Congratulations! You are the principal partner of your very own human resources consulting firm – Navjeet’s HR Consulting. You have been accepted the contract to work with Wayne Brady of Minuteman Impressions. (the background story is in the second paragraph.
One of the first actions by Wayne is creating a five-year business plan that will turn the company around (from financially troubled to profitable), and part of his plan involves creating a strategic framework for compensation (your consulting work assignment.)
Review the background information on Minuteman Impressions, provided in the file attachment.
Answer the subjects/questions contained in the following four subjects/question areas (which are part of the Five Steps to Effective Compensation.) Be sure to label each answer (Subject 1 through Subject 4), and provide specific references/citations for each answer.
Subject 1 – Employee Behaviour- using the reward system to achieve positive employee behaviours
Create a table which compares the three key employee behaviours (Chapter 3.) The table should have a column which states the current behaviour (based on the scenario) and a column which states the desired behaviour (changes to the current behaviour.)
State one single change to the current Reward System that you would implement in order to achieve the desired behaviour of one of the key employee behaviours list in the table you created, and the reason for proposing that change.
Subject 2 – Organizational Justice – can lead to job dissatisfaction
What are the two main components of organizational justice? (maximum 4 word answer, no definitions required)
The Minuteman scenario has several examples where employees may have a perception of unfairness. List one example (including which main component of organizational justice may apply to the perception of unfairness), and the steps you recommend to Wayne Brady in order to change the perception to one of fairness.
Subject 3 – Job Families – applying the compensation mix
Create a table which contains four job families (you create the job families based on the scenario), and how the mix of each of the three compensation components should be applied to each family.
State your recommendation to Wayne Brady whether the pay policy should Lag, Lead, or Match the market (one-word answer.) State (one sentence) your most important reason for choosing this pay policy (based on the attached scenario Minuteman Impressions.) Explain the outcome you propose to achieve by choosing this pay policy.
Subject 4 – Non-Monetary Rewards
The scenario suggests that Minuteman is in a poor financial situation (cannot meet payroll.) Apply the same four job families you created in Subject 3, provide an example of a non-monetary reward you can offer each job family which is unique (different) to each job family. To conclude, state one example of a non-monetary reward that can be offered and applied across all the job families.
Review the background information on minuteman impressions, in the following……
W22 Minuteman Imprinting Background (scenario) W22 HRP113 Minuteman Imprinting is a small manufacturer and reseller of custom imprinted business forms. The company has annual sales of about $12 million, mostly around Winnipeg and western Ontario. The owner, Sheila Sellick, built up the business over 40 years. She uses high-quality materials resulting in high production costs and high retail prices. Resetting the equipment for relatively short production runs of customized products takes extra time and increases costs. Wayne Brady recently started his new job (recently promoted to general manager.) Wayne is a recent graduate of a continuing education business program. There are a few supervisors who oversee production, their responsibilities are clearly spelled out, so the supervisors often support one another. There is no system for scheduling production; in fact, there are few systems of any kind. Sheila tends to resolve most decisions and issues. Most of the firm employees (40) work in production. The company also has several salespeople, a few travel (usually the entry level recruits.) Additionally, there is one book-keeper to keep records and issue the paycheques. Several office employees handle routine administrative tasks. Sheila manages most areas of the company without supervisors (accounting, marketing, human resources.) Sheila feels she is a generous employer. The company cannot sustain the recurring cost of any formal employee benefits. Sometimes, sick workers are kept on payroll for a considerable time, especially if Sheila knows the worker has a family to support. There islittle interest by employees in unionization due to Sheila’s interest in her employees. Minuteman has no formal system for determining compensation. Sheila tends to make all pay decisions on the spur of the moment, so almost everybody has a different pay rate. There is no policy for annual raises, so any employee who wants a raise has to approach Sheila. Depending on her mood (and how much she knows about you), Sheila gives raises to most people who approach her. When the company is profitable raises are higher. They are also higher if she knows the employee has a family to support, or if the employee’s spouse has been laid off, or if the employee has added a new member of the family. Every Christmas, if profits allow, Sheila gives grocery gift cards to employees (based on what she says are their contributions to Minuteman.) In early December, she sits down with her employee list, by each department, and pencils in an amount next to each name. Everybody gets something, but the amounts vary greatly. If Sheila can associate a face with the name (which is difficult sometimes, because new employees seem to turn over a lot), she tends to give larger bonuses. Longer-term employees tend to receive much higher bonuses than new employees. Sheila has noticed this tendency, but assumes that if an employee has been with the firm longer, that person must be more productive, so this is fair. Sheila personally distributes the gift cards on the last working day before Christmas. Since Sheila has been with the business 40 years, she is planning to gradually step away from the business over the next year or two and turn the operation of the business over to the new General Manager Wayne Brady (Wayne was not aware of this when he accepted the promotion at Minuteman.) In addition to Wayne’s new challenge, the company bookkeeper informed Sheila and Wayne that there wasn’t enough money in the bank to meet payroll.
References are must.
