Hiring a Plant Manager at Hitech Industries

Hiring a Plant Manager at HiTech Industries

You are the Sr. Vice President, Human Resources, for HiTech Industries. Please review the information included in this package concerning the credentials of eight (8) finalists for the position of Plant Manager at the Pittsburgh facility. This is a four-part exercise. First, please review the enclosed information and rank-order the candidates from best qualified to least qualified. Second, please explain how your rank ordering was reached (i.e., your rationale for ranking some candidates higher than others), Third, please provide recommendations for improving the selection process for Plant Managers at HiTech. Fourth, what additional information about the situation, the company, or the candidates would have improved your ability to make good recommendations to HiTech?

Scenario

HiTech Industries is a medium-sized manufacturer of small electric motors headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota. The firm employs 9,800 people. HiTech Industries has plants in St. Paul; Columbus, Ohio; Atlanta; San Diego; Pittsburgh; Providence, Rhode Island; and Little Rock, Arkansas. All these plants are unionized, although the power of the respective union varies greatly.

Recently, the company has been trying to hire a new Plant Manager (see job description in Exhibit 1) for the Pittsburgh plant (Plant Managers report directly to HiTech’s Vice President of Production). Although HiTech has experienced slightly above average growth and profit compared with its competitors, the Pittsburgh plant has been a trouble spot. Over the last three years, production costs have been extremely high and there has been labor strife (e.g., several work slowdowns, an excessive number of grievances filed). The most recent Pittsburgh Plant Manager was terminated, although by mutual agreement the company stated that the individual left for a better job with another company. Because of the importance of the Plant Manager position, HiTech has used several...