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Recruitment and Selection in Canada 6th Edition Solution Manual

Recruitment and Selection in Canada 6th Edition Solution Manual simplifies textbook problem-solving by offering clear and effective solutions to every problem.

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    C ASE N OTES to accompany Prepared by Jeffrey J. McNally University of New Brunswick

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    C ase Notes – Recruitment and Selection in Canada, Sixth Edition Case Notes – 3 CHAPTER ONE: AN INTRODUCTION TO RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION Toyota 1. Is Toyota’s elaborate selection system justified? What are appropriate criteria for assessing its effectiveness? ANS: It is clear from its recruitment and selection process that Toyota values the talent management process. The company strives to find the “best possible people to hire” and has designed a rigorous recruitment and selection strategy to reflect this value. To determine if it is justified we must, from a human resources management perspective, evaluate the strategy’s outcomes. For example, once implemented, Toyota could evaluate the effectiveness of its staffing strategy using Step 5 of the “Elements of a Recruitment and Selection Action Plan,” as seen in Recruitment and Selection Notebook 1.1 . By determining what went right or wrong, reviewing the outcomes of the recruitment and selection processes, and reviewing the performance of the people it hired, Toyota could evaluate, shape , and change future iterations of its staffing action plan to best meet the talent management needs of the organization in the future. 2. Toyota received over 40 000 applications for 1200 positions. Is this an effective approach? What is the cost, particularly the human cost, associated with reviewing all of these applications? How do you reduce the number of applicants to a reasonable number that can be run through the selection system? ANS: Toyota’s selection ratio , or the number of applications to number of positions , (discussed more in Chapter 7), can be determined by div iding the number of positions (1, 200) by the number of applicants generated (40,000). The result for Toyota is .03, which is a very low selection ratio. Selection ratios close to zero could indicate that the recruitment process was successful in generating a large applicant pool. A lthough Toyota's recruitment strategy was successful, the cost to the organization (both in terms of time and money) to review the applications will be relatively high in terms of selecting the most qualified candidates. Some ways to reduce might be to statistically weight the value of some of the tests (e.g., work samples and motor skills tests), coordinate HR activities with other organizational units to highlight the importance of some of the required skills and to think in systems terms (see Figure 1.1, Example of a Human Resources System ) . 3. What are some of the cultural issues that might arise with a Japanese - managed auto plant located in Ontario? ANS: Some cultural issues that might arise for Toyota in Cambridge could relate to general cross - cultural differences between Japan and Canada. For example, as a collectivist culture, Japanese workers tend to place value on pursuing group goals at the expense of individual goals. Canada, as a more individualist culture, places value on both goals but tends to favour individual goals over group goals in terms of performance evaluations. There are also differences in unionization rates between the two countries, t hough both Canada and Japan value the involvement of HR in the negotiations process. It might also be demonstrated that some of the recruitment and selection tests, while being good at predicting performance in general, might screen out

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    C ase Notes – Recruitment and Selection in Canada, Sixth Edition Case Notes – 4 members of visible minorities at unacceptable rates, creating ethical dilemmas like those seen in Recruitment and Selection Today 1.4. 4. Provide examples of how technology might be used to facilitate and improve the recruitment and selection used by Toyota. ANS: There are a number of ways that modern technology can improve the recruitment and selection processes at Toyota. For example, software is available to digitally screen resumes by looking for keywords. Job posting and resume - matching services can be designed and offered online. As discussed more in Chapter 6, these and other tools can be used to improve the set of recruitment and selection best practices at Toyota. Organizations using “e - recruiting” techniques often report having access to larger applicant pools, lower recruiting costs, lower printing costs, and greater access and use of online “dashboard” reports for immediate tracking of results. 5. What criteria should Toyota use in selecting “team players”? ANS: The criteria for selecting team players should likely include personality testing and work samples. Personality testing can identify individual differences that are either supportive to teamwork (e.g., agreeableness) or not supportive of it (e.g., low emotional stability). Work samples can identify can provide “live” samples of individual and group problem solving. Both are tests currently offered by Toyota, so using these to determine teamwork skills would not add additional costs to the overall recruitment and selection strategy.

