Recruiting and Selecting Low-Level Workers among seniors

Jackson Hotels, described previously in Case 35, also has a challenge in recruiting and selecting lower-level employees in their resort hotels for such jobs as desk clerk, night manager, reservations, maid service, food service, and maintenance. In many cases, the labor pool of qualified candidates found in larger cities is simply not available or adequate in or near resort communities.

Shirely Gomez, vice president for human resources, has determined that senior citizens might be the best recruitment option for Jackson Hotels given the high-income customers the hotel chain seeks to serve. Her rationale is they have a vast amount of experience, lower accident rates, lower absentee rates, and higher job satisfaction scores than younger workers. As a result of changing attitudes of both employers and employees as well as the increasing availability of seniors in resort areas, she noted that many other companies have begun to target seniors for recruitment. These organizations realize seniors usually have proven employment experience, job savvy, reliability, interpersonal skills, and commitment to the employer. She believes these qualities are important determinants of success in the hotel jobsshe hope to fill in the future. She is also aware that many seniors gravitate toward independent contracting, on-call work, and temporary assignments rather than full-time employment.

Gomez is concerned that some hotel chains have been successfully sued for failure to doadequate background checks on all new employees. In some cases, this failure resulted in the theft of personal property or worse. Consequently, she is aware that whatever processes of recruitment and selection she initiates will need to incorporate some type of background investigation. Up to the present, she has relied on local newspaper advertisements and applicant interviews with hotel managers to recruit and screen applicants. Results have been unsatisfactory thus far due to high turnover and mixed performance among the newly hired employees. She expects present recruitment approaches to be even more inadequate as the hotel chain expands over the next five years. She has asked your professor, Dr. Martin Cannon, to help her focus her recruitment and selection strategies for the years ahead. More specifically, she has asked him to help her answer the questions below. Dr. Cannon, in turn, has asked your class to form groups of two to four students each to discuss these questions and report to the class.

1. What recruitment sources do you recommend Jackson Hotels use to recruit seniors for the kinds of positions they are planning to utilize? Why?

2. What background investigations, if any, would you recommend to differentiate acceptablefrom unacceptable job candidates? Why?

3. What selection criteria and processes would you recommend to identify the bestcandidates? Why?