You are the HR manager of a relatively new retail company that has both retail stores and Internet sal…

Assignment 4: Recognizing Employee Contributions

You are the HR manager of a relatively new retail company that has both retail stores and Internet sales.  Your company is steadily growing in revenue and profitability. The company realizes that in order to retain the solid, highly productive workforce it currently has in place, it is important to enhance the base compensation and benefits package offered to the employees. The company currently offers a basic compensation program and only federally mandated benefits. Employee surveys suggest the compensation and benefits program may be out of date. Employees are beginning to consider leaving the organization.

Write a six to eight (6-8) page paper in which you:

1. Propose two (2) methods an HR professional could use to determine incentive pay. Specify the principal manner in which the proposed methods take into consideration individual, group, and company performance. Justify your response. 
2. Examine the core legal requirements affecting employee benefits in today’s competitive environment. Determine the legally mandated benefits that the company must currently offer to its employees. 
3. Recommend at least four (4) additional benefits that the organization should consider providing to its employees. Suggest at least three (3) important concepts that a company must consider when designing benefit plans. Provide a rationale for your response.
4. Assess the efficiency of common techniques for effectively communicating compensation and benefit plans to employees. Support your answer.
5. Suggest two (2) ethical risks of making incentive pay a large portion of employees’ total compensation. Propose two (2) recommendations for ways the company might mitigate or reduce these risks.  
6. Use at least four (4) quality academic (peer-reviewed) resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length. 

Expert Answer

Recognizing Employee Contribution

    Organizations should develop an effective compensation plan that takes care of employee needs and meets their expectations. Notably, Human Resource (HR) should constantly review the compensation packages of their employees and reward achievements in the workplace. In addition, companies should ensure that they motivate employees through bonuses and commissions to increase their productivity and the performance of an organization in the business environment. In this case, employees are leaving because of Company M’s inability to provide a competitive package that caters to their needs. It should be noted that workers prefer to associate with a company that creates an enabling environment to meet their career objectives. While a competitive compensation package is essential, organizations should strive to engage the employees when implementing policies in the workplace. For this reason, company managers should monitor the progress of employees in the work environment to create programs that respond to their needs and encourage them to increase their productivity.

Methods to Determine Incentive Pay

    HR managers should use existing or invent new systems that enable them to determine the compensation of employees in the workplace. In this regard, company managers should categorize employees based on their level of education and performance in the work environment. Even as employees possess different qualifications, it is important to acknowledge their abilities to motivate them and enhance their productivity, a move that will improve the overall performance of the organization (Abraham, 2017). Specifically, HR managers can use job evaluation systems to determine pay in an organization. In addition, the value of the job executed by an individual should be established to avoid instances where an employee receives a high income than his or her input towards the company. For small companies, a job ranking system will enable the HR managers to list and rank job titles according to their order of importance within the organization.

    On the other hand, HR departments in an organization can develop competitive compensation strategies that encourage employees to work and meet the company objectives. In this regard, company managers are required to identify a standard pay for individuals who join the organization at any given time. Even though this method might encourage discrimination in the workplace, it is important to note that HR managers can focus on considerations such as skill-based pay and competency-based pay that enable individuals to make informed decisions. For example, with a skill-based pay method, employees will be compensated according to their skills in the workplace (Landsberg, 2009). Nonetheless, a competency-based pay will ensure that employees are remunerated based on their traits and focus on the worker’s potential within a specific period. Given the circumstances around Company M, it is imperative to state that its fate is dependent on its HR managers to develop an effective system that recognizes employee input in the workplace.

Legal Requirements Affecting Employee Benefits

    Company M is required by law to reward its employees and compensate them accordingly in line with their input in the workplace. It is important to state that organizations should provide certain benefits to their employees as stipulated by the law. In particular, Company M should extend a workers’ compensation package to its employees in the event they become ill or fall sick when at work. While the insurance policy may vary across states in the U.S., it is essential to note that the benefit allows individuals to access healthcare when they experience sickness that is caused by factors in the work environment.

Unemployment Insurance

    Company M should allocate funds to cater for employees who lose work due to other people’s fault. In this case, a fire might raze down the entire structure of the company leading to loss of employment to individuals who operated machines in the dome. From this observation, Company M should compensate its employees who will lose their employment due to the incident.

Social Security and Medicare Taxes

    It is the role of an organization to pay the social security and Medicare taxes for its employees. In this case, Company M should make enquiries from the Social Security offices to identify a payment plan that allows them to meet the federal obligations concerning the welfare of its workers.

Family and Medical Leave

    Company M should allow its employees a time off from the workplace, as required by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). While many organizations interpret this law differently, workers are supposed to spend 12 weeks of unpaid time away from the organization to focus on their family or attend to other personal needs. However, few companies offer special packages to their workers where they present them with paid leave compensation to increase their morale and attitude towards work.

