Sample Memo: Human Resource Management
To: John Smith, HR Executive
From: Adam Smith, Assistant Manager, Human Resources
Date: May 13, 2017
Subject: Staffing Issues
Customer service is one of the very important areas of our business. However, it is being affected by staff shortage. Based on the reports from last two months, at least 40% of the customers who had filed product related complaints cited delays in addressing their problems. At the root of these issues is the shortage of customer service staff. The problem is that if the situation persists, it can lead to the loss of several precious customers. While we hired two new people to fill the vacancies in the customer service department, we will need at least two more so customer issues are handled efficiently.
There is another side of this problem too. The staff that we hired last time has not been trained properly. So, we also need to focus upon developing training programs that can train the new hires efficiently within a short period. While the new hires seem to be unfamiliar with how to handle several cases, they also seem to be ignorant about several key facts they must know to respond to customer queries. Therefore, apart from hiring we need to focus upon training the new hires well so that our customer service department functions efficiently. We have also received a report of staff shortage in some other departments like marketing and finance. However, we need to hire people for customer service on an urgency basis. This is most crucial area where staff shortage is affecting our image and productivity.
In case of marketing and finance, some of the staff we had hired last year have left. Our focus needs to be shifted towards planning for staff retention. While we have hired able people, it seems we have not been able to provide them with the expected job satisfaction. Some of the reasons most frequently cited are a lack of flexible work hours, low incentives and lack of recognition. Therefore, we also need to revise our HR policies and implement new programs to maximize staff satisfaction and motivation.  Along with these things we also need to design effective training programs and hire people that are culturally compatible with our organization. These things will ensure that we manage to retain people that can continue to deliver with dedication. It will also help us increase people’s satisfaction from their jobs. Particularly, training, flexible work hours and benefits have been identified as crucial areas that can directly affect satisfaction and retention rate.