Case study The board of a large Australian investment bank of 7,200 employees (1,800 females and 5,400 males) has received media criticism over its poor record on employee work-life balance. It is looking to implement a range of workforce strategies and wants to survey its employee base to see how that might best improve. The company is headquartered in Melbourne, with equally-sized offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. Some variables of interest in the proposed survey include: Variable Department ID Age Number of dependants Desire to work-from-home (WFH) preference Description Randomly generated 5-digit number for each of the company's 42 departments, which also identifies the department's location In years Scale from 'Highly undesirable' to 'Highly desirable' a) For each of the variables mentioned in the table above, determine whether they are nominal, ordinal or quantitative. Furthermore, for variables that are quantitative, also determine if the variable is likely to be discrete or continuous. Justify your answer. (b) After reviewing the variables of interest, the board decided to revise two of the existing variables - age and desire to work-from-home (WFH) preference as follows. Variable Description Age Age groups. Example: 20-24; 25-29 WFH days per week preference Scale from 0 to 5 days, including 0.5 days How does your answer to part (a) for variables age and WFH days per week preference change as a result of this description amendment? (c) The board also want to include the following variables. Variable Distance Description In km Mode of transport Bus/train/ferry/car Consider the above surveyed variables (distance and mode of transport) and discuss how visual format (charts) assists with the decision making. In your response identify the type of chart(s) suitable as visual representation of each variable with a justification. (d) The board wants about 25% of the company's workforce to receive the survey. In order to collect the data, the human resources (HR) manager has decided to distribute the survey to everyone in the Melbourne office, which has a male-to-female ratio of approximately 2.5:1. The manager believes that the Melbourne office staff are representative of the average company worker and is roughly the right size for the desired sample. The survey is distributed electronically by asking department managers to email all Melbourne staff in their departments with a link to an online survey. The HR manager will also reward the department with the most responses with gift cards of $50 per person. The survey responses will be anonymous, and the survey is voluntary. Identify and critique the type of sampling method chosen by the HR manager. In your discussion, identify how the sampling process may introduce different types of 'response bias'.