How to Improve Employee Selection

Background

We were working with a large Seattle manufacturing company with plants located throughout the United States. The company was experiencing employee turnover of about 15% per year in many of its hourly positions. These jobs included various machine operator positions and skilled maintenance positions. While this level of turnover was close to the industry average, the company wanted to improve their selection process to reduce turnover.

Path Forward

The company asked us to help them to design a more effective employee selection process. Our first task was to team up with their human resources manager to conduct detailed job analyses for each position. We assembled teams of subject matter experts plus one supervisor for each of the positions. Almost a full day was spent looking at each job. We asked the following types of questions:

• What knowledge, skills, and abilities are required to do the job?
• What tasks are performed every day?
• Which tasks are performed only weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually?
• What sets apart superior employee performance from so-so performance?
• How important is each task for success on the job?
• What are the physical demands of the job, e.g., standing, stooping, lifting, etc.?

The answers to these and other questions helped us create a 120-item job analysis questionnaire which was given to about 30 employees and a handful of supervisors. We then designed a science-based selection process using some of the following components:

• Scoring guide for screening applications and resumes
• Job related paper and pencil test
• Physical ability test
• Behaviorally based interview with structured questions and a scoring guide

Results

At the end of one year this selection process resulted in significantly lower turnover, decreased absenteeism, and decreased on-the-job accidents for new hires. As a result of these positive impacts, the company also improved its selection process for six other positions, including first-line supervisor, electrician, production manager, sales staff, and senior accountant.