Part 1
Week1 Discussion – Compensation Challenges
Respond to the following:

Introduce yourself to your peers by sharing something unique about your background. Explain how you expect this course will help you move forward in your current or future career.
Based on what you read in chapter 1 of your textbook and your own personal experience: (See the PowerPoint attachment)

What are some of the top compensation-related challenges today’s companies are facing?

Be sure to provide your rationale for including these challenges as opposed to others.

Part 2
Respond to classmate’s post (Brittany W.)
My name is Brittany Wright, and I am currently pursuing my bachelor’s in human resources. Something unique about my current role as an Administrative Specialist is that my role serves as the backbone that supports and coordinates various assignments to ensure smooth operations and strategic alignment. A versatile skill set that combines leadership, problem-solving, communication, and the ability to work independently should be possessed.
I expect this course will help me move forward in my current role by building trust. Trust is the foundation of effective leadership and organizational relationships.
Competitive Compensation Packages should be offered in order to attract and retain top talent. There needs to be a balance between benefits and salaries while managing costs effectively.
Strategic Compensation: A Human Resource
Management Approach
Tenth Edition
Chapter 1
Strategic Compensation:
A Component of Human
Resource Systems
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Learning Objectives (1 of 2)
1.1 Define strategic compensation.
1.2 Summarize the role of compensation as a strategic
business partner.
1.3 Explain strategic compensation decisions.
1.4 Identify and discuss the building blocks and structural
elements of strategic compensation systems.
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Learning Objectives (2 of 2)
1.5 Describe the fit of the compensation function in
organizations.
1.6 Identify the stakeholders of the compensation function
and summarize their stakes in the work compensation
professionals perform.
1.7 Explore essential skills for developing your career in
compensation or any other career path.
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Learning Objective 1.1
• Define strategic compensation.
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What Is Compensation?
• Compensation represents the rewards employees
receive for performing their jobs. These rewards are
either:
– Intrinsic: intrinsic compensation represents
employees’ critical psychological states that result
from performing their jobs
– Extrinsic: extrinsic compensation includes both
monetary and nonmonetary rewards
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What Is Strategic Compensation?
• Strategic Compensation refers to the design and
implementation of compensation systems to reinforce the
objectives of both HR strategies and competitive business
strategies.
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Competitive Business Strategy
• The planned use of company resources
– Financial capital
– Equipment capital
– Human capital
• Multiple years of time span
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Human Resource Strategies
• The use of multiple HR practices to reinforce competitive
business strategy.
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Relationship Between Strategic
Decisions and Compensation Practices
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Learning Objective 1.2
• Summarize the role of compensation as a strategic
business partner.
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Compensation as a Strategic Business
Partner (1 of 3)
• HR and compensation professionals need to think like the
chief executive officer (CEO)
• These individuals can give the CEO and chief financial
officer (CFO) an understanding of how employees
combine with business processes to expand or shrink
shareholder value
• Pay-for-knowledge and skill-based pay programs are key
to giving employees the necessary knowledge and skills
to use new workplace technology effectively.
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Compensation as a Strategic Business
Partner (2 of 3)
• Think about the role of capital for value creation
• Capital refers to the factors that enable companies to
generate income, higher stock prices, economic value,
and reputation
• Human capital refers to sets of collective skills,
knowledge, and abilities that employees can apply to
create value for their employers
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Compensation as a Strategic Business
Partner (3 of 3)
• Compensation professions can leverage the value of
human capital in a variety of ways:
– Well-designed merit pay and incentive programs,
which reinforce excellent job performance
– Incentive programs which reduce employee
entitlement
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Learning Objective 1.3
• Explain strategic compensation decisions.
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Strategic Compensation Decisions
• Compensation professionals provide a strategic
contribution when they can answer yes to 3 questions:
– Does compensation strategy fit well with the objectives
of company competitive business and HR strategies?
– Does the choice and design of compensation practices
fit well to support compensation strategy?
– Does the implementation of compensation practices
effectively direct employee behavior to enhance job
performance that supports the choice of compensation
practices?
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Competitive Business Strategy Choices
• Lowest cost strategy: focus on being lowest cost
producer/seller of goods or services
• Differentiation strategy: focus on offering unique goods
or services to the public
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Lowest Cost Strategy
• Effective when jobs:
– Include predictable behaviors
– Have a short-term focus
– Require autonomous activity
– Focus on quantity of output
• Ex: IKEA
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Differentiation Strategy
• Effective when jobs:
– Require highly creative behaviors
– Have a long-term focus
– Involve risk-taking
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Learning Objective 1.4
• Identify and discuss the building blocks and structural
elements of strategic compensation systems.
