1.1. How well does its current HR management and payroll processes align with this strategy?

Answer – AB Hi-Fi’s current HR management processes are not cost-effective and as such negatively
impacts its strategy of cost leadership as well as its plan to undercut competitors on pricing. Its
recruitment process for employees is very expensive and as such makes its plan to undercut its
competitors very difficult to achieve.

Its payroll process seems to be in better condition, with a fully automated system in place which is
overseen by a singular company officer thus ensuring the saving of time, money and in general
streamlining the payroll process.

1.2. Is there anything you would change and explain how this would improve alignment with the
business strategy?

Answer – Yes there is. Particular focus should be paid to tweaking the Employee recruitment process
particularly for part-time employees in order to reduce costs associated with finding suitable
applicants. This cost reduction would be more in line with its Cost leadership strategy and overall
plan to gain market share by under-cutting competitors.

A potential solution could be to research the HR management and payroll processes for some of its
competitors to get a better understanding of the landscape.

2. Provide 2 examples of how you can measure performance of HR management or payroll

processes by using metrics?

Answer – HR Management Metrics

Early turnover rate
This is the percentage of recruits leaving in the first year

This is arguably the most important metric to determine hiring success in a company.
This early leaver metric indicates whether there is a mismatch between the person and the company
or between the person and his/her position. Early turnover is also very expensive. It usually takes 6
to 12 months before employees have fully learned the ropes and reach their ‘Optimum Productivity
Level’. According to a 2014 Oxford Economics report, the lost output cost over this period averages
£30,000 ($43,700) for new hires.

Cost per hire

The average cost of hiring a new employee. You can generate this number by adding up both
internal and external hiring costs then dividing that total by the number of employees you hired in a
given period.

This is important as it shows how much it costs the company to hire new employees. This also serves
as an indicator of the efficiency of the recruitment process.

As can be seen from the team’s media budget plan, we at Opulense believe that the market
research is fundamental to the stability and growth of the brand and as such does not end
with the successful launch of a campaign. We believe that campaign evaluation is vital
particularly in a constantly evolving virtual environment where the means and channels of
communication with customers that is applied by organizations is constantly changing. We
believe that the campaign evaluation is less focused on feedback of executions and more on
the broader media strategy and how the campaign is affecting the brand. The post campaign
research moves from seeing “advertising” as a stimulus to being part of a system.
 
Every company, brand, or agency will approach the end of a campaign differently, with some
going into detail and others taking a much broader view. However whilst digital campaigns
can be quite simple and straightforward, perhaps with maybe just one or two channels,
others may be more complex and multifaceted. Therefore, we at Opulense believe in the
necessity of the details so as to develop a succinct understanding of how different elements
of the campaign performed in the context of the overall campaign objective. As such, a
review of pertinent literature deems it imperative that we implement a post campaign
analysis. This provides quantitative evidence and involves evaluating factors such as; The
Market Reaction, Customer Response, Sales Performance, Cost per Acquisition and Return
on Investment.
The main advantages of running a PCA include:
1.     Understand what elements of the campaign worked well/ not so well
2.     Learn how the target audience responded to the campaign
3.     Review the ultimate effectiveness of the campaign versus objectives
4.     Discuss the campaign with key stakeholders
5.     Provide valuable learnings for future campaigns
 
In order for our post campaign evaluation to provide actionable results, it will include all
sources of information on what we did and how our consumers responded. One of the
primary goals for us as a brand is the examination of the cause/effect dichotomy. In
understanding the ‘cause’ side of the equation, we take into account media plans, campaign
materials and any environmental factors that could have affected results.  On the ‘effect’
side, we focus on business-related behaviour: Sales results, Website impressions, Click-
through rates, Time on site, enquiries etc.

Brand tracking surveys also form a key part of the campaign evaluation. This can take the
form of pre and post campaign tracking or continuous tracking. The choice is predominantly
reliant on budget, campaign duration and frequency and as can be seen from our media
plan budget we will be employing a pre and post campaign tracking system due to budgetary
constrictions ($30,000) as well as the fact that the campaign is not a continuous process
which is supported by the media plan table showing a 12 week/3 month campaign
timeframe. 

The big picture takeaway is that the implementation of a campaign evaluation provides key
performance indicators such as changes in brand awareness, changes in brand perception,
potential increases in likelihood to purchase, additional data on source(s) of awareness, and
much more. Consequently, it proffers valuable insights for refining our
communication/marketing strategy as well as a source of inestimable data in the formulation
of future campaigns.