Selecting a New American City for a Business Expansion

Recruiting Plan Strategy for HR Management and Org Leaders: Fleet, Farm and Home

Today, the labor market in the United States is challenged on numerous fronts, including most especially the scarcity of talented and motivated employees. To determine the current situation, the purpose of this project is to develop a business report on a recruiting plan strategy for HR management and organizational leaders for the expansion of Fleet, Farm and Home (FFH) (hereinafter alternatively “the company”) with a specific focus on three potential future locations in the midwestern United States: Ottumwa, Iowa, Ottawa, Illinois and Grand Island, Nebraska. A comparison of the respective labor markets, unemployment rates, median incomes and educational levels for these locations is followed by other relevant data as appropriate. In addition, an assessment of the laws that impact FFH\'s recruiting strategy is followed by an analysis of the resources that will be required for recruiting minorities. Finally, this project provides a recommendation for the optimal locations for FFH’s expansion plans together with supporting rationale.

Comparison of the Labor Markets for Each Selected Location

Population

· Ottumwa, Iowa: 25,545 (as of 2019); this population has remained essentially unchanged for the past 5 years (Population levels, 2022).

· Ottawa, Illinois: 18,792 (Population, 2022).

· Grand Island, Nebraska: 51,147 (Populations levels, 2022).

Unemployment Rates

· Ottumwa, Iowa. Unemployment rate: 3.4% (Dec 2021)

· Ottawa, Illinois: 5.5%

· Grand Island, Nebraska: 2.6% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022).

Median Incomes

· Ottumwa, Iowa. $26.275 (2019)

· Ottawa, Illinois: $27,481 (2019)

· Grand Island, Nebraska: $30,586 (Median incomes, 2022).

Educational levels of the work force

· Ottumwa, Iowa: High school graduate or higher, percent of persons age 25 years and over: 86.0%; bachelor’s degree or higher, percent of persons age 25 years and over: 20.1% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022).

· Ottawa, Illinois: High school graduate or higher, percent of persons age 25 years and over: 90.3%; bachelor’s degree or higher, percent of persons age 25 years and over: 21.3% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022).

· Grand Island, Nebraska: High school graduate or higher, percent of persons age 25 years and over: 83.4%; bachelor’s degree or higher, percent of persons age 25 years and over: 20.3% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022)

Other relevant data

· Ottumwa, Iowa: This is the hometown to the well-known and popular Walter “Radar O’Reilly” from the motion picture and television series “M*A*S*H. This small city has one community college (Indian Hills Community College) and comparatively easy access to 4-year universities including the University of Iowa in Des Moines (Ottumwa overview, 2022).

· Ottawa, Illinois: The small city was the site of the first Lincoln-Douglas debate on August 21, 1858 (Ottawa overview, 2022).

· Grand Island, Nebraska: This city is located on the largest inland island in the world. In addition, and notwithstanding its comparatively small population, Grand Island has several higher educational institutions, including Central Community College, Northeast Community College, Southeast Community College and the University of Nebraska at Omaha (Grand Island overview, 2022).

Laws that impact FFH\'s recruiting strategy

The company’s recruiting strategy for one of the new locations of interest described above are impacted by a number of labor laws, including generally the Fourteenth Amendment as well as specific federal laws such as the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Labors Standards Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Privacy Act of 1974, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the National Labor Relations Act (the Age Discrimination in Employment Act as well as rules promulgated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (Summary of the Major Laws of the Department of Labor, 2022).

In addition, each of the selected potential locations has some state-level labor laws that must be followed including the following:

· Iowa: The minimum wage in this state is currently $7.25 per hour, but there are no other Iowa-specific labor laws in place; all of the above-listed federal labor laws, however, are also applicable to Iowa (Recent Changes To Iowa Employment Law And Labor Law, 2022).

· Illinois: The minimum wage in this state is currently $12.00 per hour. In addition, except for certain occupations, state law prohibits requiring employees to work 7 days without at least one 24-hour break (Illinois Minimum Wage, Lunch Break Laws, & More, 2022).

· Nebraska: The minimum wage law in this state is $8.00 per hour (The Nebraska employment law guide., 2022).

Resources for recruiting minorities

The populations of all three selected potential locations for the company’s planned expansion are predominately white as shown below:

· White: 83.18%; other race: 7.26%; Black or African American: 5.00%; two or more races: 2.25%; Asian 1.47; Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 0.75; Native American: 0.09% (Ottumwa, Iowa Population, 2022).

· Ottawa, Illinois: White: 89.76%; Black or African American: 4.23%; two or more races: 2.99%; other race: 1.96%; Asian: 0.83%; Native American: 0.23%; Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 0.00% (Ottawa, Illinois population, 2022).

· Grand Island, Nebraska: White: 81.95%; other race: 10.62%; Black or African American: 3.23%; two or more races: 1.90%; Asian: 1.26%; Native American: 0.62%; Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 0.41% (Grand Island, Nebraska Population, 2022).

A recent study by Vlas et al. (2022) cites the importance of ensuring organizations have a diverse workforce, and recommends enlisting the assistance of various community-based groups including Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In addition, these authors recommend the use of mentoring programs and internship-based recruiting programs to attract and retain qualified members of American minority groups (Vlas et al., 2022). These types of human resources initiatives would significantly facilitate the company’s minority recruitment efforts in any of the proposed cities since the case study makes it clear that, “There\'s no direct plan to prepare employees for new roles in the organization” (Setting the stage, n.d.).

Likewise, the findings that emerged from a study by Hill-Jackson (2020) concerning optimal recruiting strategies for minority members included a recommendation for the use of “special emphasis recruiting” that focuses additional organizational resources for this specific purpose. As noted above, none of the three cities selected for analysis have minority populations above 5.00% (i.e., Ottumwa, Iowa), a special emphasis recruiting strategy is clearly appropriate for the purposes of this plan. Based on the foregoing, the city selected for FFH’s expansion plans is noted below together with support rationale.

Recommendation for a location to support FFH\'s expansion plans

The cases study indicates that the new location will most likely require about 100 part-time and full-time employees for adequate staffing. In addition, the case study also notes that the company assigns a higher priority to candidate who have acquired at least 1 or years of college as well as a minimum of 1 year of retail or customer service experience. Because all three of the proposed Midwestern U.S. cities are essentially mirror images of each other in terms of demographic composition, educational levels, median incomes and labor laws, the recommend city is Grand Island, Nebraska based on its modestly larger population and access to community-based educational resources despite its slightly higher median income level.