In 1992, the Vice President for Human Resource of the Big Rubber Glovers, Inc. developed a new daycare program for employees. He asked assistant manager Mary Smithkowski to evaluate how employees felt about the daycare program and their level of satisfaction with it. To do her research Mary went to the administration department of Big Rubber Gloves where she gathered information on each of the company's 100 plants in various world-wide locations. For each plant she gathered information on the cost of the program per week and the average weekly productivity and absentee rates. Mary found that the program cost was over $150,000 a year at 40 plants. As these plants the absentee rate was 15 percent per week and productivity was 600 gloves per worker per week. At another 40 plants, the program cost was $100,000 or less per year. For the low cost plant, the absentee rate was 20 percent and the production was 400 gloves per week. The remaining 20 plants had program costs of between $100,000 and $150,000 per year, and an absentee rate of 16 percent and production rate of 500 gloves per week. Mary reasoned that high cost daycare programs produced low absentee rates