Case Study on Today’s Fashion by Mary Watson Essays

Case Study on Today’s Fashion by Mary Watson Essays Case Study on Today’s Fashion by Mary Watson Essay Case Study on Today’s Fashion by Mary Watson Essay 1 Introduction The case is about a national chain of specialty stores namely, Today’s Fashion, which has 200 outlets all over the country. Lately, Mary Watson was the promoted to the job position of the Regional Sales Manager for one of the largest markets of Today’s Fashion, the Pacific Coast. She manages 35 outlets under her in California and Oregon and each store manager is directly accountable to Mary. The number of assistant store managers would vary according to the number of specialty departments. Each assistant manager is liable to only one department. She was agitated by how Today’s Fashion management used to run, no clarity of the job roles and thus she urged that there should be a change. The change included by hiring new qualified assistant store managers and for this, a job analysis was conducted by her. However, there were some major issues to be looked upon in this process of change. 2 Issues 2.1 Issue 1:- Use of only one method of job analysis and single source of data Mary Watson constructed a job analysis in order to hire new qualified store managers which she believes in will be the best way to increase the improvement in store management. Despite the fact, that she lacked proper knowledge of how to prepare a job analysis, She prepared a job analysis based on her personal experience when she was a store manager previously. To improve the accuracy of job analysis, she also interviewed three other current store managers. The weaknesses noticed in this effort were that she used limited data sources and collection methods and she was not qualified enough to do make a job analysis. The case highlights that she had a degree of BBA in Marketing which explains that she did not have an experience in making a job analysis. The job collection methods used were not fully effective in constructing an accurate job description and job specification. 2.1.1 Recommendation Mary could have used other different ways to collect data or a combination of different methods which could have helped her in completion of a successful job analysis. For example; observations, past critical incidents and questionnaires. Observation method:- A method which involves in observing the employees performance and noting down important details about how each tasks is being performed by them. Questionnaire method:- This method involves in formation of a questionnaire which are supposed to be filled by the employees and the managers as well about the job description and job specification. Past critical incidents method:- In this method, the past experience of the previous employees and the important incidents faced by them are analyzed. Mary should have studied the various method of job design, in which the most helpful in this case would be job enrichment method. This method would have helped her in the design a solution which would be beneficial for the company and would have solved her concern with the improvement of store. To summarize, Mary could have done a better job analysis if she would have interviewed various other managers, used other data collection methods and asked for expert advice from her superiors or colleagues.