I’m working on a business question and need guidance to help me learn.
part 1
Two Olympic gold medalists in skiing, married in 2014, Jason and LeAnn Benson opened Adventurers and Explorers (A&E) outdoor sporting store, which sells gear and clothing. The couple’s concept is different than many other sporting goods stores in that they design and sell their own lines of specialized products. LeAnn’s focus is on the design of products and Jason’s focus is on the financials. As a result, no one is worrying about the organizational policies or controls.
Jason and LeAnn encourage their employees to continue their favorite outdoor sports, from skiing to mountain climbing, white-water rafting, and so on. Employees are given two weeks of paid vacation. However, many employees were allowed to take up to two months off at half pay so they could fulfill their life-long dreams. Samantha just returned from a successful climb of Mount Everest. Beth will use her two months off to backpack around Europe. Around the office, employees joked about the “weekend flu,” taking Friday through Monday off. The office often ran below staffing levels depending on the season. In addition, because Jason and LeAnn were gold medalists, they attract more employees who are interested in skiing. The skiers want time off during peak season. This is also the peak time for A&E orders and service requests.
In the last three years, the company has grown from 30 to 100 employees. Jason and LeAnn need advice on controlling daily staffing levels so A&E meets or exceeds customer expectations for responsiveness without sacrificing company identity. Choose one of the issues facing A&E and propose a solution and rationale for your response:
Paid vacation along with the most valuable times for vacation (peak season time off).
Attendance issue: The “weekend flu” (Friday-Monday).
- A&E needs to know whether customers are satisfied with their products and whether the company is responsive to those customers’ needs as outdoor enthusiasts.
- part 2
- Be sure to respond to your classmate’s post below:
Greetings Dr. Blakely and class,
Paid vacation along with the most valuable times for vacation (peak season time off).
In Jasons’ and Leann’s positions, they have ineffective employee incentives. As the management, they should ensure incentives focus employees on the right performances. With the incentives they have offered, they set no guidelines and their employees seem to be taking advantage of the generosity and compassion that they are trying to share with employees. But in order for their business to survive they need to reassess their guidelines of the job incentives to encourage better service and not encourage unethical behavior. Lacking policies, processes, or procedures can hinder providing great consumer service. If lack of structuring is missing, you stand to lose a lot more than customers. There should be clear guidelines developed for policies, processes, and procedures and communicate those to the employees in order to promote exceptional service and avoid not having proper staffing or not enough staffing for a busy season. The front-line employees need support from other employees in that job. They need to fix the problem that is costing the company problem.
Jason and Leann need by use of human resource planning(HRP). This will help to ensure that they achieve optimum use of the most valuable asset—-quality employees. They can ensure you get the best employees for the job while avoiding manpower shortages or surpluses. The implementation of how vacation and vacation pay should be stated clearly as well as times you are expected to work and days that can be taken off if permissible and the same applies to vacation scheduling of time off.