Managing your retail store’s staff is an important part ofmeeting your business objectives. In the simulation, you need todecide how many part-time employees to hire, what to pay them, andhow much training to provide. Your decisions will affect thecustomer service, employee turnover, and financial results of yourbusiness.

1. Your store has two full-time employees, but you will need tohire part-time staff to provide good customer service. If you areopen 10 hours a day, how many employees will you need to hire toinsure there is one part-timer assisting at all times? Assume youare open 7 days, and part-time staff work 15 hours a week.

2. How many workers should be in the store at any given time?(Imagine entering a retail clothing store; how many employees doyou expect to see? What is each employee doing?)

3. Assuming 10 existing employees with 2 new hires, how muchshould you budget for training based on the information in thecase? What might be the impact of insufficient training?

4. A store has 10 part-time employees who are paid $9/hour. Howmuch more would it cost the business each quarter to increase theirwages by $1 per hour?

5. If revenue was $100,000 for the quarter, and the storeemployed 7 part-time employees, what would be the sales peremployee? (Note: Be sure to include the two full-time employees andconvert part-time employees to full-time equivalents.)

6. Sales per employee dropped in Quarter 2. Does that mean it istime to lay off staff?