ASSIGNMENT $4$ INSTRUCTIONS Investigating Performance Decreases Using Regression

Analysis

Scenario:

At the recent annual leadership retreat of an electrical

component design and testing company, the CFO raised

concern that overall labor costs have been increasing. In

particular, she noted overtime expenditures within the

engineering department had increased, and wanted to know

why so much overtime was having to be scheduled to

complete the work. The operations manager presented her

reports and showed that there were no supply or maintenance

disruptions or major process adjustments, and that the

problems seemed to be with the productivity and quality of

the project team deliverables $($e$.$g$.$ QC data showed that

increased rework was becoming necessary$).$ She also pointed

out that there had not been a significant increase in the

number of projects in the queue over the past $12$ months,

The discussion then turned to whether this was a personnel

issue. The HR director said that all team members have

undergone extensive training and certification, and that there

has never been an issue with their work. She also said that

there had been some restructuring within the teams to make

them more self$-$managing and agile due to the types of

projects being requested by clients; however, she also noted

that part of the restructuring involved a leadership training

program that all team members participated in to prepare them

on how to be more effectively work together to manage the

new team structure.

Several members of leadership openly discussed whether the

issue had more to do with the team members' attitude and less

with their ability to do the work. They questioned if moving to

a more self$-$managing team structure was the right move, and

if this had in some way reduced their overall performance.

Also, while key deliverables were ultimately being met the

inefficiencies were undercutting the margin.

The HR director responded by saying she had just recently

received the annual performance reviews for the employees

working on the project teams, and she would review them

immediately. She also said she would report back to

leadership within $30$ days with her findings and

recommendations. Framing the Problem:

Back at the office, the HR director pulled all of the recent

performance reviews and began to look for clues that might

indicate whether this problem was related to the worker's

KSAs or something else. Fortunately, the reviews were $360-$

feedback so there was a lot of information to provide context

to the work, which was highly technical. What she discovered

was that all the workers scored highly on the task metrics, but

the attitude and relational metrics such as engagement,

cooperation, and communication etc. appeared to be below

standard. And given that the performance review scores were

an aggregate measure, the scores on the reviews themselves

would probably not be able to tell the whole story of what

might be going on$,$ and also whether those scores might be

improved.

On a hunch, she then checked the HRIS database and learned

that many of the workers had only been with the company for

less than $2$ years, and they all underwent an extensive $1-$year

onboarding program. This was confusing because research has

shown effective onboarding to mitigate early turnover. In fact,

research by SHRM has found that up to $50\%$ of new

employees leave within the first $18$ months. As such, an

emphasis had been placed on ensuring new employees had a

positive onboarding experience and a comprehensive survey

to measure recently onboarded employees had been in place

for

Part $1.$ Conduct a multiple regression analysis using the data

set provided, and copy $\frac{?}{?}$ past the results$/$ output tables to your

assignment submission.

Part $2$: Using the analysis results $($reported in the tables$),$

please answer the following:

How successful was the regression model overall at predicting

annual job performance evaluation scores? Please discuss each

of the relevant R$-$ values in the output to explain and support

your assessment.

According to the analysis results, which predictor variable$($s$)$

significantly influenced the performance scores? If more than

one variable was significant, what was the comparative

influence among those variables? In other words, was one

variable more influential on performance scores than others and

so why do you think this was the case? Please refer to the

coefficient$($s$)$ values and P $-$values to frame your response.

Based on Q$1$ & Q$2$ what overall narrative do the analysis

results speak to$?$ In other words, what are the 'big picture'

conclusions that can be directly made from the analysis results

regarding how job performance scores are being influenced?

Based on the results of the regression analysis, what do you

feel could be the next step for HR to improve employee annual

job performance scores? Specifically, what projects or initiatives

could HR propose to improve performance scores?