Describe the steps in the human resources planning process and discussthe important elements within each that will benefit Carters Cleaning Centres. While in college, Jennifer was especially interested in labour forecasting. She learned that a key component of HR planning was forecasting the number and type of workers an organization needed, and to be prepared to re-evaluate those numbers when necessary. Her father had often discussed with Jennifer how his labour demand was dependant on the business cyclethat is, during peri-ods of economic boom when business was soaring more workers needed to be hired and trained, as well as dur-ing times of recession when fewer workers were required because the demand for cleaning services had declined.

As the economic downturn worsened in 2009, rev-enues at Carters Cleaning Centres fell steeply. Many of their customers were simply out of work and didnt need (or couldnt afford) dry cleaning. In the midst of this downturn, Jack knew that he had to get employment costs under control. Realistically, the problem was that there wasnt much room for cutting staffing in a store.

Of course, if a store got very slow, they would double up responsibilities by having a cleaner also perform the pressing or having the manager work the front counter. If sales only fell 15 to 20 percent per store, there really wasnt much room for reducing employee head count because each store never employed many people in the first place.