WELCOME!
Mgmt 441-01 Staffing
Prof. Howard Miller
Staffing Function
 Among several human resource functions
 Benefits
 Compensation
 Safety
 Labor Relations
 Training
Staffing . . .
 Involves getting people in, or out, of a
company
 We’ll concentrate on the “getting people in”
part
Staffing has 2 main purposes
 “Get the best talent” for the firm at the price
we can offer
 Conform to national, state and local
regulations concerning staffing practice, or in
short “keep it legal”
How to Staff?
 Derive “demand for labor”
 Update job requirement information
 Identify knowledge, skills and abilities




required for success on job
Develop measures of job-related KSA’s
Recruit from relevant labor markets
Screen using “valid” tests
Make offer, provide orientation to accepts
Staffing Project Steps
 Choose job to study
 Find real setting to perform job analysis
 Perform job analysis
 Develop job description, job specification
 Find/develop tests to measure job specifications
 Identify “Relevant” labor markets
 Define recruiting methods
 Spell out hiring process to client in full detail
What do you mean “valid
test”?
* Note importance of Supreme Court case
Watson v. Ft Worth Bank and Trust (1988)
Supreme court states (paraphrasing):
“A test is any hurdle you have to clear to get a
job” - especially important for interviewing,
which was at core of case
* A “valid test” is a hurdle that allows better
talent to get over, while lesser talent is
screened out
How do we establish if a test
is “valid”
 Note importance of “The Uniform Guidelines
for Employee Selection Procedures” (1978)
 Three methods recognized by courts –
“Content validation”
“Criterion-related validation”
“Construct validation”
The logic of hiring validity
illustrated
 Consider classic payoff matrix, which we’ll label
“selection decision matrix” in our setting.
 Good decisions result when applicants who will
succeed are hired (“true positive”), and
applicants who will not succeed are rejected
(“true negative”)
 Bad decisions involve rejecting people who will
work out (“false negative), and accepting those
who don’t work out (“false positive”)
Selection Decision Matrix
Job Performance scores (Y)
plotted with Hiring Test scores (X)
$12,000
(Y) job performance = monthly sales
$10,000
$8,000
$6,000
$4,000
$2,000
$0
0
2
4
6
(X) hiring test = interview score
8
10
12
Content validation …
 A logical analysis by subject matter experts
(SME’s) of the overlap between the content
of screening tests and the content of job
requirements
 Note the deceptive simplicity of the
requirements for a typist at the university
Criterion-related validation
 The main way it’s done
 2 types: Predictive Validation and
Concurrent Validation
 Predictive uses test data from applicants, and
job performance data from those hired
 Concurrent uses both test and performance
data from current employees
Construct Validation . . .
 More complex than the other two
 One has to show that measures of applicant
traits and job performance really measure
those things (Classic construct validation)
 AND then show trait measures correlate with
job performance measures
the vast majority of the
time
we’ll be referring to “concurrent, criterionrelated validity evidence” because of it’s
overwhelming use
Valid tests mean lower error
rates in hiring decisions
 More true positives and negatives
 Fewer false positives and negatives
 Lower exposure to successful litigation
 Higher “utility” of the staffing function
Research on validity tells us
what works!
 Find tests that are shown to be valid
 How is this done?
 Within the “concurrent, criterion-related
validation” approach, it means showing a
significant correlation between test scores and
job performance scores – the essence of a
concurrent validity study.
What would such validation data
look like?
 See “Ma and Pa Consumer Electronics Store”
data set illustration
Valid Hiring Tests
 A hiring test – anything you must get through to
get the job
 A “Valid” hiring test – one where applicants who
score better on the test do a better job if hired
 In criterion-related empirical test validation, it is
one where there is a “significant correlation
between hiring test scores and job performance
scores”
Empirical validation
 Obtain a representative sample of people
 Have them take the hiring test(s), and measure
their job performance
 Compute the statistical correlation of hiring test
scores and job performance scores
 Compute the “statistical significance” of the
sample correlation
 If “significant”, cross-validate in new sample
 If correlation remains significant, put test(s) into
use
Some key statistical
concepts
 “Mean” the average score for a group of
people
 “Standard Deviation” the average variability
around the average score for a group of
people
 “Correlation” a number that reveals the
degree of linear association between hiring
test scores and job performance scores
Correlation properties
 Correlation is notated with lower case “r”
 It can range in value from -1.00 to +1.00
 r=0 means “zero” correlation, no linear
association between the test (x) and job
performance (y) – that’s not happy
 r=+1.00 (or r= -1.00) means there is a perfect
association of hiring test and job performance doesn’t happen in reality, tho’ we’d love it if it
did!
 Correlations from real samples RARELY exceed
values of r=.50
More on correlation
 Correlation can be used to “summarize” the
pattern in a 2-variable scatterplot, like the hiring
test (x axis) versus job performance (y axis)
scatterplot
 In this application, correlation is a special case of
linear regression – using a straight line to
summarize what’s happening in a data set
 Plot interview score against job performance in
the Ma and Pa data set
Statistical analysis of
interviews in relation to
monthly sales
 Compute the correlation of hiring test scores
with job performance scores
 Compute the regression of job performance
scores (Y) on hiring test scores (X)