THE EXERCISE: DEVELOP, IMPLEMENT AND ASSESS AN EMPLOYEE SELECTION SYSTEM FOR A BANK TELLER POSITION
Part 1: Employee Selection and Assessment
For this exercise, assume you are employed as an HR consultant for a mid-sized bank. The bank employs 200 tellers across its branches. The following is a partial job description and specification for the bank teller position, based on information obtained from O*Net. O*Net, or the Occupational Information Network Resource Center, is an online database containing information on hundreds of standardized and occupationspecific descriptors.
Bank Teller Tasks/Duties/Responsibilities
- Cash checks for customers after verification of signatures and sufficient funds in the account.
- Receive checks and cash for deposit.
- Examine checks for endorsements and verify other information such as dates, bank names and identification.
- Enter customers' transactions into computers to record transactions.
- Count currency, coins and checks received to prepare them for deposit.
- Identify transaction mistakes when debits and credits do not balance.
- Balance currency, coins and checks in cash drawers at ends of shifts.
KSAOs
- Customer service skills.
- Basic math skills.
- Knowledge of verification requirements for checks.
- Ability to verify signatures and proper identification of customers.
- Ability to use accounting software.
- High school diploma required, associate's or bachelor's degree preferred.
- Previous work experience as a teller or related occupation (cashier, billing clerk) desired.
Key statistics (from O*Net):
- The median 2005 wage for tellers was $10.24 (hourly), $21,300 (annually).
- In 2014, there were approximately 558,000 tellers in the United States.
- Projected growth for this job is slower than average.
Based on this information, the bank decides that the ideal candidate for this position will possess the following factors:
1. Have at least a high school education (bachelor's or associate's degree desirable).
2. Have experience as a teller or in a related field (cashier, billing clerk).
3. Be able to perform basic math skills related to banking (for example, count currency quickly and accurately and balance a cash drawer correctly).
4. Beknowledgeable of verification requirements for bank transactions (for example, errors in checks and proper identification to authorize transactions).
5. Have good interpersonal skills (for example, speak clearly, make good eye contact and develop rapport easily).
6. Be motivated to work.
Employee Selection Exercise
[A] Choose the selection methods:
Identify which selection method (e.g., résumé, interview, test, role-play exercise, reference check or personality inventory) you would recommend for each of the six factors listed above. You can use the same selection method more than once if you believe it is appropriate for more than one factor. Below is an example of how you might justify using an application form as an appropriate selection method for education.
1. Education - selection method: Application form
Justification:A question on the application form can ask applicants to describe their education. This selection method makes it easy and inexpensive to obtain this information.
2. Work experience - selection method: _________________________________________ Justification:
2. Math skills - selection method: ______________________________________________
Justification:
3. Verification knowledge - selection method: ___________________________________
Justification:
4. Interpersonal skills - selection method: _______________________________________
Justification:
5. Work motivation - selection method: _________________________________________
Justification:
[B] Operationalize your assessments:
Now that you have identified selection methods for the six factors, you must decide how to score each of these assessments. Based on your responses in part A ("Choose the selection methods"), think about how each factor may be scored and develop a point system for that factor.
A common approach to performing this task is to have some type of numerical rating system that may include one or two minimum requirements. Your task is to develop a rubric (point system) to "score" applicants for each of the six factors. In developing your rubric, review the job description information. The "education" factor is provided for you below. Remember that tellers need to have a high school diploma, according to the job specification. Applicants who do not meet this requirement are rejected. College degrees are preferred and receive more points in the example below.
1. Education assessed via application form.
My assessment:
Points Highest Level of Education
10 Bachelor's level or higher
6 Associate's degree
3 High school diploma
Reject Less than high school diploma
2. Work experience assessed via _________________________________________________
My assessment:
3. Math skills assessed via _____________________________________________________
My assessment:
4. Verification knowledge assessed via ___________________________________________
My assessment:
5. Interpersonal skills assessed via_______________________________________________
My assessment:
6. Work motivation assessed via ________________________________________________
My assessment:
[C] Apply your assessment systems:
Listed below are applicants for the teller position.
Based on your answers in part B ("Operationalize your assessments"), score each of the applicants.
1. Which applicants scored best based on the scores you entered into the table?
2. What difficulties did you have applying your scoring system?
3. Based on this applicant data, would you make any changes to your rubrics? If yes, please describe.
Part 2: Selection Strategy
Now that you have created a system to assess applicants on the six key factors, you must decide how to process this information. Employee selection systems have multiple assessments, and organizations must decide how to integrate them.
