To: Keighley’s ASDA Store Manager, Co-Manager

From: Dianne Wood, Human Resource Manager

Date: September 27, 2012

Subject: Cost-Effective approach for hiring to cover Mat Leaves

Recently, it was brought to my my attention that there is some frustration in regards to a cost-effective approach when trying to hire to cover-off the several maternity leaves that our company is experiencing. Each time we hire new or temporary employees to cover-off the maternity leaves, it is costing the company a enormous amount of money. The way that we calculate the cost is: Cost per hire - Cost of using recruit source divided by the number of people to hire to fill the position ( Chapter 5 page 162 ). This is a resourceful way of measuring recruitment success. The following will explain to you why the ways we have approached hiring to cover-off have been so costly:

Job advertisement fees when we have advertised in the local paper. Dependent on the length of the job description accounts for how costly the ad will be.

Fees for a recruiter to scout candidates We usually utilize one of our Assistant Managers to spend a part, if not their whole shift, to review resumes that have been submitted and contacting people to schedule interviews. Therefore, this task takes our Assistant Manager away from their regular daily tasks, which can become costly due to important tasks that are not being completed. Examples would be planning and executing shelf changes to accommodate new product that has come in, not completing their schedules which in turn puts Personal behind because they can’t submit the budget to the Store Manager, other Assistants may help out, but than that then cause a domino affect.

Having a Manager conduct Interviews Not only have we utilized Assistant Managers in the past to conduct interviews, but we have also utilized our employees in Personal. Personal once again, gets behind on their daily and weekly tasks such as, entering schedules for all of our employees, calculating the payroll budget for the store manager, entering in payroll for our employees, amongst other tasks that need to be completed. Once again, there is the domino affect.

Reference and Background checks A Manager is required to take time out of their day to contact References as well as faxing in background checks. This also can be very time consuming depending on the number of applicants we need to complete these checks for. When contacting References, it is not a guarantee that they will be contacted immediately, therefore, we need to wait for individuals to contact us back. This also can be time consuming as when the calls come in, the Manager that made the calls would then be required to stop what they’re doing and take these calls.

Negotiate the offer terms Once reference and background checks are completed and a decision has been made about which candidates to hire, call backs are required to schedule a time for the candidate to come in to read over the offer letter. Again, this doesn’t only take a few minutes. It takes time to make the calls and then when the appointment has come, a Manager then has to sit down with the candidate and go over the offer letter. The same manager is once again behind on their daily or weekly tasks because they need to take time out to accomplish these other tasks.

Training expenses for a newcomer This can become costly due to the fact that the individuals that will be doing the training, will be taken away from their daily tasks or their tasks may be completed slower than normal due to the fact that proper training is required and not everybody learns the same way. Some newcomers may learn quicker than others.

Turnovers This can be extremely costly if some of our new hires terminate their employment at any given time. Then the entire process of rehiring starts all over again to replace those individuals.

Overlap between the temporary employee and the out going employee Even though this may seem an effective approach to ease transition, we actually end up having to pay double wages as well as Employment Insurance contributions for that period.

I have come up with a couple different solutions that will benefit not only the company with costs, but with all of our employees as well. The first and probably the most effective way would be to Promote From Within. Promoting From Within can bring many great benefits to all involved. The following shows a flow of direction within the several departments that Assistant Managers manage:

Assistant Managers => Department Managers => Sales Associates

Promoting From Within is a huge part of our company. We have had many Department Managers be promoted to Assistant Managers and Sales associates promoted to Department Managers. Currently there are more than half of our Department Managers and Sales Associates that would like to move up within the company and have shown a great initiative by learning and being coached by their immediate Manager. This has not been a requirement of any Department Managers or Sales Associates, instead they have taken it upon themselves to receive the proper training, knowledge and skills in order for them to move up within the company. This is a great asset to the company because the formal training hasn’t been any cost due to the fact that they are learning as they go and the Assistant Manager is training as they go. I suggest that we post a job posting on the bulletin board specifying:

Job Description which is a list of tasks, duties and responsibilities ( TDRs ) that the job entails ( Chapter 4 page 107 ). These include but are not limited to:

Title of the job ( Chapter 4 page 109 )
Descriptive title indicating the job’s level of organizations by using terms such as junior, senior, assistant and executive.

