Developing a unified selection and hiring process for Johnson Enterprises

¶ … hired human resource manager Johnson Enterprises, a growing company United States.Due growth lack unified selection hiring process, positions Johnson enterprises job descriptions, requirements. performance measures.

Job analysis at Johnson Enterprises

As Johnson Enterprises continues its business ascension, it has to pay increased attention to align its human resource management model to the new needs of the expanding business. One particular area of focus in this sense is represented by the need to create job analyses and align them across different jobs and departments.

In a generic context, a job analysis is understood as a process by which the specifics of a particular job are identified. Emphasis is placed on elements such as the responsibilities assigned to the job or the requirements from the occupant of the position. The result of a job analysis is represented by the job description and the job specification (Management Study Guide) and the benefit of it is that it can be used in virtually all HRM activities, such as recruitment, selection training, integration, compensation, performance appraisal, or even legal defense (Service Canada).

The job analysis is not only a business necessity, but also a legal aspect of the business. Unless the company is able to construct this analysis, it can be liable in court. Such an example is represented by Griggs v. Duke Power, where the court found that it was necessary to differentiate between job and employee, adequately implement selection and measure job performance based on job analysis (Job Analysis). From a legal standpoint, the following implications are revealed:

The job analysis should be provided in written format

The job analysis has to be performed and adequate for the job for which selection measures would be used

The job analysis should include the tasks, duties and activities of the assessed job

The data to be integrated in the job analysis should be collected by knowledgeable individuals and from reliable sources

The selection device should reveal the most important tasks of the job, and last

The entry-levels competency levels for the assessed position should also be specified (University of St. Francis).

All in all, the human resource employment and management process at Johnson Enterprises has to become better integrated and more transparent. The jobs have to be analyzed and the analyses have to constitute the bases for selection. In such a setting, the job selection effort has to be one based on business specific criteria. In other words, it has to be impartial to individuals and focus on skills and performance related criteria. The job selection process then will not be a discriminative one and will not generate decisions based on race, gender, religious appurtenance and so on.

This measure is enforced with the aid of the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures of 1978.

"The Uniform Guidelines provide standards for the proper use of employment testing, including the definition of discrimination in testing, appropriate means of validating selection procedures which may be discriminatory, acceptable methods of establishing and implementing cutoff scores (or pass points) on selection procedures, and the documentation of validity for selection procedures. The Uniform Guidelines pertain to any and all selection procedures which are used as the basis for any employment decision, including hiring, promotion, demotion, referral, retention, licensing and certification, training, and transfer" (Society for Human Resource Management).

The uniform guidelines as such represent elements of orientation in implementing HRM policies within the organizational context. They are not, in themselves, laws, but they are used in legal contexts as valuable and established references of practice. In such a setting, Johnson Enterprises should respect them in dealing with its staff members.

Last, the final issue to be addressed at this stage is represented by the need to establish a performance standard for a job, as well as its implications on performance management. The performance standard for a job is also another transparent mechanism of communicating to an employee what are the expected performances while occupying a certain position. The performance standards are based on the position, they are observable and meaningful, and define the job and the results in terms of quality, quantity, cost, safety, outcomes or time consumed (Indiana University).

The implementation of performance standards is as such necessary as it generates a series of advantages to performance management, such as the following:

Better communications between employee and employer

Better communicated expectations

Employers have specific sets of guidelines by which to assess the performances of the employees