Scenario:
A newspaper company in Southeast United States has experienced rapid growth. However, in the past two years, competition has increased with two new newspapers in your area and the expansion of another newspaper from a neighboring town into your area.
The advertisement for customer service representatives states the following: "The position qualifications are: knowledge of MS Word or WordPerfect; typing speed of 35 wpm; filing; experience in customer handling such as answering phones and referring customer calls to supervisors; some selling of additional services and calls for nonpayment of bills. Starting Salary: $8.50 an hour for a 30-hour workweek. CSRs work 6-days per week in 5-hour shifts.
The newspaper has successfully recruited CSRs, turnover in the position has been high. The following table gives the break-up.
|
Recruitment Source
|
Total # of Applicants
|
Potentially Qualified
|
Interviewed
|
Offered Job
|
Accepted Job
|
Six- Month Survival
|
Total Recruitment Costs
|
|
Internet
|
450
|
32
|
20
|
17
|
11
|
5
|
$200
|
|
Newspaper
|
115
|
78
|
64
|
56
|
53
|
24
|
$465
|
|
Walk-Ins
|
31
|
20
|
14
|
9
|
7
|
3
|
$295
|
|
Public Employment Agency
|
37
|
19
|
7
|
7
|
7
|
6
|
$250
|
|
Total
|
633
|
149
|
105
|
89
|
78
|
38
|
$1,210
|
Racial Break-Up of Applicants:
|
Rac\ial Category
|
Total # of Applicants
|
Potentially Qualified
|
Qualified and Offered Job
|
|
Caucasians
|
341
|
91
|
64
|
|
African-Americans
|
177
|
43
|
20
|
|
Hispanics
|
115
|
15
|
5
|
|
TOTAL
|
633
|
149
|
89
|
Most Frequently Cited Reasons for CSR Turnover (For the past 3 years).
- Requirement to work on Saturday and Sunday from 7 AM to 1 PM
- 75% of calling customers are irate with CSRs on issues over which they have no control
- CSRs must sit for long-hours with no physical movement and must talk to customers for long periods of time
- Noisy and hectic work environment
- No proper training provided for handling billing complaints
- Cold calls for subscriptions result in 78% hang-ups.
- No additional remuneration for solicitation successes
- CSRs don't like the cold calls
- CSRs don't like calling people at dinner time
- Supervisors monitor a few sample calls and often contradict what CSRs say.
Questions:
1. Based on the information provided, determine if there is any adverse impact against Hispanics or African-Americans in the hiring of CSRs. Assuming an Hispanic and an African-American applicant who were not hired for the job filed a lawsuit against the newspaper, what advice would you give the newspaper?
2. Based on the data, determine which source of recruitment method is most effective? Least effective? Why?
3. If your objective is to reduce the employee turnover of CSRs, what specific actions would you take to reduce the turnover? Explain.
4. Evaluate to what extent the recruitment ad correctly captures the job contents. Re-write the ad to correctly explain the job contents.