...2003 Research Quarterly ❶y❸❹ Work/Life Balance Challenges and Solutions Nancy R. Lockwood HR Content Expert y SOCIETY FOR HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SHRM Research ❶y❸❹ 2003 SHRM®Research Quarterly Abstract In organizations and on the home front, the challenge of work/life balance is rising to the top of many employers’ and employees’ consciousness. In today’s fast-paced society, human resource professionals seek options to positively impact the bottom line of their companies, improve employee morale, retain employees with valuable company knowledge, and keep pace with workplace trends. This article provides human resource professionals with an historical perspective, data and possible solutions—for organizations and employees alike—to work/life balance. Three factors—global competition, personal lives/family values, and an aging workforce— present challenges that exacerbate work/life balance. This article offers the perspective that human resource professionals can assist their companies to capitalize on these factors by using work/life initiatives to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Work/Life Balance: Challenges and Solutions I n a society filled with conflicting responsibilities and commitments, work/life balance has become a predominant issue in the workplace. Three major factors contribute to the interest in, and the importance of, serious consideration of work/life balance: 1) global competition; 2) renewed interest in personal...
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...MANAGING A REWARD STRATEGY Top of Form 1 History of Reward The aims of a reward strategy are to try and be systematic about which HR mechanisms attract, retain and motivate staff. Historically the view was that salaries were what attracted a person to an organisation, benefits kept them there, while bonus and incentive schemes motivated them. Reward was regarded as consisting of three distinctive parts: Remuneration - covering such aspects as job evaluation, salary structures and incentive schemes. Benefits - which tend to be offered to all employees irrespective of their grade, such as paid leave, employee assistance programmes or Christmas parties. Perquisites - which are benefits that tend to provided to discrete categories of employees, such as a company car/car allowance, private healthcare or concierge service. 2 Reward Today More recently, this divide between which parts of reward are best suited for attraction and recruitment, retention and motivation has broken down. Modern research shows that individuals are attracted, retained and engaged by a whole range of financial and non-financial rewards and that these can change over time depending on their personal circumstances. The financial elements of a package are not considered particularly important by individuals in some situations. For instance, people at the beginning of their career may be more interested in getting access to training and career development. People at the end of their career are...
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...midsized company and must make a decision about the company’s employee benefits package. You have not been in this position before and must maintain the current benefits budget; there may be no increases or changes to the package that will result in additional spending. 1. Describe the selection process you would use to make the most cost-effective and employee-friendly decision. Answer – Choosing the right type of benefits package is a very critical component of being attractive employer, helping attract and retain satisfied employees, by ensuring that majority of employee needs are taken care of. Given the huge number of options that are available in the market, with many more coming up every year, it becomes very tricky to determine what benefits package would be the most beneficial to the employee. Given the constraints on budgets, there must be multiple trade offs made between the extent and variety of benefits provided, and therefore the employer has to determine which package would cover the needs of majority of its employees. In this scenario, given that the available budget is fixed and the benefit plan for the next year has to at least as good as or even better than the previous year, the HR director has to think creatively to come up with a package that best aligns with the needs of the employees. The end result of the process to select should be selection of a plan that satisfies most employee needs, and hence employee’s needs should be a key input to the...
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...12-13TYAABSS007-3: INNOVATIVE MOTIVATION IN ECONOMIC CRISIS: THE FLEXIBLE BENEFITS SCHEMES BY Mai Ngoc Nguyen 1215894 An assignment submitted in partial fulfillment of the assessment for the New Advances in Business (12-13TYAABSS007-3) unit March 2013 * Contents Contents 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 LIST OF FIGURES 3 LIST OF TABLES 3 1 Introduction 4 2 Literature review 6 3 The economic crisis and the transition in methods of motivation: The need for an innovate benefits package 9 3.1 Impacts of the economic crisis on employees and employers 9 3.2 The transition in methods of motivation: The need for an innovative benefits package 12 3.3 The traditional benefits package and its motivating effectiveness 14 4 The flexible approach to benefits provision in a gloomy economy 16 4.1 Effectiveness of the flexible benefits schemes in motivation 17 4.2 Factors affecting the motivating effectiveness of the flexible benefits schemes 18 4.3 Current issues influencing the adoption of the flexible benefits schemes 20 5 Conclusion 21 APPENDIX - Changes in the British WorkForce 22 REFERENCES 23 FURTHER READING 27 * EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In recent years, in the UK, both employees and employers have to bear negative impacts from the recession, especially employees with their financial difficulties and diverse needs. It is more important than ever for motivation. However, employee motivation is getting harder and harder in the face of economic crisis...
