Job Simulation Exercise

This word document should be completed along with the html file found in the course content section of the course. All answers should be recorded in this word document. Answers will be graded with a clear and complete discussion of the issues being discussed and references to course material where appropriate.

Overview

In this simulation, you will experience what it is like as an HR Professional to develop, modify a job evaluation system, evaluate jobs, weight subfactors and band the results. It is recommended that you read Long, Chapters 7 & 8 and complete Module 3 to gain a full perspective of the various considerations and processes that go into effective job evaluation.

Simulation company

ABC Co. is a mid-sized importer and distributor of furniture made in India. They have 100 employees globally with a head office in Milton, Ontario. The Company is led by Gwen Madpuri who started the business after many years in the furniture industry in India. Their goal is to provide Canada with access to beautiful furnishings and style of India, and in the area of Indian-style furniture, they are the market leaders.
The Milton facility holds a 150,000 square foot warehouse and distribution centre, the leadership team, marketing and sales, along with an order call centre. They have a purchasing and logistics team in Mumbai. They have well trained staff and a sophisticated ERP program designed to ensure efficient movement of product from sourcing to delivery.

There are two sides to the business - wholesale distribution and consumer-direct. The wholesale distribution business is serviced by a sales team that works with major and small retailers in the sourcing and sale of specific lines of Indian furniture. This side of the business is sophisticated and involves large orders of specific pieces according to agreed contracts. In this business, ABC Co's value proposition is its knowledge of the manufactures, ability to import efficiently and distribution practices. The consumer-direct was created in the past few years. They carry a specific line of products which purchase by the season and sell on-line. They have a fantastic marketing and web-design team and have success driving the consumer market to their website for sale.

In creating a job evaluation system, they need subfactors that will capture the content of their jobs and need to value them in a way that reflects the skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions needed to complete the work. As the HR Director at ABC, you are responsible for leading this project.

Step 1: Job Evaluation System Design

You are provided with some options in developing your job evaluation system. Read the profiles of the following 17 subfactors and choose between 8 and 12 that you feel are appropriate to ABC's environment. When choosing, you will want to review the description above. Keep in mind that you must choose at least one subfactor in each of the categories of skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions.

Tip

Be careful not to double count, which occurs when you choose subfactors that give value to the same element of work twice. For example, when you evaluate Communication skills under "Communication Skills/Contacts", make sure don't also value these skills under "Responsibility for Supervision / Human Resources".

Once you click on a subfactor in html you will be prompted to provide a rationale for each of the sub-factors. See the following page for a template to complete the rationale. Be sure to clearly explain your rationale, integrate content from the course

Review Your Subfactors and Rationale

Review your subfactors in html you have chosen for your job comparison system (copy them below).

Provide a rationale and link to course material where appropriate. Be sure to clearly explain your rationale and integration of knowledge from the course.

Note the subfactors you choose in step 1 will carry over to steps 2 and 3

The next few pages in the html file will provide further insight into the subfactors that you have chosen.
For example
Dexterity (SD)
Education and Knowledge (SEJ)
etc.

Carefully read the
• definition
• sample questions,
• various levels for each of the factors and
• other material in each of the pages that follow

Step 2: Evaluate the Jobs

Your next step is to evaluate jobs using system you just created. The expectation is that you will complete evaluations for the 14 jobs as part of the simulation. These jobs include:

Accounting Clerk Credit Representative Sales Manager

Account Manager Customer Service Representative Warehouse Supervisor

Business System Analyst Customs Clerk Warehouse Picker

Buyer Help Desk Analyst Web Developer

Controller Marketing Manager

For this simulation, you will need to evaluate each job separately (see html file). Please use the table below to complete your evaluation results

Step 3: Weight the factors

The next step involves weighting the subfactors from step 1. You need to weight the subfactors according to their relative importance to the organization. In this exercise you need to weight jobs using a scale of 1000 points.

Use the following to rate the subfactors from step 1 - see next page to enter results

To step 4

Step 4: Band the Results

Your final step is to band the results into levels. This is achieved by determining your starting point and applying equal points. When you are finished, you should have between 2 and 10 levels and jobs of similar or comparable value should be in the same level. Please use the table below in your calculations. There are additional descriptions of the process outlined in the text. Examples are also highlighted in the discussion thread under banding the results.

Final Assessment

What did you learn from this Simulation? - provide up to a one - half page response.

How will you use the Simulation in your role as an HR Professional? - provide up to a one-half page response.