[BLINDS TO GO: STAFFING A RETAIL EXPANSION] August 29, 2011 Question 1: Why is Blinds to go having difficulty attracting and

retaining retail staff? Answer: Organizations around the world are facing similar business challenges; the difficulty of attracting talent and retaining quality employees, a lack of employee loyalty, increased overseas competition, enhanced generational change and a shortage of skilled candidates. In turn, companies are increasingly being forced to compete on a global scale for human resources and are struggling to understand how to position themselves and make themselves desirable to future employees. The competition for talent in finance departments has gone global and businesses are struggling to fill key roles as staff - demand new horizons and new challenges. Employer branding provides organizations with a strong employment promise to new candidates as well as points of difference against competitors.

Therefore, many organizations are focusing considerable attention and resources on developing a strong employer brand. The skills shortage is also posing challenges for staff retention. There is a shortage of top quality accountants in the marketplace and a key challenge is how you keep hold of the intellect and talent that exists within your organization. Aspects of the organization's culture impact both on initial recruiting success and also on retention rates. If the employer brand is right it will attract staff with a solid cultural fit who integrate easily with the organization. If the employer brand delivers on its promise, these staff members will be more willing to stay with an organization. The effectiveness of internal communication, the extent to which employees are motivated to perform well, and the quality of the leadership given by management, all play an important role in retaining staff. All these factors relate to the strength of the organizations employer brand and the way that it is perceived internally by current employees and externally by potential future recruits.

So, here in this case, the Blinds to go is having difficulty attracting and retaining retail staff due to its change in compensation in 1996 by a newly appointed vice president of store operation. The company decided to change the compensation system from full commission to
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[BLINDS TO GO: STAFFING A RETAIL EXPANSION] August 29, 2011 salary which was not applicable as such by the employees and yet was not that impressing to them. It indirectly discouraged the employees to give their best abilities. The newly hired vice president led the change from full commission to paying sales associates a wage of Cdn$8 per hour which intended to make sales associates less entrepreneurial and more customer service focused. Store manager compensation was also revised to reflect a higher base salary component relative to commission. A more casual uniform was mandated in place of the business casual attire that was being worn at stores. The sales associates might have felt the discrimination between top level and lower level was created that is store manager would no longer be involved in sale. When BTG changed their style of compensating their employees to a salaried base most of the staffs didnt like it and left the job. It is better with compensation system rather than salaried one. Change in compensation of retail staff changed the compensation system from full commission to salary due to the result of recommendation from newly hired vice-president. BTG hunts for those candidates who is ego friendly, hardworking, enthusiastic and likes sales and possesses good skills of communication. BTG thinks that it is most appropriate to hire staffs from friends and families who have already a concept of the company. This process discourages outsiders other than friends & families.

Question 2: Are the elements of organizational design at the retail store level aligned to facilitate the retention of new employees? Why? Answer: Yes, the elements of the organization design at the retail store level aligned will be able to facilitate the retention of new employees; this is because Employers need to understand their rates of labor turnover and how they affect the organizations performance. An appreciation of the levels of turnover across occupations, locations and particular groups of employees can help to inform a comprehensive resourcing strategy. So, the employees turn-over and retention are; Employee turnover refers to the proportion of employees who leave an organization over a set period, expressed as a percentage of total workforce numbers. The term is used to encompass all leavers, both voluntary and involuntary, including those who
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[BLINDS TO GO: STAFFING A RETAIL EXPANSION] August 29, 2011 resign, retire or are made redundant, in which case it may be described as overall or crude employee turnover. It is also possible to calculate more specific breakdowns of turnover data, such as redundancy-related turnover or resignation levels, with the latter particularly useful for employers in assessing the effectiveness of people management in their organizations. Retention relates to the extent to which an employer retains its employees and may be measured as the proportion of employees with a specified length of service expressed as a percentage of overall workforce numbers. And as per the case, most of the employees left due to change in commission, salary and wage based structures. There were no trainings provided to the retail staff. In order to facilitate and retain the retail staff they now use different methods such as: Recruiting quality staff based on their honesty, Those who have good leadership quality, Those who are skilled and talented, They provided incentives for performance and also reward if the performance were good. By giving more emphasis on staffing incentives bonus was changed from a sales target to a new staff quota target that is, DSM compensation readjustment to facilitate and motivate the employees working in the retail store. They even hired professional recruiters by which the employees were given the opportunity to improve their work performance through job fairs and training, and to attract more employment they have advertised job opportunities through the media like weekly news paper. But, still organizational design in BTG was not that that effective. Organizational design in Blinds To Go have a work load divided into the respective personnel but the method they follow to promote their staff to higher post without the observation period creates frustration among other staffs. Looking at the staffs performance for few weeks or a month does not prove in recruiting them to higher post. Anybody can be cheated. After six to eight months of hiring and promoting the staff to the next level role will not give effective performance because they are not familiar or adopt with the previous role. However, the promotion practice in BTG is not effective to gain more motivated and high performers.

