Who will bake at two in the morning?: Lena's Bakery Ltd has three shops, each with a manager and counter staff, and six bakers, who bake in each shop's back room before it opens.
In March all the baking moves to the new bakehouse on Mill Lane, on a night shift that starts at two. Lena has the building, the ovens and the vans sorted.
What she has not sorted is the people.
Looking after the people side of a business is human resource management (HRM). Its job is to make sure the business has the right number of people, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time, at a cost it can afford. The ovens on Mill Lane are useless without bakers who can work them at two in the morning.
What HR does for Lena's Bakery
Plans the workforce
Works out how many people the bakery will need, with which skills and when, and compares that with the people it already has.
Finds the people
Fills the gap: advertises the new jobs on Mill Lane, interviews and chooses who to take on.
Develops them
Makes sure they can do the job, for example learning to run the bakehouse's large oven, and checks how well they are doing.
Looks after them
Pay, hours, rotas, fair treatment and the law on night work. And when the business changes the way people work, it manages that change.
The first of those jobs comes before all the others. A human resource plan (workforce plan) is a forecast of the people the business will need, set against the people it has. The difference between the two is the gap HR must fill, by hiring, training or moving people.
| Mill Lane needs by March | Lena has now | The gap | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Head baker | 1, to run the night shift | Nobody has ever run a shift | 1 to find, or promote a baker |
| Bakers | 6, on a rota covering seven nights | 6 in the shops, and one retires in June | 2 to find, if one baker becomes head baker |
| Van drivers | 2, for the 5 a.m. runs to the shops | None | 2 to find, or book drivers per run |
| Skills | Using the large mixer and oven | Nobody has used one | Training before March |
The role of HRM in one line: HR turns the business's plans into people: how many, with what skills, where, when and at what cost.
Lena's plan says a new job, head baker, two more bakers and a new skill. Getting that right is HR's work; getting it wrong means ovens with nobody to run them.
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Lena's first plan counted loaves the old way, 300 for each baker, and came out at far more bakers than she has. Then she looked again. Some of what shapes her plan comes from inside the bakery, where she has some control over it. These are the internal factors that influence human resource planning.
Where the business is going
- Its objectives: from three shops to eight in five years, so the bakehouse is planned for more than today
- A new site or product changes the jobs needed: night bakers and drivers on Mill Lane
- The budget: what the bakery can afford to pay in wages
The people it already has
- How many staff, and their skills: six craft bakers, nobody trained on a large oven
- Their ages: one baker retires in June
- How many leave each year: two counter staff left last year and had to be replaced
How the work is done
- New technology: the large mixer does in minutes what took a baker an hour
- So fewer hands per loaf, but new skills
- The way managers run things: a boss who asks first plans differently from one who tells
The oven changes the numbers: In the shops, one baker makes about 300 loaves a shift by hand. With the new mixer and oven, one baker on Mill Lane can make 600.
So the bakehouse needs fewer bakers than the old way would, but every one of them must learn to run the machines. The technology is an internal factor that changes both how many people Lena needs and what they must be able to do.
Internal factors are the ones the business decides or can see coming. Lena chose the growth target, the budget and the oven, and she knows who is close to retiring. That makes them easier to plan for than the factors that come from the world outside the bakery, which she can only watch and respond to.
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The advert that nobody answered: Lena puts up an advert for two night bakers. In three weeks, three people apply.
Nothing inside the bakery explains that. The reasons are outside it: who lives in the town, where they want to work, and how they want to work. These are the external factors that influence human resource planning, and the business cannot control them, only plan around them.
Five changes outside the bakery
Demographic change
A change in the make-up of the population: its size, its ages, where people live. In Lena's town most bakers are over fifty and few school leavers train as bakers. As the older ones retire, there are fewer trained people to hire, so the bakery must train its own or pay more.
Change in labour mobility
How easily workers move between places (geographic mobility) or between kinds of job (occupational mobility). Young bakers can move to the city, where pay is higher; a warehouse worker could retrain as a baker. The easier people move, the harder it is to keep them, and the wider the pool to hire from.
Immigration
People coming from other countries to live and work. Two of the three applicants trained as bakers abroad. Immigration widens the pool of workers with the skills Lena needs; the rules on work permits decide how easily she can employ them.
Flexi-time
Working hours the employee can choose, within limits the business sets. More workers now expect it, and rivals offer it. A night shift that must end when the vans leave at five is hard to make flexible, so Lena must plan hours people will accept, or pay more to fill them.
The gig economy
Work done as short, separate jobs, often booked through an app and paid per job, instead of a permanent contract. Lena could book gig drivers for the 5 a.m. runs and pay only for the hours used. But young workers can also choose app work over a night shift, so she competes with it for staff.
Name the factor, then show what it does to the plan: 'Demographic change' on its own says nothing. 'Most local bakers are over fifty, so as they retire Lena will have fewer trained bakers to hire and must train her own' shows how it changes the number, the skills or the cost in the HR plan.
