assignment 1

In a 100-150 word report, address the following questions. Support your responses with materials from this week’s readings.

Your company is planning to implement a team-based approach to designing and creating packaging materials for clients. The purpose is to increase productivity and reduce cost.

What training issues should your company address? Name two or three specific suggestions for how they should deal with them.

Explain why skills training programs are important for long-term vitality of businesses.

assignment 2

This portion of your project connects with a problem that many organizations are facing today, the skills gap. The skills gap refers to the difference between the skill requirements of available jobs and the skills possessed by job applicants.

Vice President Cindy Kramer has brought to your attention that two of the office personnel you are going to be training lack basic workplace competencies. These individuals are having problems with all new technology, which has been introduced over the past several years. Growing up in the late 50s and early 60s, they were not acquainted with computers at an early age, as the majority of younger workers are today. Even the Coffee Maker and electric stapler are intimidating to these employees. They also lack skills to answer and control the multiple phone lines, due to the new technology of such equipment.

Cindy would like you to document how your training will assist in filling the skills gap connected with these employees. How might you assist the employees in the technical training they require in connection with the training topic you have chosen?

Cindy has advised you also, that another office employee lacks in basic English skills. Maria was hired ten years ago by Fleet Trucking, after she and her family moved here from Malaysia. She has very limited English-speaking skills, but is the most valuable employee when it comes to organization of paperwork and files, scheduling drivers for deliveries, and keeping updated logbooks.

Cindy is seeking confirmation that you have a plan on how to assist Maria, to ensure that she benefits from the training as greatly as the other trainees do. What can you do? Hire an interpreter? Coach Maria? Attempt to train a coach to work with her? What are your suggestions and why do you feel this will benefit Maria?

assignemt 3

Earlier, you were asked to visit the Department of Labor home page on the Internet. Here are the instructions again:

1. Go to the website of the Department of Labor: http://www.dol.gov 
2. Do a search for “overtime pay.”
3. Select a topic from the list of regulations. Take notes on what you find. Be ready to share your findings later in the week.

It’s time to share your findings! Summarize them in a paragraph and submit them to drop boxbelow.

assignemt 4

Jeffrey Swift has been a messenger used by a couple of the local businesses where the Discrimina, Inc. machine shop is located. Sometimes he has done some extra errands inside the Discrimina building for a couple of hours. For the last several weeks, he has helped package items for shipment on Thursdays. Things have gone well, but Jeffrey is concerned because sometimes he has waited over two hours in the waiting room while waiting for the packaging to begin. He wouldn’t mind but Discrimina pays only for packaging time, not for waiting time. He can never be certain when the parts will be ready for packaging because final quality checking time varies wildly.

Jeffrey has his own delivery business, but Discrimina has only paid him cash. Each time, Jeffrey has given the company a receipt for the cash. While he waits, he sometimes goes out for donuts for the crew. At other times, he plays games on his PDA or makes cell calls to friends.

Question

If Jeffrey Swift sues for the waiting time hours, what is the likely result and why? Write your answer in a Word document in 1-2 pages.

assignment 5

You are assigned the task of computing the variable capital and labor costs for Cost Cutters production level. Below is a table with the capital and labor requirements for ten different levels of production.

Complete the table and answer the following:

• Assuming the price of labor is $6 per unit and the price of capital is $12 per unit; compute the total variable costs, the marginal costs, and the average variable costs for the firm.
• Using the numbers that you calculated above, explain the relationship between the marginal cost and average variable cost. Using the same numbers, explain the “marginal cost” in terms of additional inputs needed to produce a marginal unit of output.
• If the output price was $62, how many units of output would the firm produce? Explain.