Problem
Read the case below.
Saunders Uphholstery has been in business since 1975. The company started out hand upholstering the seats for luxury automakers. It built a reputation of excellence . In recent years however, many luxury auto makers have established 'in-house' upholstery shops, leading to reduction of business. The company's founder, Richard Saunders, anticipated these changes and actively sought contracts to upholster seats for the high -volume economy car market, using automated technology. Richard staffed the manufacturing line to oversee the operation of automated systems and trouble shoot problems that threatened to slow down the line.
Richard recognized that he needed help crafting job descriptions and job evaluation plans to help set pay rates. He hired Jan Costello following the completion of a master's degree in HR. Richard met Jan shortly after she began her first day of work. He reviewed priorities with Jan and Richard asked her to lead the job description and job evaluation projects. They agree to meet at the end of the week to discuss a plan for getting the work done.
Jan met with managers to understand current staffing and job structures. Also, she discussed anticipated staffing needs. Jan used the information that she gathered and what she learned about job descriptions and job evaluation in her degree program to develop a proposal for completing this project. She crafted proposals for two alternative methods for conducting job evaluation, including simple ranking and the point method. Altogether it would take 2 weeks to complete job evaluation with simple ranking and 2 months for the point method. Jan decided that the point method would provide the best information for creating internally consistent job structures. Jan submitted her plan to Richard in antioption of their upcoming meeting.
At the start of the meeting, Richard thanked Jan for her plan and for the detailed analysis and timeline. Although Jan recommended using the point method, Richard instructed her to conduct the job evaluation with the simple ranking approach. He also told Jan to conduct the rankings herself rather than involving multiple subject matter experts, indicating his desire to reduce the completion time from 2 weeks to 1 week.
A. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of ranking versus the point method of job evaluation?
B. What problems may occur by following Richard's approach?
C. Jan would like to ask Richard to consider using the point method. How would you recommend she approach that interaction?
References
Newman, J. M., & Gerhart, B. (2020). Compensation, thirteenth edition. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.