Reference no: EM132115577

You are the regional HR manager for a rapidly expanding restaurant chain. The company is only 2 years old, and with the challenges of phenomenal growth, some basic HR tasks have been neglected. Now that you have time to catch your breath, you realize that it is past time to validate the selection process for servers, by far the largest job family in the organization.

First a bit about these restaurants. They are considered a step above normal chain fare (like the Olive Garden, TGI Fridays, Applebees, etc.) Severs are expected to remember customers’ orders until they get to the electronic cash register, rather than making notes at the diners’ table. The menu is VERY extensive (book length -- think Cheesecake Factory as an example), and servers are expected to be familiar enough with the offerings to make very intelligent suggestions to customers. Customers pay the servers, and in the electronic cash registers, each server has his/her own code for tracking orders and payments. Customer satisfaction is of PARAMOUNT importance to this company. Consequently a VERY unusual aspect of this organization is that they seek customer feedback from every group of diners (as opposed to the typical comment cards that customers, all to often, have to seek to find). A brief comment card is provided with each bill, asking for feedback on server attitude and attentiveness, order accuracy, service quality, wait time, food quality, restaurant atmosphere, and overall experience. Guests are asked to leave the cards with the hostess as they leave the restaurant and the response rate is VERY high.

Individuals interested in working for this organization must first submit a (weighted) application blank. Persons scoring sufficiently high on the application then complete tests of their math ability, physical agility (to see if they will be able to carry trays and weave through the tables successfully), memory, menu/product knowledge, cash handling, honesty, and cash register operation. Successful candidates are subsequently interviewed by the individual restaurant manager and hostess. New hires spend the first three weeks on the job shadowing an experienced server. Only with the recommendation of the experienced server are the new employees assigned their own sections of the restaurant.

For some reason (I am tired of trying to dream up plausible excuses … invent your own story…) you find two sets of math ability and honesty tests for a sufficient number of servers to run meaningful statistical tests. You also realize that the menu/product knowledge test is long enough to divide and score based on odd and even answers, so you can run additional statistical tests on it, too (aren’t you lucky?!)

For each criterion, identify the best predictor(s), cite statistical evidence, and make a statement a non-statistician can understand about the relationships.