Unit 9 Managing a Total Compensation Plan Introduction In Unit 5 you analyzed market data to consider a competitive pay position for a job. In these final two units of the course we will look at how to manage a total compensation plan and communicate that plan to employees and to the marketplace. Often the market will select your position through word of mouth from current employees, former employees, or local press coverage through a best employer list. Taking a more proactive approach to managing a market position is the strategy of choice for most employers. Unit 9 assesses what steps an employer must take to actively monitor the firm's position in the market as well as effectiveness of the overall strategy. Tracking turnover rates, inflation, and economic indicators all play into the formula, as does a sense of the market and a company's image and reputation. This is a unit where the numbers and trends tell a huge story. Interpreting that story is the difference between a superior compensation plan and ineffective one. Objectives To successfully complete this learning unit, you will be expected to: Examine a budgeting process for managing labor costs. Compare different approaches to managing labor costs. Identify who should be included in the ongoing decision-making process of managing labor costs. Analyze the ethical dimensions of balancing economic issues with market and personal issues related to a living wage. Learning Activities Studies Reading Use your text to complete the following: Review Chapter 18 to understand the overall process of budgeting with managers for compensation and benefits. Research In preparation for this unit's discussion, locate a minimum of two outside resources that cite data supporting an argument for imbalances between the circles in Exhibit 18.5 to the extent the imbalances are unhealthy to a global economy. DOCUMENT #1 11, 2015 2-3PAGES PARA-4-LINES DUE-DATE-SEPTMEBER BOOK Milkovich, G. T., Newman, J. M., & Gerhart, B. (2013). Compensation (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. ISBN: 9780078029493. Managing Labor Costs The text describes a bottom-up and top-down approach to managing labor costs. For this assignment, complete the following: Describe the components of both approaches and decide which would be most important to use in either your current work environment or one with which you are familiar, and explain your reasoning. Also include a discussion about the approach you did not select, and describe a scenario in which this approach would be most effective. For example, if you choose the top-down approach to describe your workplace, or a workplace with which you are familiar, then in the second part of the assignment you will discuss the bottom-up approach and describe a scenario in which this would be an effective way to manage labor costs. In both parts of your response, imagine that managers will be part of the budgeting process and will amend, revise, or adopt new approaches to compensating, rewarding, and incentivizing the workforce. In your opinion, what are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of management involvement? Your assignment will need to be 2-3 pages in length, and please be sure to cite all information obtained from outside resources. Review the scoring guide for this assignment before submitting your paper. DOCUMENT#2 Discussion 1 - PARA-4 LINES- 200-WORDS- DUE DATE - SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 Balance and Labor Costs. In Chapter 18 of your text, the authors present a useful diagram, Exhibit 18.7 (Three Distinct but Related Concepts and Their Measures) illustrating the relationship between markets, wages, prices, and the cost of living as a dynamic that affects labor costs overall. What the diagram does not illustrate are some of the intangible and ethical issues affecting wages and labor costs. For example, it shows all the factors in equal intersecting circles, but it is clear that at times some factors play a more important role in the market or in a particular industry than others. One could also make an argument for the fact that ethical imbalances may overly distort one's ability to live on a given wage. In this discussion, present instances when you think the circles are out of balance to the extent the imbalances are unhealthy to a global economy. Use any of the information we have studied to this point, and be certain to offer at least one reference that cites data supporting your argument for an imbalance. Please use a minimum of two outside resources in your response, and be sure to include both intext citations and the full resource in APA format at the end of your response. Response Guidelines Respond to the imbalances presented by three of your peers. Suggest potential solutions to correct imbalances. What barriers might impede your proposed solutions, and how might the barriers be overcome? DOCUMENT #3 Discussion 2 para-4 lines-200-words- DUE DATE - SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 Communication In your opinion, why should organizations openly communicate their pay systems to their employees? What is an effective method to use to achieve this? Please describe your experiences related to this and indicate whether you have worked in an environment in which pay systems were communicated effectively to the employees. Response Guidelines Please respond to a minimum of two of your peers' posts. Do you agree or disagree with their perspectives? What can you add to their comments on this issue? HUMANITIES BOOK- Fiero, G. K. (2013). Landmarks in humanities (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. ISBN: 9780073376646. DOCUMENT #4 PARA-4-LINES - 200-WORDS- DUE DATE - SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 Modern Architecture Let us begin to wrap up our discourse with each other where it began, with a look at architecture. Consider the modern style expressed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier, along with the postmodernism of Sir Norman Foster, Phillip Johnson, and Frank Gehry. How have their designs contributed to our sense of the spaces we inhabit? Response Guidelines Review the posts of your classmates and respond to at least two of them. Unit 9 Modernism Introduction In this unit, once again consider the Humanities Roadmap and relationships within the culture. The 20th century brought remarkable upheaval to human civilization. Two World Wars devastated Europe economically and brought death to millions of its inhabitants, including a determined but unsuccessful effort to exterminate its Jewish population altogether. Political revolutions in Russia and Chinaalong with nationalistic movements in other countries around the worldmostly failed to produce any relief from the social instabilities they sought to address. Intellectual developments were no less disruptive. Max Planck, Albert Einstein, and Werner Heisenberg thoroughly upset older views of the physical world, while Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Carl Jung did the same for study of psychology. In the humanities, this era ushered in Modernism, a movement that sought to abstract essential form out of the quotidian expression of values by more traditional means: o Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and William Butler Yeats used poetry to convey intellectual content in highly compressed language. o Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf introduced streamof-consciousness to works of fiction. o Speculation about the social implications of our scientific future drove the fiction of H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Arthur C. Clarke. o Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and Alexander Calder advanced the visual abstraction pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Surrealist art from Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Joan Mir, and Frida Kahlo pushed these developments even further. o The "International Style" of architecture used new materials to fashion starkly functional buildings at every scale. Even the performing arts were influenced by this movement. o The plays of Eugene O'Neill, Bertolt Brecht, and Samuel Becket combined classical elements of drama with self-conscious acknowledgement of the artificiality of the medium. o Films by Sergei Eisenstein, Leni Riefenstahl, Jean Cocteau, and Federico Fellini used extravagant visual imagery to evoke direct emotional engagement with their audiences. o Composers like Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg departed from traditional tonalities with inventive twelve-tone and aleatoric music. Worthy of special mention is the growing influence of American culture during the 20th century. Although Aaron Copeland employed some of the modernist compositional techniques, he also made extensive use of melodies from distinctive American religious and folk traditions. In New Orleans, Memphis, and Chicago, charismatic performers drew on African, Caribbean, and Spanish influences to develop the syncopated, improvisational style of music known as jazz, which reached its golden age with the work of Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Edward "Duke" Ellington, and Miles Davis. In literature, writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, W. E. B. DuBois, and Alain Locke gave vivid expression to the experience of African Americans in what has come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance. Objectives To successfully complete this learning unit, you will be expected to: o Identify cultural developments of the early 20th century. o Discuss the social and political implications of modern art. o Differentiate between major artistic movements of the 20th century. o Describe the forms of expression that instantiate the arts and humanities. 2. Learning Activities Studies Personal Significance: Modern Transcript Readings In Landmarks in Humanities: o From Chapter 14: "Modernism: The Assault on Tradition": Read pages 383-393. Review pages 394-405. Read pages 406-415. Multimedia o Click Personal Significance - Modern to learn more about modern applications of the humanities. Optional Reading You may find the following helpful: o Cottington, D. (2005). Modern art: A very short introduction. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. DOCUMENT #1 11, 2015 2-3PAGES PARA-4-LINES DUE-DATE-SEPTMEBER BOOK Milkovich, G. T., Newman, J. M., & Gerhart, B. (2013). Compensation (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. ISBN: 9780078029493. Managing Labor Costs The text describes a bottom-up and top-down approach to managing labor costs. For this assignment, complete the following: Describe the components of both approaches and decide which would be most important to use in either your current work environment or one with which you are familiar, and explain your reasoning. Also include a discussion about the approach you did not select, and describe a scenario in which this approach would be most effective. For example, if you choose the top-down approach to describe your workplace, or a workplace with which you are familiar, then in the second part of the assignment you will discuss the bottom-up approach and describe a scenario in which this would be an effective way to manage labor costs. In both parts of your response, imagine that managers will be part of the budgeting process and will amend, revise, or adopt new approaches to compensating, rewarding, and