BA 2240 Online – Final Exam Case Study Your good friend Buddy has been having his problems lately. Business at Buddy’s Auto Body and Day Spa is down 20 percent so far this year – after expenses, he is barely breaking even. Worse yet, with the deepening recession, prospects for next year are poor. Buddy employs 26 people in a variety of positions – auto body technicians, personal trainers, estheticians, office staff, and sales people. Up until this year, his biggest HR challenge was hiring and retaining people – if you had a heartbeat, you’re hired. Lately, turnover has been less than the historical average, but productivity has been a concern. Buddy feels that with the current level of staff, he should be able to handle 25 percent more business than he has been doing. Perhaps layoffs might be the answer? Also, he’s unsure about the quality of some of the hires he made during the past three boom years – could he replace some of his current employees with better qualified new hires? Buddy’s employees have a few concerns as well. The estheticians, who are mostly women, can’t understand why they make $15/hour whereas the auto body repair technicians, who are mostly men, make $25/ hour. Buddy can’t understand the estheticians’ complaint – after all, $15/hour is the local going-rate for that job, and $25/hour is the local going-rate for auto body repair technicians. Employee morale at Buddy’s isn’t great. Many employees say they’d work elsewhere if they could – working at Buddy’s is a paycheque – that’s about it. Buddy has heard that his employees are thinking about forming a union – the International Guild of Auto Body and Nail Technicians. Buddy would strongly prefer to remain a non-union shop. Historically, the HR function at Buddy’s has been minimalist. HR has been focused on recruiting, record keeping, benefits administration, WCB, and payroll. The HR function is handled by the office manager – it takes up about 1/3 of her time. Buddy has heard that you took a Human Resources Management course this semester. He’s asked you for some help. Perhaps there are some HR techniques and processes that he could implement that might help turn things around.