Every factor works through one of those three: how many people, with what skills, at what cost.
Laws belong here too. The rules on night work, the minimum wage and working hours are set outside the business, and Lena's rota must follow them whatever her plan says.
The notice on the wall: The six bakers learned about Mill Lane from a notice pinned up in each shop (1.4.2): from March, baking starts at 2 a.m. at the bakehouse.
Rosa, who has baked at the High Street shop for eleven years, says she will not go. Maya, who is twenty-four, likes the idea. The counter staff wonder whether they will still be needed at seven.
When employees oppose a change or go along with it unwillingly, that is resistance to change. It is not simply awkwardness. Each person who resists has a reason, and the reasons are different, so the first job is to find out which ones are at work.
Fear of what they might lose
- Their job: will the new machines need fewer bakers?
- Their hours or pay: the counter staff may lose their early shift
- What they value: daytime with their family, their own shop, the skill of baking by hand
Not knowing what comes next
- Fear of the unknown: nobody has worked nights at Mill Lane
- Worry they cannot learn the new oven and will look foolish
- Practical doubts: there is no bus to Mill Lane at two in the morning
How the change was made
- Poor communication: a notice, with no reasons given
- Not being asked: nobody had a say in the rota
- Low trust: if they were not told, what else is being kept from them?
Habit plays a part as well. Rosa has done the same job the same way for eleven years, and it works. A change asks her to give up something certain for a promise.
Resistance can be telling you something: The bakers' complaint about the missing night bus is not stubbornness. It is a real problem the plan missed, and without an answer nobody can get to work.
Some resistance points at a weakness in the change itself. Listening to it can make the plan better.
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Lena cannot cancel the bakehouse, but she can change how it arrives. HR has several ways to reduce the impact of a change on employees, and the resistance that comes with it. Each one costs money, time or control, and each one answers some reasons for resisting better than others.
| Strategy | What Lena does | Why it helps | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Communicate early and honestly | Meets the staff, explains why the bakehouse is needed and what happens to each job, and answers questions | Replaces rumour and fear of the unknown with facts | Words alone do not help someone who is really losing something |
| Involve them (consultation) | Asks the bakers to help design the night rota | People accept a plan they helped make, and they spot problems like the night bus | Slower, and she may not be able to give them what they ask for |
| Train them | Paid training on the new mixer and oven in February, before the move | Removes the fear of not coping, and gives them a skill worth having | Costs money and time off the shop floor before any bread is sold |
| Financial rewards | A night-shift premium and a taxi allowance for the 2 a.m. start | Makes up for what the change takes away | An ongoing cost; it can buy compliance without real agreement |
| Non-financial rewards | Puts Rosa in charge of the recipes at Mill Lane | Keeps the status and skill she fears losing | Other long-serving bakers may want the same recognition |
| Support and choice | Volunteers for nights first; counter jobs or a day rota for anyone who cannot work nights | Nobody is forced; those who stay chose to | Harder to plan, and some jobs may still go |
Match the strategy to the reason: Fear of the unknown is answered by information and training. Losing money or time is answered by rewards and choice. Being told, not asked, is answered by involvement.
So the best strategy depends on why people are resisting. Rosa resists because she values her craft and was not asked, so a premium alone will not bring her; a say in the recipes and the rota might.
Timing matters too. Starting with one shop's bread in February, before all three move in March, lets the bakers learn the new way while the old way still works (a phased change). And a change that comes with a promise, such as no baker losing their job because of the new oven, removes the biggest fear of all.
Weigh, do not list: Any strategy can be named. The thinking is in the weighing: what it fixes, what it costs, and whether it fits this business's people and money.
Lena has a small budget and six bakers she cannot afford to lose. Talking and involving cost her little; a premium for every night, forever, costs a great deal.
How this comes up: A short question on a case: explain two impacts on a business of a change in how people work, such as the gig economy, for four marks. One impact, then what it means for this business, twice.
And a longer one with a stimulus: discuss strategies the business's HR department could use to reduce the impact of change on its employees, for ten. The stimulus describes the change and who feels threatened by it.
The ten-mark pattern
- Say what the change is and who it threatens. All baking moves to a 2 a.m. shift on Mill Lane; the bakers were told by a notice and one says she will leave.
- First strategy, both sides. What it is, how it reduces the impact for these employees, and what it costs or cannot fix.
- Second strategy, both sides. A different kind: if the first was talking, make the second training, rewards or choice.
- Judgement. Which strategy, or which mix, suits this business, and why. Say what the stimulus does not tell you.
The trap: a list with no weighing: Six strategies, one line each, is a list. Two strategies, each with a benefit, a drawback and a fact from the case, is a discussion.
And keep the employees at the centre: the question asks about the impact of change on them, not whether the business should make the change.
Using the information in the case, discuss strategies that Lena's Bakery Ltd's human resource department could use to reduce the impact of the move to the Mill Lane bakehouse on its employees.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.