2.1 Introduction to human resource management questions for IB Business Management

Mvule Logistics

[1] Mvule Logistics (ML) is a privately held company that runs two large warehouses on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. It stores and distributes goods for supermarkets, pharmaceutical wholesalers and online retailers across East Africa. ML employs 310 people. Most of the 240 warehouse operatives have worked for ML for more than six years and were trained by the same shift supervisors.

[2] Demand for ML’s services has grown quickly because of the rise of online shopping. Its largest client, an online retailer, now expects orders received before 22:00 to be dispatched the same night. To meet this, the chief executive, Wanjiru Mwangi, plans to install an automated warehouse management system in 2026. Hand-held scanners and conveyor sorting would replace most paper-based picking, and some tasks would be carried out by robots.

[3] Wanjiru estimates that the new system will reduce the number of warehouse operatives needed by about 20 %. She also wants the remaining operatives to work flexible shifts, some starting at 16:00 and finishing at 01:00. Several younger operatives have already left to work as self-employed delivery riders through mobile apps, which pay per delivery and let them choose their own hours.

[4] When rumours of the new system spread, absenteeism rose. Joseph Otieno, a shift supervisor for 14 years, told Wanjiru: “My team know nothing about computers, and nobody has told us who will keep their job. They think the robots are coming for them.” Many supervisors also worry that the system will report each picker’s speed directly to head office, so they will no longer be needed to check their team’s work.

[5] ML’s HR manager, Peter Kamau, has proposed two possible approaches. Option 1 is to introduce the system in one warehouse first, involve operatives in testing it and offer retraining to all staff who want it. Option 2 is to install the system in both warehouses at the same time over a four-week shutdown, so that ML can meet the client’s deadline quickly, and to offer a cash bonus to operatives who accept the new shift patterns.

Hanamizuki Care

Hanamizuki Care (HC) operates 12 residential care homes for elderly people in Osaka, Japan. Government rules require care homes to employ at least one full-time equivalent (FTE) care worker for every three residents. HC’s homes are full, and there is a long waiting list.

Japan’s population is ageing and the number of people of working age is falling. HC finds it increasingly difficult to recruit care workers. In 2025 HC began recruiting trained care workers from Vietnam and Indonesia under a government scheme, and it is trialling lifting robots and night-time monitoring sensors in two homes.

Table 1: Selected data for Hanamizuki Care

Note: to cover holidays, sickness and training, HC employs 10 % more FTE care workers than the minimum required by the rule (1.1 FTE care workers for every care worker required).

Ubuntu Reclaim

Ubuntu Reclaim (UR) is a social enterprise in Cape Town, South Africa, set up in 2017 by Ayanda Qwabe. It employs 85 former informal waste pickers (“reclaimers”), who once collected recyclable materials from landfill sites and streets with no protective equipment and unpredictable earnings. UR collects recyclable waste from apartment buildings and offices, sorts it at its depot and sells the sorted paper, plastics and metals to recycling plants. It pays a fixed monthly wage above the national minimum wage, provides protective clothing and runs a savings scheme for its workers. UR is a private company; all surpluses are reinvested.

Excerpt 1: Email from Ayanda Qwabe to UR’s board

Prices paid by recycling plants for our sorted materials have fallen by about 30 % this year. We are now running a monthly deficit (see below). If nothing changes, our reserves will last about five months. I propose we move from a fixed wage to a piece rate of R1.40 per kilogram sorted, so that pay reflects what we earn. Our best sorters would earn more than now.

Excerpt 1 (continued): UR average monthly figures (R)

Excerpt 2: Social media post by Sipho Dlamini, UR sorter and chair of the newly formed UR branch of the Cape Reclaimers’ Union (CRU)

We left the landfill for a fixed wage, safety and respect. Now they want to pay us by the kilo again, like the old days. The average sorter does about 220 kg a day. At R1.40 that is a pay cut. We were never asked. If UR goes ahead, we will strike. #NotMachines

Excerpt 3: Results of an anonymous survey of UR workers (72 responses)

Excerpt 4: Article in a Cape Town business newspaper

The city plans to require all large apartment buildings to separate recyclables at source from 2027. This should raise the quality, and the price, of collected materials. A large waste-management company has said it will bid for the new collection contracts. Social enterprises such as Ubuntu Reclaim may struggle to compete on price, but the city says it will give “additional weight” to bidders that create jobs for former reclaimers.

Excerpt 5: Email from Lerato Khumalo, impact investment manager at a development foundation

We would consider a five-year loan of R1.2 million at a low interest rate to help UR through this period, possibly linked to converting UR into a worker co-operative. We would need to see a plan showing how UR will become financially sustainable and how labour relations will be stabilized. A strike now would make us very cautious.

Coastline Dental

[1] Coastline Dental (CD) is a private limited company that owns nine dental clinics along the coast of Queensland, Australia. It employs 38 dentists, 52 dental nurses and 20 receptionists. CD’s mission statement is “gentle, affordable dental care for every family on the coast”.