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...workers learned that the white minority prevented their wage increase,they decided to demonstrate,but the demonstarion became a riot.The city was in a state of emergency,and in the mayhem,stores were looted and four men loss their lives while others were injured.The ruling class could no longer ignore the workers cries for more equitable wages.Following a discussion with the Duke of Windsor where the workers were represented by Milo Butler,A.F.Adderly,Percy Christie and Dr.Claudius Walker the workers were granted an increase of one shilling per day and a free meal at lunch. The Burma Road Riot was a critical element in the fight for workers rights and resulted in the first increase in wages for Bahamian workers and the first fringe benefit which was a free meal.The Riot was also the catalyst for organized labour in the...
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...management will need to analyze the current operations management process of the company and come up with two alternatives, which will help determine the best choice to maximize labor productivity for Taylor Inc. The cost-benefit matrix below will show which alternative management technique will maximize productivity with less worker’s compensation claims. Cost Benefit Matrix Current Alternative One Alternative Two Number of employees 17 6 9 Payroll costs per 8 hour day $5,848.00 $2,064.00 $3,096.00 Payroll costs per week $29,240.00 $10,320.00 $15,480.00 Payroll savings per week 0 $18,920.00 $13,760.00 Payroll costs per year (52 weeks) $1,520,480.00 $536,640.00 $804,960.00 Claims per year 4 0.3 1.9 Claims costs per year $436,000.00 $32,700.00 $207,100.00 Claims costs savings 0 $403,300.00 $228,900.00 Wages and claims per year $1,956,480.00 $569,340.00 $1,012,060.00 Wage and claims savings per year $0.00 $1,387,140.00 $944,420.00 Physical lifting in pounds 42 12 23 Capital expenditures $0.00 $1,300,000.00 $967,000.00 Cost difference in capital expenditures $1,300,000.00 0 $333,000.00 Outputs of finished widgets 208 392 288 Life in equipment 0 7 5 Wasted motion in % 27% 1% 7% Effect of Alternative on Productivity Based on the above cost-benefit matrix, the best option for Taylor Inc. would be Alternative One. Although Alternative One is the more expensive management technique, it is more cost-effective over the course of seven years. Alternative One requires a...
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...employees benefits in a standard way. All employees received the same benefits in the same way, regardless of what they needed as an individual. This standard method of benefits is much easier for employers to offer; giving them choices is generally too much work. But employees may want something different than what the employer may be offering. There have been recent developments that have opened up with a new approach offering benefits called “flexible benefits”. Some included benefits are flexible spending accounts which include health care and dependent care options. The health care FSA allows employees to use tax free dollars for eligible health care expenses that are not covered by insurance for the employee, their spouse and eligible dependants. The dependent care FSA lets employees use tax free dollars to pay for children and elder care expenses incurred so that employees may work or attend school full time. By offering a flexible spending plan employees can direct a portion of their gross income into an account and take out pre taxed dollars to pay for health care or child care expenses. A flexible spending plan is good for the employer as well as the employee. Flexible spending accounts allow employees to pay for out of pocket health care and dependent day care expenses with tax free money. Flexible benefits plans are also authorized under section 125 of the Internal Revenue Code. Flexible spending accounts are also covered under ERISA Employee Retirement...
