Problem:
While out shopping, you decide to stop inn at a friend’s business, Leah’s Bakery. Leah recognized you and invites you into her office. She is eager to talk about her work, and inn the conversation that follows, she tells you that she is about to mark the second anniversary of what has turned out to be a remarkable business, Inn terms of the breads, pastries, and other baked goods, customers cannot seem to get enough. On the other hand, Leah has the feeling that she is working harder than is ideal and that the bakery is less profitable than expected. Being a people-oriented person yourself, you pick up Leah’s comment on her difficulty in finding good employees. The following aspects of Leah’s Bakery emerge:
1. It takes fifteen employees to staff the bakery for a full week.
2. Leah defines six different positions: two bakers (pastries and breads), one cake decorator, a retail clerk, and a shift supervisor who also works behind the counter.
3. Leah has employed 240 people in the two years of operation. The shortest tenure was two hours and the longest was twelve weeks.
4. Pay for the employee’s ranges from $5.15 per hour (retail clerk) to $8.50 per hour (shift supervisor). There are no benefits.
Having 240 employees within a two-year period seems to you extraordinary; it represents an 800 percent turnover-equivalent to a new set of employees every six weeks. Yet the information Leah has provided jibes with your observations. Even though you visit the bakery at least once a week, you seldom see familiar facts. The help wanted sign is a permanent fixture in the front window. On several occasions, you have even seen the shift supervisor interviewing applicants at the end of the counter. As a frequent customer, you have noticed the employees are pleasant and obviously are tying their best. At the same time, they frequently do not appear to understand certain common aspects of their jobs, for example, the functions of the cash register, how to enter special orders, the schedule for baking, ingredients of special items and so forth.
Question 1. What are some possible causes of the high turnover Leah’s Bakery is experiencing?
Question 2. If you were asked to help put human resources on a more even footing, on what HR activities would you concentrate?
Question 3. What are three or four human resource programs Leah could implement to reduce the high turnover?