Course: HR 353BE

CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITIES.
1. Discuss the compensation philosophies and approaches that have been used at organizations where you have worked. What have been the consequences of those philosophies and approaches? FYI-Use fig. 11.2 362-365. The City of Austin is huge on entitlement philosophy. I see cases all the time where a person with minimal skills but, with a lot of seniority is making as much as the supervisor or those in higher title positions. They back this up by giving seniority pay at the end of the year based on your total number of years in service that begins at five years and goes up at seven, ten, and fifteen years. As seniority increases you also have anniversaries that you begin to accrue more vacation time per pay period as well. The performance philosophy is only seen in promotions and on paper. Our performance reviews have 5 ratings with satisfactory in the middle and two levels above and below. The two higher levels above you can receive but, they never have the funds to give any true incentives accept for the title of receiving that on your review. Using these philosophies has caused those who would otherwise perform very well, to “join the others” in simply doing the bare minimums in their jobs. They do tend to give those whose performance is better more opportunities to learn and more responsibility. But, again, with no real rewards, most do not stay at this level long with no real reward for a job well done.
2. You have been named Human Resources Manager for a company that has 180 employees and no formal base pay system. What steps will you take to develop such a coordinated system? 366-372,378-381. I would first need to do a job analysis to define the job duties for all positions. I would then do a Market Study to determine the low, mid, max pay ranges for these positions. I would need to look at the Austin cost of