PS451 Unit 5 Placement and Reactions Paper Example

Three Tracks and a Ride-Along: A PS451 Unit 5 Placement and Applicant Reactions Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS451: Selection and Assessment in Organizations

Unit 5 Placement and Applicant Reactions Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the tree care company, the applicants and every figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

The Problem With One Door

Until this year, every entry-level hire at our Chattanooga company started as a ground worker, whatever they had applied for or could do. Some wanted to learn to climb, some wanted to run the crane or bucket trucks someday, and some just needed a job. All of them dragged brush in the heat for months before anyone asked what they were aiming for. Of the thirty-one ground workers hired last year, seventeen left within ninety days. In exit calls, the most common reasons were that the job was harder, hotter and dirtier than expected, and that they saw no path to the work they had hoped to do.

Placement and Classification

Selection asks whether to hire someone. Placement and classification ask where to put the people who are hired. With several jobs and several people, assigning each person to the job where their abilities and interests fit best can raise performance and retention beyond what hiring decisions alone achieve. For us, that meant recognizing three entry tracks instead of one.

The climber trainee track is for applicants who pass the movement stations of the physical assessment, show interest in climbing and do well on the hazard questions in the interview. They spend their first six months as ground workers on a climbing crew, with weekly training on the yard tree. The rigging and ground track is for applicants who score well on the mechanical reasoning test and prefer staying on the ground. They train on lowering systems and the chipper and can later become crew leads. The equipment track is for applicants with a commercial driver's license or equipment experience; they start as ground workers on a bucket crew and train toward operating.

Applicants rank the tracks they want, and we place them using both their preferences and their assessment results. When results and preference conflict, a manager explains the decision and what the applicant could do to qualify for their first choice later.

How Applicants React to Selection

The way applicants experience a hiring process affects whether they accept, how they talk about the company and possibly how they perform. Hausknecht et al. (2004) brought together eighty-six samples and close to 49,000 applicants. Applicants who saw the selection process positively viewed the organization more favorably and were more likely to accept an offer and recommend the employer. The strongest predictors of positive perceptions were whether a procedure looked related to the job and whether applicants believed it would predict performance. Candidates liked interviews and hands-on job tasks best, gave ability tests a middling verdict and liked personality inventories, honesty tests and biographical questionnaires least.

That pattern matched what our applicants said. In a short survey after the hiring process, applicants rated the yard tree work sample and the structured interview as fair and job related. The safety-orientation personality scale we had piloted was the lowest rated; several applicants wrote that they did not see what questions about tidiness had to do with tree work. That reaction was one reason we dropped the scale as a screen.

Applicants judged each step by one question: does this look like the job?

The Realistic Job Preview

The exit calls told us people were surprised by the job, so we designed a realistic job preview. Before an offer, every entry-level applicant now spends a paid half day riding along with a ground crew. They watch a removal, help drag brush for an hour, see the chipper and the drop zone rules in practice and eat lunch with the crew. A foreman and a ground worker with at least a year on the job talk frankly about the bad parts: August heat, poison ivy, yellow jackets in a hollow limb, storm call-outs at two in the morning and the months before anyone climbs. They also talk about the good parts: working outside, the crew's humor, the pride of a clean removal over a house and the pay raise that comes with each certification.

Phillips (1998) pooled the preview studies and found effects that were small but pointed the right way on almost every outcome: fewer candidates dropping out partway through hiring, fewer hires quitting later and slightly better job performance. Effects varied with how and when the preview was delivered.

Earnest et al. (2011) asked why previews reduce turnover. Their meta-analytic path analysis of fifty-two studies and about seventeen thousand people found that the main mechanism was that previews make the organization seem more honest. Previews did lower inflated expectations, but the sense of being told the truth mattered more. They also found that oral or written previews delivered after hiring were among the most effective designs.

That finding led us to add a second, post-hire preview. In their first week, new hires meet with the track lead, who talks plainly about the hardest month most new hires go through and what usually helps.

What Happened

Over the first six months, forty-four applicants went on ride-alongs. Nine decided against the job after the ride-along, which cost us a half day's pay each but saved us training them. Of the thirty-one hired, eight left within ninety days, compared with seventeen of thirty-one the year before. Ten were placed in the climber trainee track, fourteen in rigging and ground and seven in equipment. Six of the eight early quits came from the rigging and ground track, which suggests that track still needs a clearer path forward.

Limits

Several things changed at once, including the new interview and the structured tracks, so I cannot attribute the drop in early turnover to the preview alone. The applicants who withdrew after a ride-along may have been the ones most likely to quit, so part of the improvement is better self-selection rather than better retention. That is still a useful outcome.

Next Steps

For the rigging and ground track, we are adding a visible step: certification on the lowering system at sixty days, with a raise. We will also ask everyone who quits within ninety days whether the preview matched what they found, since Earnest and colleagues suggest the honesty signal only works if the preview really is honest.

Conclusion

Putting every new hire on the ground with no path forward cost the company more than half its new ground workers. Placement into three tracks, based on assessments and preferences, gives people a reason to stay. Hausknecht and colleagues show why applicants trust job-related procedures, Phillips shows the modest but real value of previews, and Earnest and colleagues explain that honesty is what previews deliver. Early quits fell from seventeen to eight.

References

Earnest, D. R., Allen, D. G., & Landis, R. S. (2011). Mechanisms linking realistic job previews with turnover: A meta-analytic path analysis. Personnel Psychology, 64(4), 865-897. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2011.01230.x

Hausknecht, J. P., Day, D. V., & Thomas, S. C. (2004). Applicant reactions to selection procedures: An updated model and meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 57(3), 639-683. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2004.00003.x

Phillips, J. M. (1998). Effects of realistic job previews on multiple organizational outcomes: A meta-analysis. Academy of Management Journal, 41(6), 673-690. https://doi.org/10.2307/256964