Please help with the following scenario and answer questions: Here is a copy of
ID: 463394 • Letter: P
Question
Please help with the following scenario and answer questions:
Here is a copy of what the textbook solutions are. Please help in reanswering the questions with own words or ideas
Thank you for your help
Application #1 : Recruitment in a Changing Internal Labor Market Mitchell Shipping Lines is a distributor of goods on the Great Lakes in the United States. Not only does it distribute goods but it also manufactures shipping containers used to store the goods while in transit The name of the subsidiary that manufactures those containers is Mitchell- Cole Manufacturing, and the president and CEO is Zoe Brausch. Brausch is in the middle of converting the manufacturing system from an assembly line to autonomous work teams. Each team will be responsible for producing a separate type of container, and each team will have different tools, machinery, and manufacturing routines for its particular type of container. Members of each team will have the job title "assembler," and each team will be headed by a permanent leader." Brausch would like all leaders to come from the ranks of current employees, in terms of both the initial set of leaders and the leaders in the future as vacancies arise. In addition, she wants employee movement across teams to be discouraged in order to build team identity and cohesion. The current internal labor market, however, presents a formidable potential obstacle to her internal staffing goals.Explanation / Answer
1. It appears from the case that seniority as an eligibility criterion for internal job postings is creating hindrance in company’s growth. Giving two-year-plus employee priority over employees possessing the KSAOs that are required for a particular job is anyways not practical in the long run. If seniority is given preference on the job KSAO’s required, then in the long term, the company will lose the efficiency it needs for sustain itself, employees will focus only on the tenure they are serving within the company, rather than building new skill sets to seek growth in their careers.
If the company eliminates the seniority preference clause from their policy right away, they will risk of employees unrest. Hence, they could make seniority and KSAOs both as the eligibility standards for their job postings, with giving KSAO’s more emphasis, but not eliminating seniority preference altogether. Hence, in the current situation, employee that possesses more KSAOs linked to the leadership position will be given preference for hiring, but in case two employees have the similar KSAOs, then preference will be given to the applicant with higher seniority. This way the employees will focus on increasing both their tenure in the organization and their KSAOs.
2. I don’t believe the job posting system should be eliminated. It is a very good toll to fill the posts internally; this increases the employee motivation and decreases the company’s hiring and retention costs. Job posting system in the company can be tweaked a bit, with emphasis being increased on the required KSAOs for the posted job, but overall the job posting system should be retained.
3. promotion from within is good strategically for the company as it increases the employee morale and motivates them to perform harder and increases their retention, along with decreasing the hiring costs. But strictly sticking to the internal staff for promotions is not feasible in the long run. Many a times internally an employee with the required level of KSAOs might not be available, if available then freeing that employee from her current position might not be feasible at the time, or the company need a new set of eyes to revitalize its operations. In any such case, external hiring seems fit. Though the ‘promotion from within’ policy should be given priority over external hiring, but it should surely not be the only way to recruit talent in the company. Though external employee’s induction and acceptance within the company will be tough, but open communication to the employees, citing the honest reasons for external hiring, after internal hiring efforts failed, will help the company to retain the trust of its current employees.
4. To maintain the team’s cohesion and team identity, lateral career mobility paths can be developed only for the team leaders, i.e. team leaders after a fixed tenure, can be moved to head another team. This way the team’s cohesion and identity will not be hampered, but the team leader will gain new skill set, more experience in handling different kind of teams, also knowledge about the assembly of different container types the company manufactures. This way when a leader has gained knowledge about all or most of the container types, company can consider the leader for a higher managerial position, as she possesses the technical knowledge and managerial and leadership ability. Hence lateral career mobility of the team leaders will be beneficial and will have a lower compact on the team’s identity and cohesion rather than the impact id the team members are switched.
Also, when the team members’ posses the KSAOs required for the leadership position they should be given the option of vertical mobility by giving her the leadership position in the same team, hence the team’s cohesion and identity won’t be disturbed.
5. To communicate change in the internal labour market in the organization, while ensuring minimal employee resistance, the failures of the systems should be communicated to the employees through formal communication and especially through grapevine. The employee trust on the system’s success needs to be shattered in the employee’s perspective. The current situation of the company following the blue book is going bad for the company, and what negative effects it will have on the employees in the long run should be communicated to the employees for some time. Once the employees start feeling the need to change the system, then they should be asked for their views on the new system, or the changes they suggest that can improve the falling apart system. Their ideas should be considered, and the ideas that are implemented from those should be communicated, and the employees who have given the implemented ideas should be rewarded in front of all the employees. Then gradually a new system should be implemented, with constant communication to the employees, about how the new system is eradicating the follies in the old one, and how the new system is beneficial for the company, and the employee in the long run.