One assessment strategy is compensatory and allows an applicant's strengths to compensate for weaknesses in another area. For example, a recent college graduate may score highly in the educational requirements for a job opening but score low in terms of work experience. A compensatory strategy will help the recent graduate's limited work experience be "compensated" by his or her high level of education.
A compensatory selection strategy may be unweighted or weighted. In an unweighted strategy, all of the factors have the same highest score possible and scores are simply added together. The applicant with the highest score is considered the best and offered the job. To apply this strategy to this exercise, convert all six factors to a possible high score of 100. For example, multiply each education score by 10 (highest score possible for education = 10, so 10 x 10 = 100). Then, add the scores for each applicant.
1. Who scored the highest?
2. Do you think this person is the best applicant? Why or why not?
3. Who scored the lowest?
You have just completed an unweighted compensatory approach to employee selection. The other option is a weighted compensatory approach. In this approach, one or two factors are identified as more important than the other factors and, hence, deserve more weight in deciding the best applicant. Additionally, one or two factors may be considered least important and would have less weight.
To try this out, answer the following questions:
1. Which of the six factors do you consider the most important in terms of selecting bank tellers? Defend your choice.
2. Based on your answer to the first question, double the points for the four applicants for this factor. Record the answers in the table below.
3. Of the remaining five factors, which two do you see as least important for selecting bank tellers? Defend these choices.
4. Based on your answer to question 3, divide the points in half for the four applicants for these two factors. Record the answers in the table below.
5. For the three factors not mentioned in questions 1 and 3, copy the scores from the previous table into the table below. Total the scores for the four applicants.
1. Who scored the highest?
2. Do you think this person is the best applicant? Why or why not?
3. Who scored the lowest?
4. When you compare your answers using the unweighted to the weighted approach, which approach do you think was better? Why?
The other selection strategy is called noncompensatory. Instead of adding the scores on all of the assessments, a noncompensatory strategy establishes cutoffs for each assessment. An applicant who fails to meet or exceed a cutoff is rejected from the selection process. The cutoff can be a passing score on a test/ inventory, a rating level (e.g., good) or a characteristic relevant to the job (e.g., valid driver's license). The job description is used as a guide to determine what the cutoff(s) should be.
For example, in terms of education for the teller position, the job specification indicates that a high school diploma is required, and so the cutoff is established at this level. The challenge occurs for factors that do not have clear guidance as to the cutoffs. If a requirement is not specified in the job description, then subject matter experts (people knowledgeable about the job-usually either long-term incumbents or supervisors) determine cutoffs based on their own experience with the job. They will also consider the expected qualifications of applicants when determining these cutoffs.
Based on your knowledge and experience with bank tellers, create a cutoff for each of the six factors in the table below.
Similar to the compensatory strategy, there are two options for a noncompensatory approach. One noncompensatory option is called a multiple cutoff approach. In this approach, cutoffs are applied for every factor for all applicants. Apply your cutoffs listed in the table above to the four applicants.
1. Which applicant(s) remains?
2. If no applicant met all of the cutoffs, would you rather lower the cutoffs or restart the recruiting process? Why?
3. If many applicants exceed the cutoffs, would you rather increase the cutoff levels, hire all remaining applicants (if possible) or take a compensatory approach for those that exceeded all of the cutoffs? Why?
Another noncompensatory method is called a multiple hurdle approach. In this approach, cutoffs are arranged sequentially. The first cutoff is applied to the entire applicant pool. Those applicants who fail to meet or exceed the cutoff are rejected. The remaining applicants are then subjected to the next cutoff, where more applicants will be rejected. This process reduces the applicant pool at each hurdle. At the final hurdle, only a select few will remain.
Organizations usually set cutoffs that are less costly and more objective as the initial hurdles. More subjective and often more time-consuming assessments are set at the end of the selection process. The multiple hurdle approach saves organizations money because not all of the applicants are assessed on all of the factors. This approach, however, can be time-consuming because each cutoff must be applied and then evaluated before moving to the next cutoff.
Reflect on your cutoffs and arrange them in the table below to establish your own multiple hurdle system.
Multiple hurdle system
1. At the end of hurdle 6, which applicant(s) remained?
2. What would you recommend if you had no remaining applicants or several applicants remaining?
3. Do you prefer this method over the multiple cutoff method? Why or why not?
Attachment:- selection.rar