Assignment Help| You are the Vice-President of Human Resources for one of the largest yoga apparel chains in Canada

1. You are the Vice-President of Human Resources for one of the largest yoga apparel chains in Canada with over 270 stores across the country. The company also has 38 retail locations in Asia. The human resource department is managed centrally through the head office in Toronto where specialized HR functions such as HR planning, staffing, compensation, training and development, health and safety and labour relations are located and managed by 35 HR professionals. All major HR decisions are made at the head office.

There are 20 regional offices in Canada that have their own HR specialists that manage key HR tasks, as well as implementing corporate policies and procedures for their region. Each regional office has approximately 10-12 employees, of which 1-2 are HR specialists. There are 8,700 retail employees employed in the 270 store locations across the country. Each location also has a retail store manager that administers key HR processes. The 38 retail locations in Asia are managed by 2 regional offices (with 10-12 employees) that have their own HR specialist. In addition to managing core HR functions the HR specialist is responsible for ensuring compliance with regional and national HR legislation. There are 450 retail employees employed in the 38 retail locations in Asia. Each location in Asia also has a store manager that administers key HR processes.

It is a well-known fact in the company that with its constant focus on sales in its retail locations in Canada and Asia, retail store managers have limited time to focus on critical HR practices in their store. Retention and turnover in each retail location are the most important challenges faced by the HR department as is the case in the retail industry in general. The average turnover cost for a part-time retail employee is between $7,000 to $8,500. This is significant if you consider that the annual turnover rate for part-time hourly store workers remains steady around 79% in both Canada and Asia.

In recent years, your organization has faced increasing competition from new competitors in the growing yoga apparel segment who have been quicker to expand their online presence and as a result, sales and profits are down in your stores both in Canada and Asia and are expected to continue to decline unless something is done about it. Your company is planning to significantly expand its online presence in order to deal with this increased competition. In addition to pressures from the competition, there has been a dramatic shift in customer demand from brick-and-mortar retail to e-commerce as a result of COVID-19 lockdown measures and restrictions, further increasing the need to expand the company’s online presence.

To address these issues, the CEO of the company is looking for ways to cut costs and downsize retail locations while significantly expanding the company’s online presence. During a meeting with the 6 department VP’s (distribution; marketing; facilities; e-commerce; finance; HR), the CEO has asked each of them to prepare a report which demonstrates the value added by their department and its programs to the organization. The CEO will decide which departments and programs will be cut based on the tangible value added by each department as presented in their report. As VP of human resources, you must demonstrate the value of human resource practices and the potential contribution of your department and programs to the organization.

You will do this by designing a research study to assess the value added by the HR department and its programs to the organization. You have decided to adopt a mixed method approach and will be conducting both quantitative and qualitative research to complete your assessment and to produce your final management report that you will present to the CEO.

 PART 1 – 10 marks – Quantitative Research Design

1. Describe how you would design and conduct the quantitative part of your research project to demonstrate the potential value added by the HRM department and its programs to the organization.
2. How would you proceed in terms of key considerations in the quantitative research design process? What variables would you measure? Will you measure individual, group and/or organization-level variables? Be specific about each variable you choose to measure within each level and why.
3. Identify your sample selection procedure for this part of your research project and the potential problems/limitations associated with this. Provide a rationale for your choice of quantitative methodology and data collection methods.
4. What additional sources of quantitative evidence would you include to make your case to the CEO?
5. Identify potential problems of validity and reliability associated with your quantitative research design.