Human Resource Management homework help
Week Four Learning Outcomes OMM618: Human Resources Management (MFG1322B) This week students will:
1. Examine employee compensation factors, including direct financial payments and indirect payments.
2. Summarize the key attributes of a healthy ethical culture within an organization.
Readings Read the following chapters in: A Framework for Human Resource Management:
1. Chapter 7: Compensating Employees
2. Chapter 8: Ethics and Fair Treatment in Human Resource Management
Discussions
To participate in the following Discussion Forums, go to this week’s Discussion link in the left navigation:
1. Acme Manufacturing
Answer the questions to the case, “Salary Inequities at Acme Manufacturing,” at the end of Chapter 7. Include at least one outside source supporting your answers. Explain your answers in 200 words. Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ postings.
2. Ethics and Organizational Culture
Answer the questions to the case, “Enron, Ethics, and Organizational Culture,” at the end of Chapter 8. Include at least one outside source supporting your answers. Explain your answers in 200 words. Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ postings.
Assignments
To complete this assignment, go to this week’s Assignment link in the left navigation:
Incentive Plans
Research and discuss at least two different types of incentive plans discussed in the text. Highlight the possible advantages and disadvantages of each. Find at least two articles through ProQuest that discusses incentive payment plans. Summarize your findings in a 3-5 page paper. Be sure to properly cite your resources using APA style.
Week 2 in Review
An examination of Trilogy provided insight into the complexities of various approaches to recruitment — and the importance of incorporating recruitment into organizational strategies. From an HR perspective, the strategy involves many intra-related and inter-related aspects, such as job description, job analysis, recruitment methodologies, legal requirements, and a planned and cultivated organizational culture. It is all about Hiring Right! It is all about aligning organizational goals with individual goals to arrive at a place where work effort matches work productivity. Culture is the environment people work in, it’s the element that shapes your enjoyment, work relationship and work process. Culture is made up of values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a group of people (Heathfield, 2011). The employees at Trilogy all share similar interests and passions about their job, which means that working as a team would not be problematic. Trilogy has created an organizational culture that represents decision making, daily work practice, stories and legends.
Heathfield, S.M (2011) Culture: Your Environment for People at Work. Retrieved on June 29, 2011, from http://humanresources.about.com/od/organizationalculture/a/culture.htm
It is important to note that organizational culture should be developed through design, not by merely letting it happen. Trilogy is a company that recruits employees that are a cultural fit. Culture is the environment people work in, it’s the element that shapes your enjoyment, work relationship and work process. Culture is made up of values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a group of people (Heathfield, 2011). The employees at Trilogy all share similar interests and passions about their job, which means that working as a team would not be problematic. Trilogy has created an organizational culture that represents decision making, daily work practice, stories and legends. Heathfield, S.M (2011) Culture: Your Environment for People at Work. Retrieved on June 29, 2011, from http://humanresources.about.com/od/organizationalculture/a/culture.htm
Undoubtedly privacy concerns in any aspect of improvement must be addressed. But do not be so quick to discount the use of integrity and honesty testing. Julie Moreland (September 7, 2010; People Views), noted that the primary goals of using such tests are to identify counterproductive behaviors and attitudes of applicants prior to being hired. Morlan identified that one must first look at the policies that are in place in the organization and that conducting a predictive blind study allows one to determine if an honesty and integrity test can facilitate the prediction of counterproductive behaviors in the workplace. The following article will provide additional details on the topic. http://blog.peopleclues.com/index.php/steps-to-assessing-the-validity-of-integrity-and-honesty-testing-in-job-recruitment/
Week 3 Instructor Guidance Training and development are important to both the attainment of organizational strategies and the sustainability (and retention) of the employee. Ensuring training and development opportunities are fairly distributed among the workforce creates an environment of trust and further cultivates the organizational culture. It is helpful to separate the terms by defining them and understanding the influence such activities have on the organization. Training addresses knowledge, skills and abilities to enhance performance requirements currently expected of the employee to successfully accomplish their current duties. Development identifies future needs of the organization and appropriate supportive knowledge expected to address these needs. Development also identifies persons deemed appropriate to acquire this knowledge — and simultaneously provides lateral and vertical promotion opportunities that come with the added knowledge. There are many factors to consider when deciding how training and development will be employed:
1. What knowledge, skills and abilities (i.e., communication, empathy) must employees of your organization possess if they are to effectively contribute to a diverse and inclusive workplace?
