The Costs of Employee Turnover

As employees move on in their life, they will be searching for a future to move up the ladder. This is shown in recent studies as the costs of employee turnover has been increasing dramatically. In the hospiality business, employee turnover is typically in excess of 120%. There are many issues associated with employee turnover; mostly to do with costs in time and money of the company.

Pre-departure costs will be incurred after an employee has given notice however before the employee leaves. This would typically mean exit interviews as human resources would want to find out the reason the employee may be leaving the company for. Recruitment is the next step. Human resources need to account for the costs of replacing the employee. This means that they would have to go out and put out a job posting for potential employees. Next would be the selection process. Interviews will be conducted at this time. The costs of interviewing and the decisiosn is a time consuming task as there is not a perfect employee for every position in the world. Afterwards, orientation and training is up. This is a necessary process as the new employee needs to require training for the tasks they'll be taking up in the future. This usually is followed up by associated costs including time spent training the employee. Eventually it ultimately comes to the productivity loss. Because of the lack of man power in that timeframe, this usually accounts for the largest percentage of total costs, up to 70% in certain cases. This is usually hurt in four ways, the lack of productivity of the employee that departed, the learning curve associated with teh job for the new employee, disruption costs as the new employee will most likely need assistance from their superiors and ultimately the loss of revenues or sales from the vacancy during that period of time.

Usually the result of these turnover costs are associated with te complexity of the job. The more complex the job, the higher the costs. This is usually due to the training associated with the job and the revenues they lose from the vacancy during the time they were looking for someone to fill the spot. And usually its the loss of productivity that hits businesses hard during employee turnover. Employee turnover is a continuing concern in the hospitality industry in the future due to the csots associated with it. It's the loss in revenues due to the loss of productivity that causes them to hit hard, and in this competitive environment, usually this means the loss of its competitive edge and that there needs to be solutions to these employee turnovers for the hospitality industries.

Xerox: What Went Wrong?

The Xerox Corporation was a legendary company known for their photocopiers. However in the late 90s, they were facing a downturn to competitor Canon. This eventually led to hiring CEO Rick Thoman, who was set to make Xerox profitable again. However there were a number of flaws, CFO Barry Romeril had done a poor job overseeing corporate finances. This led to some creative accounting which reported a $119 million write-off from a subsidiary that only brings in $400 million. Eventually this caused a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission for overstating earnings. Thoman wanted Romeril fired for incurring a 13% loss in net worth of Xerox. He also wanted to restructure global sales to better compete. Dolan, president of global sales, disagreed. The executives of Xerox were close acquaintances which led to the blocking the restructuring of global sales. Eventually, Thoman was fired. However, Xerox was on the verge of Bankruptcy for a long.

Most of the problems associated with Xerox was the management structure. The executives were close acquaintances and they didn't want to admit mistakes and change their ways of business at Xerox. However it should be noted that many of the executives were lost in their own jobs. The duties that they carried out were scattered and didn't know where to pick up. No matter how much they manipulate the financials, Xerox still needed to reshape their global sales to attract new clients while maintaining their client base.

Business Ideas

Negotiate Cellular Plans For Customers

Most of the population of Canada has mobile phones. However being Canadian means paying ridiculous prices for cellular plans. Many of these customers think they're just stuck paying market prices for plans however only a few people know about customer care or otherwise known as the loyalty or retentions department. Now the average person doesn't have the time to get put on hold and have a back and forth conversation to lower their cellular plan. Well offering a service to aid with this would be a decent demand as people are willing to pay to save. Charging a fee with a tier-based system would work with this concept as every outcome could end up differently depending on what was worked on within the plan. It doesn't cost much to actually operate a service like this, other than access to a computer and a phone. But it is time consuming. However if people are willing to pay for it, it's a viable business.

EDIT - It's a given that you might get rejected, there is no limit to how many times you call into their call centre, i have personal experience with Telus and Rogers and i've been given probably one of the best plans that one could imagine (Won't list it out here, if you want info, ask me) and that would be a the better incentitive for someone to actually look for this service as the person running it has something that someone would think is close to impossible with the savings and value you get. And it's not always about price, it may be trying to get a free feature like Caller ID, a typical freebie that's thrown out there if you haven't known already. This could save someone $5-8 a month or unlimited incoming calls, a feature that's $10 but it could save someone alot more if they go over their rate plan. So it just doesn't have to stop at trying to get a cheaper price on the plan, it's about shaping a person's need within their budget.

Offer Alternative Items From The Cafeteria Or Trojan Market

Ever sick and tired of the items offered at the cafeteria or trojan market? Well there are a couple people that are so why not offer an alternative to them as such. Maybe even just offer dessert to people. There are many possibilities to this. There are people that want choice and this will fill this niche. However the cost of running this business is costly and as a business, could be proved difficult to make a decent profit margin. It's viable but due to running costs, it could fail with ease.

EDIT - Yeah should have been more clear with this, i think it'll run with more of a general convenience of having snacks which aren't found anymore such as chips, candy bars and for the most part, those cookies that were actually decent. Finding inventory wouldn't be so bad but knowing the market would be a better idea of what to actually stock up with. Not my best idea but it's an idea.

The Business Case for Sustainability - Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson's sustainability program is geared towards exceeding the minimum industrial standards. They have broken it down into 6 categories, substance control, ethics, energy and climate, recycling, health and society. They go beyond certain regulations by banning or restricting a good deal of substances they consider unwanted in their products. The business ethics that ensure that all operations are conducted in a socially responsible matter. With that, making continuous effort in reducing the amount of energy consumed as well as their own carbon footprint. They also offer solutions of their end-of-life products so they get recycled in an enviromentally friendly matter. The health of high safety of mobile devices and the association with a numerous projects that contribute to its role as a good corporate citizen.

Their effort shows a slight evidence of profit due to their dedicated range of GreenHeart labelled phones which are made with mostly recycled materials. As a customer, i think that as long as they do something about it, i wouldn't mind much though i wouldn't purchase a phone from their GreenHeart line. However as a possible stakeholder, it shouldn't be much of an issue as Sony Ericsson tries to make a quick buck by trying to sell an eco-friendly phone. At the end of the day, it's after all a business thats trying to turn over a profit.

The Corporation - Business Ethics

My thoughts on business ethics are that companies usually go against them to turn over a profit. Many of them seem to be their general business practices. Alot of companies outsource jobs to desperate countries for a fraction of the cost, literally just keeping them afloat. However in my view, regardless of their wages, they seem to be fullfilled for the necessities of life. Though their working conditions could be better, the consumer can still rest easier while purchasing a product.