IRHR2010 Introduction to Industrial Relations – PBL 1: Advising the Always Healthy Club

THE SCENARIO:
The Always Healthy Club (AHC) is a registered club doing business on the Central Coast, New South Wales. AHC advocates wellness and provides members and guests an array of services such as yoga classes, exercise equipment, a steam room, a swimming pool, a tennis court, including food and drinks. It has more than 70 employees, some of whom are full-time and part-time permanents while a few are on fixed-term contracts. But most are the casual staff.

A small number of them are members of United Voice and Australian Workers’ Union, two trade unions operating in AHC’s industry. The United Voice’s local Organiser is Sarah Masters who come to AHC regularly because of apprehensions about non-payment of penalty rates in the industry.

The Director of AHC is Carol Heathe. Carol is quite concerned about casual staff turnover, which is much higher than the industry average. Recruitment has become particularly challenging and costly, not to mention the impact on service quality, and workplace productivity in the long run.

Carol has recently taken up her role in AHC. Though she sees herself as a reasonably experienced professional, she is laboring over how to communicate with the staff about issues affecting them. But she needs to gain a deeper understanding of the predicament and how to go about sorting it out.

THE TASK:
Your task is to prepare advice for Carol (in the form of a report) about how to examine the causes of the staff turnover dilemma in AHC, and determine potential solutions. More specifically, she would like you to tackle the following questions:

1. How should Carol collect information and establish possible causes of her turnover problem?
2. What are two of the most likely causes of these problems?
3. Based on your research and analysis, what possible solutions could you recommend to Carol to remedy the situation?