Fresh Munchables is a mid-sized but steadily growing food-processing company founded in 1967. Since its inception, the company has been committed to providing only premium quality health foods. The company is headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, and it is one of the area’s largest producers of soups and simple meals. In the past 20 years, the company has also begun processing healthy snacks and beverages. Fresh Munchables has traditionally sold its products through large grocery stores, but it is now venturing into online and restaurant businesses, which is all very new territory for management.
The company is split up into three overarching strategic business units—soups and meals, drinks, and snacks. Additionally, the company is divided into several business units at the operational level, consisting of a mix of business operations, manufacturing (production), research and development, finance, and so on. As the company continues to grow, the executive team and other leaders are constantly looking for ways to improve processes.
Because Fresh Munchables has grown from a very small company into a well-established organization, management has decided to broaden the company’s strategic HR functions. The human resources team is currently working to improve recruiting and hiring processes, succession planning, and most importantly, compensation and rewards.
For many years, the company has delegated compensation decisions to managers with little to no training on the subject. This has left the company in a disorganized, confused state when it comes to paying and rewarding employees. These problems have compounded as Fresh Munchables has recently opened up new manufacturing locations with new managers and many new employees.
The chief human resources officer has organized a team of compensation specialists of which you are a part to spearhead total compensation-related problems and help the company to reach its current and future goals. You and your team can achieve this by revising the current total compensation system to reflect the company’s current business strategies and goals as well as attract and retain top talent.

The HR department at Fresh Munchables is considering a job comparison approach for establishing internal alignment. Fresh Munchables has been around for several decades, but it has always struggled with determining appropriate compensation for different levels of jobs.
What is true about a job comparison approach that would benefit Fresh Munchables?

A). The point factor approach involves defining valuable elements of jobs and determining their relative importance, which helps managers know how to train their employees to receive promotions faster.
B). In the job comparison approach, jobs are placed in a nonhierarchical system to avoid complaints of unfairness, which is important when increasing organizational complexity.
C). In the job comparison approach, jobs are valued in comparison to other jobs in a company using a point system, which allows for pay to be determined by a job’s importance to the organization.
D). In a job comparison approach, pay is set by how well employees in different jobs perform over a set period of time, which is easily determined in an established organization.

Because Fresh Munchables has grown so much since its inception, the CEO wants to revisit the company’s methods for establishing internal reward alignment. The executive team has advised the HR department to use a job classification approach. However, you disagree.
What information could you use to show the executive team one primary disadvantage of using a job classification approach?

A). It is impossible to determine all the tasks done in each position, so classification is also impossible.
B). It is difficult to hire qualified employees because the recruitment and selection process becomes more generalized.
C). It is difficult to create distinctions between jobs as the number and types of jobs in an organization grows.
D). It is impossible to assign value to each job without first analyzing how other companies have valued similar jobs.

While developing the new compensation system at Fresh Munchables, the compensation team decides to ask an HR generalist for assistance. The HR generalist doesn’t have any formal experience in the area of compensation but is well informed about the concerns and desires of the management team.
Within her realm of experience, how can the HR generalist best help the compensation team to create strategic compensation to benefit the company as a whole?

A). She can help the company comply with minimum wage and overtime laws and ensure that legal obligations are met.
B). She can help the company increase the number of work-related benefits it offers to employees.
C). She can help align compensation with the company’s business strategy to reach its current and future goals.
D). She can help establish policies that discourage hiring employees who require higher compensation levels.

As part of Fresh Munchables’ new online marketplace venture, you have determined that 15 new jobs will be required to sell Fresh Munchables’ products online and have arranged these jobs into three groups for internal alignment purposes: website development and support, processing, and shipping.
What have you created in doing this, and why is it important in the process of determining compensation?

A). You have created a job-value structure to help determine what the jobs are, how they are related, and the relative importance of each one.
B). You have created a job-value structure to determine the relative value of each job within the company for comparison to similar jobs at competing companies.
C). You have created a job categorization structure to visualize the structure of jobs internally positioned according to their relative value.
D). You have created a job categorization structure to ensure that different types of employees will be paid equally as long as they contribute the same amount of relative value to the company.