2. What additional knowledge, skills and abilities (i.e., issue identification, group dynamics) must managers in your organization possess if they are to effectively recruit a diverse team and manage staff in an inclusive way?
3. What additional knowledge, skills and abilities (i.e., visioning, cross-cultural competence) must leaders in your organization possess if they are to role model diversity, ensure that your organization’s clients or customers are treated with respect, and chart the correct path for your organization’s future?
4. Which learning methods would be the most appropriate to employ, given the competencies you wish to support?
5. How can your organization frame training & development related to diversity so that it is, if at all possible, an ongoing activity, not restricted to isolated experiences in a classroom?
6. Who must you engage to lead the diversity training & development initiatives within your organization?
Source: http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/Diversity/diversity_mgmt_plan/Pages/training.aspx Performance appraisal is that oft-dreaded task which manager’s are expected to complete that identifies the strengths, weakness, and accomplishments of subordinates. One wonders why this important component is so often run through with lack of focus, rendering many (if not most) appraisals meaningless. Performance planning allows for the identification of many aspects of organizational processes (training, development, reward, punishment, promotion, termination). Please review the following link for a Power Point that details performance planning (you may need to copy the URL into your address bar). Consider this information in the context of discussions and assignments. http://www.shrm.org/Education/hreducation/Documents/ Performance _Management_PPT_SL_Edit_BS.ppt
DISCUSSION ADDENDUM RELATED TO HR ISSUES: Family Medical Leave Updates
The EEOC has recently reported a significant upswing in lawsuits under the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993. The number of cases has recently spiked by about 25% over the same number filed 10 years ago. A brief synopsis of the FMLA and common misconceptions: 1. Under the FMLA, people can get up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for post-pregnancy care, to care for a family member, or to attend to a personal health issue, above and beyond any medical benefits or accrued company leave time. 2. FMLA is not available to all employees in all companies. The company has to have 50 employees located within 75 miles of the company work site for its employees to be eligible. 3. Employees have to have been employed for at least 1 year, usually for at least 1250 hours, to be eligible. 4. Employees are eligible for 12 weeks FMLA leave in any calendar year. 5. Employees have the right to return to the same or equivalent employment at the end of FMLA leave, with ONE KEY EXCEPTION: Highly paid, “key” employees may not be denied FMLA leave, but the company is within their rights not to reinstate highly paid, “key” employees who take FMLA leave to their former job or any job. 6. If employees have indicated that they do not intend to return, or would have otherwise been laid off, terminated, or downsized, or are unable to return after 12 weeks, or refuse to provide company-requested medical or personal documentations, the company may rightfully refuse to reinstate them. Most of the current lawsuits claim that litigants were discriminated against or retaliated against for taking time off to handle the care-giving of a child, which is covered by the FMLA, or to care for a relative with a disability, which is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Two key areas of defense for employers fighting these cases: (1) If the employee is designated as a “key” employee, the company is not obliged to return the employee to their current position or any position. Let’s say that Jane Doe is 29 years old and VP of a company with 50 employees. She becomes pregnant and gives birth. She takes six weeks of paid time under company policy, four weeks of paid vacation time, and then desires to take 12 more weeks because of difficulties with the child’s health. The company has designated her as a key employee. Under the FMLA, the company is not obliged to hold her vice presidency for what amounts to about a half year. It is unclear whether the ADA would protect her because the child probably would not qualify under disability rules. (2) It is unclear whether a company may avoid the potential FMLA issue entirely by refusing to hire persons with small children or who are known to be caring for disabled relatives. Many companies currently in litigation have claimed that they should not be liable for not hiring persons with high likelihood of going on FMLA or ADA leave time because it makes them the unwilling provider of company benefits for the unproductive. There does not appear to be any Title VII violations related to refusing to hire persons with small children or who are known to be caring for disabled relatives. Where companies have gotten into trouble is when they have refused to hire female caregivers, instead preferring male non-caregivers. Hiring female non-caregivers over female caregivers, however, does not appear to be a violation of FMLA, ADA, or Title VII. This will be an area of increasing interest as more employees end up caring for children, grandchildren, or parents as the workforce ages, and may be an interesting topic for your students.