incentivizing the workforce. In your opinion, what are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of management involvement? Your assignment will need to be 2-3 pages in length, and please be sure to cite all information obtained from outside resources. Review the scoring guide for this assignment before submitting your paper. DOCUMENT#2 Discussion 1 - PARA-4 LINES- 200-WORDS- DUE DATE - SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 Balance and Labor Costs. In Chapter 18 of your text, the authors present a useful diagram, Exhibit 18.7 (Three Distinct but Related Concepts and Their Measures) illustrating the relationship between markets, wages, prices, and the cost of living as a dynamic that affects labor costs overall. What the diagram does not illustrate are some of the intangible and ethical issues affecting wages and labor costs. For example, it shows all the factors in equal intersecting circles, but it is clear that at times some factors play a more important role in the market or in a particular industry than others. One could also make an argument for the fact that ethical imbalances may overly distort one's ability to live on a given wage. In this discussion, present instances when you think the circles are out of balance to the extent the imbalances are unhealthy to a global economy. Use any of the information we have studied to this point, and be certain to offer at least one reference that cites data supporting your argument for an imbalance. Please use a minimum of two outside resources in your response, and be sure to include both intext citations and the full resource in APA format at the end of your response. Response Guidelines Respond to the imbalances presented by three of your peers. Suggest potential solutions to correct imbalances. What barriers might impede your proposed solutions, and how might the barriers be overcome? DOCUMENT #3 Discussion 2 para-4 lines-200-words- DUE DATE - SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 Communication In your opinion, why should organizations openly communicate their pay systems to their employees? What is an effective method to use to achieve this? Please describe your experiences related to this and indicate whether you have worked in an environment in which pay systems were communicated effectively to the employees. Response Guidelines Please respond to a minimum of two of your peers' posts. Do you agree or disagree with their perspectives? What can you add to their comments on this issue? HUMANITIES BOOK- Fiero, G. K. (2013). Landmarks in humanities (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. ISBN: 9780073376646. DOCUMENT #4 PARA-4-LINES - 200-WORDS- DUE DATE - SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 Modern Architecture Let us begin to wrap up our discourse with each other where it began, with a look at architecture. Consider the modern style expressed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier, along with the postmodernism of Sir Norman Foster, Phillip Johnson, and Frank Gehry. How have their designs contributed to our sense of the spaces we inhabit? Response Guidelines Review the posts of your classmates and respond to at least two of them. Running head: MANAGING LABOR COSTS An Analysis of Top-down and Bottom-up methods of Budgeting Students name: Registration number: 1 Running head: MANAGING LABOR COSTS 2 An Analysis of Top-down and Bottom-up methods of Budgeting Fisher (2001) explains that when designing budgets for large companies and small businesses, the bottom up and top down budgeting methods are utilized. further explains that most corporations, businesses as well as the United States government are opting to use the top-down budgeting instead of the traditional method of bottom up budgeting. The following essay seeks to elaborate on the components of bottom-up and top-down budgeting and determine the most effective approach. Guide & Wassenhove (2001) explain that the components of the bottom-up approach include: educate managers on reward procedures and techniques; hand out forecast directives and worksheets; confirm records as well as compile reports; analyze forecasts; appraise and modify forecasts; conduct response with management; and scrutinize budgeted opposed to actual increases. As far as top-down budgeting is concerned, the budget begins with an appraisal from upper supervision of an organization's compensation increase budget. After the total budget is established, it is subsequently dispersed to supervisors, who plan how to distribute it among their assistants. According to Long & Franklin (2004), planned pay level rise is another method of top-down budgeting,. which is the proportionate increase in normal reimbursement for the component that is premeditated to happen. In determining the amount of increase in the normal pay, there are a number of factors which come in to play. These factors include: competitive market forces; ability to reimburse; cost of living and turnover effects. An example of an organization that has successfully used the top down approach is Tribune Co. The company has successfully utilized the top-down method because it is small; hence, upper management is able to compensate employees based on their duties and responsibilities as well as the quality of work provided by each employee. Running head: MANAGING LABOR COSTS 3 The bottom-up approach is best suited for large companies based on the fact that supervisors and managers are directly involved in the activities if employees (Nice, 2002). Contrary to the top-down approach in small organizations, upper management is not overly concerned with the activities of employees because they are engaged in making strategic