The Wentworth Corporation is a mid-sized manufacturing company located in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. In business for ten (10) years, it has become one of the area’s largest producers of Widgets. James Henderson and three (3) associates founded the company, which has slowly grown to employ 500 employees, primarily production workers, in its three (3) existing facilities. Henderson is the President and CEO of the corporation, and Mike Johnson is the newly appointed Manager of Human Resources. Wentworth has not employed a full-time HR manager in the past.
Henderson is currently in the final stages of securing a major new account. If awarded to Wentworth, it would be a major accomplishment for the firm. However, the additional business would require setting up a new production facility in the state of Wisconsin and hiring 275 additional employees. Mike Johnson has had little experience in creating large staffing initiatives, and both he and Henderson are unsure how to proceed.
Henderson and Johnson turn to HR Strategies, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in the functional areas of human resources. As a senior-level consultant in the staffing and recruitment division, you have been asked to head up the team designed to assist Wentworth in the development of a staffing initiative for the new facility. Your Stand-Alone Project responses should be both grammatically and mechanically correct and formatted in the same fashion as the project itself. If there is a Part A, your response should identify a Part A, etc. In addition, you must appropriately cite all resources used in your response and document them in a bibliography using APA style. (A 20-page, double-spaced, response is required.)
Part A: Wentworth Questions (30 points)
A meeting has been set for Henderson, Johnson, and you to outline the scope of the project. You have informed Wentworth that you wish to review their mission and vision statements, as well as their operating strategies. At the meeting, the Wentworth executives ask you to respond to the following questions in writing.
a. Why do you need information about their mission statement?
b. What do the company’s goals and objectives have to do with their immediate staffing issues?
Part B: Planning (30 points)
You have successfully responded to Wentworth’s questions, and they have supplied you with all of the information you need to evaluate their mission, goals, and objectives. You must now initiate the planning phase of the project. This phase involves forecasting the company’s future employment needs at the new facility and developing action plans to fulfill those needs. For the planning phase of the project, you will need to respond to the following questions.
a. To what degree will external influences, such as economic conditions, labor markets, and labor unions impact the staffing project?
b. Should Wentworth use a plan-based human resource plan (HRP)? If so, why?
c. Explain some of the approaches Wentworth could use when developing staffing models.
d. Discuss the techniques Wentworth could use to forecast the availability of talent needed for the new facility.
Part C: Job Analysis (40 points)
Having completed the planning phase of the project, you now begin the Job Analysis to determine the specific types of personnel needed for the new facility. In order to successfully complete this phase of the project, you must address the following questions.
a. Discuss the different methods that can be used to conduct a job analysis.
b. Discuss at least 3 (three) specific ways to collect data on tasks, KSAOs, and job context.
Part D: Recruitment Process (40 points)
As the consultant for the Wentworth project, you have now completed your job analysis and know the types of jobs required to staff the Wisconsin manufacturing plant. The next step is to determine whether to use an internal or an external recruitment process to identify and attract job applicants to the new plant. In either case, there will be organizational, administrative, and strategic decisions to be made. As you begin the recruitment phase of the project, you must respond to the following questions.
a. Should Wentworth use an external or an internal recruitment initiative? Why?
b. Based on your answer to the first question, describe the following.
a. Describe the major organizational and administrative decisions to be made including recruitment efforts, requisitions, contact development, budget, and developing a recruitment guide.
b. Describe the strategic policy to be followed to implement the initiative; include the concept of targeted strategy, possible targeted sources, and your opinion on the best solution for implementation.
c. Describe the communication methods to be used in attracting applicants to these jobs; include the message choice and medium in your discussion.
Part E: Selection Plan (40 points)
As we enter the final stages of this project, we have the results of our recruitment efforts and must now help Wentworth make the final hiring decisions for the new facility. The selection process involves the use of various assessment methods to evaluate the quality of our applicant pool. Consider and respond to the following questions.
a. Discuss a selection plan for making the final hiring decisions to include the progression of an applicant to a candidate, to finalist, to job offer?
b. Discuss initial applicant data collection (biodata inventories), reference checks, the initial interview, and testing for Wentworth.
c. Discuss three (3) methods of final choice to be used in making the final hiring decisions and indicate the method you would use and why. Discuss who the decision makers should be within the Wentworth organization.
