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.