You will have many hats to wear in your job as Big Boss. Managing all expenses is critical to the survival of the enterprise for which you are responsible. Payroll and employee benefits are a large part of your expense budget, perhaps the largest. This assignment will provide to you a very elementary understanding payroll expenses.

Givens:

562 workers, 5-day work week, 8-hour work day, no overtime is budgeted, 10 days of paid vacation per employee, per year; 11 paid holidays per employee, per year; average hourly pay = $14.75. Employee healthcare benefits = 31.8% of hourly wages, including all paid time off (holidays and vacation days).

1. Not counting holidays and vacation days, how many working days are there in the schedule shown above?

2. What is the labor cost for 1 hour of operation for all 562 employees?

3. What is the annual cost of labor for 1 employee, including vacation days and holiday pay?

4. What is the annual cost of healthcare for all workers?

5. What is the additional cost if the number of paid holidays is increased from 11 to 12 (exclude healthcare)? Think hard about this one.

6. What is the annual cost of a 2.75% hourly wage increase (calculate wages and healthcare benefits)?

Continue on next page.

7. What will be the annual cost to establish a retirement account for all employees funded by the employer @ $1.25 per hour worked (include paid time off)?

Hard Part:

You are paid big bucks to be an effective, creative manager. You must come up with a strategy to cover the added payroll and healthcare expenses you calculated for numbers 5, 6 and 7.

You must develop a strategy to offset the increases to payroll and benefits.

Our competitive situation does NOT permit the raising prices for our products. You are to assume that our sales volume will not increase.

Put on your thinking cap and start writing.