Forecasting the manpower needs of Ya Kun Essay

Question-1: How would you forecast the manpower needs of Ya Kun? There are few ways by which we can forecast the manpower needs of Ya Kun Kaya. They are: * Trend analysis * Ratio analysis * Scatter plot and * Computerized system Based on trend analysis, we can find new recruit by studying the variation of their past employment levels which means that they can provide an initial estimate of future staffing needs, but employment levels rarely depend just on the passage of time. They looked their past performance of sales, productivity and so on to estimate their employee also because if their performance goes beyond their expectation like Ya kun that have many outlets throughout the world, they may required more employee either full time or part-time. Other forecasting method that we can use to forecast their manpower is ratio analysis. In this method, the forecasting would be based on the historical ratio between some causal factor (like sales volume) and the number of employee required such salespeople. In this case, Ya Kun need more employee because they need more salespeople to run the business in each of their outlets. The sales volume for Ya Kun also one of the factor that Ya Kun need to recruit employee. Compared to trend analysis, ratio analysis assumes that productivity remains about the same. Another method we can use is scatter plot to forecast their manpower. In this method, the personnel may use two related variables to indicate the relation between the two such as sales volume and number of employee. If these two factors are related, then the points will tend to fall along straight line then the personnel can forecast the need of new recruitment. Computerized forecasting also is one way that can be used to forecast their need of manpower. With programs like these, employers can more accurately estimate how many employee that they need to projected productivity and sales. Question-2: What are the advantages and disadvantages of Ya Kun’s hiring part-time workers? Advantages of hiring part-time workers include: * Flexibility in scheduling as they help to fill in the gaps when the full-time workers go on leave or are taken ill. * Part-timers will complement the full-time workers. * Allows Ya Kun to tap into a larger available pool of job applicants as many more people may be willing and able to work part-time as opposed to full-time. * They may be deployed strategically during peak hours. Disadvantages include: * They may be less committed to the company. * It may be more difficult to integrate them as they only work occasionally. * Having too many part-time workers may affect teamwork. Question-3: A good attitude and commitment are two important attributes that Ya Kun looks for in its job applicants. Is a job interview an effective method to assess these two attributes? What else can Ya Kun do to get reliable information on these two attributes? A job interview may not be the most effective method to assess these two attributes as they are not directly observable during the interview process. In order to obtain reliable information on these two attributes, managers of Ya Kun may: * Ask the job applicants for referrals in the application pack, and contact the referrals to obtain information regarding these two attributes. * Use critical incidence interviews to test if the job applicants have past examples of these attributes. * Provide job applicants with a realistic job preview by telling them about all the challenges and worst case scenarios that their staff faces. This allows the applicants to have a better idea of the job and make a better-informed choice of whether to take up the job or not. * Use role-playing exercises where the applicants play the role of the staff, and the managers the customers, so that the managers may observe how the applicants may potentially react when they are actually working for Ya Kun. Question-4: What suggestions would you make to Ya Kun to improve its recruiting processes? Ya Kun’s low turnover rate and large pool of hardworking committed workers indicates that its recruitment processes are working well. However, to improve their recruiting process, Ya Kun’s managers may choose to: * Use more internal referrals as employees know what kinds of applicants will fit well with the prevalent company culture. * Hire a larger ratio of part-timers to full-timers as this allows them greater flexibility in scheduling. * Convert part-timers to full-timers if they perform well and if they are open to the switch. * Maintain contact with those employees who have left the company so that they can be informed of any new positions in the company. Q1. Ya Kun can forecast the manpower needs by using ratio analysis to conduct a quantitative analysis of information in a company’s financial statements. Ratios are calculated from current year numbers and are then compared to previous years, other companies, the industry, or even the economy to judge the performance of the company. Based on the analysis, Ya Kun could increase their salesperson to run the business in their outlet. Ya Kun can even use trend analysis as an aspect of technical analysis that tries to predict the future movement of a stock based on past data. Trend analysis is based on the idea that what has happened in the past gives traders an idea of what will happen in the future. Based on trend analysis, Ya Kun can find new recruit by using their past experienced by estimating the number of staffs needed in future. The organization could either recruit full- timers or part timers. YaKun also can use computerized system to predict the manpower needs for their organization. The employer could estimate the number of staffs needed to increase their sales. Q3. A job interview is not really an effective way to assess these attributes. It is because a job interview is only a process in which a potential employee  is evaluated by an employer. During this process, the employer hopes to determine whether or not the applicant is suitable for the job by looking at their experience and academy level. If Ya Kun is looking for an employee with a good attitude and commitment they could use behavioral interview questions. Through this way the employer could ask questions related on what they did in past jobs or life situations that are relevant to the particular job and skills. The answers given by the applicant can be used to predict their future performance in similar situations. Ya Kun could also use situational interview questions. During the question and answer session the applicant will be ask to imagine a situation and respond base on it. Based on the answers given, the employer could predict the commitment level of the applicant. Ya Kun could use the two weeks training period to study more about the applicant because it is difficult to judge the attitude and commitment level during theinterview. Usually commitment level and attitude will be only revealed after acertain period of time.