Reference no: EM133307085

Case Study: A Degree for Meter Readers

Judy Anderson was assigned as a recruiter for South Illinois Electric Company (SIE), a small supplier of natural gas and electricity for Cairo, Illinois, and the surrounding area. The company had expanded rapidly during the last half of 1990s, and the growth was expected to continue. In January 2003 SIE purchased the utility system serving neighbouring Mitchell Country. This expansion concerned Judy. The company workforce had increased by 30 percent the previous year, and Judy had found it a struggle to recruit enough qualified job applicants. She knew that the expansion would intensify the problem. Judy is particularly concerned about meter readers. The task required in meter reading are relatively simple, a person drives to homes served by the company, finds the gas or electric meter, and records its current reading. If the meter has been tempered with, it is reported. Otherwise, no decision-making of any consequence is associated with the job. The readers perform no calculations. The pay was $8.00 per hour, high for unskilled work in the area. Even so, Judy had been having considerable difficulty keeping the 37 meter readers' positions filled.Judy was thinking about how to attract more job applicants when she received a call from a human resource director, Sam McCord. "Judy", Sam said, "I'm unhappy with the job specification calling for only high school education for meter readers. In the planning for the future, we need better educated people in the company. I've decided to change the education requirement for the meter reader job from a high school diploma to a college degree.""but, Mr. McCord", protested Judy, "the company is growing rapidly. If we are to have enough people to fill those jobs, we just can't insist on finding college applicants to perform such a basic task. I don't see how we can meet our future needs for this job with such an unrealistic job qualification."Sam terminated the conversation abruptly by saying, "No, I don't agree. We need to upgrade all the people in our organization. This is just part of a general effort to do that. Anyway, I cleared this with the president before I decided to do it."

Question: What is your opinion of Sam's effort to upgrade the people in the organization?

Kindly provide recommendations as to how the company could continue to be successful, or how it may save itself from failing. Provide reasoned justification. May use examples from other companies and/or apply any management tool, theory, concept and/or model that are relevant to support and help strengthen the argument/justification.