When headquarters becomes worth it

What headquarters does in build 3674

A headquarters is the control layer for staffing, recruitment, purchasing, logistics, and neighborhood pricing. Its value comes from correctly assigned managers and plans, not from customer traffic.

Current 1.0 management roles include Human Resources Managers, Headhunters, Purchasing Agents, Logistics Managers, and the new Pricing Manager. Each role solves a different recurring task and needs a valid headquarters workstation, employee assignment, schedule, and plan or scope where the interface requires one.

Official 1.0 notes describe the Pricing Manager as able to update prices for all items across an assigned neighborhood and to offer more accurate daily suggestions at higher skill. That is a management aid, not an automatic guarantee of maximum profit.

Developer replies describe Purchasing Agents as the people who create importer orders and Logistics Managers as the people who run warehouse-to-store delivery networks. HR Managers own employee plans, while Headhunters improve advanced recruitment and can support replacement workflows.

Build 3674 is important operational context: its official hotfix fixed employees who were trying to quit causing imports, deliveries, training, and other scheduled systems to fail. After updating an affected save, advance to the next day, verify every assignment, and exclude the failed day from manager evaluation.

Do not build an oversized office because a role list exists. Add headquarters capacity in the order recurring work becomes valuable, and keep spare workstation and floor flexibility for the next manager. Empty management desks produce no customer capacity or revenue.

Choose and prepare the premises

Headquarters has no walk-in sales requirement, so choose it for manager capacity, cost, access, and layout rather than retail footfall.

Count the managers required now, the managers expected during the next expansion, and one practical spare station. Compare that desk count with the office shell, bathroom and cleaning requirements, employee-demand furniture, door geometry, and installation cost.

A high-traffic storefront location has opportunity cost because traffic benefits revenue businesses. Headquarters selection should emphasize affordable rent, convenient travel, sufficient office capacity, and a clean layout. Treat this as an economic recommendation, not a hidden game rule about address quality.

Map valid workstation groups with desk, chair, and computer as required by the live role description. Leave interaction clearance and verify every chair can be assigned. A visually complete desk that is blocked or mismatched does not activate a manager.

Reserve flexible wall and floor space for employee demands. Recruiting before the workplace is prepared can reveal demands that force an expensive retrofit. Conversely, buying every possible item wastes cash. Maintain a modular demand bay that can change with the roster.

Include bathroom and cleaning coverage required by the current business status screen. Managers lose value when satisfaction, absence, or invalid facilities destabilize their schedule. Run the same requirement audit used for any office business even though no customers arrive.

The assignment chain: employee, desk, schedule, plan

Most headquarters failures are incomplete configuration. A manager normally needs four links, and each must be checked independently.

First hire the correct job category from the appropriate recruitment channel. City Workforce is the documented source for office-type employees in developer support replies. Verify the exact title; a customer-service worker at a computer does not become a Purchasing Agent.

Second assign the employee to the Headquarters in My Employees. Third place the employee into a working schedule at a valid workstation. A person employed by the company but not assigned and scheduled cannot execute the role.

Fourth create or select the role-specific management plan in BizMan and connect the manager to it. A developer HR walkthrough explicitly uses this sequence: assign the HR Manager to HQ, schedule the manager at a desk, create or choose an HR plan, and assign employees to that plan.

After training, moving, or changing a business type, recheck all links. Developer guidance notes that changing business type can unassign incompatible employees, and training may leave a worker needing reassignment to the normal HQ schedule.

Use a four-column audit: employee/HQ assignment, valid desk, scheduled hours, plan or scope. Mark each green only after viewing the corresponding screen. ‘Hired’ is not a substitute for activated.

Headquarters hours and weekday constraints

Headquarters scheduling does not behave like a normal shop. Developer support states that HQ opening hours are fixed and it is closed on Saturday and Sunday.