WEEK 4 STUDENT RESPONSES DISCUSSION 1
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OMM 618 week 4 Discussions
Discussion 1: Case Incident: Salary Inequities at Acme Manufacturing
1. If I were Black, I would have held a meeting with the 3 supervisors and would have convinced them to a restructuring of the salaries and further exchanged thoughts and concrete suggestions regarding this matter. This issue cannot be neglected despite the women not complaining about it, because it can create legal problems for the company.
He might consider a justifiable pay scale, or other sound skill related differential deserving within a group as a whole. I would also take the second choice under consideration as well, because that way unintentional sex discrimination would be reduced in such a way that women may not even question further their previous low wages. However, the company is violating the equal pay act, 1963; wherein there is sex discrimination made by giving a reduced comparative salary to the female employees (EEOC Small Business, 2013). Hence, Black should gradually increase the salary of the female supervisors, as this would potentially solve his issue of the female employees reporting to the EEOC for sex discrimination.
1. The company has gotten into this situation due to the following probable reasons:
· The major reason was not following the equal pay act, 1963. Hence, the discrimination pay demonstrated between male and female employees for the same work (EEOC Small Business, 2013)
· Payment of salaries was not made in accordance to their competencies. The skill set of the personnel was not given importance or considered in the company (Dessler, 2011).
· Current laws are not strong enough. The Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act are important laws, but they are hard to enforce, and further, these legal cases are extremely difficult to prove and win.
1. Ethical practices are required in the business to boost the business through motivated employees with high levels of energy and none of this is possible if the company treats their employees unfairly (Deb, 2006).
References
EEOC Small Business. (2013). Retrieved from U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission: http://www.eeoc.gov/employers/
Deb, T. (2006). Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management Concept, Tools And
Application. Atlantic Publishers.
Dessler, G. (2011). A Framework for Human Resource Management (6th ed.) New York:
Pearson.
Discussion 2: Enron, Ethics, and Organizational Culture
1. Ethics refers to “the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group; specifically, the standards you use to decide what your conduct should be,” according to Dessler (Dessler, 2011). Secondly ethical decisions always involve questions or morality (Dessler, 2011).
Anyone that had anything to do with the meltdown at Enron had no ethical standards. Enron had a lack of accounting transparency, which enabled the company’s managers to make their financials look much better than they actually were. Kenneth Lay got rid of several million shares of Enron stock and made over a billion dollars (Dugas, 2002). This was done while the Enron employees lost their jobs, the money in their pension funds as well as was any money they had invested into the company. Not only did Enron damage the lives of their employees, but they also affected the customers that were buying their products, and the outside investors who lost a significant amount of their money. This all happened because of the unethical behavior and greed of those individuals involved in the meltdown (Dugas, 2002).
1. The use of vulgar language with journalist illustrated the lowered moral and ethical standards of the CEO. It also reflected on the absence of professionalism from the CEO, as he quickly resorted to abusive behavior to avoid the questions of journalist. The consequent reaction of company’s employees demonstrates the willingness of the employees to appreciate the unethical and immoral behavior of their CEO that defies the societal norms. The organizational culture was evidently corrupt and beyond repair.
1. The ethics literature is replete with suggestions, including selection and hiring of ethically-oriented employee, establishing codes of ethics, promoting an ethical culture, developing employees internally, and taking a stewardship perspective (Erwin, 2011)
References
Dessler, G. (2011). A Framework for Human Resource Management (6th ed.) New York:
Pearson.
Dugas, C. (2002). Employees’ faith in enron cost them life savings. USA Today, Retrieved from
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/covers/2002-01-21-bcovmon.htm
Erwin, P. M. (2011). Corporate codes of conduct: The effects of code content and quality on
ethical performance. Journal of Business Ethics, 99(4), 535-548.
WEEK 4 DISCUSSION 2—Student Responses
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