"Corvessen" case - employee data analysis

After long maternity leave raising two small daughters, Kadri has returned to work in her "dream job", as Human Resources manager of a Finnish company working in catering.

During her on boarding week Kadri learns more about the company and the challenges she must face. The previous HR manager is about to leave, and Kadri must step in and follow up on

the issues she had not been able to solve. Corvessen" is a Finnish company selling sweets, coffee, and non-alcoholic drinks in small

outlets in Tallinn. It has 9 outlets in Old Tallinn and 94 employees. Depending on the size of the

small stores, usually there are 6 to 12 sales persons in each outlet (working in 3 shifts, as some of the stores are open 24/7), 1 to 3 senior sales persons (responsible for the whole shift) and 9 managers who are supervising all operations. Then there is back office taking care of the financial side of the business, marketing, facilities management, HR etc.

New employees are hired at salesperson level, and they are paid by hour. If they are doing well and if there are vacancies, they can be promoted to the senior salesperson position, where salaries have 20% higher hourly rate.

Senior sales persons oversee the shift, but their work is mostly the same as for regular

sales persons (selling and customer service). The managers (there are 9 of them, one per outlet) are in full charge of all operations of the

store (ordering supplies and goods, doing inventories, planning shifts, motivating the team etc.). Their salaries are fixed, plus they get a bonus for fulfilling the monthly sales plan. The managers of

the outlets are being trained to manage their people (e.g., provide feedback, organize staff meetings etc.).

As it is fall 2018, the market is booming and there is shortage of employees. Usually, the hiring decisions are made by managers, and they welcome everyone who wants to try. The

biggest problem is that employee turnover has been very high for the past years. Now more than 2/3 of the employees have been with the company for less than a year, and people leave very soon after joining company. The main reasons for leaving are - 1) lack of interest about the job; 2) low salary; 3) dissatisfaction about the management.

Kadri is given the main task to decrease the turnover rate. However, increasing staff salaries is not an option, as the owners of the company have big plans of opening more outlets, so they

prefer to invest in real estate and equipment. Also, the communication between the head office and stores is limited, as people in the stores do not have e-mail addresses and all the information is communicated to them by the 9 managers of the small stores. So, there is no control on the information flow between the back office and small stores.

The HR manager before leaving shows Kadri a file with statistics about the employees, reflecting the positions of the employees, their seniority, age, and sex. Kadri now sets to work, trying to understand the details of the demographics of the organization before contacting managers

directly.

Your task is to take the role of Kadri and try to answer the following questions:

Human Resource Management

4) What actions would you recommend to decrease the turnover rate? Can you do this with the existing information? What additional information do you need?