Additional Benefits Company M should offer to its Employees

Apart from the legally approved benefits, an organization should extend to its employees, Company M should invent certain perquisites that will encourage workers to increase their productivity in the workplace as discussed below:
Student Loan Reimbursement

    When students join an organization, they come with unpaid student loans that should be settled. In this case, Company M can develop a benefits package that offsets the burden of these loans. By so doing, graduate trainees will be motivated to work harder and contribute to the overall performance of the organization. Since young employees will occupy executive positions later in their career, it is important for the company to prepare a unique breed of employees who understand the company policy and objectives.

Fitness Perquisites

    Company M should expose its employees to a fitness program to keep their health in check and encourage them to work. It should be noted that fitness reduces fatigue that is associated with handling responsibilities in the workplace. For instance, recent research indicates that sitting for long periods exposes individuals to increased blood pressure among other body conditions that may affect their productivity in the place of work.

Team Building Events

    Organizing events and activities outside the work environment allows employees to work together and promotes unity in the company. In this regard, Company M should organize gaming activities where workers will be required to participate and interact with each other. During the interactive sessions, the company managers will engage the employees on issues that affect the performance of the organization and the way they can solve the problems using viable solutions.

Transport Allowance

    If a majority of workers commutes to work, Company M can invest in a public transport module that relieves individuals from the burden of daily transport costs. Besides, this ensures that individuals arrive on time, a move that allows them to focus on work and meet their daily targets, hence increasing the performance output of the organization.

    In so doing, the company should ensure that the preferred approaches motivate employees and influence their attitude towards work. In addition, the company should be able to account for the funds used in motivating workers and justify its impact on the performance of the organization in the business environment.

Communication Techniques for Engaging Employees

    Organizations should ensure that they observe protocol when engaging employees in a conversation regarding their compensation packages. Primarily, company managers should study the behaviour of employees and evaluate the best techniques to engage them concerning the compensation and other perquisites as discussed below.

Engage employees during special occasions

    It is unethical for HR managers to bombard employees during work and expect them to offer reasonable responses regarding their expected compensation rates. In fact, Company M should discuss compensation during events such as the orientation of new employees and performance reviews (Imberman and Lovenheim, 2015). By so doing, workers will be motivated to communicate to the organization regarding what the company should do to create an enabling environment for the realization of their goals.

Create checklists for employees

    Company M should recognize the diversity in the workplace and engage individuals according to their character. For instance, HR managers should create special informative brochures for young employees, pregnant or those approaching their retirement age. In so doing, individuals will realize the company’s objectives and its intentions to address issues that can affect their lifestyle hence reduce the operational performance of the organization.

Using marketing and technology to engage employees

    Using marketing and technology to communicate to employees promotes employee satisfaction, which in turn leads to increased operational performance and visibility in the business environment. Specifically, employers can communicate to employees using a lean branding that compels individuals to respond and engage the company. It is important to state that marketing and technology establishes a level of trust that encourages individuals to commit to the organization and execute their duties in line with the expectations of the company.

Ethical Risks of Making Incentive Pay and Recommendations

    Organizations should ensure that the proposed perquisites promote the organization and motivate employees to work hard towards achieving the company objectives. In many instances, when companies introduce benefit programs to employees, individuals take advantage of existing compensation packages and fail to perform their duties as expected by the organization (Goerke, 2017). From this observation, it is evident that company managers should beware of ethical risks that may arise after making incentive pay to workers and the way they should resolve them after they become visible.

Negative Effects

    Benefits might discourage individuals from executing their tasks in the workplace because of an assured incentive pay even after failing to meet the company expectations. In addition, some perquisites are demanding such that for employees to achieve them, they have to meet a certain threshold, which in most cases is usually high. When workers fail to meet their targets, they may get demoralized leading to a low morale that interferes with the operational performance of an organization.  

Unfairness

    When the company advances certain benefits to its employees, some workers may fail to enjoy the perquisites because of their skills and job group category. Interestingly, individuals may be demoralized due to the company’s inability to develop a fair system that exposes individuals to equal pay, a move that may lead to resentment from the workers.

Recommendations

    Company M should ensure that its workers are entitled to benefits that motivate them to deliver results in the workplace. For instance, when HR managers set up high targets for employees to access the benefits, it is impossible for them to meet the organizational objectives. On the other hand, Company M should use fair distribution when allocating perquisites to its employees to avoid instances where individuals have to revolt for them to be heard. From this, the organization will enjoy the benefits of exposing its employees to perquisites.

References

Abraham, M. (2017). Pay Formalization Revisited: Considering The Effects of Manager Gender and Discretion on Closing the Gender Wage Gap. Academy Of Management Journal, 60(1), 29-54. 

Landsberg, R. D. (2009). How to Make Pay for Performance Pay Off. Journal of Financial Service Professionals, 63(6), 12-13.

Imberman, S. A., & Lovenheim, M. F. (2015). Incentive strength and teacher productivity: evidence from a group-based teacher incentive pay system. Review of Economics and Statistics, (2), 364. 

Goerke, L. (2017). Sick pay reforms and health status in an unionised labour market. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 64(2), 115-142.