CVP anaylysis revision key question

Hello sir,

I when I looked at the answer for the question 133 “bits and pieces” in the revision kit I was a bit confused. I have typed in the paragraph that I have a dough in, it is considering weather to open on Sundays or not.

“It has been agreed to pay time a half to sales assistants that work on Sundays. The normal hourly rate is $20 per hour. In total five sales assistants will be needed for the six hours that the store will be open on Sunday. They will be able to take a half day off (four hours) during the week. Staffing level will be allowed to reduce slightly during the week to avoid extra cost being incurred.”

There is no other information regarding staffing costs in the question. In the answers they have calculated the increment staffing costs for 50 sundays as : 5 x 6 x 50 x 1.5 x 20 = $45,000. I get this part, but when they are given four hours off during the week, should we not reduce the staffing costs by: 5 x4 x 20 x 50 = $20,000? This wasn’t the case in answers.

Quite apart from the I have another query. Lets say as part of a bigger question they ask a question like “discuss whether manager’s pay deal for extra work on Sunday is likely to motivate him” (4 marks). If the answer key has it like “not likely because….” and if we have written like “likely…” and some valid reasons, will it be given marks as they are just different perspectives or does it have a definite answer? Example: the answer key compares the managers bonus to the staff salary. My answer could be: it is 10% raise of his annual salary, looks like a good raise considering he gets equal time off during the week.

Regards,
Akash