ORG 5091 Module 1 Capstone Problem Statement and Proposal Example

Half the Night Shift Gone in a Year: A Capstone Proposal on Second-Shift Turnover at a Columbus Distribution Center

Student Name

American College of Education

ORG5091: Organizational Leadership Capstone

Module 1 Assignment

Instructor Name

August 7, 2028

Introduction

I manage second-shift operations at a distribution center in Columbus, Ohio, that ships household goods for a regional retailer. The organization described here is a composite; details have been combined and altered to protect the company and its employees. The center employs about 410 associates across two shifts. My shift runs from 3:30 p.m. to midnight and employs about 170 associates, five supervisors and me. In the last twelve months, 99 associates left the second shift, a turnover rate of 58 percent, compared with 31 percent on the first shift. This capstone will address that problem.

Problem Statement

Second-shift associates at the Columbus distribution center leave at nearly twice the rate of first-shift associates, and most leave within their first 120 days. The turnover raises costs, lowers productivity and weakens service to stores. Timing makes the problem urgent: a third distribution line is scheduled for 2029 that will be staffed mainly on the second shift, which will not be possible if the shift cannot keep the people it already hires.

Evidence That the Problem Is Real

Company records show the problem in several ways. Of the 99 second-shift departures, 64 occurred within 120 days of hire. Time to fill second-shift openings averaged 23 days, during which remaining associates worked mandatory overtime that rose to an average of 6.5 hours a week. Picking accuracy on the second shift was 99.1 percent against a 99.6 percent target, and late truck departures to stores rose from 4 to 9 percent over the year. The human resources department estimates the cost of replacing an associate, including recruiting, training and lost productivity during the learning period, at about $4,800, which puts the annual cost of second-shift turnover above $470,000.

What Research Says About the Problem

Turnover research offers a starting point for the capstone. Hom et al. (2017) reviewed a century of turnover research and described how the field moved from attitudes such as job satisfaction toward broader explanations, including how employees become attached to or detached from their jobs and communities. Mitchell et al. (2001) showed that embeddedness, meaning a worker's ties to coworkers and community, the fit of the job with the rest of life and what would be given up by quitting, predicted who stayed even after satisfaction and commitment were taken into account. Hancock et al. (2013) found that turnover harms organizational performance, with stronger effects in some settings. These studies suggest that the causes of early second-shift exits may lie in how new associates connect to the job, not only in pay.

Scope

Because the capstone is short, the problem must be bounded. It covers hourly associates on the second shift and their first 120 days, where most departures occur. It does not cover pay rates, which are set by the corporate compensation team, or first-shift turnover, although first-shift data will serve as a comparison. Within that scope, I control or influence scheduling within the shift, supervisor practices, onboarding on the floor and how work is assigned, which means the capstone can lead to actions I can carry out or recommend directly.

Purpose and Questions

The purpose of the capstone is to diagnose why new second-shift associates leave, choose the most promising response and plan how to implement and evaluate it. Three questions guide the work. What factors, within my scope, best explain the early departures? Which response, among realistic alternatives, offers the greatest reduction in early turnover for its cost and risk? How should the chosen response be implemented and evaluated over a year? The final module will document what the work shows about my development as a leader.

Links to the Program

The capstone draws on several earlier courses in the M.S. in Organizational Leadership. Organizational behavior and leadership theory inform how I will interpret associate experiences and supervisor behavior. Human resources courses provide the tools for turnover analysis and workforce planning. Change management guides the implementation plan, and the courses on ethics and inclusion shape how I will gather and use information from associates, many of whom are early in their working lives or speak English as a second language.

Evidence I Will Gather

Three sources of evidence will be used. First, two years of HR records will be examined for patterns in early departures by hire source, start date, supervisor, work area and schedule. Second, short structured exit calls will be made to associates who left in the last six months, with permission. Third, I will hold four listening sessions with current second-shift associates, two in English and two in Spanish with an interpreter, and a separate session with supervisors. A short pulse survey will add numbers to what associates say.

Ethical Safeguards

Gathering information from people I supervise raises ethical issues. Associates may fear that criticism will be held against them. To address this, an HR partner rather than I will conduct exit calls, listening session notes will not record names and no survey result will be shown for any group smaller than ten. Participation will be voluntary. The site director has approved the project and the use of company data for my studies, provided the company name and personal details are not disclosed.

Assumptions and Risks to the Project

The plan rests on two assumptions. The first is that former associates will answer an exit call; past HR experience suggests about half will, which is enough to see patterns but not to treat the results as complete. The second is that operations will stay stable during the project, so that changes in turnover can be read as the result of the problem rather than of a new product line or a holiday surge. If peak season arrives early, data gathering will move to the following month and the timeline will shift by two weeks.

Plan and Timeline

The capstone will proceed in four stages that match the remaining modules. In the second module, I will analyze the records, exit calls and listening sessions to diagnose the causes of early turnover. In the third, I will identify alternative responses, compare them on impact, cost, feasibility and risk and choose one. In the fourth, I will plan implementation and evaluation, including measures and a timeline. In the fifth, I will document the competencies the project demonstrates and reflect on my growth through the program.

Conclusion

The second shift at a Columbus distribution center lost 58 percent of its associates in a year, mostly within their first 120 days, at a cost above $470,000 and with visible effects on accuracy and store service. The capstone will focus on early departures within my scope of control, gather evidence from records, former associates, current associates and supervisors with ethical safeguards and use research on turnover and embeddedness to diagnose the causes and choose a response. The plan connects the program's courses to a problem my organization needs solved before its next expansion.

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

Hom, P. W., Lee, T. W., Shaw, J. D., & Hausknecht, J. P. (2017). One hundred years of employee turnover theory and research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 530-545. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000103

Mitchell, T. R., Holtom, B. C., Lee, T. W., Sablynski, C. J., & Erez, M. (2001). Why people stay: Using job embeddedness to predict voluntary turnover. Academy of Management Journal, 44(6), 1102-1121. https://doi.org/10.2307/3069391