I/O in the Wild: Job Analysis

I/O in the Wild: Job Analysis

How does Yorktowne Cabinetry perform recruitment and selection?

I spoke with the HR manager at Yorktowne Cabinetry and I have first hand experience because I worked there. The first thing Yorktowne does when trying to fill positions is that they will go through applications to choose applicants that have the desired attributes for the position. There are times they will need to use other means to obtain applicants such as Monster.com or CareerBuilder.

Secondly, they will ask the chosen applicants to come in and take a general intelligence test. The HR Manager indicated this is a way to select applicants who have math and reading comprehension. I read one of the tests and saw that there were questions about how to read a tape measure and character questions. The character questions were asking questions like, “If you saw that one of the employees from another department needed help would You: A. Go over and give them a hand. B. First ask your supervisor if you could help. C. Talk with other employees about the person that needs help. D. Continue doing your work and let the employee deal with the task.”. Applicants that have achieved a 70% on the test are asked to come back and meet with the supervisor for which they will be working.

Thirdly, the supervisor interviews the candidates. There is no standard process for this. The supervisors are using their gut and the candidate’s background for their decision. The supervisors have not gone through any recruitment or selection training, so it is possible the each supervisor to choose differently.

Lastly, the candidates that are hired go through a 90-day probationary period before they are eligible to become a member of the Carpenter’s and Jointer’s Union. During this time, supervisors observe the employees work. There is a 30-day work evaluation form the supervisors complete and then sit down with the employee. The form covered the following:

Evaluation Criteria:
Organizational commitment
How well employee uses constructive criticism
How the employee relates with other team-member
Employee’s willingness to help in other areas on his or her own accord
Employees desire for more responsibilities
Employee’s efficiency

During the meeting with the employee, the supervisor goes over the form and communicates with the employees about his or her strengths and areas where there needs to be improvement. The form has 20 questions about the employee’s

performance. Each question has a rating from one to five. One is the lowest rating and five is the highest rating. The same form is used for the 90-day employee evaluation. The employee must achieve an average score of three or higher to be able to be hired. The employee is let go at this time if they did not achieve an average score of three or higher. Then the cycle continues to get the right person in the position.

How is this similar to what we learned in the lesson and readings?

Yorktowne used a tests that has content validity to screen applicants as page 3, Lesson 6 shows. The that is given can be given as a group of individually. In the Yorktowne selection process there is the pencil and paper aspect and then there is the performance part as page 6, of Lesson 6 states. So there is the cognitive aspect that paper and pencil test explores and then the psychomotor ability, which would be the 90-day evaluation. There are times where candidates do not make it the full 90-days.

What could Yorktowne do to make their selection process better?

Yorktowne has good tools to use for the selection process, but it seems to lack standardization of execution. There is the form for employee evaluation. The form has a scoring method, but there is ambiguity on how the performance of the employee relates to the scoring. One supervisor’s score of 4 maybe another supervisor’s 3. Scoring guidelines with specific performance measures and how they relate to the scoring method would help scoring execution consistency.

Supervisors have had no formal interviewing training. There are times where supervisors will not allow the employee the opportunity of the 90-day probation based off what they decided would be a good fit for the department. This could include ethnic background. By having supervisors that do not know the legal side of interviewing, could result in big trouble. There are certain questions legally you cannot ask in an interview, such as religion, age, and disabilities. Supervisors should have formal interview training, so they can objectively make decisions.