Chapter 1 CASE

You are the HR Manager for a small print shop which markets printing and promotional marketing materials to businesses. ACME print employs 30 employees. You have 10 employees who work in the plant printing marketing and promotional materials, plus shipping and receiving. The remaining 20 employees work in functions such as accounting/finance, sales and marketing, general administration, operations, and HR. ACME pays plant employees $15-$20 per hour and the 20 employees working in the office earn $40,000-$120,000 per year. The top marketing/sales employees make over $100,000 due to commissions on sales. ACME offers Health & Dental Insurance (company pays 50% of costs), life insurance, vacations (max out at 4-wks, if employed over 20 years), 401K plan with 50% match.

The President of the company has assigned you the task of reviewing ACMEs employees and forecasting hiring needs over the next 3 years as the company rapidly grows 10% per year. In 2020, when Covid hit, ACME was able to maintain all employees as business fell, but over the past 6 months the business has dramatically grown. Keep in mind, you are in a very competitive environment and you can only raise prices to customers minimally and ACME is a relatively small company that has limited financial resources. Here are some of the issues:

• ACME President believes that some employees are looking for other employment due to the labor shortage and great opportunities elsewhere.
• Half of your Office employees were working from home during 2020 and returned to the office a few days a week, but like the flexibility of working from home.
• 30% of your employees will most likely retire in the next 3-5 years, so this will create a brain drain from the company as well as trying to replace those workers during a labor shortage. The balance of employees will not retire for 10-30 years, but still need to retain those employees.
• The cost of healthcare has increased 7-10% per year, so ACME either needs to cut health benefits or switch employees to contractors-higher pay, but no benefits.

1. Can you establish fair flexible work arrangements like telecommuting for some employees? Which jobs or functions are more able to work productively remotely? What other flexible arrangements could you offer these employees, even plant workers?
2. What are some of the benefits of moving some workers to a contract basis?
3. Are there any creative ways to address the high cost of health insurance costs without making existing employees angry. Remember, you will need to attract new employees as ACME grows.