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Compensation Blog #3

My blog group brainstormed a list of about 18 benefits ranging from health insurance to mentor programs. As we were creating the list, I was already thinking in my head about ones that appeal to me and ones that I hope my future employer offers. When I started ranking the benefits, I organized them according to what I value for the most part, but also somewhat thinking about the general population. If I were to have solely organized the list of benefits in line to what would benefit most people, my list would’ve been different. 

One of the articles we read this week was from the Harvard Business Review on what the most desirable employee benefits are. I read this article in my leadership class and analyzed it a little bit. We were focusing on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation at the time of reading this article. The article states that better health, vision and dental insurance are the most sought after benefits. In most of my management classes we touch on either benefits or motivational theories. I find these topics extremely interesting to learn about. Something that has stuck with me from this class and my HR class was how employees are more motivated by benefits than they are a pay increase. 

With all of that being said, some of my lowest benefits (ones that I would eliminate) are student loan repayments, tuition benefits and day care. Although these are amazing benefits that some employers offer, they personally benefit me the least. However, if I were to look at a company’s demographic, these might be crucial benefits and would not be eliminated. For example, if a lot of the demographic are parents, maybe specifically single parents, they would benefit immensely from having a daycare at work. Another thing to consider is which benefits will motivate employees to perform well. As stated previously, health insurance is a big want and so is vacation time and flexible hours. Offering sought after benefits will likely increase employee satisfaction, motivation and work ethic.

  1. Medical Insurance
  2. Dental Insurance
  3. Vision insurance
  4. Sick leave
  5. Retirement plan (401k)
  6. Vacation time
  7. Flexible work hours
  8. Investment/pension plans
  9. Life insurance
  10. Maternity leave
  11. Disability insurance
  12. Student loan repayments
  13. Tuition benefits
  14. Day care
  15. Team bonding events
  16. Mentoring programs
  17. Availability to bring pets to work
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Compensation Blog #2

The company I have chosen to research is Burton. Burton is a snowboarding company. They make snowboards, snowboard bindings, ski jackets, pants and most accessories you could ever need for the snow. Burton has their own stores, but also distributes them to sporting good stores like Dick’s, Big 5 and many more. While researching more into this company, I have found that they have offices in six different countries. Burton is in the retail industry, and according to Glassdoor and Comparably, they pay exceptionally well when compared to companies of similar size. 

I put a lot of thought into whether Burton would benefit more from a person-focused or job-based pay. Overall, I think a job-based pay structure would be more beneficial for Burton. A job-based approach focuses more on the responsibilities, working conditions and other compensable factors rather than skills and knowledge. Although there are some positions within Burton that could benefit from a person-focused pay, the majority of positions should be job-based. 

There are several departments within Burton, including administration, HR, IT, operations, sales, customer support, finance and a few others. A large part of Burton is their sales. Once their products are manufactured, their sales department is responsible for selling their products in house or selling them to sporting goods stores to sell. If we take a look at the responsibilities of a sales representative at Burton, they have to interact with customers, be knowledgeable on the products and most of the time they work indoors. Through my research, people who are passionate about snowboarding love this role and the company in general. Through their great employee discounts and fun atmosphere, a job-based pay structure won’t deter someone from working here. 

If Burton uses a job-based pay structure, it will be easier for management and HR to assess. Although person-focused pay would remove pay as an entitlement, I don’t think Burton needs to do that. Lots of people want to work at Burton because they love snowboarding, not necessarily because of the pay. Also, there are not enough jobs that would benefit from a person-focused pay. The skills and knowledge required are not extensive enough to implement this kind of pay.