Select individual weekdays when reviewing the schedule; do not infer weekend coverage from a weekday view. Place required manager work within the fixed HQ operating period shown by the live UI. If the current interface differs after a future patch, F1 and the schedule screen take precedence.

Manager systems often execute at scheduled events outside the visible working shift, but configuration and eligibility must be valid in advance. Do not assume a manager can be added after a deadline because the order or route itself occurs later.

Training temporarily removes or changes the employee’s availability. After completion, reassign the person to HQ and rebuild the relevant weekday schedule if needed. Verify the plan did not lose its manager.

Balance weekly hours with employee full-time or part-time demands. Because weekends are closed, requested hours may require dense weekday blocks. Calculate available HQ hours before hiring a worker whose demand cannot be satisfied in that office.

Record the difference between HQ scheduled hours and system event times. Purchasing deadlines, Monday imports, logistics runs, training completion, and daily Pricing Manager suggestions should appear on a weekly control calendar.

Human Resources plans

HR Managers reduce repetitive employee administration only when the workforce is divided into valid, capacity-aware plans.

Create HR plans around groups the interface can manage coherently: a store roster, a business type, a district cluster, or an insurance tier. Assign employees explicitly and verify the displayed plan capacity at the manager’s current skill.

Current community reproductions around 1.0 commonly report that a fully skilled HR Manager can handle fifty employees, but this guide does not hard-code that as timeless. Read the live plan capacity in build 3674, record it, and use HR count = ceiling(managed employees divided by recorded capacity), adjusted for the grouping strategy.

An HR plan is not active merely because the manager sits in HQ. The developer workflow requires the plan and employee membership. Open each plan after adding staff and check for unassigned workers, capacity overflow, missing insurance, or training settings.

Choose training policy based on cash and operational need. Continuous aggressive training can consume money and remove workers from schedules; no training can leave expensive capacity underperforming. Record training target, daily or weekly cost, expected completion, and temporary coverage.

Scenario: a company has seventy-eight covered employees and the live 100-skill plan capacity is fifty. One manager cannot cover the list. Split the workforce into two plans, verify both managers have workstations and schedules, and leave headroom for hires.

Insurance administration

Employee insurance demands are mediated through a valid HR plan and hospital process; an incomplete chain can leave coverage pending.

Assign and schedule the HR Manager, then create the HR plan before expecting the hospital to recognize the group. A developer support reply specifically directs players to establish the plan first and to call the hospital if insurance remains pending.

Group employees by the insurance level they require rather than buying the most expensive option for everyone without analysis. Record each worker’s demand, the plan’s selected policy, covered headcount, negotiated or displayed cost, and the business whose staffing risk is affected.

Insurance is part of labor cost. Allocate plan cost across covered employees or businesses when comparing schedules and margins. A profitable store before insurance can become weak after headquarters overhead is included.

Check coverage after hiring, plan transfer, manager absence, skill change, or capacity overflow. A worker added to the company is not automatically evidence of plan membership. Keep an exception list of demanded but unverified coverage.

If the hospital or HR screen remains inconsistent, save, reload, confirm build 3674, advance through a clean weekday, and reproduce the exact plan state. Use the in-game support/report path with screenshots rather than repeatedly deleting plans without a ledger.

Headhunters and recruitment continuity

Headhunters are valuable when the cost of vacancies and recruitment work exceeds the headquarters capacity and wages they consume.

Official EA 0.3 notes introduced advanced recruitment through Headhunters, including candidate lists that expire after seven days and support for watching HR groups and replacing workers who resign or retire. Check the current UI for exact coverage and skill limits.

Use Headhunters first for roles with expensive downtime, narrow skill requirements, or large recurring rosters. A tiny stable shop may not justify the overhead. Record vacancy cost as lost contribution plus emergency recruitment and training, not merely the missing wage.

Define candidate criteria before opening a search: job, minimum skill, full-time or part-time fit, wage ceiling, and unacceptable demands. Expiring lists mean decisions need a review deadline. Do not pay indefinitely for searches whose requirements were never written.