[2] The population of CD’s area is changing. Many retired people have moved to the coast, while young families increasingly work long hours and cannot attend appointments during the day. Dental nurses are hard to find: several have moved to Brisbane, where pay is higher, and CD’s recruitment advertisements now take three months to fill a vacancy.

[3] Managing director Olivia Brennan wants to open every clinic from 07:00 to 20:00, six days a week, instead of 08:30 to 17:00, five days a week. She also wants to replace paper patient files with a cloud-based records system that patients can use to book online. She believes these changes will increase revenue and help CD compete with a new chain of low-cost clinics.

[4] Staff reaction has been mixed. Some younger dentists like the idea of choosing their own shifts. However, many dental nurses have children and fear being given evening shifts. The receptionists, most aged over 50, are worried that online booking will make their jobs unnecessary. At a staff meeting, one receptionist said: “We were told about this by email on a Friday afternoon. Nobody asked us what patients actually want.”

[5] Olivia is considering introducing flexi-time: staff would agree the total hours they work each week but choose, within limits, when they start and finish. The receptionists would be retrained as “patient care coordinators” who help older patients use the new booking system.

BrightLine BPO runs a customer-service contact centre in Cebu, the Philippines, for overseas telecoms clients. It has just won a new contract that will raise the number of calls it must answer from 18 000 to 25 200 per day. Each agent handles an average of 72 calls per shift, and each agent works one shift per day. On any day, 10 % of agents are absent or on leave, so BrightLine employs more agents than the number needed on shift.

BrightLine currently employs 280 agents.

Nokoru House (NH)

Read the resources and answer the questions that follow.

Nokoru House (NH) is a social enterprise in a mountain town in Shimane Prefecture, Japan. It was founded in 2018 by Aoi Tanabe, who returned to her home town after ten years in Tokyo. NH buys or rents akiya (empty, abandoned houses), restores them and runs them as guesthouses. It now operates nine houses with 27 guest rooms and employs 26 local people, most of them retired residents who work part-time as hosts, cooks and cleaners. NH’s mission is “to keep our town alive by opening its doors”.

Image: an old wooden farmhouse with a thatched roof and paper sliding doors, restored and lit warmly at dusk. An elderly woman in an apron kneels at a low table serving dishes of mountain vegetables to two guests. Sign at the gate: “Nokoru House – stay, and the town stays too”.

Resource 1 – News article from the *Shimane Weekly News*

Empty houses find new life – but who will run them?

Rural Japan is shrinking. In NH’s town, more than half of residents will soon be over 65, and young people leave for the cities after school. NH has attracted foreign and domestic tourists and created jobs, but its founder admits that “our best hosts are in their seventies”.

Table 1: NH’s home town

Resource 2 – Online review from a guest from Australia

The highlight of our whole trip to Japan. Mrs Hamada cooked eleven dishes from vegetables she had picked that morning, and told us (with hand signals and a lot of laughing) how the village celebrated harvest when she was a girl. ★★★★★ [1/2]

Only problem: nobody spoke English and we arrived after the office closed. It took us 40 minutes and three phone calls to find the key to our house. Fix that and this place is perfect. [2/2]

Resource 3 – Internal email from Aoi Tanabe to NH’s two other directors

From: Aoi Tanabe, Founder

To: Directors

Subject: Staffing for the next five years

Bookings rose again this year, but seven of our 26 staff plan to retire within three years, six of them hosts or cooks. We cannot grow – or even keep going – without a plan. The options I have looked at:

1. Apply for three young people from the national rural relocation programme, which pays urban young people to live and work in rural towns for up to three years. The government pays their salaries. About 60 % stay in the area after three years.

2. Recruit foreign workers on the Specified Skilled Worker visa for the accommodation sector. An agency would charge JPY 400 000 per worker and they must be paid the same as Japanese staff. They would need housing and Japanese lessons.

3. Install smart locks and tablet check-in with a multilingual guest app for JPY 6.5 million. This would save about 2 000 hours of front-desk work a year.

4. Raise our hourly wage from JPY 1 050 (just above the prefecture’s minimum wage) to JPY 1 300 to attract local parents and part-time workers. Hotels in Tokyo pay about JPY 1 450.

CONFIDENTIAL: this email and any attachments are intended only for the named recipients.

Resource 4 – NH’s staff profile, 2025

NH’s hourly-paid staff work a total of about 31 000 hours a year.

Resource 5 – Interview with Hamada Setsuko, aged 78, an NH host

“I would like to keep working, but my knees cannot manage five days a week any more. Two or three mornings would suit me. The young people from the city don’t know how to cook mountain vegetables or how to talk to our old neighbours – but I could teach them, if someone gave me the time to do it. And guests come to hear our stories, not to talk to a tablet.”

Resource 6 – NH guest survey and booking data