Carter company free essay sample

Chapter 3: Strategic HRM and the HR ScorecardContinuing Case: The carter cleaning company: the high performance work system1. Would you recommend that the company expand its quality program? If so,specifically what form should it take? Ans: Most students will agree that there are opportunities to expand the quality program. The employee meeting approach is a good start in terms of utilizing high involvementorganizational practices. There are opportunities to maximize the overall quality of their human capital. For example, training seems to be an obvious area to focus in terms of educating and building awareness about basic standards and procedures. 2. Assume the company wants to institute a high performance work system as a testprogram in one of its stores. Write a one-page outline summarizing what such aprogram would consist of. Ans: Students should include some of the following ideas in their outline: Identify thetypes of HR practices it would implement to improve quality, productivity, financial performance; methods for job enrichment; strategies for implement and leverage a team- based organization; ways to implement and facilitate high commitment work practices;employee development and skill building to foster increased competency and capability inthe workforce; a compensation program which provides incentives (for example profitsharing; pay for performance) for achieving major goals and financial targets. Chapter 4: Job AnalysisContinuing Case: The carter cleaning company: The job description1. What should be the format and final form of the store manager’s job description? Ans: The format noted in figure 4-6 could be a reasonable format to use. Students mayrecommend that Jen should include a â€Å"standards of performance† section in the job description. This lists the standards the employee is expected to achieve under each of the job description’smain duties and responsibilities, and would address the problem of employees notunderstanding company policies, procedures, and expectations. In addition, students mayrecommend that Jennifer instead take a competency-based approach which describes the job interms of the measurable, observable, behavioral competencies that an employee doing that jobmust exhibit. Because competency analysis focuses more on â€Å"how† the worker meets the job’sobjectives or actually accomplishes the work, it is more worker focused. 2. Was it practical to specify standards and procedures in the body of the job description,or should these be kept separately? Ans: They do not need to be kept separately, and in fact both Jen and the employees would be better served by incorporating standards and procedures into the body of the description. Theexception to this would be if the standards and procedures are so complex or involved that it becomes more pragmatic to maintain a separate procedures manual. 3. How should Jen go about collecting the information required for the standards,procedures, and job description? Ans: She should first go about conducting the job analysis, collecting information about thework activities, human behaviors, machines, tools, equipment, and work aids, performancestandards, job context, and human requirements. The best methods for collecting thisinformation in this case are through interview, questionnaires, observation, diaries/logsmaintained by employees. In addition, she should ensure that she is identifying the essentialfunctions of the job, and that the descriptions comply with the law. Chapter 5: Human resource planning and recruitingContinuing Case: The carter cleaning company: Getting better applicants1. First, how would you recommend we go about reducing the turnover in our stores? Ans: The students should base their responses on the information presented in the advertisingsection of the chapter, and their response should include placing and constructing ads that willattract candidates who will find the job attractive. Or Jennifer can do a quick analysis on what it costs her to recruit and train a new employee(including the cost of lower productivity as a person learns a new job). Every reduction inemployee turnover can be translated to dollars. In fact, Jennifer can improve workingconditions without any change in her profit if she pays for improvements from savings inemployee turnover costs. The best source of ideas from improvement may come from exitinterviews (what would we have done to our work environment that would have made youmore likely to stay?), and from existing employees. Students are also likely to suggest some of the following; air-conditioned work space, more employees (so workers work fewer hours),longer or more frequent breaks. Other students will consider more complicate solutions like job rotation. Still others might suggest the use of deferred compensation or profit sharing tokeep employees a full year (e. g. , $8. 50 per hour, $7. 50 now, one dollar per hour paid at year end to t he remaining employees). 2. Provide a detailed list of recommendations concerning how we should go aboutincreasing our pool of acceptable job applicants, so we no longer have to hire almostanyone who walks in the door. (Your recommendations regarding the latter shouldinclude completely worded advertisements and recommendations regarding any otherrecruiting strategies you would suggest we use. ) Ans: The students should review the section on external sources of candidates, and their responses should include advertising and the possible use of employment and/or temp agencies.