Develop Your Staffing Skills: Transition Analysis at Ascend Sports Equipment Company

Develop Your Staffing Skills: Transition Analysis for the Ascend Sports Equipment Company

The Ascend Sports Equipment Company sells sports clothing and equipment for amateur, light sport (running, tennis, walking, swimming, badminton, and golf) enthusiasts. It is the only company in the nation that does this on a door-to-door basis, seeking to bypass the retail sporting goods store and sell directly to the customer. Its salespeople have sales kits that include both sample products, as well as a full-line catalog it can use to show and discuss with customers. The sales function is composed of full-time and part-time salespeople (level 1), assistant sales managers (level 2), and regional sales managers (level 3).

The company has decided to study the internal movement patterns of people in the sales function, as well as to forecast their likely availabilities in future time periods. Results will be used to help identify staffing gaps (surpluses and shortages), and to develop staffing strategy and plans for future growth.

To do this, the HR department first collected data for 2018 and 2019 to construct a transition probability matrix, as well as the number of employees in each job at the end of in 2019 in each job category. The average transition rates for 2016 and 2017 are in the matrix as the expected transition rates for 2020. It then wanted to use the matrix to forecast the numbers of employees expected to be available in each job category at the end of 2020. The following data were gathered:

The Transition Probabilities for 2018-2019 Are the Expected Transition Rates for 2020

Job Category Level SF SP ASM RSM Exit #Empl. End of ‘19

Sales, Full-time (SF) 1 .50 .10 .05 .00 .35 500

Sales, Part-time (SP) 1 .05 .60 .10 .00 .25 150

Ass’t. Sales Mgr. (ASM) 2 .05 .00 .80 .10 .05 50

Region. Sales Mgr. (RSM) 3 .00 .00 .00 .70 .30 30

Based on the above data, answer the following questions. You should be able to answer all three questions in about one page:

a. Briefly describe the internal labor market of the company in terms of job stability (staying on the same job), promotion paths and rates, transfer paths and rates, demotion paths and rates, and turnover (exit) rates. Do you notice anything unusual in the companys internal labor market or career paths?

b. Forecast the numbers of employees expected to be available in each job category at the end of 2020. Calculate the forecasted surplus/shortage for each position and generate an action plan for each position.

c. Indicate potential limitations to your forecasts.

Use the Internet to research three current labor market trends and describe the implications of those trends for staffing.