Assignment: Workforce Composition Analysis Spring

In this step, your hard work bears fruit. What does it all mean? Think back to your boss's reasons for tasking you with this project. Bring your powers of analysis to bear to determine what the data may be telling you. Apply your quantitative reasoning skills by answering the questions provided in the resource and writing a short essay.

After you answer the questions, your short essay should include:

-a one-paragraph narrative summary of your findings, describing patterns of interest
-an explanation of the potential relevance of such patterns
-a description of how you would investigate further to determine if your results could be perceived as good or bad for the company.

Quantitative analysis of the company details company makeup, annual growth, and employee demographics and salaries by region. The company is made up primarily of high school educated married Caucasian men earning, on average, $40-$70,000 annually as machine operators, and support staff. Salaries appear in line with labor categories, education, and professional experience. One particular data point is that the top six earners at the company, making over $100,000 annually, work at the company headquarters in the Northeast region, with the CEO earns nearly double the salary of any other employee at the company. Additionally, company sales average roughly 15% annually, with a couple years of regression, but general progressive growth has been consistent over the past decade and a half. Lastly, the data indicates that company diversity appears to be within a normal or average range, especially given demographics of the states in which the company has a presence. The ethnic makeup is in line with American ethnic population percentages. Gender makeup is 80% male, 20% female, which considering the job category, this appears to be quite impressive, but can always be improved.

The aforementioned analysis proves company health and stability, but provides indicators for potential growth and improvement through employee demographic diversity and possible distribution of leadership and upper echelon salaries and positions at all three company locations. The personnel salary data provides the leadership team with ammunition to retain skilled employees and recognize high performers through a fair promotion and bonus process.

Data and company statistics cannot wholly encompass company and personnel satisfaction, the data showcases potential items of interest and possible vulnerabilities. In addition to this quantitive analysis, it is recommended that the company implement clear communication, anonymous surveys, feedback, and implement a diversification plan for personnel, leadership, and hiring to ensure company progression across a number of the aforementioned data points. Finally, a continued quantative analysis on an annual basis to judge progression and keep a pulse on the health of the company and its people going forward is highly recommended.

Questions:

1. From the histogram, there are two pronounced peaks of salaries. This may indicate reasonable promotion rate for new employees. Is this distribution unimodal or bimodal?

2. The Sales Summary shows sales figure over the years from 1999 to 2014. In 2015, sales slightly decreased. Investors want to know what the projected sales will be in 2017. One method for determining this value is to calculate the average annual growth rate per year, based on historical trends. For example, if sales were $200 last year and $500 this year, the average annual growth rate would be calculated as ($500 - $200/$200)/2. Calculate the average annual growth rate for 1999 - 2015 and projected sales for 2017.

3. The standard deviation provides insight into the distribution of values around the mean. If the standard deviation is small, the more narrow the range between the lowest and highest value. That is, values will cluster close to the mean. From your descriptive statistics, please describe your standard deviations. What does this tell you about the variables?

4. The company has a keen interest in the educational, race and gender makeup of its workforce. Their emphasis is on a diverse, dynamic workforce. From your ‘Graph Charts' spreadsheet, please describe your pie chart findings for these characteristics of the workforce. Describe how you would determine how the company was meeting expectations on these characteristics.

5. The company is conducting an analysis on how many positions to create to keep up with demand. Specifically, it wants to identify a rough estimate of the number of positions per job title. From your Excel chart, please identify the mode of the job title distribution. Describe your findings.