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...Compensation and Benefit Plans Name: Institution: The strategic goal of any company is to provide the best service to customers while remaining cost effective and decreasing expenses. The company’s decision to hire a Computer Information System (CIS) Programmer is aimed at helping the company close the organization’s current gap and save the organization money in the long run. The incoming CIS programmer is expected to help the company achieve a stress free working environment for the rest of the employees and help the company make more profits from delivering to the company’s expectations. Hiring a new employee calls for implementation of a compensation and benefits plan that meets the needs of both the employee and the hiring organization. Benefits plan are designed to address specific needs and are often not in cash form. There are different approaches that an organization can choose to use while implementing a compensation and benefit plan. One such justifiable approach is one that recommends that the employee get insurance benefits, health and security benefits, vacation pay, stock options, profit sharing, contribution to retirement and pay for time not worked. Benefits are forms of value, apart from payment, that are given to employees in return for their inputs to the organization. There are other forms of intangible benefits that the company can decide to extend to the employee, which includes,...
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...Request: Development an installation of a benefits election system to support the tracking and reporting of employee (union and non-union) benefits. Background of Request: Memo to Graham Grove, 3/22/04 , on Health Insurance Benefits. This memo is located on the Huffman Trucking Intranet site under Human Resources - Communications tab. Expected Results/Impact when completed: Creation of a project plan in Microsoft Project that will be used to manage, track and report the progress of this software development to the management team. Facts About Huffman Trucking Huffman's primary customers include: • U.S. Government • Automotive parts suppliers to major manufacturers • Electronic consumer products • Raw materials (polymer) for manufacturers of plastic products • Any customer requiring special accommodations, such as wine, computers, munitions, etc. Huffman has facilities in: • Cleveland, OH • Los Angeles, CA • St. Louis, MO • Bayonne, NJ Huffman employs: • 925 drivers • 425 support personnel Huffman owns and operates: • 800 road tractors • 2,100 45' trailers • 260 "roll-on/roll-off" units SR-ht-001: Create a Benefits Election System Define Problem 5 days Analyze Situation 15 days Design Solution 10 days Implement Design 20 days Support Product 10 days Define Problem - Understand Organizational Context of Huffman Trucking HR Department - Understand the history of the problem with Benefits tracking System - Identify the team to...
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...“solar project” from week two. Look at page 49 of that project) Wages and Salaries: We have a total of 400 employees. Average wage is established at $12 per hour. 40 hour work weeks. 160 work hours in a month. 160 hours X $15= 2,400 2,400 X 400 employees= $960,000 a month in wages for all four warehouses, January thru November. We said that the month of December will award a 10% Christmas bonus for all staff. The 10% bonus is $96,000 + $960,000= $1,056,000 for the month of December The total annual wages is $11,616,000 (add the month of December to 960,000 X 11 months to get that answer) We will provide employee benefits (Insurance). {Extracted from “solar light” project, page 54} Workers Compensation. $450,000 annually Liability. $275,000 annually Professional Liability $4,000 a year Health Insurance $700,000 annually Total Insurance and benefits annually= $1,429,000 OR $119,083 a month. Utilities: Utilities are for...
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...Benefits programs that a company chooses to employ have an impact on the attraction and retention of employees and offering only minimally required standards is not enough. As an HR consultant to the small business, I would recommend the following to be added. First, paid sick leave would be an important voluntary benefit program to have. Employees are liable to be absent from work due to medical reasons and the company should excuse them for that. Even though some employees abuse such programs, there can be ways to get around that issue such as paying employees for the number of days of unused sick leave. Related to this is extending the number of holidays and vacations beyond the minimum requirement. This could be really important because it helps relieve stress, reduce fatigue and increase employees’ productivity. Another benefit program is educational assistance where the company rewards employees for striving to enhance their knowledge by taking courses that are related to their line of work. This is beneficial because employees feel that they can accomplish more in the organization and become more ambitious if a reward is a job promotion for example. In addition, financial services such as discount plans (buying company products at a discount) are really attractive for some employees and encourages them to join the company. The most important benefit to add would be child care. It would help retain key employees and reduce stress related to balancing work and...
