Tests used to determine whether a pay strategy is a source of competitive advantage
- What are the three tests used to determine whether a pay strategy is a source of competitive advantage? Discuss whether these three tests are difficult to pass. Can compensation really be a source of competitive advantage?
- Explain why performance-based pay may not always be a best practice.
- Why is internal alignment an important compensation policy? What happens when a compensation policy is not internally aligned?
- WRITE a list of at least five Canadian laws at various levels of government that impact pay rates
- How should discrepancies between job analysis information provided by employees and supervisors be resolved?
- Why bother with job evaluation? Why not simply market price? How can job evaluation link internal consistency and external market pressures?
- What are the similarities in the logic underlying job-based and person-based plans?
- What is the difference between specialist skill plans and generalist skill plans?
- What is the nature of government’s role in compensation?
- Consider compensation practices such as skill/competency based pay, broadbanding, market pricing, and pay-for-performance plans. What are some of the issues related to pay equity that arise when using these practices? How can these issues be resolved?
- Describe how a flexible benefits plan might increase worker satisfaction with benefits at the same time that costs are being reduced.
- Explain how an employee assistance plan could reduce costs for several other benefits.
- What factors determine the relevant market for pay surveys? Why is the definition of the relevant market important?
- Describe three approaches to selecting jobs for inclusion in a survey.
- What factors shape an organization’s external competitiveness?
- What does marginal revenue product have to do with pay?
- If you wanted workers to perceive their compensation package as secure, which components would you include and which would you avoid?
- Employees in your department have formed semi-autonomous work teams (they determine their own production schedule and individual work assignments). Individual performance is assessed using four performance dimensions: quantity of work, quality of work, interpersonal skills, and teamwork. a. Should the supervisor have a role in the rating process?
b. What role, if any, should other members of the work team have in the assessment process?
19. As VP of HR at Senior Sam’s Bakery (a regional baker of wraps and pitas), you are experiencing turnover problems with the employees who package the products after coming from the bakery. Plant Manager Gail Foy has asked you to fix the problem. While your primary emphasis might be on having a competitive base pay, you need to decide if there is anything you can do in the incentive department. Before you can make this decision, what information would you like about base pay and incentives at major competitors and about the reasons for the turnover?
20. Your boss had lunch yesterday with a CEO in the same town who just implemented a gain-sharing plan. You guessed it….he wants to see if it would work in your company. What conditions would you like to see exist before you would be comfortable making a positive recommendation?
21.Give some examples of how employers use inherent controls.
22.What activities in administering the pay system are likely candidates to be outsourced and why?
