Author: Morgan Bullock

I participated in class!

I participated in the in-class discussion!

I participated in the in-class discussion!

I participated in the in-class discussion!

I participated in the in-class discussion!

I participated in class for blog credit!

I am very open to working in another country. If an opportunity arose and all the cards aligned, I would definitely jump on it. I studied abroad in Spain for 7 weeks and traveled around Europe for another 3 weeks and have been wanting to go back ever since.

With this being said, there are some factors that I would have to consider before accepting a position in a different country. Some of these factors include which country I’d be going to, what language they speak, my family situation at the time, the pay and benefits, and the country’s cost of living. I have a major in Spanish so I would be more inclined to work in a Spanish speaking country. And then another major factor is my family. If the opportunity arises down the line in my life, I might have a partner and kids which would be a huge factor. Obviously pay is not the one motivating factor, but it would play a huge role. The pay, benefits and relocation package would be something to consider. If where I am moving has a high cost of living, I would need to be compensated for that somehow. And benefits would also play a huge part in my decision. What is healthcare like in the country I would be moving to? There are so many things to take into consideration, but I want to travel to other countries so I would definitely be motivated to move if the cards aligned. 

When talking with my group, we all had very similar factors that we would take into consideration before accepting a job in another country. One thing that one of my group members brought up was health conditions. This isn’t something that I thought about. This can mean the health status of myself before I move and the risk levels in the country I would be moving to.

My personal views on executive compensation is that it is excessive. To an extent, I completely understand executive compensation, but not to what it has inflated to today. There are numerous things that stood out to me in the “Executive Pay: The Issues” video, but a few things have really stuck with me. The first thing that amazed me, but also sort of made sense was how most companies want to be in either the top 25% of above average for CEO pay. Since most companies want to do this, the average keeps going up and up which is astronomically raising CEO wages/compensation. Then overall, it was really interesting to hear other people’s perspectives. Especially the former CEO of CBS and his outlook on executive compensation. 

I would change the way executive compensation works. Many executives are making so much money and it doesn’t stop coming. For example, Jeff Bezos could give every Amazon employee, there are millions of them, hundreds of thousands of dollars and still have a lot of money. A lot of executives are making most of their compensation from stock gains, but their base salary is also large. What I would implement is some sort of cap on their compensation. Obviously I wouldn’t have them stop making any money, but some should go back to employees of the company. I believe that executives should be limited somehow compared to the average salaries of their employees. 

There are definitely a few problems that could occur if I made a cap or adjusted executive compensation. It takes most people years, even decades, to get to an executive position. And as the CEO, they are not going to want someone to tell them how much they should make since they are technically the highest position in the company. There could also somehow be a few ethical issues because you can limit the base salary, but since most executive compensation comes from stock options, there aren’t many options to limit that. 

I think that the stock option component of compensation is the most essential to recruit executives and motivate them to lead companies toward competitive advantage. Since stock options can’t really be limited, this would motivate executives to help their companies excel which would also benefit themselves. Base salaries can be capped, but stock options almost seem unlimited.

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

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.