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[BLINDS TO GO: STAFFING A RETAIL EXPANSION] August 29, 2011

Question 3: What recommendations would you give BTG to improve their staffing practices? Answer: Employers face enormous challenges when they consider the increasing difficulty of finding skilled people, a more demanding younger workforce, and a growing population of older workers heading toward retirement. The difficulty in finding and keeping talented people is having a catastrophic impact on many businesses and industries throughout the world. So, when it comes to BTG have been using efficient ways of attracting staff and it has also been providing different methods of retaining and improving the performance of their staff. But, still then I would like to suggest some ways that would be beneficial to them and these are;
1. Open Communication:

A culture of open communication enforces loyalty among employees in an organization. Open communication tends to keep employees informed on key issues. Most importantly, they need to know that their opinions matter and that management is concerned in their input.
2. Employee Reward Program:

A positive recognition inspires the motivational levels of employees. Recognition can be made explicit by providing awards like best employee or punctuality award. These employees can be award in terms of gifts or money. 3. Career Development Program: Every individual is worried about his/her career. Everyone is always eager to know his/her career path in the company. So, the organizations can offer various technical certification courses which will help employee in enhancing his knowledge.

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[BLINDS TO GO: STAFFING A RETAIL EXPANSION] August 29, 2011

4. Performance Based Bonus:

A provision of performance linked bonus can be made wherein an employee is able to relate his performance with the company profits and hence will work hard. This bonus should strictly be productivity based and no partiality should be done.
5. Recreation facilities:

Recreational facilities help in keeping employees away from stress factors. Various recreational programs should be arranged so the employees feel secure and lively to work for the organization. They may include taking employees to free trips with families, celebrating anniversaries, sports activities, etc.
6. Gifts at Some Occasions:

Giving out some gifts at the time of one or two festivals to the employees making them feel good and understand that the management is concerned about them. The benefits of improved retention are enormous and they are; Reduced turnover costs, improved service productivity, higher customer satisfaction, a more knowledgeable workforce and better employee morale. Retention is a result of thinking strategically and doing many things well. And to make this happen it is all in the hands of the managerial personnel and how logically he/she does it.

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[BLINDS TO GO: STAFFING A RETAIL EXPANSION] August 29, 2011

References;

www.elps.vt.edu/janosik/Staffing2008/IMSP1.doc, (Don G. Creamer, Virginia Tech, and Roger B. Winston, Jr.,), (University of Georgia), dated September 5, 2002.

www.top7business.com/, dated15 Jun, 2007

(Ways-to-Improve-Employee-Retention...Empl...),

retention.naukrihub.com/, (how-to-increase-employee-retention.html) www.leggecompany.com/, (impemp.html) Employee turnover and retention, (Stephen Taylor, Janet Egan ), dated May, 2011 Business Organization and management, (Gupta,C.B), (6th edition) Organizational Behavior, ( Robbins P. Stephen, Judge A.Timothy), (13th edition)

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