VBC Tutorial – HR Management

HR management

Your employees work on oil rigs, factory machines, offices, stores, laundry services, and hair salons. To manage your employees, go to «Employees and Salary» on the main page of the enterprise. 

Key factors in HR management:

• The required number of employees depends on the size of the enterprise, and the number of equipment units.   The system will give hints on the number of required employees. 
• The required qualification (skills) depends on the education level in the city and the equipment level: the higher the technological level of the equipment is, the more qualified employees are required. 
• The salary should be based on the city average and the required skills.  

If you manage a huge international corporation, you will find the automated HR management function very useful.  It will save you time, by adjusting the salary every game turn based on the qualification and technological requirements.  

The location and qualification of your employees

If you plan to develop high-tech industries, or conduct research, it is rational to establish such enterprises in the cities with high educational levels. The information on the education level of the city can be found by clicking on «Analytics» / «Macroeconomics». In the «World map» tab select the region or the country of your interest. It will show the list of cities, the information on the population, average salary, education level, wealth index, and demographic situation. 

Types of enterprises and salary 

Just like in real life, low-qualified employees earn less money, whereas jobs that require the employees to be highly qualified are normally very well-paid.

For farms and plantations, the required salary is only 50% of the city average, for manufacturing – 70%, service sector, and stores are equal to the average salary on the market, office employees – 150%, power plant employees – 250%. The employees of laboratories and medical centers earn the most: the salaries are 4 times higher than the city average.

Employee training and development

Try to implement different HR management strategies in your businesses. For instance, you can hire employees who would work for the average city salary, but you will be able to raise their qualifications by incorporating employee training.

Employees

The number of employees required for 100% production load depends on several factors: size of subdivision and sufficient quantity of equipment.

Manpower is not the same in all countries and regions, since education levels are different. Therefore, the qualification level is not the same in all cities. On the other hand, staff qualification depends on the actual salary level. Higher salaries will allow you to hire employees with higher qualifications in any city. An alternative to raising salary is training of employees, described below.

The average qualification level depends on education. Employees with qualifications equal to the city average can receive an average salary (for the current type of subdivision).

The cost of hiring employees depends on the salary at the respective subdivision. If the salary is less than the average city level, then for each employee an amount equal to 1/2 of the average city salary is taken. Also, this accrual scheme is used when hiring workers for an empty enterprise. If the salary at the enterprise is higher than the average city level, then when hiring new employees, 1/2 of the current salary is taken. Upon dismissal of employees, the full weekly amount of the current salary is charged once.

Salary level depends on the type of subdivision:

Type of subdivision	Average salary
Farms and plantations	50%
Production facilities	70%
Animal farms	100%
Retail stores	100%
Service industry, restaurants	100%
Offices	150%
Powerplants	250%
Laboratories	400%
Medical facilities	400%

Employee qualification influences production efficiency and depends on the technology level of the subdivision — a higher technology level requires a higher quality of equipment and thus higher qualification of employees.

In stores, the minimum qualification requirements for sellers depend on the city (the richer the city, the higher the requirements), location, and product range (the most expensive product on the shelves is determined – it determines the kind of prestige of the store; the more expensive the “prestige” product is, the higher the minimum requirements to sellers). It should be noted that the fulfillment of the minimum requirements for sellers provides 100% of staff efficiency, but does not always provide the maximum elite level of service in the store.

The qualifications of staff can be enhanced by hiring more expensive and more skilled employees, as well as through training. Training allows you to achieve a higher level of qualification of workers while maintaining an average level of wages.

Before opening any kind of enterprise in a certain city you must study the city population. For example, it is better to place high-tech subdivisions or an office in a city with a highly educated population. However, it won’t make sense to place a low-tech subdivision in a city with an expensive and well-educated population.

Training allows you to raise the level of qualification of employees in the enterprise while maintaining the current level of wages. Training is conducted for all workers at the same time and does not lead to a shutdown of production. During training, the operation of the enterprise is carried out as usual.

The duration of the training can last from 1 to 4 weeks. The longer the training period, the higher the increase in the level of qualification. The cost of a weekly training course for one worker is 10 city average salaries for employees of this type of enterprise. The qualifications of workers are increasing every week.

In turn, the alternative to training – salary growth – does not carry a positive external effect. This is one of the reasons why training is more profitable than raising salaries. However, the training requires significant costs, so it can be an overwhelming burden for young companies.