Compensation Decisions Essay

As a human resource manager, most people believe that our job is only to fix problems within the workplace or terminate employees who are not performing up to the standards of the company. Without knowing fully exactly what the position entails, this misconception will continue. Today I will be sharing a small yet important process that falls into the hands of the human resource manager. This process is the hiring process. It is a process that involves several steps to ensure that the company retains the best candidate possible to fulfill the position which is being offered. Within the hiring process fall several key components that help to ensure that the candidate will fit in with the structure of the company. Included in this process are recruiting, hiring, evaluating, and compensation. Each step has additional factors which play a part in the overall process. I will be breaking down the process by categories, and explaining in depth exactly what goes into selecting the future employee. To begin, as with any search we must first decide exactly what we are aiming to achieve. In order to narrow down the selection, as a department we must come up with key question that identify what qualities we are looking for to fulfill the position. This process can be easily accomplished by creating a task analysis. A task analysis will help to determine exactly what needs to be completed within the new position. A complied list of assignments that need to be fulfilled will help to create the job analysis. Once the task  analysis is completed, a job analysis can be formulated. With any job analysis, we aim to select the right candidate to ensure that the company’s goals will be reached. A job analysis consists of creating the job summary, identifying essential job functions, listing required knowledge, as well as experience an education, and identifying equipment needed to fulfill the position, and environmental factors. All of these components help in the process in selecting the ideal candidate. Creating a job analysis is harder than it seems. As the human resource manager, this step needs to be carefully considered, since if it is not done correctly can lead to deviance in the workplace. In an article Employee Deviance as a Response to Injustice and Task-Related Discontent, the author suggests that deviance in the workplace starts do to an injustice in task assignment which employees feel they are not treated fairly in assignments, and further they deviate from their assigned tasks. (Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara, 2010) Believe it or not but workplace deviance stems from a poorly written job analysis, and a job description that is not detailed enough to fully explain the associated tasks that the position requires. With this being said, a properly written job analysis can combat these issues before they begin. Once the analysis is complete, and the job description is written, we move ahead to recruitment. This process ensures that the proper candidates are selected based on qualifying information from the job description. This step helps to eliminate any persons that may not fit the qualifications of the position, as well as the needs of the company. Recruitment can be critical since many factors need to be considered. One factor would be how you chose to recruit for the position. For this position we as a department chose to recruit online by using various websites, such as Monster.com. This made the application process simple, since the candidates are able to apply at their convenience and it elevates setting aside time for both the candidate and the company to have applications accepted on site. This form of recruitment also helps the human resource department in selecting the candidates that host the qualifications that are required to fulfill the position. Recruitment strategies often help to determine if the candidates selected posses the proper skills set and knowledge that is needed to perform the job to the best of their ability. I must agree that recruitment is a tricky part  of the process. Having individuals present themselves on paper and recruiting them in person is a tough decision to make, and one that can impact the entire working environment as a whole. Once the recruitment selection has been completed, crucial factors come into pay such as compensation and evaluations. Compensation is offered upon employment, yet after an evaluation is completed, compensation can be adjusted based on performance. With the current recession, compensation decisions can be challenging, yet need to be expressed in order to keep costs down, while still retaining qualified employees. As stated in the article, Compensation Challenges, â€Å"If key business generators perceive their compensation to be inadequate, or their company to be at risk of floundering, they may take their business skills and leave† (Cotterwjan, 2009). This serves to be true, so compensation is a critical key in retaining employees. If not compensated to what the employee feels is adequate than the risk factor of the employee leaving becomes an issue. This will create more spending to recruit, and costs to train another individual for the position. That in itself does not help to cut cost but just the opposite and raises them. One way to make sure that compensation decision making is done correctly, author of Show Them the Money†¦Really! suggests that in a recession what you pay still matters. Alexander suggests that instead of undercutting now to save money, ultimately you will pay more. (Alexander, 2009) Once the economy starts to change, you will be forced to shell out more money for higher paying salaries to maintain the employees that you have, or replace the ones that have left. This holds true with any profession, even though at the current time the employers have the upper hand because people outnumber the available positions, as the market starts to change, the people will relocate to a higher paying position with another company. Deciding what compensation should be should be weighed on certain factors such as experience, knowledge of the field and qualities that they bring to the company. It should not reflect the current economy, since that is always changing. When deciding the compensation for the team for this assignment, I asked myself the same two questions that were asked in the article Learning and the Form of Compensation which were, â€Å"Firstly, do employers learn more quickly about workers who are paid for performance than  about those who are not? Secondly, d oes learning about performance pay workers depend on the specific form of performance pay?† (Hoon, 2013) After carefully reading the evaluations of the employees I thought about the previous questions. What did I really know about the evaluations in front of me? I was only able to take what was presented and compensate according to their reviews. This makes it very difficult for a human resource manager to approve any increases since what a supervisor may feel is warranted, human resources may not be able to support the increase without knowing fully what that employee brings to the table. Since in bigger businesses, the human resource department is not familiar with the backgrounds of the employees, than it becomes the responsibility of the direct supervisor to relay any pertinent information in the evaluation to support their decisions. Since starting this assignment, I would have to say that I was unaware of all the work that goes into the entire process and how many little things can affect the outcome if not done correctly. As a employee it seems easy to state that there is a new position available, but if that position is not described correctly the entire process could prove to be costly for the company, and not beneficial considering all the time and effort that is set forth in the entire process. Not only is the process time consuming, it lays out the guidelines for the position, and what is expected for the future employee. Without the proper guidelines, this process would not be as effective as it is today. Reference Alexander, J. (2009). Show Them The Money†¦.Really! Business NH Magazine , 33. Cotterwjan, J. D. (2009). Compensation Chellenges. Law Practice: The Business Of Practicing Law , 47-49. Hoon, B. (2013). Learning and the Form of Compensation. Journal of Labor Research , 79-98. Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara, P. (2010). Employee Deviance as a Response to Injustice and Task-Related Disconnect. Psychologist-Manager Journal , 131-146.