SELECTING ENGINEERS AT FRAMLEY ENGINEERING

HRsee 2016-12-21 6370 0

The case

Framley Engineering designs, develops,manufactures and sells high-quality specialized electronic goODs usingtechnology that has been created in-house. Approximately 60 per cent of thecompany’s operating revenue is derived from export markets. The company is a‘first-mover’ in its field; it is not an imitator. Given its small sizerelative to other global firms, Framley has adopted a niche strategy, marketingto certAIn groUPS interested in the unique products it offers.

Because of the company’s commitment to innovation, management hasplaced strategic importance on the employment of R&D engineers as thedrivers of new products. Speed to market is vital to ensure that the firm wouldbe the first to release new products. R&D engineers are vital in thisprocess.There are 57 engineers out of the total of520 employees. They are much in demand by competitors but because of theinteresting work and career prospects, labour turnover is not too high – lastyear six of them left. The company is expanding steadily and recruits tHRee orfour engineers straight from university every year but relies quite extensivelyon external recruitment to obtain more experienced people. Five qualifiedengineers have been recruited in the last six months and at present there arefour unfilled vacancies.

However, the Director of Engineering is not satisfied with thequality of the new recruits. They are not up to the standards expected and arenot settling down. He has left final selection to his three departmental heads,although the head of HR (who reports to the Managing Director) has beenresponsible for the initial recruiting process and submitting candidates to thedepartmental heads, who draw up shortlists and conduct interviews.

The Director of Engineering called in theHead of HR to explain why this situation had arisen. The latter used theexcuses that good engineers were difficult to find and that the departmentalmanagers had made poor selections. He had been present at some interviews,although, because he was not an engineer, he had not taken an active part. Hehad observed that they were distinctly lacking in interviewing skills, havingno idea how to structure an interview and were prone to making subjectivejudgements based on personal prejudices. He was thinking about what should bedone about it but had not got around to taking any action yet. The Director ofEngineering would have none of this. He said in no uncertain terms that thiswas the Head of HR’s responsibility. He couldn’t just ‘sit in’ and observe. Hecouldn’t just ‘sit back’ and let events take their course. This was grossdereliction of duty. He had to do something about it and fast. If thedepartmental heads were not good at selecting people, it was up to him (theHead of HR) to ensure that they improved significantly. The achievement of thebusiness goals of the company depended on getting and keeping good engineers.

Somewhat chastened, the Head of HRretreated to consider what he should do. He had to admit to himself that he hadleft it mainly to the specialists and he knew that his future with the companywas in danger if he didn’t deliver the goods – the Director of Engineering wasthe key player in the firm and would have no difficulty in convincing theManaging Director that the Head of HR wasn’t up to the job. The Head of HR hadto reach conclusions on what approach to the selection of engineers should beadopted and what he should do about the departmental managers’ interviewingskills.

The task

Set out in outline what the Head of HRshould do to improve selection.

Comments

This is clearly a situation in whichstructured interviews are required. It might be helpful to use a general mentalability (GMA) test in conjunction with structured interviews, but such a testwould have to be validated and a business case made for it. For this purposereference could be made to research such as Schmidt and Hunter (1998), whichdemonstrated the financial pay-off from using such instruments.

It will be necessary to decide:

● Whatsort of structured interview is appropriate.

● Howit should be developed.

● Howit should be used by the line managers concerned.

● Howline managers should be persuaded to use it (they have to be convinced somehowthat it will improve their selections, but there are few people who admit toBEIng poor interviewers – just as there are few who admit that they are poordrivers).

● Howthe interviewing skills of the line managers should be developed, for example:

– formal training, if so what?

– coaching, if so by whom?

– mentoring, if so how?

● Whethera GMA or other sort of test should be used and if so why and how would it bEVAlidated.

● Howthe success of the programme should be evaluated.