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Building Blocks and Structure of Strategic
Compensation Systems (1 of 2)
• The main building blocks are extrinsic compensation and
intrinsic compensation
• Our focus is on extrinsic compensation:
– Core compensation
– Adjustments to core compensation
– Legally required employee benefits
– Discretionary employee benefits
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Building Blocks and Structure of Strategic
Compensation Systems (2 of 2)
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Base Pay
• Base Pay
– Hourly wage
– Annual salary
• Compensable factors
– An employee’s skill level
– An employee’s effort
– An employee’s level of responsibility
– The severity of the working conditions
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Elements of Core Compensation
• How Base Pay Is Adjusted over Time
– Cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs)
– Seniority pay
– Merit pay
– Incentive pay
– Person-focused pay or competency-based pay: payfor-knowledge, skill-based pay
’
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Base Pay Adjustments (1 of 2)
• COLAs: COLAs represent periodic base pay increases
that are founded on changes in prices as indexed by the
consumer price index (CPI)
’
’
• Seniority pay: seniority pay systems reward employees
with periodic additions to base pay according to
employees’ length of service in performing their jobs
• Merit pay: merit pay programs assume that employees’
compensation over time should be determined, at least in
part, by differences in job performance
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Base Pay Adjustments (2 of 2)
• Incentive pay: incentive pay (or variable pay) rewards
employees for partially or completely attaining a
predetermined work objective
• Pay-for-knowledge plans: pay-for-knowledge plans
reward managerial, service, or professional workers, for
successfully learning specific curricula
• Skill-based pay: skill-based pay is used mostly for
employees who perform physical work and increases
these workers‘pay as they master new skills
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Employee Benefits
• Discretionary benefits
• Legally required benefits
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Discretionary Benefits
• Three broad categories
– Protection programs: provide family benefits, promote
health, and guard against income loss caused by such
catastrophic factors as unemployment, disability, or
serious illness
– Paid time-off: provides employees with pay for time
when they are not working
– Services: provides such enhancements as tuition
reimbursement and day care assistance to employees
and their families
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Legally Required Benefits
• Federal legislation designed to:
– Promote worker safety and health
– Maintain family income
– Assist families in crisis
– Provide assistance in case of
? Disability
? Unemployment
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Employer Costs for Compensation (1 of 2)
Table 1.2 Employer Costs per Hours Worked for Employee
Compensation, Civilian Workersa
Cost Per Hour worked (in dollars)
blank
Total
Wages
All
Paid
Supplem
Retirement
Legally
Compens
and
Benefits
Leave
ental
Insurance
and
Required
ation Cost Salaries Cost per Cost per Pay Cost Cost per
Savings
Benefits
per hour Cost per
hour
hour
per hour
hour
Cost per
Cost per
worked
hour
worked worked worked
worked hour worked hour worked
Civilian Workers
32.20
22.13
10.07
2.25
0.79
2.89
1.67
2.47
Occupational
Group
Blank
Blank
Blank
Blank
Blank
Blank
Blank
Blank
Management,
professional, and
related
53.38
36.74
16.65
4.32
1.26
4.36
3.28
3.44
Sales and office
24.02
16.83
7.19
1.54
0.53
2.39
0.87
1.87
Natural resources,
construction, and
maintenance
34.03
22.54
11.49
1.91
0.97
3.19
2.17
3.25
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Employer Costs for Compensation (2 of 2)
Table 1.2 [continued]
blank
Total
All
Paid
Supplem
Compens Wages Benefits
Leave
ental
Insurance Retirement
Legally
ation Cost
and
Cost per Cost per Pay Cost Cost per
and
Required
per hour Salaries
hour
hour
per hour
hour
Savings
Benefits
worked Cost per worked worked
worked
worked
Cost per
Cost per
(in
hour (in
(in
(in
(in
(in
hour worked hour worked
dollars)
dollars) dollars) dollars) dollars)
dollars)
(in dollars)
(in dollars)
Production,
transportation,
and material
moving
26.75
17.54
9.21
1.64
0.95
2.99
1.10
2.53
Industry Group
Blank
Blank
Blank
Blank
Blank
Blank
Blank
Blank
Goodsproducing
36.37
24.04
12.32
2.38
1.41
3.46
1.95
3.12
Service
31.46
21.79
9.67
2.23
0.68
2.79
1.62
2.36
a Includes workers in the private nonfarm economy excluding households and the public sector excluding the federal
government. Source: U.S. Department of Labor (December 10, 2014). Employer costs for employee compensation,
September 2014 (USDL: 14-2208). Available: www.bls.gov, accessed February 1, 2015.
