1 Assume that we don’t want to terminate any of our employees. What work-scheduling related changes could we make that would reduce our payrolls by, say, 20% per week but still keep all our employees on board?

2. We are currently handling most of our personnel-related activities, such as sign-ons, benefits administration, and appraisals, manually. What specific suggestions would you have for us in terms of using software systems to automate our HR processes?

3. Suggest at least five free Internet-based sources we could turn to for helping us to lower our total employment costs.

As the economic downturn worsened a few years ago, revenues at the Carter stores fell steeply. Many of their customers were simply out of work and didn’t need (or couldn’t afford) dry cleaning. The Carters actually found themselves giving away some free cleaning services. They started a new program wherein existing customers could get one suit or dress cleaned free each month if they needed it for a job interview. In the midst of this downturn, the Carters knew they had to get their employment costs under control. The problem was that, realistically, there wasn’t much room for cutting staffing in a store. Of course, if a store got very slow, they could double up by having a cleaner/ spotter spend some time pressing, or having the manager displace the counter person. But if sales only fell 15% to 20% per store, there really wasn’t much room for reducing employee head count because each store never employed many people in the first place.

The question therefore naturally arose as to whether the Carters could cut their employment expenses without dismissing too many people. Jennifer Carter has several questions for you.