1. Why was Blinds to Go (BTG) having difficulties in hiring and retaining staff?

1. Sudden growth rate plan, and targeting for the hiring

Company is planning to grow multi-folds in the given time, and 650 new staffing is the
current problem in hands of the DSMs and they are not focused on current employees as
much as required.
2. Way too many qualities and expectations from the ground sales staff new or existing
Case lists 06 qualities in the sales person they are looking for, which creates a very strict
criterions for hiring the people for the job, and existing people even though they have the
qualities it is not helping new guys due to very competitive environment resulting in less
turnaround time. And consistency is not being maintained by the existing staff resulting in
terminations after 8 months.
3. Cultural difference in US and Canada adding to pay structure reforms over years
As per case People in the US are ok with the stable salary structure rather than the
commission based structure resulting in reducing the number of people applying for the jobs
where the GTB has most of the footprint.
4. People reach of the company is not as much, evident from the failure of the cold calls
From the case it’s evident that the cold calls are not being much of the help and same is with
the internet, the literacy about the company amongst the people is one of the concerns
which is affecting the numbers of the applications from these channels
5. Peer pressure
The existing staff is competitive and people getting demotivated to work because they are
underperforming and earning less than their peers and they are not getting help to improve
themselves
6. Lack of communication between Hired recruiters and DSMs
Recruiters were motivated only by the base salary and the bonus for each successful hire
whereas DSM had to hire only 10 new sales associates as per staff quota target and no one
was there to monitor the hiring ability of hired recruiters
7. BTG not hiring outsider people for middle management
They only relied on the promotion within the organization to fill up the vacancy in the higher
and middle management positions, which actually created the feeling of peer pressure
among the associates not to help others to move up the ladder. They had no policy of hiring
outsiders in middle management positions because they feared that outsiders might not
have the inherent BTG values. In this way, when one aspires to move up the ladder and
don’t find a position for him, he eventually quits.
1. What are the suggestions you would make to help BTG overcome these problems.

In order to hire and retain good quality employees, BTG should try out the below ways :

a. A compensation policy should have the provision of any of the two components :
i) Fixed base salary
ii) Commission

A sales executive should be given an option to choose his own compensation policy based
on which one is higher.

b. There should be a proper framework where sales executives can be trained and motivated
c. Some evaluation activity with constructive criticism should be in place
d. Every employee should be given an opportunity to work in different branches and apply
their skillset appropriate different areas of operation
e. Store managers should be asked to look for the positive traits in the low performing sales
executives and effectively utilize them in achieving the goal providing mutual benefit
f. Management should buy in the theory of reskilling existing sales executives rather than
firing when objective is not met
g. Store managers should take up more responsibility
h. Some efficient managers with good track record should be hired instead of filling up the
manager positions by promoting sales executives from within the organization
i. Stock options should be made available to the employees not after first 3 months. BTG
management could increase the eligibility criteria of getting a stock to 6 months or more
j. There should be some monitoring over the recruitment procedure correctness
k. BTG should increase the minimum cycle time required to stay in a particular role e.g sales
executive. Instead of 6-9 months tenure, BTG should increase the cycle time to 12 months
atleast
l. BTG should involve in more of marketing and bring in more talents through cold calling and
internet marketing. Advertisements and publication in national daily , much more of online
presence should create more awareness of the company among public and this would
eventually help in fast and effective recruitment
m. There should not be any communication gap between DSM and hired recruiters.
n. Recruitment criteria should be made more lenient and once hired people can be trained
with BTG values