Administrative information about the job ( Chapter 4 page 109 )
Job description may identify a division, department, supervisor’s title, date of the analysis and the name of the analysis

Summary of the job ( Chapter 4 page 109 ) focus on purpose and duties such as including the types of responsibilities, tools, equipment used, and level of authority

Essential duties of the job ( Chapter 4 page 109 ) should include in order of importance details such as physical requirements, the persons of whom an employee in the job interacts and results to be accomplished

Additional Specifications ( Chapter 4 page 109 ) any additional responsibilities requested by the supervisor

Job Specifications ( Chapter 4 page 109 ) cover knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics required for a person to be qualified to perform the job successfully

With Department Managers and Sales Associates being promoted, we can then be able to hire our normal 25 employees ( or possibly even less depending on the demand of employees needed ) per year to fill in the positions of the sales associates that have moved up. When the maternity leave is ready to expire, that manager will still be able to come back to their job and the promoted manager may, at that point have the opportunity to transfer to another store or manage other departments needed at the time.

The second option that we have is to hire from a Temp Agency. Using a Temp Agency can be cost effective by saving the company at least 40% of payroll expenses that are used for permanent employees as well as in the following ways: ( Chapter 5 page 144 )

employer pays the agency whom then pays the employee often offers lower costs by:

freeing administrative tasks in terms of utilizing management to recruit, review resumes, interviews, doing reference and background checks, negotiating the offer terms and training financial burdens associated with being “employer of record” cost of employee benefits including

vacation, pension, life insurance, workers compensation and employment insurance many staffing companies train staff before sending them to employers. Some temp employees may already have a great deal of experience in other organizations that are comparable to ours, which in turn, they can bring in objective points of views to some of the employers procedures and problems that current employees may not be able to bring to the table. This therefore

reduces employers training costs eases the transition for the temp worker and employer

So even though hiring from a temp agency can prove to be cost effective, to fill a senior position or a specialized role, which we are, temp hires are practically unheard of. Therefore, we could use temp hires to fill any sales floor positions, possibly even seasonal positions. A few downsides to consider when hiring temp employees are:

discontent may brew amongst co - workers who are left to pick up the slack and temps are always looking for more secure employment so the chances are that if another opportunity comes along, you can be sure that they will terminate their employment and we will end up at square one again

When we have made a decision on what approach we would like to take in regards to the most cost - effective way in hiring, we need to look at the Selection Process by executing the following:

review all applicants received combine several sources of information about the candidates rather than relying solely on interviews or testing such as

if the applicant is internal, review previous and current job performance reviewing previous job appraisals checking to see if the applicant has an understanding of the job being filled

look for someone who shares the organizations values, people skills, and where they are at in learning the skills and knowledge needed for advancement look for motivation Highly motivated = quick learner look for the best fit between the candidate and the position

Another way to look at is Attitude is promotable! You can teach people the skills they require but you can’t teach attitude.

I believe that these are some valid points in cost effective ways that we can hire to cover - off. Keep in mind too, that according to the Employment Labour Standards Code for Alberta, the associate that is on maternity leave is required to give 4 weeks written notice of when they expect to return to work OR if they decide that they are not returning. This at least gives us a good indication of where we stand in regards to the associate and therefore, can react efficiently and accordingly.

Could please review this memo with your Assistant Managers and send me everyones thoughts and ideas about these proposed ideas I have given within the next week and have a response to me by Oct 5, 2012.

Remember, “ Communication, preparation and flexibility is what it boils down to. “

“ Plan for the worst and hope for the best”

Sincerely,

Dianne Wood
Human Resource Manager