Situation

Sales vice president Roscoe Lee slammed his fist down on the desk in his office, startling human resources manager Pat Tollford. "Sales District 5 has got to get control of their turnover," Roscoe exclaimed. "Why is the turnover rate among salespeople in that district running 20 percent annually when the company average is less than 3 percent per year?"

Roscoe and Pat work at the home office of Bass Brokers, Inc., a sales brokerage firm that represents lines of fishing equipment sold in a variety of retail outlets across the United States and Canada. Bass Brokers was started in 1990 by avid fisherman Pug Pike, who literally sold fishing lures out of the trunk of his car to mom-and-pop tackle shops in Louisiana and Mississippi. Bass Brokers now represents some of the top lines of lures and other fishing equipment supplies and has grown to a sales force of 60 spread across six sales districts in the United States and Canada. Each district is led by a district sales manager who reports directly to Roscoe.

The fact that one of Bass Brokers' sales districts is experiencing high turnover is quite troubling, as the firm prides itself on really understanding the selection criteria necessary to ensure that the salespeople it hires will have a high likelihood of success with the company. Among the core values of Bass Brokers are building customer relationships, fair and civil treatment of all employees, and involvement of all employees in the process of company planning and decision making. Bass Brokers salespeople are compensated by a combination of base salary and commission on products sold. Because the firm has such a positive culture and tries hard to use selection criteria that are a good match to the firm, turnover has never been a problemin fact, historically nearly all of the company's new salespeople have been hired to fill openings created in three ways: retirements, promotions, or salespeople leaving Bass Brokers on good terms to take a more lucrative sales position elsewhere. Over the past two years, District 5 has lost four salespeople, each of whom had left the company within a short time of being hired, and each of whom seemed to never really fit in well with the needs of Bass Brokers.

This history has led Roscoe and Pat to conclude that a problem exists with the selection criteria used in District 5. The district manager there, Jason Queen, is the newest district manager at Bass Brokers, having been promoted from a sales job in another district of the firm three years ago. The district has ten sales positions reporting to Jason. Six of these are long-term Bass Brokers salespeople who continue to do well and enjoy working for Jason. The other four were new people who have turned over during the past 24 months. In Jason's estimation, and Roscoe and Pat concur, these four individuals never really caught on to the Bass Brokers way of doing business.

Despite its success in the sales area, Bass Brokers has never formalized selection criteria for its salespeople. Nowhere in either the HR department or the sales department does any documentation of the specific personal characteristics and sales aptitude criteria for selecting salespeople exist. Because of the turnover problem in District 5, before any more new salespeople are hired, Roscoe and Pat must brainstorm and develop a list of these criteria.

Now that Roscoe Lee and Pat Tollford have agreed on the key selection criteria Bass Brokers, Inc., should use when selecting new salespeople, they have decided that they can further help the district sales managers, and especially District 5 sales manager Jason Queen, by developing some guidelines for recruiting sales position applicants and by developing a more formalized selection procedure for salespeople. As Bass Brokers' newest district manager, Jason is delighted that he will benefit from these new guidelines and procedures as he works to hire replacement salespeople and reduce his district's turnover. Roscoe and Pat have invited Jason into the home office to secure his input on these issues.

Characters in the Role-Pla

Roscoe Lee, vice president of sales for Bass Brokers, Inc.

Pat Tollford, human resource manager for Bass Brokers, Inc.

Jason Queen, District 5 sales manager for Bass Brokers, Inc.

Assignment

Come up with your recommendations for (1) a logical plan for recruiting Bass Brokers salespeople, especially focused on the rightsourcesof recruits, and (2) a selection process, especially focused on the rightselection tools and procedures. Justify your recommendations.