evaluation and then market comparison. Based on what he learned through his research, he has decided to make a questionnaire to complete the job analysis process and he will ask one cleaner from each location to complete it. The questionnaire asks the employee to explain the tasks they finished and how they complete them. It also asks the employee to describe any equipment used. Mike plans to use the information collected in the questionnaires to create written job descriptions. Once he has the job descriptions complete, he will use them to help determine if internal pay rates are consistent and if the company is paying competitively in the market. In addition to carpet cleaners, the company needs to hire additional support staff. These hires will include customer service representatives, marketing and sales professionals and administrative staff. But recruiting the cleaners is going to be the biggest challenge. MCC is located in a geographic area that has multiple competitors. As a result, Mike will need to consider how to make the opportunities at CCC attractive to potential hires. Mike must carefully consider what the company's competitors are paying when determining the pay policy that MCC should pursue for the new hires. He is not sure if it is sufficient to match the pay of the company's competitors. MCC is a fairly new company and he is concerned that top the most skilled cleaners will not be attracted to the opportunity unless the pay is higher than competitors. However, as the company has serious budgetary constraints and Mike is not sure if the company can afford to lead the competition. 

QUESTIONS:

1. What do you think of Mike's plan for conducting his job analysis? (pay particular attention to what is necessary for a reliable and valid job analysis method; also convey your understanding of what the most recommended techniques).

2. What additional insights could Mike gain utilizing some websites.