HR485 Unit 6 Workforce Planning Forecast Example

Three Decisions Into Positions: A Unit 6 Workforce Planning Forecast for a Funeral Group

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

HR485: Strategic HRM: Analytics and Business Decision-Making

Unit 6 Workforce Planning Forecast

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Gatehouse Memorial Group, its strategy and every count are composite and illustrative, carried from Units 2 to 5; the sources cited are real.

The Strategy in Three Dated Sentences

Consolidation. In month 15 of the plan, the two smallest homes in the five-home Slate Belt cluster close, and their families are served by the three neighboring homes.

Growth. Cremation and memorial service volume is budgeted to rise 40 percent by the end of year three, most of it through pre-need contracts already signed.

Centralization. By the end of year one, all embalming and preparation moves from the homes' own preparation rooms to the central care center, where licensed funeral directors assigned to the center do the work.

Levenson (2018) argues that workforce analysis is most useful when it starts from how a strategy will actually be carried out, so each sentence is dated and each drives one demand figure below.

Demand by Role

Location staff. 186 today. The consolidation removes 14 positions, so demand is 186 in year one and 172 in years two and three.

Licensed funeral directors at the care center. 6 today. Centralized preparation and growing volume raise demand to 7 in year one, 8 in year two and 9 in year three, at roughly one director per 240 preparations a year.

Care center staff, removal technicians, crematory operators and after-hours intake: 64 today, rising to 66, 69 and 72 as volume grows and night calls move entirely to the center.

Supply Without Hiring

Supply is shown before any hiring, so the gaps are visible rather than quietly filled by an assumed recruiting rate. Exit rates come from the Unit 4 turnover analysis.

Location staff, at a 32.8 percent annual exit rate: 125.0 remain after year one, 84.0 after year two and 56.4 after year three, against demand of 186, 172 and 172.

Care center staff, at 29.7 percent: 45.0, 31.6 and 22.2, against demand of 66, 69 and 72.

Licensed care-center directors, at a 15 percent exit rate plus expected retirements, since two of the six are eligible now and two more become eligible by year three: 4.4 after year one, 3.0 after year two and 1.7 after year three, against demand of 7, 8 and 9. The gap reaches 7.3 by the end of year three.

The Consolidation Without Layoffs

The five-home cluster has 44 location staff. At the location exit rate of 32.8 percent, about 14 of them would leave in a year. If the cluster stops external hiring twelve months before the closings and fills essential gaps with transfers from other homes, attrition absorbs the 14 positions, and no one needs to be laid off. The risk is service strain in the final months, which the plan covers with float attendants from the Easton home.

Lead Time

The size of a gap matters less than how long it takes to close.

Location staff: about three weeks to fill and four weeks in the academy, so roughly two months from requisition to independent work.

Care center staff: about four weeks to fill and six weeks before a removal technician takes night calls alone.

Licensed funeral directors: 94 days to fill when a licensed candidate exists, then about three months before working alone. When none exists, Gatehouse must sponsor a mortuary science graduate through a supervised internship of about a year before licensure, which puts the total near eighteen months.

Location roles carry the largest hiring numbers, but licensed directors carry the risk, because a gap of seven people that takes eighteen months to fill cannot be closed in the year it appears.

What the Forecast Assumes

Three assumptions carry the most weight, and each can be changed. Exit rates are held at last year's levels, although Unit 4 showed that location turnover is concentrated in four homes and in the first year, so any program that lowers it there changes the supply line for location staff more than any other input. Hom et al. (2017) caution that turnover rates shift with local labor markets, and the fulfillment center that opened near three homes last spring is exactly such a shift. The preparation ratio of about 240 a year per director comes from the care center's current workload and could fall if case complexity rises. Finally, the growth figure rests on pre-need contracts, which convert to services on their own schedule rather than the budget's.

Priorities

First. Begin sponsoring two interns a year at the care center now, so the year-three gap closes on time.

Second. Hold the Slate Belt cluster's hiring freeze to the plan.

Third. Plan location and care center hiring at the volume the exit rates imply, while the Unit 5 cost model makes the case for reducing those rates. Cascio and Boudreau (2011) note that a lower exit rate is itself a supply decision, and every point of first-year attrition avoided reduces the number of hires this forecast requires.

References

Cascio, W. F., & Boudreau, J. W. (2011). Investing in people: Financial impact of human resource initiatives (2nd ed.). FT Press.

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

Levenson, A. (2018). Using workforce analytics to improve strategy execution. Human Resource Management, 57(3), 685-700. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21850