Case Study
C & S Department Store is the second largest clothing and retail store chain in Jamaica. At present, they have 5 clothing and retail stores in all 14 parishes and are planning to expand to 7 stores per parish in the next 3 years. C & S Department Store has a centralized Human Resource Department located at its main office in Kingston. Unfortunately, although the HR processes are managed centrally, there are many HR tasks, policies and procedures that are controlled by the clothing and retail store managers or by the lead parish manger in each parish. Currently, the HR management processes are using Excel spreadsheet to compile reports from various parish Headquarters and stores. This task is being performed by a team of HR executives at its main office in Kingston.
Simone Coram is the Senior HR Manager of C & S Department Store and has discovered various administrative and HR issues with the clothing and retail store sites. Due to high focus on sales revenue and stores profitability, Retail Store Managers have difficulties in managing the stores in the areas of staff attendance, discipline and critical HR practices.
The fundamental emphasis and foundation of C & S Department Store has been centered on always maintaining the highest standards of customer service and for that reason they are in direct contact with customers at each and every Department Store. What sets C & S Department apart is a commitment to exceeding expectations making it one of their unique selling points. Giving excellent customer service is one of the main reasons why their customers choose C & S Department Store and why they keep coming back.
Imperatively, the entity’s strategy is purposed towards employing the ideal candidate for both their part-time and full-time sales associates with the capacity and proficiency to grow and hone their skills for prospective advanced position within the organization. Presently, the store managers for three (3) of C&S Department Store have made the announcement that they plan to retire within the next 18 to 24 month. These three managers have insisted that they will not remain in their position beyond this particular point.
A team of HR internal auditors has conducted a study and identified that there are irregularities in the staff attendance data both at the retail stores and regional offices. Sometimes many of the staff did not sign the attendance register or signed intermittently. During the HR audit, it was discovered that some staff signed the attendance register only at the end of the day. Further, sometimes staff signed the register and then left their post. There was also no mechanism to track the leave data of employees. Employees did not know their exact leave data. At the end of the year it was revealed that some employees have taken excess leave while some employees worked incessantly, creating frustration among staff.
There was also no standardization in the reports between head office, regional offices and the retail stores and this created discrepancies. HR provided a set of excel sheets and paper-based forms to help store managers maintain data. However, many store managers used and made unique formats of reports making it difficult to collate the reports. The data thus collated had to be verified over again and again, as there was a tendency for errors to emerge.
This discrepancy has caused a significant issue in salary. HR and attendance data were used to generate data for payroll. As there were many discrepancies in HR data and reports, this created several salary discrepancies and caused numerous issues among the employees, thus lowering employee satisfaction rate and affecting the employee morale.
Training and communication have become a major issue at C & S Department Store. As the company was growing at a fast pace, training employees on various HR procedures and policies was becoming increasingly difficult. Thus line managers took decisions based on their previous experience or personal insights and created unnecessary hassles that required HR intervention.
The staff turnover in two (2) key departments of Marketing and Accounts was running at 90%. Estimated cost of staff turnover - including overtime, loss of revenue, loss of skills, training time and management time to replace a staff member – is equivalent to approximately $3,000 per position thus costing the business around $500,000 per year.
Human Resource Management focuses on matching the needs of the business with the needs and development of employees and as such you are required to answer the following questions based on the scenario represented above

1. What is Human Resource Management? Explain the functions of the HRM. Based on the scenario, identify five (5) challenges that C&S Department Store faces and propose appropriate HRM solutions to meet the challenges identified.

C & S Department Store is the second largest clothing and retail store chain in Jamaica. At present, they have 5 clothing and retail stores in all 14 parishes and are planning to expand to 7 stores per parish in the next 3 years. C & S Department Store has a centralized Human Resource Department located at its main office in Kingston. Unfortunately, although the HR processes are managed centrally, there are many HR tasks, policies and procedures that are controlled by the clothing and retail store managers or by the lead parish manger in each parish. Currently, the HR management processes are using Excel spreadsheet to compile reports from various parish Headquarters and stores. This task is being performed by a team of HR executives at its main office in Kingston.

