Chapter 9, Problem 53E

Time-Driven ABC for an Administrative Service

The manager of the Personnel Department at City Enterprises has been reading about time-driven ABC and wants to apply it to her department. She has identified four basic activities her employees spend most of the their time on: Interviewing, Hiring, Assessment, and Separation Processing. The department employs five staff who perform these activities. The manager provides the following estimates for the amount of time it takes to complete each of these activities:

• Interviewing: 45 minutes.
• Hiring: 60 minutes.
• Assessment: 75 minutes.
• Separation Processing: 90 minutes.

Employees in Personnel work 35-hour weeks with four weeks for vacation. Of the 35 hours, five are reserved for administrative tasks, training, and so on. The costs of the Personnel Department, including any allocated costs from other staff functions, are $972,000. During the year, Personnel conducted 1,200 interviews, made 375 hires, made 3,000 assessments, and had 250 separations.

Required

1. a.      What is the cost per minute for activities in Personnel?
2. b.      What is the cost of interviewing and hiring one employee?
3. c.       How many minutes of unused capacity did Personnel have for the year?
4. d.      What was the cost of the unused capacity in Personnel?