decisions of the organization. Thus, the bottom-up approach is best suited for major organizations with comprehensive hierarchical levels. One of the disadvantages of bottom-up approach is that managers end up asking for more funding, which is usually in excess compared to what is needed, when the completion of a project is almost due (Wing, 2008). This results in wastage of financial resources, which at times may not be recovered from the proceeds of the projects. This further culminates in severe problems in the general budget. explains that the merit of a bottom-up approach is that it incorporates all the members assigned to a particular task; hence raising accountability, as well as promoting the morale of employees. One of the demerits of top-down approach is that it may result in under-budgeting of a project; hence, lower level employees and mangers end up scrambling for the limited financial resources in an attempt to complete their tasks within the stipulated time period of the project (Skinner, 2003). This results in less motivation of employees making them less concerned with the activities of the organization. The advantage of the top-down approach is that upper management is always under obligation to sent money to lower management until the completion of the project. Thus, no task is delayed and the project is completed within the stipulated time period. Running head: MANAGING LABOR COSTS 4 References Fisher, M. (2001). Controlling labour costs. London: Kogan Page. Guide, V. D. R., & Wassenhove, L. N. (2001). Managing product returns for remanufacturing. Production and Operations Management, 10(2), 142-155. Long, E., & Franklin, A. L. (2004). The paradox of implementing the Government Performance and Results Act: Top-down direction for bottom-up implementation. Public Administration Review, 309-319. Nice, D. C. (2002). Public budgeting. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/ Thomson Learning. Skinner, W. (2003). Missing link in corporate strategy. Operations Management: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management, 1, 320. Wing, I. S., & on the Science, J. P. (2008). The synthesis of bottom-up and top-down approaches to climate policy modeling: Electric power technology detail in a social accounting framework. Energy Economics, 30(2), 547-573. DOCUMENT #1 11, 2015 2-3PAGES PARA-4-LINES DUE-DATE-SEPTMEBER BOOK Milkovich, G. T., Newman, J. M., & Gerhart, B. (2013). Compensation (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. ISBN: 9780078029493. Managing Labor Costs The text describes a bottom-up and top-down approach to managing labor costs. For this assignment, complete the following: Describe the components of both approaches and decide which would be most important to use in either your current work environment or one with which you are familiar, and explain your reasoning. Also include a discussion about the approach you did not select, and describe a scenario in which this approach would be most effective. For example, if you choose the top-down approach to describe your workplace, or a workplace with which you are familiar, then in the second part of the assignment you will discuss the bottom-up approach and describe a scenario in which this would be an effective way to manage labor costs. In both parts of your response, imagine that managers will be part of the budgeting process and will amend, revise, or adopt new approaches to compensating, rewarding, and incentivizing the workforce. In your opinion, what are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of management involvement? Your assignment will need to be 2-3 pages in length, and please be sure to cite all information obtained from outside resources. Review the scoring guide for this assignment before submitting your paper. DOCUMENT#2 Discussion 1 - PARA-4 LINES- 200-WORDS- DUE DATE - SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 Balance and Labor Costs. In Chapter 18 of your text, the authors present a useful diagram, Exhibit 18.7 (Three Distinct but Related Concepts and Their Measures) illustrating the relationship between markets, wages, prices, and the cost of living as a dynamic that affects labor costs overall. What the diagram does not illustrate are some of the intangible and ethical issues affecting wages and labor costs. For example, it shows all the factors in equal intersecting circles, but it is clear that at times some factors play a more important role in the market or in a particular industry than others. One could also make an argument for the fact that ethical imbalances may overly distort one's ability to live on a given wage. In this discussion, present instances when you think the circles are out of balance to the extent the imbalances are unhealthy to a global economy. Use any of the information we have studied to this point, and be certain to offer at least one reference that cites data supporting your argument for an imbalance. Please use a minimum of two outside resources in your response, and be sure to include both intext citations and the full resource in APA format at the end of your response. Response Guidelines Respond to the imbalances presented by three of your peers. Suggest potential solutions to correct imbalances. What barriers might impede your proposed solutions, and how might the barriers be overcome? DOCUMENT #3 Discussion 2 para-4 lines-200-words- DUE DATE - SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 Communication In your opinion, why should organizations openly communicate their pay systems to their employees? What is an effective method to use to achieve this? Please describe your experiences related to this and indicate whether you have worked in an environment