Theme One and Two

A concession stand is a place where customers can buy food or snacks whether in a stadium, cinema or an amusement park like a bowling alley like the one at Laurel City. The nature of customers visiting a concession stand can either be impatient, intimidating, talkative, indecisive and even demanding. Consequently, it is evident that employee turnover rate has been higher in the northern branch of Laurel City Bowling. Conversations with employees have revealed that scheduling, pay and handling difficult customers could be the reason for this turnover. Therefore, this paper will offer managerial solutions that could address this problem and retain employees in this concession stand.

The first solutions to this problem would be to motivate and reward these employees accordingly. Employees could be leaving because they think the pay is not worth the efforts they are putting in the workplace. The company ought to pay employees fair going wage by keeping their compensation and benefits current. They need to have competitive benefits compared to other stands. Nature of work could be used to determine these payments. The nature of work in northern branch could be difficult compared to other branches.

The wrong or fixed schedule could also scare employees from coming to work. To address the issue of scheduling the company ought to encourage job rotations and flexible duty rosters. For example, off days could be introduced and different working hours to enable employees to serve different people at different times not always on seven days a week.

Another main problem that could be the main reason employees are leaving is the nature of customers because pay and schedules must be the same in all branches. To address this issue, the company ought to hire the right staff. When hiring employees, the organization should not only focus on skills alone but on the ability of the employee to fit well with the company’s culture, co-workers, and managers. Consequently, this will reveal whether the employee can stand difficult working conditions. They also need to be rewarded by getting bonuses from dealing with difficult customers.

Theme Three

A balanced scorecard is a strategic management and planning system that businesses use to align their operations with the vision and strategy of the organization, monitor organization’s performance against the strategic goals, improve internal and external communication. It views the organization in four approaches that include customers, financials, internal business processes, learning, and growth.

When applying the balance score card to address the issue of employee turnover at the branch objective of the management would be to reduce employee turnover costs. It will ensure that the company adopts effective recruiting methods and orientation methods to retain the hired employees. Some of the actions to identify and address the problem would be to identify the qualities of employees who have stayed for a while in the company. The management ought to review orientation program to ensure recruits are retained. Technology ought to be used to recruit and screen applications. Finally, selection method ought to be identified that will lead to successful job recruits and integrate branding efforts into recruiting.

Regarding the approaches in the balanced scorecard, the following measures will help to identify and address the problem at the northern branch. The financial approach will look at the cost incurred in hiring staff. Another perspective on the approach would be to look at the turnover rates and costs involved when these employees quit or when others are recruited. This will help in proper decision making when hiring and firing employees.

The business process approach will help to identify the appropriate time to fill the job vacant. It will take into account whether the business is in a good position to hire or fire employees. Regarding the customer approach, it will examine whether the current staff or recruits are satisfying the needs of the customers. In respect to learning and growth approach, the management will be able to get feedback on their actions regarding recruitments and employee turnover.