Fun & Learn, Inc. is a national chain of retail outlets specialising in creative toys and innovative learning materials for children. The company caters to the upper end of the market and focuses on customer service for a competitive advantage. Fun & Learn plans to expand and open five new retail outlets in the coming quarter. This may mean up to 200 new hires, and the executive team wants to make sure that the best people are hired and retained. It has issued a challenge to its retail management personnel to design a staffing process that will accomplish these goals.

The children’s market in which Fun & Learn operates demands service personnel who are endlessly patient; knowledgeable about children, toys, and learning; and, perhaps most Importantly, it is pleasant, enthusiastic, and engaging. Excellent customer service is the top priority at Fun & Learn, and obtaining the desired performance from personnel has meant a major investment in training.

Unfortunately, new workers often leave within a year of being hired. This means the

company barely gets an adequate return on the training it has invested in its new hires.

Turnover is due (at least, in part) to the demanding nature of the job.

Recently, Fun & Learn has been emphasizing the establishment of work teams to improve the quality of its services, identify and fix any problems in service delivery and brainstorm new opportunities.

This approach has yielded better than anticipated results, so the team concept will be central to the new outlets.

Learning Objectives

1. How can Fun & Learn attract the best applicants for jobs at its new retail outlets? 

On what groups, if any, should be recruiting effort focus? How should the recruiting be done?

2. How should Fun & Learn select the best candidates? What type of characteristics and

 measures should be used? Why?

3. How might Fun & Learn socialise its employees so that they are attuned to the firm’s culture

and plans for the future?

4. How might Fun & Learn address its retention problems?