Case Study

A. Recruitment & Selection

You will have to read the Recruitment & Selection Case Study and answer the questions given
below.

Despite an unemployment rate of around 9%, U.S. manufacturing companies are

scrambling to find enough skilled workers. There are several reasons why this is occurring. First,
there is an increased demand for manufacturing workers. Second, baby boomers (employees 55
or older) making up more than 25% of U.S. manufacturing employees are beginning to retire.
Third, the U.S. education system is not developing the math and science skills potential
employees need to operate computer-controlled factory equipment like lathes and other metal-
shaping equipment. Math and science test scores for U.S. students are significantly lower than
those compared to students from countries such as China, Japan, Canada, and Germany. Also,
manufacturing jobs suffer from an image problem.
Although these jobs often pay from $50,000 to $80,000 per year with benefits and many
require advanced math, mechanical drawing, and blueprint reading skills, parents discourage
smart children from considering careers in manufacturing, instead emphasizing enrolling in four-
year colleges. Also, youth often are unmotivated to train for manufacturing jobs because of
misguided stereotypes that they are dirty, unsafe, and boring. Fourth, many manufacturing
companies decreased the emphasis they placed on recruiting and finding employees when it was
easier to find them in the labor market. For example, Woodward Inc. a parts manufacturer for
aircraft and power generation equipment based in Fort Collins, Colorado, used to operate its own
training academy but closed it to lower costs. As a result, the company lost its pool of available
skilled machinists and technicians. To reestablish a pool of skilled workers Woodward is
sponsoring students enrolled in two-year programs in manufacturing skills at local community
colleges. The company pays their tuition and other costs, and they are paid for working part-
time. Woodward’s goal is to hire those students for full-time manufacturing jobs after they earn
their two-year degree. Hamill Manufacturing Company, a 127-employee company located near
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, cuts metal into parts for ships and machinery. The company needs to
fill customized orders for small numbers of parts requiring meeting precise specifications. To
find workers Hamill works with vocational schools. Employees serve on advisory boards, donate
equipment, and even volunteer as guest lecturers. Jeff Kelly, Hamill’s chief executive officer,
organizes a program in which high school students learn to build fighting robots. These activities
have paid off in attracting talented new employees, but other larger companies are poaching
talented workers away from Hamill Manufacturing. One Hamill employee who won a national
competition for metal working skills left for a new job at Curtiss-Wright Corporation, a company
that makes pumps and generators and purchases parts from Hamill. Curtiss-Wright pays him
40% more than he earned at Hamill and because it is a larger company it has more career
opportunities.

To try and discourage skilled employees from leaving Hamill, Jeff Kelly increased wages
18 to 25%. Despite the pay increases, over the past two years, Hamill has lost 10 employees to
Curtiss-Wright. Besides poaching and involvement with community colleges, other
manufacturing companies are relying on creative sources for skilled workers. Swift-Cor
Aerospace is hiring former prisoners for its airplane parts plants near Los Angeles. San Quentin
prison in California is using its machine shop to train prisoners skills in operating computer-
controlled lathes and mills. Some prisoners also take classes in calculus and trigonometry to help
them work with machinery. Advanced Technology Services of Peoria, Illinois, hires employees
with military backgrounds because they have acquired the skills needed to fix equipment through
repairing tanks and airplanes and have a strong work ethic.

Questions
1. Describe the facts in this case in order of priority.
2. What are the problems that management is facing?
3. What are the probable underlying root causes of these problems?
4. Based on your reading, class lecture and discussion, and your own research – what
recommendations do you have to solve the problems?
B. Recruiting at the Great Mattress Company
Objectives
Understand how to use low data for HR planning.
Understand how an HR problem can be solved efficiently by using data.

Read the following background data on the Great Mattress Company. Using the information
provided, think about the implications of this information for future recruitment at the
company.
The Great Mattress Company is a leading bed-in-a-box mattress company in Canada. The
concept of mattress-in-a-box has revolutionized the industry by allowing customers to go online
to research, select, and buy a mattress. With no showrooms and in-home 120+ night sleep trial
Canadians are waking up to the reality that it really is possible to buy a better mattress at a better
price.
The company is very successful, and sales have risen sharply in the past few years. This has
generated a need for more customer service representatives. The advertisement for customer
service representative contains the following qualification:
· Ability to type 40 words per minute
· Must be available to work occasional nights, holidays and weekends
· Experience in customer contact
The job involves answering the telephone, referring customer calls to a supervisor, and some
selling of additional services. The salary is $14.50 an hour for a 30-hour workweek. Customer
service “reps”, as they are called, work 4 days of 7-hour shifts per week. They do not receive
any fringe benefits.
The majority of the workday is spent talking with customers on the telephone regarding account
or delivery problems with their mattress. Billing errors consume about 50 percent of the reps’
time. Most of the remaining time is spent responding to customer complaints such as late or
improper delivery, or non-delivery. Examples of these complaints are: “my mattress was
supposed to be delivered today, but it did not arrive”, “I want to return my mattress, but the box
is no longer usable”, “my mattress is the wrong colour”. Most of the subscribers who call to
register complaints are not friendly.
While the company has been able to successfully recruit new customer service reps, turnover in
the position is very high. The Director of Human Resources has prepared recruitment data (next
page). The data shows that 200 applicants from all recruiting sources had to be screened to
produce 40 who accepted a job offer. Within 6 months of hiring, over half of the new hires had
resigned from the newspaper. Exit interviews with departing customer service reps revealed
many reasons for their dissatisfaction with the job:
All customer service reps are required to work one Saturday and one Sunday a month.
Seventy-five percent of calling customers are irate about things for which the customer service
reps have no control.
Customer service reps must sit for long periods of time, talking with customers on the phone.
Physical movement is restricted.
Customer service reps have little contact with other people in the company.
The work environment is hectic and noisy.
Customer service reps have not been trained to respond to billing complaints.
Supervisors monitor a sample of calls taken each day and often contradict what the customers
service rep say to customers.

In groups, members should review each other’s forms and then attempt to reach consensus on
the questions. Analyze the recommendations is the context of the turnover problem, the
potential effects on other HR programs, and the cost of implementation. Justify specific
recommendations with relevant research.

DATA COLLECTED BY THE HR DEPARTMENT

Questions
1. What conclusions can you draw from the recruiting data?
2. What strategies should the Great Mattress Company consider to reduce the high turnover rate?
3. What additional studies should be done based on this data?
4. What can the company do to improve its recruitment and selection process?