Simone Coram is the Senior HR Manager of C & S Department Store and has discovered various administrative and HR issues with the clothing and retail store sites. Due to high focus on sales revenue and stores profitability, Retail Store Managers have difficulties in managing the stores in the areas of staff attendance, discipline and critical HR practices.

The fundamental emphasis and foundation of C & S Department Store has been centered on always maintaining the highest standards of customer service and for that reason they are in direct contact with customers at each and every Department Store. What sets C & S Department apart is a commitment to exceeding expectations making it one of their unique selling points. Giving excellent customer service is one of the main reasons why their customers choose C & S Department Store and why they keep coming back.

Imperatively, the entity’s strategy is purposed towards employing the ideal candidate for both their part-time and full-time sales associates with the capacity and proficiency to grow and hone their skills for prospective advanced position within the organization. Presently, the store managers for three (3) of C&S Department Store have made the announcement that they plan to retire within the next 18 to 24 month. These three managers have insisted that they will not remain in their position beyond this particular point.

A team of HR internal auditors has conducted a study and identified that there are irregularities in the staff attendance data both at the retail stores and regional offices. Sometimes many of the staff did not sign the attendance register or signed intermittently. During the HR audit, it was discovered that some staff signed the attendance register only at the end of the day. Further, sometimes staff signed the register and then left their post. There was also no mechanism to track the leave data of employees. Employees did not know their exact leave data. At the end of the year it was revealed that some employees have taken excess leave while some employees worked incessantly, creating frustration among staff.

There was also no standardization in the reports between head office, regional offices and the retail stores and this created discrepancies. HR provided a set of excel sheets and paper-based forms to help store managers maintain data. However, many store managers used and made unique formats of reports making it difficult to collate the reports. The data thus collated had to be verified over again and again, as there was a tendency for errors to emerge.

This discrepancy has caused a significant issue in salary. HR and attendance data were used to generate data for payroll. As there were many discrepancies in HR data and reports, this created several salary discrepancies and caused numerous issues among the employees, thus lowering employee satisfaction rate and affecting the employee morale.

Training and communication have become a major issue at C & S Department Store. As the company was growing at a fast pace, training employees on various HR procedures and policies was becoming increasingly difficult. Thus line managers took decisions based on their previous experience or personal insights and created unnecessary hassles that required HR intervention.

The staff turnover in two (2) key departments of Marketing and Accounts was running at 90%. Estimated cost of staff turnover - including overtime, loss of revenue, loss of skills, training time and management time to replace a staff member – is equivalent to approximately $3,000 per position thus costing the business around $500,000 per year.

Human Resource Management focuses on matching the needs of the business with the needs and development of employees and as such you are required to answer the following questions based on the scenario represented above.

Discuss five (5) possible reasons for the 90% staff turnover in the Marketing and Accounts Departments? As Miss Simone Coram, what would you recommend to minimize the high level of attrition in these departments?

C & S Department Store is the second largest clothing and retail store chain in Jamaica. At present, they have 5 clothing and retail stores in all 14 parishes and are planning to expand to 7 stores per parish in the next 3 years. C & S Department Store has a centralized Human Resource Department located at its main office in Kingston. Unfortunately, although the HR processes are managed centrally, there are many HR tasks, policies and procedures that are controlled by the clothing and retail store managers or by the lead parish manger in each parish. Currently, the HR management processes are using Excel spreadsheet to compile reports from various parish Headquarters and stores. This task is being performed by a team of HR executives at its main office in Kingston.

Simone Coram is the Senior HR Manager of C & S Department Store and has discovered various administrative and HR issues with the clothing and retail store sites. Due to high focus on sales revenue and stores profitability, Retail Store Managers have difficulties in managing the stores in the areas of staff attendance, discipline and critical HR practices.

