a compact description of compensation management

1. COMPENSATION MANAGEMENT MS.S BHAUMIK Lectuer, PGIHA Kolkata

30. MOTIVATIONAL THEORIES: 1. MASLOWS HIERARCHY OF NEEDS 2. HERZBERGS TWO FACTOR THEORY 3. McCLELLAND 3 MODEL OF SUCCESS 4. VICTOR VROOMS EXPECTANCY THEORY 5. EQUITY THEORY

35. Fair Wage: The concept of fair wage is linked with the capacity of the industry to pay. The Committee has defined fair wage as follows: "Fair wage is the wage which is above the minimum wage but below the living wage. The lower limit of the fair wage is obviously the minimum wage: the upper limit is to be set by the capacity of the industry to pay. " Thus, fair wage depends on different variables affecting wage determination. Such factors are labor productivity prevailing wage rates, the level of national income and its distribution and the capacity of industry to pay.

68. FRINGE BENEFITS/ INCENTIVES

69. Incentives: Incentives are the additional payment to employees besides the payment of wages and salaries. Often these are linked with productivity, either in terms of higher production or cost saving or both. These incentives may be given on individual basis or group basis. Fringe Benefits: Fringe benefits include such benefits which are provided to the employees either having long-term impact like provident fund, gratuity, pension; or occurrence of certain events like medical benefits, accident relief, health and life insurance; or facilitation in performance of job like uniforms, Canteens, recreation, etc.

70. Perquisites: These are normally provided to managerial personnel either to facilitate their job performance or to retain them in the organization. Such perquisites include company car, club membership, free residential accommodation, paid holiday trips, stock options, etc.

71. The following are some of the definitions of the term ‘Incentive’ : Wage incentives are extra financial motivation. They are designed to stimulate human effort by rewarding the person, over and above the time rated remuneration, for improvements in the present or targeted results” – The National Commission on Labor. “ It refers to all the plans that provide extra pay for extra performance in addition to regular wages for a job” – Hummel and Nickerson. “ It is any formal and announced programme under which the income of an individual, a small group, a plant work force or all the employees of a firm are partially or wholly related to some measure of productivity output” – Scott.

79. Old Age and Retirement : Benefits under this category include: deferred income plans, pension, gratuity, provident fund, old age assistance, old age counseling, and medical benefits for retired employees, traveling concession to retired employees, jobs to sons/daughters of the deceased employee and the like. Personnel Identification, Participation and Stimulation : This category covers the following benefits: anniversary awards, attendance bonus, canteen, cooperative credit societies, educational facilities, beauty parlor services, housing, income tax aid, counseling, quality bonus, recreational programs, stress counseling, safety measures etc.

80. Employee Security : Physical and job security to the employee should also be provided with a view to promoting security to the employee and his family members. The benefit of confirmation of the employee on the job creates a sense of job security. Further a minimum and continuous wage or salary gives a sense of security to the life. Retrenchment Compensation :The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 provides for the payment of compensation in case of lay-off and retrenchment. The non-seasonal industrial establishments employing 50 or more workers have to give one month’s notice or one month’s wages to all the workers who are retrenched after one year’s continuous service. The compensation is paid at the rate of 15 days wage for every completed year of service with a maximum of 45 days wage in a year. Workers are eligible for compensation as stated above even in case of closing down of undertakings.

81. Lay-off Compensation : In case of lay-off, employees are entitled to lay-off compensation at the rate to 50% of the total of the basic wage and dearness allowance for the period of their lay-off except for weekly holidays. Lay-off compensation can normally be paid up to 45 days in a year.

82. Safety and Health : Employee’s safety and health should be taken care of in order to protect the employee against accidents, unhealthy working conditions and to protect worker’s capacity. In India, the Factories Act, 1948, stipulated certain requirements regarding working conditions with a view to provide safe working environment. Provisions relating to safety measures include fencing of machinery, work on or near machinery in motion, employment of young persons on dangerous machines, striking gear and devices for cutting off power, self-acting machines, easing of new machinery, probation of employment of women and children near cotton openers, hoists and lifts, lifting machines, chains ropes and lifting tackles, revolving machinery, pressure plant, floors, excessive weights, protection of eyes, precautions against dangerous fumes, explosive or inflammable dust, gas etc. Precautions in case of fire, power to require specifications of defective parts of test of stability, safety of buildings and machinery etc.

87. What are Flexible Benefits? Flexible benefits allows allow employees to pick benefits that most their needs. The idea is to allow each employee to choose a benefit package that is individually tailored to his or her own needs and situation. It replaces the traditional “one-benefit-plan-fits-all” programs that dominated organizations for more than 50 year s.

88. The average organization provides fringe benefits worth approximately 40% of an employee’s salary. Traditional benefit programs were designed for the typical employees of the 1950s—- a male with wife and two children at home. Less than 10% of employees now fit this stereotype. While 25% of today’s employees are single, a third are part of two-income families with no children. As such these traditional programs don’t tend to meet the needs of today’s more diverse workforce. Flexible benefits, however, do meet these diverse needs. They can be uniquely tailored to reflect differences in employee needs based on age, marital status, spouses’ benefit status, number and age of dependents, and the like.

