The Scored Plant Tour: Improve Performance and Lower Turnover

Many job applicants, especially those applying for factory level jobs, take a tour of the facility. I characterize this commonly used recruiting device as an opportunity to gain useful selection information on the applicants. This paper reports content and criterion-related validity of a Scored Plant Tour used in a Southeastern manufacturing facility. The content validity part of the study shows how the Subject Matter Experts produced tasks and competencies for the job and linked them. The competencies measured by assessors on the tour were: safety awareness, interest in plant processes, comfort in a factory environment, and listening and understanding. After the content validity study was complete, scores on the plant tour were correlated with supervisors‟ ratings after one year on the job. The plant tour scale correlated significantly with four different supervisor‟s ratings. Suggestions for different ways to adapt the tour to other types of organizations are discussed. Subject Area: Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior Article Type: Peer-Reviewed Journal Article.