WMBA 6401 Week 7 Assistant Workforce Plan Example

One Headcount Decision, Four Findings Joined: A Library Assistant Workforce Plan That Sets Next Year's Hiring Target From Expected Attrition, Pipeline Yield, Survey Drivers and Pay Fixes Together

Student Name

Walden University

WMBA 6401: Human Resource Analytics

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

One Headcount Decision, Four Findings Joined: A Library Assistant Workforce Plan That Sets Next Year's Hiring Target From Expected Attrition, Pipeline Yield, Survey Drivers and Pay Fixes Together

The Decision

The decision this plan supports is how many library assistants Elk River, the invented county library system, must hire next year, and how to make that number achievable. The library budgets for 120 assistant positions. Last year 28 assistants resigned and only 12 were hired, so the branches ended the year short and covered the gap with overtime and pages. The four analyses from earlier weeks, turnover, recruiting, the engagement survey and pay, each bear on the same number. This report joins them.

Step 1: Expected Losses With and Without the Changes

Without any changes, the Week 3 turnover analysis implies about 28 resignations again: roughly 13 from assistants in their first year, 10 from those with one to three years and 5 from those with more. The plan's changes act on different parts of that total.

The scheduling rule and the end of evening-heavy schedules for new hires address the driver Week 3 identified, and the Week 5 survey ranked schedule notice first among items tied to staying. If those changes cut the gap between evening-heavy and other assistants by half, first-year resignations would fall by about four. The pay adjustment from Week 6 targets assistants with one to three years, whose compression with new hires is most visible; a modest effect, two fewer resignations, is assumed. Safety measures at closing are expected to support the scheduling effect rather than add a separate one.

Table 1

Expected Assistant Resignations Next Year

Estimates combine the Week 3 rates with assumed effects of the changes; composite figures.

Step 2: How Many to Hire

To end next year at 120 assistants, the library must hire enough to replace expected resignations and to close the current shortfall. The year began with 108 assistants in post, twelve short. With changes in place, the hiring requirement is 22 replacements plus 12 to close the gap, or 34 hires. Without the changes, it would be 40.

Step 3: Can the Pipeline Deliver It?

The Week 4 pipeline analysis shows that last year's process produced 12 hires from 412 applications. With same-day self-scheduling for phone screens, the same applicant flow is expected to produce about 16 or 17 hires. That is still less than half of 34.

Joining the findings shows why the plan cannot rely on recruiting alone. Two more levers are needed. The offer acceptance rate, 57 percent last year, was depressed by candidates learning they would work mostly evenings; under the new scheduling rule, new hires will not be assigned evening-heavy schedules, which should raise acceptance toward the librarian rate of about 80 percent and add roughly five hires from the same offers. And the library must roughly double applications, by posting assistant openings at the county's community college and adding the schedule commitment to the posting itself.

Table 2

Hiring Supply Under Three Assumptions

Each row adds one change to the row above; composite estimates.

Step 4: What the Joined Picture Shows

Read separately, the four analyses suggest four projects: fix scheduling, speed recruiting, address survey findings and adjust pay. Read together, they show that the scheduling rule does the most work, because it reduces resignations, raises offer acceptance and addresses the strongest survey driver at once. Pay adjustments and recruiting speed help, but neither alone closes the gap. Marler and Boudreau (2017) observed that HR analytics adds the most value when it links workforce measures to a business decision rather than reporting each measure on its own, and here the decision is a single headcount number. Targeting the causes the library's own records point to, rather than the causes managers assume, is also the approach Allen et al. (2010) recommended for retention.

The Plan for Next Year

Hire 34 assistants, with recruiting planned for 40 to allow for slippage. Adopt the scheduling rule and the new-hire schedule limit in January. Add self-scheduling for phone screens in January. Post openings with the community college from February. Apply the pay adjustment in July. Review resignations, hires and the schedule change rate quarterly.

What the Plan Costs

The plan's costs are modest compared with what turnover now costs the library. The self-scheduling tool costs about $1,500 a year. The pay adjustment for compressed assistants costs about $42,000 a year. Community college recruiting adds about $3,000 for postings and two job fairs. The scheduling rule and the new-hire schedule limit cost little in money but require branch managers to plan further ahead. Against this, every open assistant post costs roughly $3,800 to cover with overtime and pages, and each new hire costs about $2,500 to recruit and train. If the plan reduces resignations by six and fills vacancies faster, it saves roughly $40,000 to $50,000 a year in direct costs, close to its own price, before counting the effect on service at the late branches.

Who Owns Each Part

The branch services manager owns the scheduling rule and its monthly measure. The HR recruiter owns the pipeline changes and the community college partnership. The HR director owns the pay adjustments and the overall hiring target. Each reports quarterly in the same one-page update, so the leadership team can see whether the parts are moving together.

The Biggest Uncertainty

The plan's largest assumption is the effect of the scheduling rule on resignations and offer acceptance. Hom et al. (2017) described how difficult it is to predict turnover from any single change, and the effect assumed here could be smaller. If first-quarter resignations among new assistants do not fall, the hiring target rises toward 40, and the library should decide by April whether to add the float pool proposed in Week 3.

References

Allen, D. G., Bryant, P. C., & Vardaman, J. M. (2010). Retaining talent: Replacing misconceptions with evidence-based strategies. Academy of Management Perspectives, 24(2), 48-64. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.24.2.48

Hom, P. W., Lee, T. W., Shaw, J. D., & Hausknecht, J. P. (2017). One hundred years of employee turnover theory and research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 530-545. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000103

Marler, J. H., & Boudreau, J. W. (2017). An evidence-based review of HR analytics. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 28(1), 3-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2016.1244699