Blog Post 8

HRM Blog Post 8
Last week in HRM we learned about the global aspects of human resources. We had a guest speaker from Tahitian Noni come and speak to the class to talk about it. His name was Gary Williams and he is the global HR director for the company. He talked a lot about what companies should be paying their employees. He said most companies want to be right at the market. For this reason on a global scale, companies need to research and investigate what the market pay rates are in other companies. The local markets vary greatly and the differences are multiplied on even greater scale when dealing with other countries. Also, things other than pay need to be considered. For example, severance packages, certain benefits, and even certain customs and traditions need to be considered. He said that in some other countries, certain holidays and traditions can really affect how much people work and get paid. Also things like work weeks need to be considered. For example in France, people work a lot less hours during the work week. This needs to be considered when deciding how many people to hire, what to pay them, and what you expect them to accomplish. He stressed the need of paying people the correct market value and providing the usual benefits or else many of the employees will leave the company. Also, you need to mix salary changes and other benefits to meet the market demands of the local places.
One of my friends often travels to Eastern Europe for work. He has told me about some of the cultural differences that affect the business. For example, having a business dinner at a restaurant. Here in the US we typically eat dinner and then leave the restaurant. Over there it becomes pretty much an all night event. When they have a business dinner, people stay at the restaurant for three or four hours and spend a few hundred dollars. This is something that would need to be considered when hiring a manager over there and determining how much money will be spent on the dinner and other things.
We had some good discussions about working conditions in other countries. We talked about American companies that operate plants or have offices in other countries. We discussed if those companies should have working conditions similar to the US plants or offices, or should they follow the sometimes lower standards found in other countries. We decided that ethically companies should follow the stricter standards to set an example and also to improve the image of the company. Consumers today are becoming more and more conscious of how the people who produce their products are treated. If the consumers found out that the workers in other countries were being treated better than other workers in the countries, consumers might be more inclined to purchase the products produced by those companies.

HRM blog post 7

This week in HRM we learned a lot about employee benefits. Jeff Weber from ancestry.com came and spoke about benefits. He spoke about compensation and told us that we need to know the laws concerning pay like fair labor standards, know if we are exempt or non-exempt, and know if we should be getting paid overtime. He also told us that people who get fired are legally entitled to get paid within twenty four hours of when they get fired. I had never heard about that issue before. Jeff also talked about how rewards are incorporated and told us that compensation is an investment. Also, companies need to decide if they want to be paying at, below, or above the current market value. Jeff spoke about compensation structures. He told us that the rewards programs are becoming more flexible and that they are more externally driven. The salaries are based on market demand.
The company I interned for over the summer had some interesting ways to compensate their employees. They had a lot of company activities like picnics, golf and baseball tournaments, and opportunities to learn new skills and methods. They also had a pretty extensive health benefit program. They had a point system set up on the company’s website. Different things like getting a checkup at the doctor, not smoking, not drinking, switching out healthy snacks for junk food, losing a pound, and exercising. Everybody would fill out this sheet and every six months the company would add up the points. Whoever got the most points was given some sort of a prize. Usually the top five point earners would gain something as well. This helped the company show that they care about the employees. I assume it also helped bring down their health insurance costs. This company also had a good health insurance program. They would pay for insurance for employees and their families. I don’t remember the exact numbers but I know that the company spent almost as much on health care as they did on salaries. The company also encouraged biking to work and built showers and locker rooms in the new building that they built to help do this.
I have never had a job where I have received real benefits. I did work for a city for a while and they set up some sort of retirement pay for me. To me benefits are a big deal, especially health insurance. I currently have to pay my own. Luckily it is pretty low because I am a student but after I graduate it will probably go up by about five times. I think companies should educate their employees more on the benefits that they are receiving. This will cause employees to be more satisfied and probably work more productively.