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ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Enabling success: talent management

Tamsin Retail's analysis shows that in three years it will have a surplus of in-store cashiers because of self-checkout technology, but a shortage of data analysts. Redundancy would be costly and damage its employer brand. Which resourcing response best fits the plan while limiting those costs?

The best response is to retrain and redeploy suitable cashiers into analyst roles while recruiting externally for remaining gaps. This uses surplus internal supply to meet the shortage, limits redundancy costs and protects the employer brand, whereas the other options leave one gap unresolved or incur the costs to be avoided.

  1. AFreeze all recruitment and rely on overtime for analysts
  2. BRetrain and redeploy suitable cashiers into analyst roles where feasible, alongside targeted external recruitment for remaining gapsCorrect
  3. CHire analysts externally and make all cashiers redundant immediately
  4. DOutsource the analyst function and keep surplus cashiers in current roles

Explanation

A combined approach of retraining/redeployment for the surplus and selective external hiring addresses both gaps, protects the employer brand and uses internal supply. Immediate redundancy ignores the stated costs, a freeze leaves the shortage unresolved, and keeping surplus staff does not remove the surplus.

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