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Fundamental Compensation System
Design Elements
• Compensation professionals promote effective
compensation systems by meeting three important goals:
– Internal consistency
– Market competitiveness
– Recognition of employee contributions
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Internal Consistency
• Achieved when the value of each job is clearly defined
• Represents
– Job structure
– Hierarchy
• Achieved using
– Job analysis
– Job evaluation
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Market Competitiveness
• Compensation policies that fit with business objectives
• Vital in attracting and retaining employees
• Based on:
– Compensation surveys
– Strategic analyses
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Employee Contributions
• Pay structures: determined by employees’ credentials,
job knowledge, and job performance
• Pay grades: based on compensable factors
• Pay ranges: built on grades, uses midpoint, minimum,
and maximum pay rates
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Alternative Pay Structure Configurations
• Alternative pay structure configurations to be explored in
this book:
– Merit plans
– Sales compensation plans
– Broadband structures
– Two-tier wage structures
– Executive compensation
– Contingent worker compensation
– Expatriate compensation
– Compensation structures in countries other than the
United States
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Learning Objective 1.5
• Describe the fit of the compensation function in
organizations.
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Fitting the Compensation Function in
an Organization’s Structure (1 of 3)
• How HR professionals fit into the corporate hierarchy
– Line employees: directly involved in producing
companies’ goods or delivering their services such as
manufacturing leaders
– Staff employees: support the line functions, human
resource professionals and accountants are examples
of staff employees
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Fitting the Compensation Function in
an Organization’s Structure (2 of 3)
• Compensation profession’s roles:
– Executives: report directly to the corporation’s CEO
or head of a major division
– Generalists: perform tasks in a variety of HR-related
areas such as involvement in most or all of the
compensation functions (building job structures,
market competitive pay systems, and merit pay
structures)
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Fitting the Compensation Function in
an Organization’s Structure (3 of 3)
• Compensation profession’s roles:
– Specialists: work within only one of the areas of
compensation practice such as compensation survey
development
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How the Compensation Function Fits
into the HR Department
• HR professionals design and implement practices:
– Recruitment
– Relocation
– Selection
– Performance appraisal
– Training
– Career development
– Labor-management relations
– Employment termination
– Legislation
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Learning Objective 1.6
• Identify the stakeholders of the compensation function and
summarize their stakes in the work compensation
professionals perform.
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Stakeholders (1 of 6)
• Individuals or entities directly affected by compensation
practices:
– Employees
– Line managers
– Executives
– Unions
– U.S. Government
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Stakeholders (2 of 6)
• Employees rely on compensation professionals to:
– Develop and implement systematic training programs
– Inform them of training and pay links
– Offer discretionary benefits that provide:
? Income protection
? Paid time off
? Services
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Stakeholders (3 of 6)
• Line managers rely on compensation professionals to:
– Ensure knowledge of relevant laws to help them make
sound compensation judgments
– Advise for establishing pay differentials
– Train them how to properly evaluate jobs
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Stakeholders (4 of 6)
• Executives rely on compensation professionals to:
– Develop and manage sound compensation systems
– Insure the company’s practices are:
? Legally consistent
? Sufficiently attractive to recruit and retain
? Cost effective
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Stakeholders (5 of 6)
• Unions rely on compensation professionals to:
– Abide by their collective bargaining agreements
– Ensure they get their COLA adjustments and seniority
pay
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Stakeholders (6 of 6)
• The U.S. government requires compensation
professionals to:
– Keep updated and comply with all employment
legislation
– Demonstrate that alleged discriminatory pay practices
are not in fact discriminatory; or, are a business
necessity
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Learning Objective 1.7
• Explore essential skills for developing your career in
compensation or any other career path.
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Developing Skills for Your Career
• Communication
• Critical thinking
• Collaboration
• Knowledge application and analysis
• Business ethics and social responsibility
• Information technology and computing skills
• Data literacy
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