Job Analysis

Job Analysis / Job Description

The flagship episode of Undercover Boss has Lawrence O 'Donnell, CEO of Waste Management works at a waste sorter as a recycling plant and collects garbage from a landfill. These two jobs can be subjected to analysis based on the episode. They are not complex jobs. Both jobs are essentially sorting jobs. These require long hours of working on your feet, and have a high physical component to them. These positions require working in adverse conditions (i.e. with garbage), and the wages are relatively low. There is not much intelligence required, nor education, but the positions involve hard work. The landfill position is outdoors. Both jobs have some hazards, as there can be sharp or dangerous objects in the waste. The job description for the recycling sorting position is as follows:

Job Title: Sorter
Code: WMJS0023
Wage Range: $8-12 per hour, depending on location and seniority
Hours: 7.5 hours per day
Days: Five per week, plants operate 7 days
Overtime: 1.5x
Holiday pay: 2x, statutory holidays only. Religious holidays allowed as unpaid days off
Tasks: This position sorts through waste to find recyclables. The job is situated indoors in a sorting plant. The worker is positioned alongside a conveyor belt. The waste will come down the conveyor belt, and then the sorter will go through the waste. The sorter will be looking for different recyclables, which will be in the midst of the waste. The sorter then removes the recyclable from the waste, and places it into correct bin for recyclables.
Benefits Package: BP022

Job Title: Landfill Sorter
Code: WMJS0020
Wage Range: $8-12 per hour, depending on location and seniority
Hours: 7.5 per day
Days: Five per week, plants operate 7 days
Overtime: 1.5x
Holiday pay: 2x, statutory holidays only. Religious holidays allowed as unpaid days off
Tasks: This position sorts through waste to find recyclables. The job is situated outdoors, in a landfill. The worker will go through piles of incoming waste, as well as waste that is already in the fill, seeking out major recyclables. These will be removed and sorted according to their type, and then placed in appropriate bins.
Benefits Package: BP022

Recruitment & Retention Positions like these are difficult to fill and face high levels of turnover. The type of employee the company wants is somebody whose job prospects above this level are poor, but who is willing to work hard, and stay with the company. The better candidates will have supervisory aspirations and be able to meet those. As Stevens (2000) notes privately optimal contracts have a rising wage-tenure profile, meaning that people with the best contracts tend to stay longer. The implications for Waste Management are that the company needs to retain good workers when it finds them. One way to do this is to escalate them rapidly through the pay scale, before they leave. This requires systems for identifying the best workers quickly, and training them. Recruitment is another issue, one that is critical to achieving competitive advantage, because productivity is linked to profitability (Pandey & De, 2013). The key traits that lead to success at this position need to be identified, and will include hard work, loyalty, good team player and a lot of mental toughness to deal with the adverse working conditions. The recruitment phase is challenging because this is also a low-paying job. However, it is important that the company realizes that paying more will get them more productive workers – and tenure is very much linked to productivity in roles like this, so beyond recruitment there needs to be strong incentive for good people to stay. Retention is critical.
References

Stevens, M. (2000). Wage contracts in a frictional labour market. Oxford University. Retrieved May 5, 2013 from http://economics.ouls.ox.ac.uk/11969/1/wage_tenure2.pdf

Pandey, S. & De, D. (2013). Role of innovation in practices of human resources for organizational competitiveness. Driving the Economy through Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Vol. 2.2, 355-365.

Stewart, G. L., & Brown, K. G. (2012). Human resource management (2nd ed.). Danvers, MA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

References: Stevens, M. (2000). Wage contracts in a frictional labour market. Oxford University. Retrieved May 5, 2013 from http://economics.ouls.ox.ac.uk/11969/1/wage_tenure2.pdf Pandey, S. & De, D. (2013). Role of innovation in practices of human resources for organizational competitiveness. Driving the Economy through Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Vol. 2.2, 355-365. Stewart, G. L., & Brown, K. G. (2012). Human resource management (2nd ed.). Danvers, MA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.