in which pay systems were communicated effectively to the employees. Response Guidelines Please respond to a minimum of two of your peers' posts. Do you agree or disagree with their perspectives? What can you add to their comments on this issue? HUMANITIES BOOK- Fiero, G. K. (2013). Landmarks in humanities (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. ISBN: 9780073376646. DOCUMENT #4 PARA-4-LINES - 200-WORDS- DUE DATE - SEPTEMBER 8, 2015 Modern Architecture Let us begin to wrap up our discourse with each other where it began, with a look at architecture. Consider the modern style expressed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier, along with the postmodernism of Sir Norman Foster, Phillip Johnson, and Frank Gehry. How have their designs contributed to our sense of the spaces we inhabit? Response Guidelines Review the posts of your classmates and respond to at least two of them. Running head: MANAGING LABOR COSTS An Analysis of Top-down and Bottom-up methods of Budgeting Students name: Registration number: 1 Running head: MANAGING LABOR COSTS 2 An Analysis of Top-down and Bottom-up methods of Budgeting Fisher (2001) explains that when designing budgets for large companies and small businesses, the bottom up and top down budgeting methods are utilized. further explains that most corporations, businesses as well as the United States government are opting to use the top-down budgeting instead of the traditional method of bottom up budgeting. The following essay seeks to elaborate on the components of bottom-up and top-down budgeting and determine the most effective approach. Guide & Wassenhove (2001) explain that the components of the bottom-up approach include: educate managers on reward procedures and techniques; hand out forecast directives and worksheets; confirm records as well as compile reports; analyze forecasts; appraise and modify forecasts; conduct response with management; and scrutinize budgeted opposed to actual increases. As far as top-down budgeting is concerned, the budget begins with an appraisal from upper supervision of an organization's compensation increase budget. After the total budget is established, it is subsequently dispersed to supervisors, who plan how to distribute it among their assistants. According to Long & Franklin (2004), planned pay level rise is another method of top-down budgeting,. which is the proportionate increase in normal reimbursement for the component that is premeditated to happen. In determining the amount of increase in the normal pay, there are a number of factors which come in to play. These factors include: competitive market forces; ability to reimburse; cost of living and turnover effects. An example of an organization that has successfully used the top down approach is Tribune Co. The company has successfully utilized the top-down method because it is small; hence, upper management is able to compensate employees based on their duties and responsibilities as well as the quality of work provided by each employee. Running head: MANAGING LABOR COSTS 3 The bottom-up approach is best suited for large companies based on the fact that supervisors and managers are directly involved in the activities if employees (Nice, 2002). Contrary to the top-down approach in small organizations, upper management is not overly concerned with the activities of employees because they are engaged in making strategic decisions of the organization. Thus, the bottom-up approach is best suited for major organizations with comprehensive hierarchical levels. One of the disadvantages of bottom-up approach is that managers end up asking for more funding, which is usually in excess compared to what is needed, when the completion of a project is almost due (Wing, 2008). This results in wastage of financial resources, which at times may not be recovered from the proceeds of the projects. This further culminates in severe problems in the general budget. explains that the merit of a bottom-up approach is that it incorporates all the members assigned to a particular task; hence raising accountability, as well as promoting the morale of employees. One of the demerits of top-down approach is that it may result in under-budgeting of a project; hence, lower level employees and mangers end up scrambling for the limited financial resources in an attempt to complete their tasks within the stipulated time period of the project (Skinner, 2003). This results in less motivation of employees making them less concerned with the activities of the organization. The advantage of the top-down approach is that upper management is always under obligation to sent money to lower management until the completion of the project. Thus, no task is delayed and the project is completed within the stipulated time period. Running head: MANAGING LABOR COSTS 4 References Fisher, M. (2001). Controlling labour costs. London: Kogan Page. Guide, V. D. R., & Wassenhove, L. N. (2001). Managing product returns for remanufacturing. Production and Operations Management, 10(2), 142-155. Long, E., & Franklin, A. L. (2004). The paradox of implementing the Government Performance and Results Act: Top-down direction for bottom-up implementation. Public Administration Review, 309-319. Nice, D. C. (2002). Public budgeting. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/ Thomson Learning. Skinner, W. (2003). Missing link in corporate strategy. Operations Management: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management, 1, 320. Wing, I. S., & on the Science, J. P. (2008). The synthesis of bottom-up and top-down approaches to climate policy modeling: Electric power technology detail in a social accounting framework. Energy Economics, 30(2), 547-573