The fundamental emphasis and foundation of C & S Department Store has been centered on always maintaining the highest standards of customer service and for that reason they are in direct contact with customers at each and every Department Store. What sets C & S Department apart is a commitment to exceeding expectations making it one of their unique selling points. Giving excellent customer service is one of the main reasons why their customers choose C & S Department Store and why they keep coming back.

Imperatively, the entity’s strategy is purposed towards employing the ideal candidate for both their part-time and full-time sales associates with the capacity and proficiency to grow and hone their skills for prospective advanced position within the organization. Presently, the store managers for three (3) of C&S Department Store have made the announcement that they plan to retire within the next 18 to 24 month. These three managers have insisted that they will not remain in their position beyond this particular point.

A team of HR internal auditors has conducted a study and identified that there are irregularities in the staff attendance data both at the retail stores and regional offices. Sometimes many of the staff did not sign the attendance register or signed intermittently. During the HR audit, it was discovered that some staff signed the attendance register only at the end of the day. Further, sometimes staff signed the register and then left their post. There was also no mechanism to track the leave data of employees. Employees did not know their exact leave data. At the end of the year it was revealed that some employees have taken excess leave while some employees worked incessantly, creating frustration among staff.

There was also no standardization in the reports between head office, regional offices and the retail stores and this created discrepancies. HR provided a set of excel sheets and paper-based forms to help store managers maintain data. However, many store managers used and made unique formats of reports making it difficult to collate the reports. The data thus collated had to be verified over again and again, as there was a tendency for errors to emerge.

This discrepancy has caused a significant issue in salary. HR and attendance data were used to generate data for payroll. As there were many discrepancies in HR data and reports, this created several salary discrepancies and caused numerous issues among the employees, thus lowering employee satisfaction rate and affecting the employee morale.

Training and communication have become a major issue at C & S Department Store. As the company was growing at a fast pace, training employees on various HR procedures and policies was becoming increasingly difficult. Thus line managers took decisions based on their previous experience or personal insights and created unnecessary hassles that required HR intervention.

The staff turnover in two (2) key departments of Marketing and Accounts was running at 90%. Estimated cost of staff turnover - including overtime, loss of revenue, loss of skills, training time and management time to replace a staff member – is equivalent to approximately $3,000 per position thus costing the business around $500,000 per year.

Human Resource Management focuses on matching the needs of the business with the needs and development of employees and as such you are required to answer the following questions based on the scenario represented above.

1. The staff complains that there is a need for training for managers at C&S Department Store. Do you agree/disagree? How would you determine whether training is needed? Discuss the training methods that you would utilize in training managers, if you would undertake this intervention.

Statistic Question

Market research for an online electronics retailer showed that 23% of its customers purchased a smartphone. 12% of these smartphone customers used an online payment system (such as Paypal) to pay for their purchases, i.e., given that a customer purchased a smartphone, the probability was 12% that he/she used an online payment system to pay. In general, 8% of the customers used an online payment system to pay for their purchases.

a.What percent of customers did not purchase a smartphone?

b.What percent of customers purchased a smartphone and used an online payment system to pay?

c.What percent of customers purchased a smartphone or used an online payment system to pay?

d.Are the events “purchased a smartphone” and “used an online payment system to pay” mutually exclusive? Why or why not?

e.Are the events “purchased a smartphone” and “used an online payment system to pay” independent? Use probabilities to justify your answer.

