MT209 Unit 6 Hiring Plan Example

Not a Third Press Operator: A Unit 6 Hiring Plan for a Part-Time Order Coordinator

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT209: Small Business Management

Unit 6 Hiring Plan

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Northfork Print and Stitch, its staff and every figure are composite and illustrative; bracketed figures stand where payroll records and quotes would supply the numbers; the sources cited are real.

The Decision

Northfork Print and Stitch should hire a part-time order coordinator for twenty-five hours a week, starting in mid-May, instead of a third full-time press operator. The coordinator would take over the work that keeps orders waiting before they reach the press: answering inquiries, building quotes, sending proofs, chasing approvals and scheduling pickups. Scarborough and Cornwall (2019) observe that the first few hires in a small company often decide whether the owner can ever step back from daily operations, which makes the choice of role more important than the choice of person.

The Need

The Unit 4 operations review followed a 144-shirt order through eleven working days and found that five of them were spent waiting for a quote and for art approval, while printing took about three and a half hours. A week of tracking in September showed the owner spending about [18] hours on quotes, proofs and approval emails, most after closing time, and another twelve covering the press. September keeps the press nearly fully booked, so it is busy, but orders reach it late because they are stuck at the owner's desk.

A third press operator would add press capacity the shop needs for only a few weeks a year. It would not shorten the quote or approval waits, and in February, when the press runs under [40] percent, a full-time operator would have little to do.

The Role

The coordinator would answer phone, email and walk-in inquiries during the afternoon; build quotes for standard team and workwear orders from the templates recommended in Unit 4; send art proofs and follow up with customers until approval, within a limit of two rounds; enter approved orders on the production board; and schedule pickups and send invoices. The owner would keep pricing exceptions, new school accounts, any order over [$5,000] and all artwork design.

The schedule would be weekdays from noon to 5:00, when most inquiries arrive and when coaches answer email between classes and practice.

Cost

At [$18] an hour for twenty-five hours a week, wages come to about [$23,400] a year. Employer payroll taxes add about [$1,800], for a total near [$25,200]. A third full-time press operator at the shop's current rate would cost about [$42,000] plus taxes, or about [$45,200].

Training would cost the owner about sixty hours in May and June: two weeks working side by side on quotes, a week learning the garment catalog and the production board, and a few hours on pricing rules. Those hours fall in the shop's slowest season.

The return comes mainly from the owner's time. If the coordinator handles two thirds of the owner's eighteen hours of quoting and approvals, the owner gains about twelve hours a week in the fall, enough to stop working evenings and to cover the press at the peak without delaying quotes. If faster quotes win even two additional team orders a week in August and September, at about [$1,200] each, the added sales over eight weeks would be about [$19,000], with a gross margin of roughly [$7,200].

Recruiting and Selection

The best candidates are likely to be people with customer service or scheduling experience who want daytime part-time hours, such as parents of school-age children, community college students in afternoon-free programs or recent retirees from office jobs. Some may already know the shop through a school or club. The posting would state the hours, the pay, the busy season and the need to learn garment and ink basics.

Selection would include a short work sample: given a coach's emailed request and the shop's price template, the candidate would build a quote and draft the reply email in twenty minutes. Cardon and Stevens (2004), reviewing research on human resource practices in small firms, noted that small organizations tend to hire informally and often rely on personal networks, which can work well but can also miss better candidates. A brief, consistent work sample adds structure without much cost.

Timing

The posting would go out in late April, interviews would run in the first week of May, and the coordinator would start by mid-May. Hiring in August, when the owner first feels the pressure, would be too late, since a new coordinator would be learning during the rush and would add work instead of removing it.

Hired in August, the coordinator would be one more person waiting for the owner's answer.

Risks

The main risk is that the owner does not let go. Dessler (2020) notes that delegation fails when managers keep reviewing every task they assign, and the owner has done every quote herself for nine years. The plan sets a rule: for the first month the owner reviews each quote before it goes out, and from July she reviews only orders over [$5,000] and new accounts. A second risk is that the coordinator leaves after one season. Paying a [$400] bonus to a coordinator who stays through October 31 gives the shop the season it hired for.

References

Cardon, M. S., & Stevens, C. E. (2004). Managing human resources in small organizations: What do we know? Human Resource Management Review, 14(3), 295-323. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2004.06.001

Dessler, G. (2020). Human resource management (16th ed.). Pearson.

Scarborough, N. M., & Cornwall, J. R. (2019). Essentials of entrepreneurship and small business management (9th ed.). Pearson.