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    C ase Notes – Recruitment and Selection in Canada, Sixth Edition Case Notes – 5 CHAPTER TWO: FOUNDATIONS OF RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION I : RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY Emo tional Intelligence 1. What do you think? Do the data that you collected from the Queendom.com exercise help you to answer this question? Is there a relationship between job performance and EQ? Can you support your answer with any empirical data? How can the construct of EQ be improved? Is it too broad? Is EQ simply another aspect of personality? ANS: It is only possible for us to discern the relationship between IQ, EQ, and personality from our Queendom.com data. If these scores demonstrate low correlations with one another, as expected, then we can say with some assurance that the three measures are measuring different constructs (i.e., they have divergent validity). Further, if the test scores remain consistent over the two waves of data collection then we can also assert that our data is fairly reliable. However, because it is not clear that Queendom.com uses the Bar - on EQi, and because Queendom.com does not include a measure of performance, we cannot answer whether the Bar - On EQi scores are statistically related to performance scores. We also cannot really say if EQ is just another form of personality from the Bar - On EQi data, though the Queendom.com data might imply that the two are statistically unrelated. It is possible that personality and EQ share common variance though this would not necessarily indicate that the variables are empirically identical constructs. Current measures of EQ may be too broad to fully capture the content domain of the construct. Scales can be improved via scale validation strategies at both the construct and measurement levels (see Figure 2.2 ) . 2. If you planned to use EQ as part of your selection system, discuss the steps that you would take to ensure that you were able to make reliable and accurate inferences about job performance in your work situation. That is, what would you have to do to show that your measure was reliable and valid? ANS: There are a number of steps to take to ensure the reliability and validity of our chosen measure of EQ. As an HR manager, you should start by checking the existing reliability and validity data of your measure in the extant literature (these indices are sometimes easily obtained by conducting a literature review on the topic/construct at hand). In the absence of any such data, or if the data are unclear, you should ensure that factors impacting the potential reliability, including chance, lack of standardization, and temporary characteristics, are minimized at test time. In terms of ensuring validity, you may take strategies outlined in Figure 2.2 in the textbook and, for small samples, the steps outlined in Recruitment and Selection Notebook 2.1. To avoid range restriction, you should look at your validity coefficients to ensure that scores from subgroups are similar to those from the overall sample. To avoid measurement error, you should ensure the test is reliable over at least two points of data collection. To avoid sampling error, you should ensure the tests are taken by the appropriate samples (e.g., applicants and job incumbents) in as large a population as possible (estimates from small samples will likely be quite variable so corrections may need to be applied). You should also take steps to ensure that your test is perceived to be fair and unbiased by your employees, as described in Recruitment and Selection Notebook 2.2, because adverse reactions to tests can negatively impact, or attenuate, validity scores.

