4: Measurement and Validation (Human Resource Class) - Case Study Example

Assignment Byline Tanglewood Memo Marilyn Anchley and Donald Penchiala CC: Tanglewood managers 5/28 Re: Hiring Selection Plan Results Question 1 According to table 3.1 which provided data from the stores not employing the proposed method of selection, the education aspect does not share a correlation with citizenship. The text defines citizenship as “how well employees perform well as team members, cooperate with store policies, and generally set a positive tone for the workplace”( Kammeyer-Mueller, 2009) The p value for this data is .

26 which is greater than .05; therefore, the data must be thrown out as the correlation is not reliable. This would indicate that how educated a person is has little to do with the citizenship to the store. Education and absence are also not correlated due to the p vale of .26 being greater than.05. This would indicate that how often a person shows up to work has little or nothing to do with education. Performance and promotion potential have a strong correlation to education; however, as the p value is less than .05. This would indicate that how well a person performs and whether or not they will be promoted is impacted by a person’s education.

Work experience at the stores who did not employ the proposed method of selection, across the board, did correlate strongly to citizenship, absence, performance, and promotion potential. The p value for each of these categories in work experience was less than .05. This indicates that a person with more work experience is going to rank high in citizenship, have relatively few absences, have a high level of work performance, and is likely to be promoted. The interview score correlated to citizenship, absences, and promotion potential with p scores all below .05. However, it did not correlate to performance as the p score was greater than .05. This would suggest that if a person receives a high interview score, they are likely to be strong in citizenship, have a low rate of absences, and are likely to be promoted.

However, a high interview score at these stores does not necessarily mean that the person will rank high in their overall performance. For table 3.2 which measured data from stores that did employ a selection method, it was found that education did not correlate to citizenship and absences, but did correlate to performance and promotion potential. The p scores for the former were greater than .05 and the p score for the latter two categories were less than .05. This indicates that education at these stores does not necessarily impact the citizenship or absences of an employee, but likely will impact performance and promotions.

Across the board, work experience, bio data, conscientiousness, and extraversion all strongly correlated to the citizenship, absences, performance, and promotion potential due to the fact that the p values all were less than .05. Therefore, all of these areas are impacted by the work experience, bio data, extraversion and conscientiousness of an employee in either a positive or negative way. The interview score had a strong correlation to performance and citizenship with a p score that is greater than .05. However, absences and promotion potential are not correlated and are likely to not be impacted by a high or low interview score.

Retail knowledge only correlated to an employee’s citizenship, but not to absences, performance, or promotion potential. The p score is greater than .05 for these three and greater than .05 for the first category. This indicated that overall retail knowledge has very little impact on anything except for the citizenship aspect. Finally, the application exam has p scores below .05 in performance and promotion potential meaning that how a person does on their application exam will directly reflect in their performance and promotion potential.

However, the application exam has p scores of above .05 in citizenship and absences meaning that there is little or no correlation between the two and there is little impact on each other. In looking at the overall results, it is fair to suggest that work experience is the best predictor of citizenship, absences, performance, and promotion potential as the p score was less than .05 for both the stores that did not use the selection method and the stores that did. Question 2 According to the text retail knowledge measures “basic knowledge of marketing principles, while others address the factors that separate Tanglewood from other competitors in the industry”( Kammeyer-Mueller, 2009).

The results of this selection method does not appear to be very valid or helpful as absences, performance, and promotion potential does not correlate to a person’s retail knowledge. The only aspect that may be determined from a retail knowledge exam is the citizenship. Therefore, this method does not appear to be valid overall for the selection process. If the exam expanded to include more specific information that is relevant to a store associate job, perhaps it would be more valid. The Mansfield Biodata Questionnaire and Essay “measures significant life experiences that are potentially associated with performance at work”( Kammeyer-Mueller, 2009).

This appears to be a valid selection method due to the fact that there is a strong correlation between the score on the Biodata Questionnaire and citizenship, absences, performance, and promotion potential. Due to this correlation, this method should continue to be used and perhaps expanded upon in order to further improve and hone what the test can measure. The Marshfield Applicant exam measures “problem solving abilities, fluency with numerical processes, and work comprehension”( Kammeyer-Mueller, 2009).

This method appears to be a valid predictor for performance and promotion potential, but not for absences and citizenship. Therefore the exam needs to add retail knowledge and perhaps some personality questions to the exam in order to make this method more valid. The personality exam measures an employee’s conscientiousness and extraversion which are important qualities in a customer service job such as the job associates at Tanglewood. Both of these personality aspects directly correlate to the four main categories which means that the personality exam is a valid selection method.

Perhaps other personality aspects could be added to the test in order to weed out applicant further. Question 3 If Tanglewood wants to find good candidates for their store associate jobs, they should consider using the employees work experience, biodate results, and personality exam results as a primary means of selection. These are the only areas that had a complete correlation to the citizenship, absences, performance, and promotion potential. This indicates that these three methods are good predictors of how well or poorly an employee will do in these areas.

Question 4 Based on the information provided, it would seem like a safe bet that the validation procedure would be easily able to generalize to other Tanglewood stores. This is due to the fact that the data that the methods measure has little to do with culture or geography. It all boils down to the basic core of an employee, so it can be virtually used at any location in order to predict these job aspects. The traditional method is fairly simple in comparison to the experimental method. The experimental method is much more in depth with the personality and bio data exams.

Having more data available is typically a good thing in selecting an employee because it will illustrate particular strengths and weaknesses whereas a traditional method will not be able to delve in much deeper than work experience, interview, and education. It would seem; therefore, that the experimental method would be more accurate due to its thorough approach. The data for the common areas such as work experience, education, and interview scores were fairly similar which indicates that this data is collected in a similar way and are likely equally accurate in that respect.

References Heneman , H.G., Judge, T.A., & Kammeyer-Mueller, J. (2009). Tanglewood casebook [pp 38-47]. Retrieved from http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073530271/student_view0/tanglewood_casebook.html