Townshend Furniture is a chain of furniture stores that operates 19 showroom-type
stores in South Florida. The company was founded 25 years ago to fill a market niche
specializing in affordable, contemporary furniture. Starting with its first family-owned
store 25 years ago, Townshend Furniture enjoyed 20 years of continued growth and
expansion. However, the last five years have been very different. The advent of a large
European-based multinational to the local furniture market, together with growing
numbers of online competitors, have stagnated sales. The company recently decided to
close five stores whose sales are particularly low.
Townshend’s early success was
predicated on its service-oriented
strategy. A critical element of this strategy
are well-trained, experienced and service oriented sales associates who help
customers select and finance affordable
furniture. Lately, however, the company
is experiencing serious retention issues
amongst sales associates. Data from exit
interviews gathered in the last three years
revealed that one of the primary reasons
alleged by employees who quit the
company within their first year is the need
to work long hours during evenings and
weekends, when most customers buy furniture. For this reason, the company started
offering employees a 4-day compressed workweek (e.g., half-a-day on Thursday and
Friday and a full day on Saturday and Sunday).
The company employs different sources of recruitment including the company’s web
site, a temp labor company named Temp inc., social media, college recruiters,
employee referrals, and walk-ins. A written test of basic abilities (i.e., reading, writing,
numerical) is first administered. Those who obtain a numerical score of at least four
undergo an employment interview. Those found to be qualified at the interview are
presented with an offer of employment. Obviously, not all applicants accept the offer of
employment. The company also administers a one-question survey to all applicants
asking them to rate how positive their experience as candidates was.
The HR Department has tracked data from 150 applicants. An SPSS dataset including
the information gathered about these applicants is included in the Appendix (dataset
named Townshend_talent_mgmt_data.sav). Please analyze these data to answer the
following questions:
- Which one(s) of the sources of recruitment employed by the company works
© Juan I. Sanchez, Ph.D. 2017, All rights reserved, page 2
best? - Is the compressed workweek helping the company reduce employee turnover?
Choose and perform the data analyses that you believe are best to answer these
questions. Then, justify your answers using the results of your data-analytics. In
addition, ask yourself: - What other types of data and of metrics would you propose the company HR
Department should gather to better manage talent?
Sample Solution