Connect Headhunter coverage to HR plans according to the current management screen. Maintain spare HQ desks if expansion is imminent. A manager without a scope is not recruitment insurance.

Review replacements after execution. Compare outgoing and incoming skill, wage, hours, demands, training need, schedule fit, and business impact. Automatic continuity is useful only if the replacement keeps the operation valid.

Purchasing Agents and importer control

A Purchasing Agent converts a supplier relationship into scheduled importer orders. One missed assignment or deadline can starve the entire network.

Establish the importer contract, hire the Purchasing Agent, assign the person to HQ, schedule a valid desk, create the purchase plan, select products and unit quantities, and connect the plan to the importer. Verify warehouse destination and receiving space.

Developer replies identify a Sunday 20:00 cutoff for assignment to the referenced Monday import cycle. Treat that as a current documented control point but confirm F1 after patches. Run a Sunday preflight with enough time to repair an unassigned plan.

One Purchasing Agent is generally planned per distinct importer relationship under the documented model. Record the live scope shown in build 3674 rather than assuming one manager can combine every supplier. HQ desk forecasting should include each contract.

Order in units but plan physical space in boxes using the importer interface’s current units-per-box information. Check weekly supplier limits, cash, warehouse shelf capacity, existing stock, and confirmed inbound before finalizing quantities.

If the import fails, diagnose in order: build and quit-bug state, cutoff, manager assignment, desk schedule, plan attachment, importer contract, product quantity, weekly limit, cash, destination, and space. Do not duplicate the order until inbound status is reconciled.

Logistics Managers and warehouse networks

Logistics Managers own outbound replenishment from a warehouse or production source. Their design starts with source scope, vehicle, destinations, and targets.

Under developer-documented behavior, assign one Logistics Manager to each source warehouse, then attach a valid vehicle, destination stores, and per-product targets. Read current skill and vehicle destination limits in F1; old fixed tables can become stale.

Target units represent total desired stock at each store, including displays and reserve. At the logistics event, the system attempts to top up the difference, subject to warehouse stock, destination storage, route priority, and valid configuration.

Forecast headquarters capacity from source count: Logistics Manager count = number of independently managed warehouse or factory sources under the current UI. If a role can cover a different scope after a patch, replace the assumption with the live value.

Use the 1.0 reorderable destination list deliberately. Prioritize required products, low-cover stores, or high-shortage-cost locations when supply is tight. Record why the list is ordered that way and review it after opening a new branch.

Diagnose a dry store backward: destination below target, free space, destination included, target nonzero, route executed, vehicle valid, manager active, source stocked at route time, and inbound timing. The HQ screen is one link in that chain, not the whole chain.

Pricing Managers by neighborhood

The 1.0 Pricing Manager centralizes suggestions and price changes within an assigned neighborhood, but the owner remains responsible for profit validation.

Assign the manager to HQ, provide a valid schedule, and select the neighborhood scope shown in the current UI. Official notes say the role can update all item prices across an entire neighborhood, making scope mistakes potentially broad.

Higher skill improves the accuracy of daily suggestions; accuracy is not certainty. Snapshot current, suggested, and market reference prices together with unit cost, units sold, customers, satisfaction, capacity, and stock state before applying a batch.

Use a margin test: unit contribution = price minus landed unit cost. For a proposed change, the quantity retention needed to protect gross contribution is Q2 divided by Q1 greater than (P1 minus C) divided by (P2 minus C). Then verify with comparable days.

Do not accept a manager suggestion during a stockout, capacity ceiling, major promotion change, or new competitor event without marking the confounder. The observed quantity response will not isolate price.

Record every applied price, effective day, manager skill, neighborhood, and review date. If an implausible suggestion appears—especially after an extreme manual price—hold it, reset a sensible baseline, and run a controlled test rather than treating the manager as authoritative.

