When setting pay rates, compensation managers must take into consideration the employees' perception of fair, equitable compensation.
Pay Equity: Internal and External Considerations
KENT ROMANOFF
Associate Hay Group, Inc.
KEN BOEHM
Labor Economist Pacific Telesis
EDWARD BENSON
Vice-President, Hay Group, Inc.
EqUity (or fairness), a central theme in compensation theory and practice, arises in many different contexts. Here, for example, are some major areas: • The legal and economic issue of equal pay for similar work (comparable worth). • Pay differences caused by external competition or market pressures. • The fairness of individual wage rates for people who are doing the same job. • Individual employee views of their
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Each is discussed below.
External Equity External equity exists when an employer pays a wage rate commensurate with the wages prevailing in external labor markets~ Assessing external equity requires meas uring these labor markets. There is, however, no single labor market for a particular job. Supply and demand differ substantially among markets, resulting in significant variation in wages across labor markets. The following factors contribute to these wage differences among markets: • Geographic location. • Industry sector. • Union status. • Organization size. • Product competition. • Company prestige.. • Education and experience level of available work force. • Licensing or certification requirements called for by the job. Some combination of these factors determine the labor market for a particular job. Employers should carefully define the appropriate market{s) to assure accurate exter nal wage comparisons. Defining the market too narrowly can result in wages that are higher than necessary. If, for example, a company doing business in two locations defines its pay practice solely in terms of a metropolitan labor market, it could set wages that are unnecessarily high for its rural areas. Conversely, defining the market too broadly may cause an organization to set wages too low to attract and retain com petent employees.
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COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS REVIEW
Internal Equity Internal equity exists when an employer pays wages commensurate with
where comparable to men’s work must receive equal pay; Equal pay for work of equal value is
Several factors should be considered when determining a fair and equal wage across the labor force. Preservation of the existing labor force, while minimizing the impacts on a business being able to maintain their competiveness is a critical
All employees analyze their environment and strive to be recognized and rewarded for their hard work and dedication they put into the company, in a word they are seeking justice. Justice can be defined as a person receiving what they feel they are entitled to and if they do not receive what they deserve, the situation may boarder on injustice. Unfortunately in today’s society justice and appreciation are not given out to all those deserving (Pinder, 1998). Within the Equity theory there are three justice theories. The first of which is distributive justice, this touches on if the referent feels that the outputs are fair that are given to the employees. This comes into play
Rather, Equity, and the sense of fairness which commonly underpins motivation, is dependent on the comparison a person makes between his or her reward/investment ratio with the ratio enjoyed (or suffered) by others considered to be in a similar situation”(Balancing Employee Inputs and Outputs).
carefully planned out and considered, the total closure or failure of the organization could be at hand in the near future. In our modern age, employers know that salary is not the only factor that should be considered and that salary alone will not lead to better or more highly profitable workers alone. This is why compensation planning is important and why pay should have some connection between performance and compensation. This is why the human resources department should consider many monetary and non-monetary factors when considering how to properly compensate and motivate employees (Dessler, 2013).
Differences in the employees’ pay and compensation can be a form of discrimination depending on whether it is guided by job position, experience, and qualification of the employee or not. Occupation differentiation and differentials in earnings is not necessarily a form of employment discrimination. However, the case in ABC Corporation which had led to disparate treatment of employees in terms of payment had created a form of unintended discrimination and trying to correct it cannot raise ethical conflicts between the employees (Clarkson, Miller & Cross,). Ethics are based on the principles of doing right or wrong, god or bad in a certain situation. In this case, ABC Corporation is trying to honor its moral obligation by doing what is right-balancing the pay of its work to solve differences in their pay. This does
Equal Opportunity, occasionally called equality of opportunity, is a contentious yet significant decision-making standard with no exact definition concerning fair preferences within the public domain (Austen 1999). Although it normally depicts open and just contest with equal possibilities for achieving employment without any discrimination, the idea is intangible with a broad meaning. It is difficult to determine, and execution leads to issues as well as differences concerning what to do. It is
Clear compensation practices tied to identifiable markets and employee performance should be established to improve employee understanding of how their compensation is determined.
The first lesson we learnt was the importance of treating employees fairly, especially in terms of wages. Employees who are content and treated fairly are productive and will evidently drive the bottom line of the company. Their productivity will be high, knowing their wage is reflective of their work and they feel valued in the company. Not only did employees experience pay dissatisfaction if they perceived their pay as unfair, they were also less motivated to achieve the organization’s goals. (HRM 212) In Quarter 6, we increased the wages for Level 3,4, and 5 workers. However, we received feedback that notified us that our Level 1 workers
The term compensation refers to all forms of financial returns and tangible benefits that employees receive in exchange for their time, talents, efforts, performance, and results (Bernardin & Russell, 2013) Presumably, employees are motivated by the compensation they receive in all combinations to include their benefits packages. Naturally, employees want to be able to take care of their family to include having good medical coverage and other related benefits. Equity is said to occur when a person perceives that the ratio of his outcomes to his inputs is equal to other’s outcome/input ratio (Salvendy, 1976). Of course, employees want more money, and companies want more work out of each employee. With the cost of benefits like health insurance continuing to rise, companies have to take the higher cost of benefits into consideration when implementing pay
A good way of defining something is often to start with what it is not. Pay Equity is not equal access to jobs offered by an employer. This is called employment equity, which means that women and men and the visible minorities have equal opportunity when applying for jobs. Nor is it the fact that a person working in a specific company is being paid $2,000 less than the person of the same gender sitting nearby for the exact same job. This is called internal equity and is unrelated to employment equity. So what does Pay Equity mean? At first, it meant equal pay for equal work. However, as organizations tried to achieve Pay Equity, they quickly realized that is was very difficult to compare the same two jobs and their compensation since each one comprised a different set of tasks. This leads us to the conclusion on why we call it Equal Pay for Equal Work also known as The Gender Pay Gap. Whatever you want to call it, unequal pay based on gender and color in the workplace is real, it is verifiable, discriminatory, and prevents economic growth.
Some organizations are unwilling to show their reward systems and pay policies (Lawler, 1995). Many Human Resources professionals believe gender pay gaps to be resolvable through the monitoring of pay levels and communication (Report on Salary Surveys).Greater pay transparency has been a great benefit to the board, employees and managers as they now know what is happening across the business and they are able to confidently justify their actions (Commission Policy Report).All market-related supplements are recorded and reviewed separately from basic salary to ensure openness and transparency. Regular research market rates within the various labor markets in which they operate is undertaken improving transparency would also help to improve talent development, as employees would be able to see what they could earn if they wanted to move to another division and upgrade their skill set. (Commission Policy Report).
This assignment deals with the Employment Equity Act of 19 October 1998. It covers the workings of the act in terms of equity and affirmative action and how it was implemented in Defy Appliances Ltd in 1999. It also covers some of the obstacles and challenges that were experienced by the company; as well as its success in other companies in South Africa
The equity theory conceived by J. Stacy Adams is based premise that "people gauge the fairness of their work outcomes relative to others, any perceived inequity is a motivating state of mind" (Schermerhorn, Hunt, and Osborn, 2005, p.10, chpt.6). This theory when applied to a sales force would not be the best method to motivate this employee group as to what is deemed fair by a team leader could be perceived as unfair by the
Treating employees fairly in relations to pay is important for both employee and employer. The Equal Pay Act 1970 was introduced to ensure that women and men are paid the same for the same role. Organisations that actively treat all employees the same in relation to pay promote retention of employees. Employees won’t be underpaid for the work they do in relation to a colleague in a similar role, employees won’t feel discriminated against thus performance of work isn’t effected. The