Introduction
This paper explores a specific case of job evaluation where several of a company’s managers disagree about the rating that should be given to a particular worker. They approach the evaluation of the job from different perspectives and thus face misunderstanding. The sections below will include an educated opinion about the situation, further recommendations to the Total Rewards Manager, Ted Smith, the discussion of maximum pay for the jobs within an organization, and the ways to increase the salary of an employee who is already paid according to the maximum pay grade.
Opinion
There are two major ways of building the plans for the evaluation of jobs within an organization – job-based and person-based structures; the former involves such determinants as job description, job analysis, weight and value of a job in correlation with the compensation, and the latter include skills and competencies of the employees, certificates, suitability of personalities of the employees, and their behaviors (Milkovich, Newman, Cole, & Yap, 2013).
From the silent confrontation between the Production Manager Peter Strong, Marketing Manager Margo Arms with the support of Ortho Janson, the Office Manager, and the Total Rewards Manager Ted Smith, it is possible to state that the managers approached the jobs under evaluation from different perspectives. To be more precise, while Ted attempted to provide an evaluation of the job of a receptionist relying on the job-based structure, the other three managers approached it in a person-based manner and involved the employee occupying the position and her performance and skills in the evaluation.
The procedure held in the company was intended to provide job ratings, and Ted approached in a way that would only focus on the value of the jobs in the company hierarchy and their compensation. Margo, Peter, and Ortho approached it in a completely different manner. It is said in the case that Ortho was dissatisfied with the low rating of one of his employees and wanted it to be revised. The two parties evaluated different aspects of the position of the receptionist and even called the whole procedure differently.
That was the cause of the argument and the dissatisfaction. The managers thought that Ted was unfair not taking into consideration the value of Rebecca as a worker, and Ted believed that the managers were biased since they let their sympathy towards Rebecca define the rating of her job. If the focus of the job evaluation was to determine the value of the receptionist’s position in the company then Ted was right to approach the evaluation of the job pragmatically without letting attachment to Rebecca, as a person, mislead him.
If I Were Ted
In the presented situation, Ted’s next task is to explain the rationale behind his rating to Margo and Peter and convince them that his approach to the job rating was logical and useful.
To find understanding, Ted is to inform the other managers of the purpose of the job evaluation procedure and its focus on the value of the job, but not the value of the employee doing it as an individual. In other words, Rebecca may be a very experienced receptionist and a pleasant human being, but if her job does not produce much effect on the practical scale, it cannot be rated high. Besides, Ted needs to explain to Margo and Peter that even when the jobs are evaluated relying on the person-based structure of assessment, the features under evaluation are the qualifications of the employees, core competencies, experience, knowledge, and the individual attitude (Recruitment: job description and person specification, 2012).
In other words, the attitude and experience based on which Margo, Peter, and Ortho evaluated the receptionist are just two factors on a long list of other important features. I believe that Ted could explain the value of Rebecca’s job by comparing her job to another job that was graded higher. That way, the concept of value could be demonstrated in a more comprehensible manner. The value of a job and an employee occupying it is determined based on a combination of factors that define the staffing of this position and whether or not it is difficult to replace this professional. One of the major individual qualities that made Rebecca valuable as an employee was her lengthy experience; apart from that, her set of skills and competencies are not rare (UT Dallas, n. d.). Therefore, the position was not graded high.
Maximum Pay
As an HR professional, I believe that there are maximum pay rates for most jobs in an organization. Pay rates and ranges depend on job evaluation. Some jobs have a wider pay range than the others; some have fixed salaries. The pay ranges are determined not only by the value of a job but also by its characteristics, for instance, the jobs where the salary depends heavily on performance may have a very wide range of pay. An example of such a job is that of a salesperson who works on commission; salespersons’ salary depends on the number of sales they make par payment period and their sizes. However, even in the case of a salesperson, their maximum earned commission par payment period may be regulated.
The pay range for each job in an organization is determined by the value of the job for this particular organization and the average pay range for this job in this field (Rate Ranges – For Any Job in Any Organization, 2016). In other words, the pay ranges in different organizations drive one another because every company’s goal is to remain competitive in the labor market. However, for every job, there is a salary that is deemed a limit because the rating and value of the jobs are limited as well, so there exists a certain amount of money that is the absolute maximum a company is interested to pay for each job.
Ways to Increase Rebecca’s Salary
Rebecca can obtain an increase in salary in the form of benefits or incentives. There are two types of incentives – tangible and intangible; the latter include positive feedback and appreciation from the superiors and are not provided in a monetary form, whereas the former vary in their shapes and can be given as financial rewards or various parks such as a company car or a dental care plan (McNamara, n. d.).
Since Rebecca is already receiving the maximum pay grade for her job and is extremely efficient; she could obtain bonuses by taking over the additional tasks that quality as the competencies and activities of the other jobs. Doing this additional work, Rebecca could be paid accordingly and thus receive a salary increase.
The other ways to reward Rebecca would be to offer some perks that would increase the overall compensation for her work – such perks may include expanded care plan, retirement plan, insurance, or vacations. In this case, Rebecca’s salary would remain the same, but the company’s resources spent to compensate her would increase and thus provide an increase in compensation of the receptionist. That way, the employee would be rewarded additionally for her exceptional performance, but her salary would remain within the fixed pay range for a receptionist.
References
McNamara, C. (n. d.). Employee Benefits and Compensation (Employee Pay).
Milkovich, G., Newman, J., Cole, N., & Yap, M. (2013). Compensation (3rd. ed.) New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Rate Ranges – For Any Job in Any Organization. (2016).
Recruitment: job description and person specification. (2012).
UT Dallas. (n. d.). Compensation Standards & Practices. Web.