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    C ase Notes – Recruitment and Selection in Canada, Sixth Edition Case Notes – 6 CHAPTER THREE: FOUNDATIONS OF RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION II: LEGAL ISSUES Ms. Marita Smith 1. Should Smith have received a job offer? Why or why not? (In answering this and the following questions, base your arguments on the court cases presented in this chapter.) ANS: Ms. Smith should likely have been offered the job. This assertion can be justified with information from the court cases described in Chapter 3. For example, in Recruitment and Selection Today 3.3, The Ontario Human Rights Commission and Bruce Dunlop and Harold E. Hall and Vincent Gray v. The Borough of Etobicoke discusses the importance of supporting the existence of BFORs with concrete evidence. Though it states in the case that management argued that the testing standards were reasonably necessary for efficient performance, no evidence is presented to support this claim. Further, it is not clear that management accommodated Ms. Smith per the Central Alberta Dairy Pool v. Alberta decision, which requires organizations to accommodate individual employees to the point of undue hardship. 2. Was Smith the victim of discrimination because of her disability? ANS: It is reasonable to conclude th at Ms. Smith was the victim of discrimination. As a person with a disability, Ms. Smith is in a protected group according to Table 3.1: Prohibited Grounds of Employment Discrimination in Canadian Jurisdictions. Though her employer likely established its testing requirements in good faith, the tests resulted in an unintended negative impact on Ms. Smith. In the British Columbia v. British Columbia case outlined in Recruitment and Selection Today 3.3, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that discrimination applied in cases where reasonable accommodation is available. Although her employer provided her with an interpreter, the service did not meet Ms. Smith’s needs relating to her disability and, as a result, she should have likely have been offered equivalent tests that would accommodate her individual disability - related needs. As such, this case likely represents a case of adverse effect discrimination as described in the O’Malley v. Simpsons Sears case. 3. Did she receive appropriate accommodation? ANS: Ms. Smith did not receive appropriate accommodation by her employer. As mentioned above, in the Central Alberta Dairy Pool v. Alberta case, the Supreme Court ruled that employers must accommodate employees with disabilities to the point of undue hardship. Because the skills tests had an adverse impact on Ms. Smith, her employer was obligated to accommodate her to the point of undue hardship even if she was the only candidate with a disability applying for the job. Although an interpreter was provided, Ms. Smith felt that the service was subpar and impacted her ability to complete the skills tests. Further, there is no evidence from the case that the employer suffered anything near undue hardship by providing an interpreter service. 4. Are the employer’s standards defensible as a BFOR? ANS: The employer claims that three standards were required BFORs for the transcription job: typing; following instructions; and transcribing. Though these may well be BFORs, nothing was provided in the case to show that the employers had measured and established their importance,

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    C ase Notes – Recruitment and Selection in Canada, Sixth Edition Case Notes – 7 statistical or otherwise. This violates the Meiorin decision, as described in Recruitment and Selection Today 3.7. This decision states that policies that discriminate based on prohibited grounds are “questionable” and that the size of the affected group is irrelevant. The decision also placed a high onus on Canadian organizations to, in good faith, enact nondiscriminatory recruitment and selection policies and procedures. 5. Based on the material presented in this chapter, do you think the human rights commission will support her claim of discrimination? ANS: Yes, it is reasonable for us to believe that the human rights commission would support Ms. Smith’s claim of discrimination. Its decision would likely be based upon two main considerations, namely BFORs and accommodation. In terms of BFORs, despite the fact that they appear to have face validity, it is not clear that the tests were developed and/or established in accordance with the Meiorin decision. Further, the tests may not meet the of either the Andrews v. Treasury Board and Department of Transport or the Green v. Public Service Commission Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision as described in Recruitment and Selection Today 3.5. In terms of accommodating Ms. Smith’s disability, it is not clear that reasonable alternatives to the testing procedures were offered her to the point that would violate sufficient risk for the employer which is held as standard in undue hardship cases. Suggestions for initiating such a search can be found in Recruitment and Selection Notebook 3.4 and are guided by the British Columbia (Public Sector Employee Relations Comm.) v. BCGSEU Supreme Court decision. 6. If you were the employer’s legal counsel, how would you defend the employer at a human rights tribunal that is called to hear Smith’s complaint? What would you advise your client to do with respect to the charge? ANS: A legal defense for the employer would likely prove difficult, though not insurmountable. As the employer’s legal council we could suggest mounting a defense on the grounds that BFORs were considered prior to testing and provide any available evidence to support this claim. Also, with reference to the Alberta Dairy Pool decision, the employer might suggest that it only hires people with requires BFORs, such as typing skills, because they directly relate to performance. The employer could also claim that the BFORs/tests were selected in good faith and, per the Meiorin decision, they had reasonable alternatives to the tests that were offered and accepted by Ms. Smith.

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