89. The three most popular type of benefit plans are modular plans, core-plus options, and flexible spending accounts . Modular plans are pre-designed packages of benefits, with each module put together to meet the needs of a specific group of employees. So a module designed for single employees with no dependents might include only essential benefits. Another, designed for single parents, might have additional life insurance, disability insurance, and expanded health coverage. Core-plus plans consist of a core of essential benefits and a menu-like selection of other benefits options from which employees can select and add to the core. Typically, each employee is given “benefit credits,” which allow the “purchase” of additional benefits that uniquely meet his or her needs.

90. Flexible spending plans allow employees to set aside up to the dollar amount offered in the plan to pay for particular services. It’s a convenient way, for example, for employees to pay for health-care and dental premiums. Flexible spending accounts can increase employee take-home pay because employees don’t have to pay taxes on the dollars they spend out of these accounts.

91. I ncentive systems also have been classified into three groups: individual wage incentive plan, group incentive scheme, and organisation-wide incentive system. The individual wage incentive plan is the extra compensation paid to an individual over a specified amount for his production effort. Individual incentive systems are based upon certain norms established by work measurement techniques such as past performance, bargaining between union and the management, time study, standard data, predetermined elemental times and work sampling. There are four types of individual incentive systems such as measured day-work, piece-work standard, group plans and gains-sharing plans.

92. Under the measured day-work incentive wage system, an individual receives his regular hourly rate of pay, irrespective of his performance. Piece-work system form the most simple and frequently used incentive wage. In this, individual’s earnings are direct and proportionate to their output. Group plans embody a guaranteed base rate to the workers in which the performance over standard is rewarded by a proportionate premium over base pay. Gains-sharing system involves a disproportionate increase in monetary rewards for increasing output beyond a predetermined standard. As the gains are shared with the entrepreneurs, the worker gets less than one per cent increment in wage for every one percent increase in output.

93. Individual Incentive Plans Method of Rate Determination Units of production per time period Time period per unit of production (1) (2) (4) (3) Straight piecework plan Standard hour plan Bedeaux plan Halsey 50 - 50 method Rowan plan Gantt plan Taylor differential piece rate system Merrick multiple piece rate system Pay constant function of production level Pay varies as function of production level Relationship between production level and pay

94. Types of Incentives Plans The ILO classifies all the schemes of payment by results into four categories: Earning vary in the same proportion as output Straight Piece Work Standard Hour Earnings vary less proportionately than output Halsey Plan Rowan Plan Barth Scheme Bedaux Plan Earnings vary Proportionately More than outputs High Piece Rate High Standard Hour Earnings differ at different levels of output Taylor’s Differential Piece Rate Merrick Differential Piece Rate Gantt Task System Emerson’s Efficiency plan

95. Halsey Plan Rowan Plan Barth Plan Bedaux Plan Time - Based Output - Based Taylor’s Differential Piece Rate Merrick Differential Piece Rate Gantt Task System Emerson’s Efficiency plan

96. The group or area incentive scheme provides for the payment of a bonus either equally or proportionately to individuals within a group or area. The bonus is related to the output achieved over an agreed standard or to the time saved on the job – the difference between allowed time and actual time. Such schemes may be most appropriate where: (a) people have to work together and teamwork has to be encouraged; and (b) high levels of production depend a great deal on the cooperation existing among a team of workers as compared with the individual efforts of team members.

97. The organisation-wide incentive system involves cooperation among employees and the management and purports to accomplish broader organisational objectives such as: (i) to reduce labour, material and supply costs; (ii) to strengthen loyalty to the company; (iii) to promote harmonious labour-management relations; and (iv) to decrease turnover and absenteeism.

98. One of the aspects o f organisation-wide incentive system is profit sharing or gain sharing under which an employee receives a share of the profit fixed in advance under an agreement freely entered into. The major objective of the profit sharing system is to strengthen the unity of interest and the spirit of cooperation. Some of the advantages of such a scheme are: (i) it inculcates in employees’ a sense of economic discipline as regards wage costs and productivity; (ii) it engenders improved communication and increased sense of participation; (iii) it is relatively simple and its cost of administration is low; and (iv) it is non-inflationary, if properly devised. Others are- Scanlon plan and Kaiser plan.

100. Retirement Compensation system: There are two main types of employer-sponsored retirement plans: defined benefit and defined contribution. A defined benefit plan, such as a traditional pension plan, sets the amount that the employer will pay to workers upon their retirement. In defined contribution plans, the plan sets the amount of the contributions that an employer makes, not the benefit it will pay at retirement. In 1978, section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code authorized a new kind of defined contribution plan that allows the employee to make pre-tax contributions to the plan.

101. In a 401(k) plan, the employer sets up a special savings and investment account with an investment company, a bank trust dept, or an insurance company. The employee agrees to put part of his or her salary into the plan through automatic deductions each pay period. This money is deducted before the employee’s paycheck is taxed, so that it remains untaxed until it is taken out of the plan, often years or even decades later. Employers frequently match employee contributions up to a certain level, sometimes by as much as 100 percent, but are not required to do so. The money in the plan is invested into one or more funds provided in the plan according to choices made by the employee. The plans usually are intended to earn money over a very long period of time, which is much less risky than short-term investing.

102. Employees like 401(k) plans for several reasons. The tax deferral an obvious plus. Others popular features include the increased portability of this plan from one employer to another, the matching contributions, and the sense of control due to the ability to choose one’s own investments.

103. What is a Provident Fund ? It is a mandatory, tax-qualified, defined, contribution retiral benefit plan wherein equal contribution at the specified rate is made by the employer and the employee and the same is payable in lump sum on retirement.