The owner of a local restaurant has recently surveyed a random sample of n=250 customers of the restaurant. she would like to determine whether or not the mean age of her customers is greater than 30. if so she plans to alter the menu to appeal to this age. if not no menu changes will be made. suppose she found that the sample mean was 30.45 years in the sample standard deviation was 5 years, if she wants to have a level of significance at 0.01 what conclusion can she make.

a) there is sufficient evidence that the mean age of her customers is not greater than 30

b) there is not sufficient evidence that the mean age of her customers is not greater than 30

c) there is not sufficient evidence that the mean age of her customers is greater than 30

d) there is sufficient evidence that the mean age of her customers is greater than 30

Suppose the owner of Haywood Ceramics needs to raise prices to stay in business, but is concerned that raising prices would result in a death spiral. To avoid a decline in sales, the owner is considering sending letters to her customers explaining why the price increase is necessary. The letter would inform customers about the cost increases that necessitated the price increase, explain what the company is doing to keep costs as low as possible, and allow customers to place orders for a given time period at the current price.

Required

(a)     Describe the death spiral in your own words.

(b)     Explain why the owner cannot be sure how customers will respond to a price increase.

(c)     Suppose the owner decides to send letters to her customers. From a customer’s point of view, discuss possible pros and cons of this strategy.

(d)     Would you recommend that the owner send letters to her customers? Why?

Sampling Distribution of Proportions A restaurant chain regularly surveys its customers. On the basis of these surveys, the management of the chain claims that 75% of its customers rate the food as excellent. A consumer testing service wants to examine this claim. They take a simple random sample of 600 customers and ask them each to rate the food. Assume that the restaurant chain’s claim is true (i.e. that the true proportion is indeed 0.75).

a) assuming that the chain’s claim is true (i.e. that the true proportion is indeed 0.75), what is the probability that, in a simple random sample of 600 customers, less than 70% rate the food as excellent?

b)Suppose that in a random sample of 600 customers, 420 rate the food as excellent. Does this support or refute the restaurant chain’s claim? Hint: Refer to the previous question.

c) if the process is repeated with 1000 customers, what is the probability that 70% rate the food excellent?

In a world of get-rich-quick schemes, few are mentioned more frequently than lawsuits. One of the reasons is the infamous McDonald’s coffee case (Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants). This is what happened in 1992 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Stella Liebeck, seventy-nine, was riding in a car driven by her grandson. They stopped at a McDonald’s drive-through, where she purchased a Styrofoam cup of coffee. Wanting to add cream and sugar, she squeezed the cup between her knees and pulled off the plastic lid. The entire thing spilled back into her lap. The searing liquid left her with extensive third-degree burns. Eight days of hospitalization—which included skin grafts—were required.

Initially, she sought $20,000 from McDonald’s, which was more or less the cost of her medical bills. McDonald’s refused. They went to court. There it came to light that about seven hundred claims had been made by consumers between 1982 and 1992 for similar incidents. This seems to indicate that McDonald’s knew—or at least should have known—that the hot coffee was a problem.

Most of the rest of the case turned around temperature questions. McDonald’s admitted that they served their coffee at 185 degrees, which will burn the mouth and throat and is about 50 degrees higher than typical homemade coffee. More importantly, coffee served at temperatures up to 155 degrees won’t cause burns, but the danger rises abruptly with each degree above that limit. So why did McDonald’s serve it so hot? Most customers, the company claimed, bought on the way to work or home and would drink it on arrival. The high temperature would keep it fresh until then. Unfortunately, internal documents showed that McDonald’s knew their customers intended to drink the coffee in the car immediately after purchase. Next, McDonald’s asserted that their customers wanted their coffee hot. The restaurant conceded, however, that customers were unaware of the serious burn danger and that no adequate warning of the threat’s severity was provided.

Finally, the jury awarded Liebeck $160,000 in compensatory damages and $2.7 million in punitive damages (about two days’ worth of McDonalds’ coffee sales). The judge, however, reduced the $2.7 million to $480,000. McDonald’s threatened to appeal, and the two sides eventually came to a private settlement agreement. [1]

In general terms, what does it mean to claim that an implicit contract arises around a transaction? How does that contract protect the consumer?

From the information provided, and from your own experience, what are the main terms of the implicit contract surrounding the purchase of coffee at a fast-food drive-through?

What does the restaurant owe the consumer?

What does the consumer owe the restaurant?