HRM 4003 Module 1 Workforce Planning Analysis Example

Five More Meat Cutters and a Tenth Store: A Two-Year Workforce Plan for a Pennsylvania Grocery Chain

Student Name

American College of Education

HRM4003: Fundamentals of Human Resource Management

Module 1 Assignment

Instructor Name

February 15, 2027

Introduction

I work as a human resources generalist for a family-owned grocery chain with nine stores in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a composite employer referred to here as Allegheny Fresh Markets. The chain employs about 1,150 people, 460 full time and 690 part time, and plans to open a tenth store north of the city in spring 2028. Hiring has been handled store by store, as openings appear, and the meat departments have twice run short enough to close a service counter on weekends. This paper builds a two-year workforce plan. It estimates how many people the chain will need, how many it can expect to keep or develop, where the gaps fall and what the company should do about them.

Why Planning Matters Here

Turnover is not only a hiring cost. A meta-analysis by Hancock et al. (2013), drawing on 48 samples, reported that across firms, losing staff dents results only slightly on average, yet the dent deepens when the yardstick is service to customers or quality and safety. Both matter in a grocery store, where a slow deli line and a mislabeled package of ground beef are each visible to customers. In a study of 48 months of store data from a large retail chain, Ton and Huckman (2008) found that turnover lowered profit margins and customer service on average, but that stores whose managers enforced standard procedures were largely protected. A workforce plan should therefore address both how many people the chain keeps and how well new people are trained into consistent routines.

The Current Workforce

Payroll records for 2026 show the profile. Each store has a store manager and three to four department managers, for 36 managers in total. There are 42 journey-level meat cutters, 18 pharmacy technicians in the six stores with pharmacies, about 390 cashiers and front-end clerks, and the rest work in produce, deli, bakery, stocking and receiving. Annual turnover was 58 percent overall but varied widely: about 90 percent among part-time cashiers, 35 percent among pharmacy technicians, 21 percent among full-time staff and 14 percent among meat cutters. Age matters too. Nine of the 42 meat cutters are 60 or older, and four of the nine store managers expect to retire within five years.

Forecasting Demand

Demand was forecast with a ratio method, which links staffing to a business driver the company already tracks. Each department's labor hours per $10,000 of sales were calculated for 2026 and applied to the finance department's sales forecast, which assumes 2 percent annual growth at existing stores. The new store adds about 115 positions at opening, including 5 meat cutters, 3 pharmacy technicians, 4 department managers and a store manager. One planned change lowers demand: the chain is adding four self-checkout lanes to each store in 2027, which store managers estimate will reduce cashier hours by about 15 percent. Managers reviewed the ratio results and adjusted them where they knew of changes the numbers missed, such as a planned expansion of the prepared foods counter.

Forecasting Supply

Internal supply was estimated by applying each group's 2026 turnover rate, adjusted for expected retirements, to its current headcount, and by counting likely internal moves. For meat cutters, a 14 percent turnover rate means about six departures a year, and the age profile adds roughly three retirements a year, so about nine of the current 42 will leave each year. Pharmacy technicians, at 35 percent turnover, will lose six or seven of 18 each year. Among managers, four store manager retirements over five years, plus normal turnover, will open about five management roles a year. Some can be filled by promoting assistant managers and department leads, but only eleven employees are currently in any form of management training.

The Gaps

Comparing demand with supply shows three serious gaps. The chain needs 47 meat cutters by spring 2028, 42 now plus 5 for the new store, and will lose about 18 over two years, so it must find roughly 23 qualified cutters. It needs 21 pharmacy technicians and will lose about 13, requiring about 16 hires. It needs about 10 new managers over the two years, with only a handful ready. The cashier group shows the opposite: self-checkout and normal turnover will free about 15 percent of hours, so no new cashier hiring is needed beyond replacing departures. The external market will not easily close the skilled gaps; nationally, meat, poultry and fish processing jobs are projected to grow about 4 percent from 2025 to 2035 with a median wage of $18.84 an hour (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 2026), and retailers compete with processing plants for the same workers.

Plan for Meat Cutters

Because experienced cutters are scarce, the chain should grow its own. The plan proposes an 18-month in-house apprenticeship starting with eight apprentices in April 2027 and eight more in January 2028, drawn first from current deli and stocking employees. Each apprentice is paired with a journey cutter, rotates through two stores and moves up a pay step every six months. To slow departures, cutters aged 60 and over will be offered reduced schedules and a stipend to train apprentices before retiring, keeping their knowledge in the company. Apprentices must be at least 18, since federal child labor rules bar younger workers from operating power-driven meat processing equipment, a point Module 5 will examine.

Plan for Pharmacy Technicians and Managers

Pharmacy technician turnover, at 35 percent, is driven, according to exit interviews, by pay below nearby drugstore chains and by unpredictable schedules. The plan proposes a pay review in Module 3 and fixed schedules posted three weeks ahead, along with tuition support for technicians seeking national certification. For managers, the chain will create a formal development program for twelve high-potential department leads, with a mentor, a stretch assignment at the new store and a six-month review. Ton and Huckman's finding suggests that new managers should also be trained to hold store procedures steady, since managers who keep routines consistent reduce the damage turnover does elsewhere.

Front-End Staffing Without Layoffs

Self-checkout raises a fairness question for long-serving cashiers. The plan commits that no current cashier will be laid off because of the new lanes. Hours will be reduced mainly by not replacing some part-time departures, and cashiers who want more hours will be offered cross-training into deli, bakery or the meat apprenticeship. This approach uses the front end as a recruiting pool for the departments with real shortages and avoids the morale damage that layoffs during an expansion would cause.

Risks and Review

Three risks could change the plan. If sales grow faster than forecast, demand in every department rises. If apprentice completion falls below about 70 percent, the meat cutter gap will not close by 2028. And if competitors raise pharmacy pay again, technician turnover may stay high despite schedule changes. The plan will be reviewed each quarter against actual headcount, turnover and apprentice progress, and updated before the tenth store's hiring begins in late 2027.

Conclusion

Allegheny Fresh Markets does not have a general labor shortage; it has specific gaps in meat cutters, pharmacy technicians and managers, alongside surplus cashier hours. A ratio-based demand forecast and a turnover-based supply forecast make those gaps measurable, and the plan answers each with an internal pipeline and retention steps. Module 2 will design recruitment and selection for the role with the largest gap.

References

Hancock, J. I., Allen, D. G., Bosco, F. A., McDaniel, K. R., & Pierce, C. A. (2013). Meta-analytic review of employee turnover as a predictor of firm performance. Journal of Management, 39(3), 573-603. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206311424943

Ton, Z., & Huckman, R. S. (2008). Managing the impact of employee turnover on performance: The role of process conformance. Organization Science, 19(1), 56-68. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1070.0294

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2026). Meat, poultry, and fish processing workers. In Occupational outlook handbook. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/production/butchers-and-meat-cutters.htm