Capacity planning formulas for headquarters

Translate the business empire into manager seats before signing a headquarters lease or ordering an expensive installation.

Start with required desks = HR Managers plus Headhunters plus Purchasing Agents plus Logistics Managers plus Pricing Managers plus a chosen spare. Each term comes from live role scope, not company prestige.

Estimate HR Managers as ceiling(covered workforce divided by live HR plan capacity), then adjust for insurance grouping and desired headroom. Estimate Purchasing Agents from distinct importer contracts, Logistics Managers from independently managed sources, and Pricing Managers from neighborhoods that need active central pricing.

Headhunter count depends on current coverage limits and vacancy risk. A small roster with cheap replacements may use manual recruitment; several critical HR groups can justify dedicated coverage. Read the current manager scope before calculating.

Add workstation space for temporary overlap. Training, replacing, or reorganizing managers can require a spare desk even when steady-state count fits exactly. A ten-percent area buffer or one validated spare station is a planning choice, not a game constant.

Calculate headquarters overhead per operating business = rent, manager wages, insurance, training, and recurring support costs allocated by a stated driver such as covered headcount, purchase volume, route count, or neighborhood revenue. Allocation reveals whether automation actually pays.

Headquarters operating ledger

A manager office should produce an evidence trail that connects wages and plans to measurable reductions in manual work, failures, or margin leakage.

For each manager record role, name, skill, wage, weekly hours, workstation, schedule, plan or scope, capacity used, next event, last successful execution, and exception. Keep one row per role assignment rather than one row per person if a reorganization is being tested.

For HR, record covered employees, live capacity, training spend, insurance tier and cost, unmet demands, absences, resignations, and replacements. For purchasing, record importer, quantities, cutoff status, receipt, and failure reason.

For logistics, record source, vehicle, destination order, targets, source stock at event, delivered units, and destination shortages. For pricing, record neighborhood, suggestions, accepted changes, margin test, and review result.

Record headquarters rent, manager wages, support wages, insurance, training, installation amortization, and avoided manual workload. Some benefits are operational rather than directly monetized; state the method instead of inventing a dollar value.

Review exceptions daily around scheduled events and perform a full weekly audit after imports and deliveries. A green dashboard with no timestamp is weak evidence; every success should identify the event and build.

Troubleshooting decision tree

When a management system fails, verify activation before debating strategy. Most faults can be localized to role, assignment, schedule, plan, timing, or downstream capacity.

First confirm build 3674 and whether the employee-quit bug affected the day. Advance to the next day after updating, then verify the employee is still hired, assigned to HQ, and not training or absent.

Second inspect the workstation and schedule. Select the correct weekday, confirm HQ is open, the employee occupies a valid desk, and requested hours are compatible. Repair any unassigned or invalid station.

Third inspect the role plan: HR membership and capacity, Headhunter coverage, Purchasing Agent importer attachment and cutoff, Logistics Manager source/vehicle/destination/target, or Pricing Manager neighborhood scope.

Fourth inspect downstream prerequisites. Insurance needs the hospital state; imports need cash, supplier allowance, and warehouse space; deliveries need source stock and destination space; prices need valid items and a reviewable market state.

If all links are valid and failure reproduces, save, reload, capture the exact screens and event time, and submit an F2 report. Avoid deleting multiple plans at once, because that destroys the state needed to diagnose and can broaden the outage.

Expansion sequence and final audit

Build headquarters in layers: solve the next costly recurring problem, verify it, and only then add another control function.

A practical sequence is HR when roster administration becomes repetitive, Purchasing when imports are justified, Logistics when warehouse-to-store transfers outgrow manual work, Headhunting when vacancy risk becomes material, and Pricing when several businesses in a neighborhood make manual review expensive. Actual order should follow the save’s bottleneck.

Before each hire, write the expected outcome: employees covered, importer cycle automated, destinations served, vacancies protected, or neighborhood items reviewed. Estimate manager wage, furniture, rent share, insurance, and training. Set a date to compare outcome with cost.

