Hrm Assignment

Question 1 – Suppose you managed a restaurant in a winter resort area. During summer it is profitable to keep the business open, but you need only one-half the cooks, table servers, and bartenders. What action would you take in April when the peak tourist season ended?

Answer 1 – This is a scenario of human resource surplus during off peak season. When the internal supply of workers exceeds the demands of the organization, a human resource surplus exists. As a manager of the restaurant I can adopt one of the below mentioned strategies or a mix of two or more strategies to handle the human resource surplus.

• Hiring Freeze – The first and the most important step is to stop any fresh appointments well in time to respond to a surplus. The existing employees should be reassigned and voluntary departures will slowly reduce the surplus.
• Lay Offs – The cooks, table servers and bartenders who are surplus can be temporarily laid off during the off peak season with a promise to hire them back during the winter season.
• Leave without Pay – The surplus human resource can be given an opportunity to take leave of absence without pay to pursue their personal interests or education. This option can be offered to employees who are financially able to leave the organization.
• Outplacement and Loaning – To soften the blow of discharge, the surplus human resource can be assisted in finding jobs with other employees. Loaning employees to other employers who might need more manpower during the summer season can also be an excellent alternative. An example of such companies is Roofing companies who get a lot of business during the summers.
• Job sharing – Job sharing involves dividing the duties of a single position between two or more employees. This eliminates the need to lay off one employee completely and employees benefit by having more free time at their disposal. This also helps in increasing the productivity from the workers who are not fatigued.
• Termination – I may have to terminate employees if there is still a surplus situation after having used the above mentioned strategies. In such a case, the employees must be given the severance pay.

I would also pay attention to future considerations mentioned below to avoid human resource surplus:

A mix of full time positions and part time positions is helpful in reducing the total work hours and labor costs. Part time employees need not be paid all the benefits given to full time employees. Another advantage of part time work is that it increases the flexibility so that employers can match the workforce with peak demands.

Contractual employment is another important method that can be used in the future to reduce the need to lay off employees during off peak season. Employees should be hired on six months contractual assignments and their employment will automatically cease after a fixed period.