Chapter 7 Staffing McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Questions This Chapter Will Help Managers Answer In what ways do business strategy and organizational culture affect staffing decisions? What screening and selection methods are available, and which ones are most accurate? What should be done to improve pre-employment interviews? Can work-sample tests improve staffing decisions? What are some advantages and potential problems to consider in using assessment centers to select managers?

Figure 7-1 The Relationship Between the Development Stage of an Organization and the Management Selection Strategy That Best Fits Each Stage EmbryonicHigh-Growth Mature Aging Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurs for growth, but growth directors to build stable mgt. systems Bureaucrats who are comfortable with repetition, and who can develop eco of scale Entrepreneurs who will cut, reorganize, survive Dev. stage of organization Management selection strategy

Culture … is the pattern of basic assumptions a given group has invented, discovered, or developed in learning to adapt both to its external and internal environments.

How is Culture Embedded and Transmitted?  Formal statements of organizational philosophy and materials used for recruitment, selection, and socialization of new employees  Promotion criteria  Stories, legends, and myths about key people and events  What leaders pay attention to, measure, and control  Implicit and possibly unconscious criteria that leaders use to determine who fits key slots in the organization

Types of Selection Errors Selecting someone who should be rejected – erroneous acceptance Rejecting someone who should be accepted – erroneous rejection

Reliability of Measurements A measurement is considered to be reliable if it is consistent or stable …  Over time  Across different samples of items  Across different raters or judges working independently

Validity … refers to the job-relatedness of a measure – shown, for example, by assessing the strength of the relationship between scores from the measure and some indicator or rating of actual job performance.

Interview Question Guidelines Which Questions to Delete?  Any question that might lead to an adverse impact on the employment of members of groups protected under civil rights law  Any question that cannot be demonstrated to be job-related or that does not concern a bona-fide occupational qualification  Any question that could possibly constitute an invasion of privacy

Recommendations and Reference Checks They can provide four kinds of information about a job applicant Education and employment history Character and interpersonal competence Ability to perform jobs Willingness of the past or current employer to rehire the applicant

Meaningful Recommendations or References The person providing it  Has had an adequate opportunity to observe the applicant in job-relevant situations  Is competent to evaluate the applicant’s job performance  Can express such an evaluation in a way that is meaningful to the prospective employer  Is completely candid

Negligent Hiring Employers can be held liable for negligent hiring if they fail to check closely enough on a prospective employee who then commits a crime in the course of performing his or her job duties

Negligent Hiring (contd.) When courts receive negligent hiring claims they consider …  Would the risk have been discovered through a thorough background check?  Did the nature of the job cause greater risk?  Did the employer have a greater responsibility to conduct a thorough background investigation because of the nature of the job?  Was the action intentional?

Tests and Inventories Tests are standardized measures of behavior (e.g., math, vocabulary) that have right and wrong answers Inventories are standardized measures of behavior (e.g., interests, attitudes, opinions) that do not have right and wrong answers

Table 7-1 Average Validities of Alternative Predictors of Job Performance (selected items) MeasureValidity General mental ability test Work sample test Integrity tests Conscientiousness tests Employment interviews (structured) Employment interviews (unstructured) Job knowledge tests Job tryout procedure Peer ratings Job experience (years)

Personality Characteristics “The Big Five” Neuroticism Extraversion Openness to experience Agreeableness Conscientiousness

Key Aspects of Leadership Behavior Consideration Reflects management actions oriented toward developing mutual trust, respect for subordinates’ ideas, and consideration of their feelings Initiating Structure Reflects the extent to which an individual defines and structures his or her role and those of his or her subordinates toward accomplishing tasks

Contrast Effects … describe a tendency among interviewers to evaluate a current candidate’s interview performance relative to those that immediately preceded it.

Table 7-2 Some Examples of Proper and Improper Questions in Employment Interviews (selected items) IssueProperImproper Criminal historyHave you ever been convicted of a violation of a law? Have you ever been arrested? Marital statusNoneAre you married? What does your spouse do for a living? National originNoneWhere were you born? Where were your parents born? Sexual orientationNoneWhom do you live with? Do you ever intend to marry?

Peer Assessment Types A general term denoting three basic methods that members of a well- defined group use in judging each other’s performance  Peer nomination requires each group member to designate a certain number of group members as highest or lowest on a performance dimension  Peer rating requires each group member to rate the performance of every group member  Peer ranking requires each group member to rank the performance of all other members from best to worst

Work-Sample or Situational Tests … are standardized measures of behavior whose primary objective is to assess the ability to do rather than the ability to know.

Popular Situational Tests 1.Leaderless Group Discussion (LGD) 2.In-Basket Test 3.The Situational Judgment Test (SJT)

Considerations in Determining Predictors to be Used in the Staffing Process  The nature of the job  An estimate of the validity of the predictor  The selection ratio  The cost of the predictor

Key Terms Discussed in This Chapter Organizational culture Reliability Validity Weighted application blanks Negligent hiring Tests Inventories Shrinkage Integrity tests Validity generalization Personality Neuroticism Extraversion Openness to experience Agreeableness Conscientiousness Projective measures Consideration

Key Terms (contd.) Initiating structure Contrast effects Peer assessment Peer nomination Peer rating Peer ranking Work-sample tests Assessment center Selection ratio