Pass the physical audit: enough valid workstations including spare, correct role furniture, clear paths, bathroom and cleaning requirements, employee-demand space, and no weekend schedule assumptions. Every manager is assigned to HQ and the correct weekday desk.

Pass the plan audit: HR groups below live capacity, insurance recognized, Headhunter scopes valid, purchase plans attached before cutoff, logistics sources and vehicles valid, destination priorities and targets current, and Pricing Manager neighborhood scope checked before changes.

Archive the manager roster, plan capacities, event calendar, overhead allocation, last successful event, build 3674, and review triggers. Triggers include workforce growth, new importer, new warehouse, new neighborhood, repeated failure, manager training, business-type change, or a patch affecting management.

Run an event-by-event acceptance week before calling the headquarters complete. On the final weekday before the importer cutoff, verify every purchase plan and receiving space. At the next import, record requested and received units. At the next logistics run, record source stock, destination order, and delivered units. On each Pricing Manager day, record the neighborhood and whether suggestions arrived. During the same week, open every HR plan and confirm membership, capacity, training, and insurance. This sequence tests outputs rather than the appearance of a populated office.

Calculate management utilization without inventing a customer-style capacity. For each role, list the recurring decisions or entities under control: covered employees for HR, monitored plans for Headhunting, importer contracts for Purchasing, source networks and destinations for Logistics, and active items or businesses in a neighborhood for Pricing. Compare actual use with the live maximum and the manager’s wage. A role near its limit needs headroom before expansion; a costly role with one trivial task may be premature. Record time saved as an operational estimate and keep it separate from directly observed profit.

Create a continuity sheet for every critical manager. Name the plan or scope, current employee, current skill, workstation, schedule, next deadline, last successful execution, and the exact manual recovery steps if the manager becomes unavailable. For purchasing, recovery may mean an emergency local order; for logistics, a manual transfer; for pricing, restoring the accepted-price ledger; for HR, temporarily handling schedules and insurance directly. The sheet does not grant automation the game does not provide. It simply prevents one absence or resignation from becoming an undocumented company-wide failure.

Audit headquarters changes as controlled interventions. When adding a second HR Manager, splitting a warehouse network, or assigning a new neighborhood to Pricing, preserve the old assignment map and alter one scope at a time. Wait through the relevant scheduled event, compare expected with actual output, then retire the old configuration. If several managers are moved at once, label the change as a migration and schedule a full preflight. This practice is especially important after training or business-type changes, when assignments can be lost even though desks and employees remain visible.

Finally evaluate whether headquarters overhead belongs at the current company scale. Allocate manager wages, rent, insurance, training, and support to the businesses that benefit using a documented driver. Compare that burden with avoided manual labor, prevented stockouts, stabilized staffing, reduced vacancy time, and pricing contribution where those outcomes are measurable. If a role does not yet justify its cost, keep the premises flexible and defer the hire; do not dismantle working plans impulsively. Reassess after the next expansion trigger.

Use a deadline board for all non-daily obligations. Include the Purchasing Agent pre-cutoff check, Monday receipt, early logistics run, training completions, insurance follow-ups, candidate-list expiry, and planned price reviews. For each entry store owner, prerequisite, expected output, confirmation screen, and recovery action. Review the board on the preceding valid HQ weekday because the office cannot be staffed on its fixed weekend closure. This single control prevents a plan that is technically correct from missing its execution window.

Before expanding the headquarters premises, compare three alternatives: improve manager skill, reorganize plans within live limits, or add another role and workstation. Skill can increase useful capacity or suggestion quality; reorganization can remove empty plan space; a new manager adds wage, insurance, furniture, and rent pressure. Choose the least-cost option that leaves safe headroom. Preserve exact before-and-after plan counts so the decision can be reversed if later growth or a patch changes the constraint.