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...use our profits to reinvest into our employees. Until now our employee benefits have consisted of medical, dental and life insurance. We would like to add tuition reimbursement to make a more rounded benefits package. An excellent benefit is to add tuition reimbursement for the bachelor’s degrees in business and communication. The benefits of adding tuition reimbursement are endless within our company. This tuition reimbursement program is beneficial to both RJ Welch and its employees. This would offer new opportunities to our employees such as better careers, a higher earning potential and higher company moral. The company would benefit from this addition by being a more attractive company to work for and will increase employee retention. Tuition reimbursement would better employee careers by offering an education that they otherwise may not be able to obtain financially on their own without school loans. The cost of a degree at the end of 2011 will cost approximately $13,000 to $62,000 per student based on research done at (http://www.geteducated.com/online-college-ratings-and-rankings/best-buy-lists/best-buy-online-bachelor-business-managementand). With the cost of this schooling I don’t believe loans of this size are not profitable for enough for employee’s to obtain on their own. With this type of tuition assistance our employees will have enough reason to achieve this type of education. This added benefit will also offer higher earning potential to our employees. People...
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...16. By investing in green technology and practices and becoming a more socially responsible organization Tesco may benefit in a number of ways: • Improved corporate image and possible creation of a USP or competitive advantage as a result. This is important given the criticism of Tesco’s practices by the pressure group described in the case. Tesco can find a unique position of a socially responsible firm who provided good quality/value for money products • Improved image may attract green customers. Revenue can increase as well as profit • A possible increase in the price of its products despite the intense competition • A larger market share that might enhance economies of scale and, therefore, lower average costs of production. Tesco needs to cut costs of production given the significant 60 % rise in energy costs • satisfying the demand of pressure groups. This will alleviate the pressure to change its practices and so less money/resources will be spent on public relations (PR) or on legal costs • Alternatively, PR can be used to enhance corporate image • They may be able to pre-empt government legislation against the company • They may receive financial incentives from local or national governments • Increased employee motivation. A high level of motivation will result in enhanced productivity and quality of services • reduced...
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...Human Resources Management This paper will examine human resource strategies, policies and practices and how they relate to the JetBlue Airways case: Starting from Scratch, by Jody Hoffer Gittell and Charles O’Reilly, 2001. We will identify national equal employment opportunity laws that impact JetBlue's hiring practices. We will take a look at their internal and external recruitment methods, personnel selection process’, and their use of the 360-degree feedback evaluation as a performance appraisal method. Lastly, we will discuss discretionary employee benefits and how JetBlue incorporated at least three discretionary employee benefits in their start-up and ramping up process. National Equal Employment Opportunity Laws The National Equal Employment Opportunity Laws began in this country after the end of the Civil War, with the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that is based on the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The act declared that "all persons born in the United States not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed," were citizens of the United States. Such citizens were "of every race and color" and "without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude." As citizens they could make and enforce contracts, sue and be sued, give evidence in court, and inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real estate and personal property. Persons who denied these rights to former slaves were guilty of a misdemeanor, and...
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...Executive Summary: New Benefit plan for Huge Computer Company In response to your request, our team has evaluated and integrated the benefit package and retirement plans for the newly merged Huge Computer Company. The following report will compare key features of each plan while making observations and recommendations on merging the two plans. Key Issues: • Evaluating and blending of two very different organizations into one. • Transition and new plan - taking into consideration the wide age range and corporate cultures of the two employee groups, especially the software engineers. • Different focuses – younger CC software engineers thriving in a casual environment focusing on high creativity and innovation; older, grounded, and formal individuals from HC. Research Method: The Primary Research method was interviews of the HR managers and departmental managers of both companies. Each interviewee was asked for their assessment of how their current programs meet their respective needs and what the programs lacked; their perceptions of the other company’s plans; and what their personal key areas of concern were in regards to the implementation of a new benefits plan. Results: Benefit Description Importance For HC Importance For CC Recommended for merged plan Choice in Health Ins. Very High Low See Below 401k/IRA options Very High Low See Below Stock Options - High See Below Life Insurance High Low See Below Dental & Vision High High See Below Flex...
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