Reference no: EM133042731

Job Analysis Meets Recruitment and Selection

Fiona is the owner of a small seasonal company that specializes in painting residential houses in Winnipeg and the surrounding area. Most of their business consists of painting exteriors, although occasionally they do work inside the homes as well. Due to the climate the company only operates from May to September and she generally hires about 28 college and university students as painters. Each year she selects her one best employee and offers them a supervisory job the following year. The Supervisor spends the day driving from site to site checking up on teams of 4-6 painters, making sure that their work is being completed well and safely. Fiona takes care of all the office and administration duties herself including sales, customer follow-up, scheduling, and training new hires on basic safety standards and safety equipment usage. Although she is very busy in the summer months she can manage the workload and stress since it is only a few months of the year.  By handling everything other than the actual painting and supervising herself she keeps her costs low enough that she can live off the profits for the remainder of the year without working another job.

In the past all of Fiona's painters have had one job title and job description. This year, however, the person that she hired as a Supervisor pointed out in early June that some of the teams were much more productive than others. When Fiona investigated she realized that teams made up entirely of novice painters performed the worst. Not only were they the slowest, but they were responsible for more than their fair share of customer complaints and minor accidental injuries. The groups with multiple experienced painters were highly productive, which was not surprising. What was surprising was that teams were equally highly productive even if there was only one member who was experienced - so the increase in productivity was not just because more experienced painters could paint faster individually. Something else about having experience qualitatively changed the way the team functioned as a whole. But what was it?

If having experience improves productivity far beyond simple work pace then it would make sense to attract enough experienced workers that one can be placed in every group (although not necessarily more than one since only one seems to be required to achieve the advantage). It would be worth paying them more since they help entire teams become more productive. One way to do so might be to create 2 different job titles with associated differences in job description and compensation level. One job title would be "Painter Level 1 - Novice", and the other would be "Painter Level 2 - Expert". The problem was that Fiona didn't really understand why the more experienced people were getting better results or what they did differently in a team setting that maximized productivity for all. She needed to analyze the two jobs out in the real world to better understand their differences, allowing her to write job descriptions and move forward with the two distinct job titles in the following year.

Assignment Questions: 

1. Which 2 job analysis research methods would be most appropriate for this setting and why? Explain your reasoning for each method in 3-4 sentences.
2. What are the most likely potential consequences Fiona would face if her job analysis turns out to be inaccurate? Be specific, identify 4 different potential consequences, and make sure that your comments are relevant to the situation and context presented.
3. Recommend 2 recruitment methods that would be appropriate for hiring novice painters. Explain your reasoning for each method in 1-2 sentences.
4. If a job category of "Painter Level Two - Expert" is created that includes coaching and mentoring in the job description would you use the same recruitment methods that you recommended in the previous question or different ones when recruiting for that role? Explain your reasoning in 2-3 sentences.
5. Recommend 1 selection test that would be appropriate for novice painters and two selection tests that would be appropriate for the supervisory position. Explain your reasoning for each one in 2-3 sentences, making sure that you refer to each test's reliability, content validity, and criterion validity.
6. Would it be legal and appropriate for Fiona to make the following things mandatory requirements to get a job as a novice painter? Answer each one separately and provide your reasoning in a sentence or two.  Note that "legal" and "appropriate" represent different standards and you need to address both. If you identify any of them as illegal reference the specific legislation that it falls under.
   1. Canadian job experience
   2. A criminal records check
   3. Canadian citizenship
   4. Being a university student
   5. Being willing to wear safety equipment on the job