The staffing decision in hrmanagement only requires you to consider the number of employees needed for the next quarter, but as a human resources manager, you must be able to forecast labor requirements beyond the immediate future. 1. given productivity of 200 units/worker, project the number of level 1 employees needed to meet the production goals forecasted in the table below. production goal employees required current qtr. qtr. + 1 qtr. + 2 qtr. + 3 100,000 105,000 110,000 107,000 500 525 550 535 2. when might it make sense to require overtime, rather than hire enough new employees to meet production goals? how might reliance on overtime have a negative effect? when overtime cost is less than or equal to hiring a new employees, without resulting in excessive overtime which may cause increased turnover and lower morale. 3. assuming you want to keep the number of employees fixed at 500, project the required productivity to meet production goals. production goal employees required current qtr. qtr. + 1 qtr. + 2 qtr. + 3 100,000 105,000 110,000 107,000 200 210 220 214 4. what steps can you take to improve productivity? create grievance procedure, provide better benefits, increase wages.

Blue computers, a major pc manufacturer in the united states, currently has plants in kentucky and pennsylvania. the kentucky plant has a capacity of 1 million units a year and the pennsylvania plant has a capacity of 1.5 million units a year. the firm divides the united states into five markets: northeast, southeast, midwest, south, and west. each pc sells for $1,000. the firm anticipates a 50 perc~nt growth in demand (in each region) this year (after which demand will stabilize) and wants to build a plant with a capacity of 1.5 million units per year to accommodate the growth. potential sites being considered are in north carolina and california. currently the firm pays federal, state, and local taxes on the income from each plant. federal taxes are 20 percent of income, and all state and local taxes are 7 percent of income in each state. north carolina has offered to reduce taxes for the next 10 years from 7 percent to 2 percent. blue computers would like to take the tax break into consideration when planning its network. consider income over the next 10 years in your analysis. assume that all costs remain unchanged over the 10 years. use a discount factor of 0.1 for your analysis. annual fixed costs, production and shipping costs per unit, and current regional demand (before the 50 percent growth) are shown in table 5-13. (a) if blue computers sets an objective of minimizing total fixed and variable costs, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? (b) if blue computers sets an objective of maximizing after-tax profits, where should they build the new plant? how should the network be structured? variable production and shipping cost ($/unit) annual fixed cost northeast southeast midwest south west (million$) kentucky 185 180 175 175 200 150 pennsylvania 170 190 180 200 220 200 n. carolina 180 180 185 185 215 150 california 220 220 195 195 175 150 demand ('000 units/month) 700 400 400 300 600