The Flood Written and copyrighted by Gary Dessler, PhD$.$ In August $2017,$ hurricane Maria hit Miami, Florida, and the Optima Air Filter Company. Many employees$$ homes were devastated. Optima found that it had to hire almost three completely new crews, one for each shift. The problem was that the $$old$-$timers$$ had known their jobs so well that no one had ever bothered to draw up job descriptions for them. When about $30$ new employees began taking their places, there was general confusion about what they should do and how they should do it$.$ The flood quickly became old news to the rising, and the distances involved and the language differences complicated

managing the projects. Therefore, the CEO decided there had

to be a better way. Since the programmers abroad required more and

more detailed instructions, she decided she could hire junior people

closer to home. Then with about the same effort and instructions Techtonic

could do its programming locally.

The problem was, how do you recruit talent when the unemployment

rate for tech workers is close to zero? Ms$.$ Terenzio had a novel solution.

Rather than looking for college graduates with technical degrees, Techtonic

set up a training$/$apprenticeship program. The aim was to attract

people who didn$$t necessarily have college degrees but who expressed

a strong desire for doing programming. People apply for the five$-$week

program at $$Techtonic Academy,$$ where they learn basic computer coding

skills. Some of the graduates than qualify for an eight$-$month paid

apprenticeship at Techtonic, where they learn software development.

The program is successful. They usually get about $400$ applicants

for each of the $15$ spots in each five$-$week Academy program. The city

of Boulder helps subsidize the program, and the applicants don$$t pay

for classes. The company is now expanding its academy$/$apprenticeship

programs to other U$.$S$.$ cities.

Questions

$5-15.$ Specifically what recruiting sources would you use to attract

participants to the Techtonic Academy, and apprenticeship

programs?

$5-16.$ What other recruitment sources $($other than the academy

and apprenticeship programs$)$ would you recommend Techtonic

use, and why?

$5-17.$ What suggestions would you make to Techtonic for improving

its recruiting processes?firm$$s out$-$of$-$state customers, who wanted filters, not excuses. Phil Mann, the firm$$s president, was at his wits$$ end. He had about $30$ new employees, $10$ old$-$timers, and his original factory supervisor, Maybelline. He decided to meet with Linda Lowe, a consultant from the local university$$s business school. She immediately had the old$-$timers fill out a job questionnaire that listed all their duties. Arguments ensued almost at once: Both Phil and Maybelline thought the old$-$timers were exaggerating to make themselves look more important, and the old$-$timers insisted that the lists faithfully reflected their duties. Meanwhile, the customers clamored for their filters. $4-16.$ Should Phil and Linda ignore the old$-$timers$$ protests and write the job descriptions as they see fit? Why? Why not? How would you go about resolving the differences? $4-17.$ How would you have conducted the job analysis? What should Phil do now?