The Inandout Inc. Company provides warehousing and fulfillment services (order receiving and filling) to small publishers of books with small print runs (number of copies of a book printed). After the books are printed and bound at a printing facility, they are shipped to INandOut for handling. The books are initially received by handlers who unload them from the trucks, place them on pallets, and move them via forklifts and conveyors to their assigned storage space in the warehouse. The handlers also retrieve books and take them to the shipping area when orders are received. The shippers package the books, place them in cartons, and load them onto delivery trucks (to take to air or ground transportation providers). Book orders are taken by customer services representatives via printed, phone, or electronic (email, fax) forms. New accounts are generated by marketing representatives, who also service existing accounts. Order clerks handle all the internal paperwork. All these employees report to either the supervisor of operations or the supervisor of customer service, who in turn reports to the general manager.
The owner and president of INandOUT , Inc. Alta Fossom, is independently wealthy and delegates all day to day management matters to the general manager, Marvin Olson. Alta, requires however, that Marvin clear and new ideas or initiatives with her before taking action. The company is growing and changing rapidly, along with adding many new, and often larger, accounts. Publishers are demanding more services and faster order fulfillment. Information technology is constantly being upgraded, and new machinery (forklifts, computer assisted conveyor system) is being utilized. The workforce is growing in size to meet the business growth. There are now 37 employees, and Marvin expects to hire another 15-20 new employees within the next year.
Job descriptions for the company were originally written by a consultant about eight years ago. They have never been revised and are hopelessly outdated. The job of marketing representative does not even have a job description, because the job was created only five years ago. As general manager, Marvin is responsible for all HR management matters, but he has little time to devote to them. To get a better grip on HR responsibilities, Marvin has hired you as a part time hr intern. He has a gut feeling that the job descriptions need to be updated or, in some cases, created and has assigned the project to you. Since Marvin has to clear new projects with Alta, he wants you to prepare a brief proposal that he can take to her for approval and that suggests the following:
1. Reasons why it is important to update or write new job descriptions
2. An outline of a process for doing this that will yield a set of thorough, current job descriptions
3. A process to be used in the future for periodically reviewing and updating job descriptions
Marvin wants to meet with you and discuss each of these points. He wants the proposal to contain specific suggestions and ideas. What exactly would you suggest to Martin
Here is a copy of what i submitted to as homework:
1. Over the past 20 years the external environments that most companies operate in have changed dramatically. Factors causing these changes are increased foreign completion, changing market structures and greater work force diversity. These changes have forced the way that organizations have to operate their businesses as well. These organizational changes include significant redesigning of many jobs in the US or the countries they are based out of. Since the way that jobs are performed this causes the critical needs for organizations to invest time and resources to update their job descriptions. If a company does not do this, there could be negative effects on key HR functional activities which require good job descriptions as an input for their processes. Items that will need to change will be the recruitment, selection, compensation, performance appraisal and the training and development required to keep the organization modern. Organizations cannot afford to reduce the HR staff because of the functions they provide with the outdated job descriptions.
2.
JOB SUMMARY
Generate a requirement or description of what the job does or is responsible for. This involves collecting information about tasks, task dimensions, importance, and the nature and importance of KSAOs.
TASK AND PERFORMANCE DIMENSIONS
The sentence analysis technique could be used to develop a task statement. Individual task statements could be grouped together into clusters to for a task dimension matrix
Assess the relative importance of the various task
Use task to identify relevant KSAOs
Assess job context
Generate job requirements matrix
METHODS USED
Gather prior information on jobs from company records
Use task questionnaires such as the PAQ
Observe people working in their work areas
Perform interviews with job incumbents, supervisors, and job analysis experts
JOB SOURCES
Supervisors
Job analysis specialist
Job incumbents
Process information
a. Identify the purpose and scope of the job analysis process
b. Verify job descriptions with job incumbents and supervisors
3.
Maintaining job description systems so they stay current, they have to be designed and implemented and go through a formal process which will specify a regular and systematic evaluation of the job description system to determine whether the job descriptions are still appropriate or valid. Keeping a commitment to the idea of having an accurate job description system is critical for all people involved in and affected by the process.
Here is a copy of what textbook solution answer was: