Mary Watson was recently promoted to the position of regional sales manager for Today's Fashion, a national chain of specialty clothing stores with 200 outlets across the country. Mary is the regional manager for the Pacific Coast, which is one of Today's Fashion's largest markets. She manages 35 outlets in California and Oregon; each of these outlets has a store manager who reports directly to Mary.
Each outlet has between three and five assistant store managers, depending on the number of specialty departments. Each assistant manager is responsible for one particular specialty department. These departments vary considerably in size and in the number of sales clerks reporting to the assistant manager. Because the chain's success lies in being receptive to local customers' tastes and buying habits, each store has a different collection of merchandise, and several different combinations of departments can be found in Mary's region. The departments include casual wear, formal wear, shoes, cosmetics, and jewelry. Prior to being appointed to the regional sales manager position, Mary had been both a store manager and an assistant manager in a casual-wear department. While she was an assistant manager, Mary had often thought that she was responsible for many aspects of store management that other assistant managers were not held responsible for. In addition, she never really felt comfortable that her store manager had clearly defined her areas of responsibility. Thus, despite the chain’s success, Mary felt that there was considerable room for improvement in how Today’s Fashion was managed. As a result, one of the first things Mary did after being appointed to the regional sales position was to initiate a job analysis for the job of assistant store manager.

Questions

1. Critically evaluate the job analysis that Mary conducted for the position of assistant store manager. Has she used appropriate methods? What are the strengths and weaknesses of her efforts?
2. What kinds of factors about Today’s Fashion and its operations should Mary have examined more seriously in order to improve her job analysis?
3. Carefully read the job description and job specification that Mary prepared. Do they appear to be thorough? Do you think that they are adequate to serve as a basis for a new selection system? How well do you think these documents will work if Mary is sued for discrimination in her hiring practices? Why?