This question is from a Compensation course.

1. For pay equity issues, should the responsibility fall on levels of government to legislate organizations to force employers to achieve pay equity, or should employers take on this responsibility on their own as an obligation to take care of the needs of employees (such as for motivation purposes)? Defend your position.

2. Referring yet again to the Susan Superfit case (see the Textbook appendix or below), formulate a compensation strategy for employees. Assume a high-involvement management strategy at the organization. Determine the following and defend your answers:

a.Define the required behaviour (task, membership, organizational citizenship) b.Determine the role of compensation (intrinsic/extrinsic) c.Compensation mix (base, performance, indirect) d.Compensation level (lag, lead, match the market) e.Evaluate the strategy

students in an undergraduate or graduate teaching environment, or on a one-to-one basis with students as required. 5. Participate in the selection and assume responsibility for the training, assigning, and reviewing of the work of subordinate staff or less experienced staff engaged in semiskilled or skilled work; supervise students in the use of equipment and facilities. 6. Assist individual faculty members with research projects by carrying out experiments, usually involving relatively advanced techniques and procedures, and analyze and report on results. 7.Search published scientific papers for information relating to specific projects. 8. Perform administrative work related to the units such as budgeting, advising on the purchase of material and capital equipment, maintaining appropriate inventory and records, etc. Desirable Qualifications Several years of work experience related to the position assignment including demonstrated supervisory experience. Grade 12 and either a technical school diploma in laboratory technology with ART standing, or a university degree relating to the position assignment. Current certification as a registered technologist with the Canadian Society of Laboratory Technologists (CSLT). The Fit Stop Ltd. The Fit Stop Ltd. is a brand-new firm that will open its doors exactly four months from today. Its business objective is to sell all types of training, fitness, conditioning, and exercise equipment to the general public. The Fit Stop plans to specialize in this equipment and to provide customers with personalized advice geared to a customer's specific training or conditioning needs (e.g., training for a particular sport, rehabilitation from injuries, strengthening of back muscles to deal with back pain, general conditioning and fitness), whether the customer is eight or 80 years of age. In order to provide high-quality advice, each store will employ a physiotherapist (to provide advice on problems such as injuries or chronic back pain) and a person with a bachelor's degree in kinesiology (to provide advice on training for various sports or other physical activities). A staff member will even sit down with customers and develop a personalized training or conditioning program that meets their own specific objectives and needs, at no cost to the customer. The remainder of the staff in the store will consist of a manager, with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, and sales staff, who will have at least high school diplomas. Due to the long opening hours, it is expected that between 8 and 12 salespeople will be needed for each store. Because the stores are located in shopping malls, they will operate on a seven-day-a-week basis, open 9:00-9:00 weekdays, 9:00-6:00 Saturdays, and noon to 6:00 on Sundays. Aside from personally helping customers, the roles of the physiotherapist and kinesiologist will be to train other employees in how each type of equipment can be used for various conditioning and rehabilitation purposes. Initially, sales staff will be given general training, but as time goes by, each salesperson will be expected to learn in depth about all the different pieces of equipment, to help customers diagnose their needs accurately, and to be able to explain proper use of the equipment. Because of the high level of training required, all employees will be full-time. The founder of the business is Susan Superfit, who has undergraduate degrees in kinesiology and commerce from the University of Saskatchewan. While at university, she participated in many sports (and suffered many injuries due to her all-out style of play). She came up with the idea for this business while laid up with one of her injuries. While there were businesses that sold fitness and conditioning equipment, she often found that the people selling it had very limited knowledge and often gave poor advice on what to buy and how to use it. She has secured funding from private investors and from Growthworks, a large Canadian labour-sponsored investment fund. In order to get volume discounts on the equipment she will be purchasing and to beat competitors into the market, she wants to start off quite large, with stores in major cities in Ontario and the four western provinces, before expanding to Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. She knows that this is a risky strategy and that cost control will be essential to keep the business going long enough to become well known and develop a stable clientele. She does not expect the business to make a profit for at least one year, or maybe even two. Her main competitors will be sporting goods megastores and department and discount stores, each of which sells some of the same equipment. Some of these outlets will be able to price their equipment lower than The Fit Stop will be able to, but none have the range of equipment that The Fit Stop will have, and none provide the personalized services that The Fit Stop will. Susan believes that the key to her business success will be highly motivated and knowledgeable employees who have a strong concern for their customers and who are able to work as a team with the other employees to provide the best possible customer service. Since no two customers are exactly alike, employees will have to be innovative in developing solutions that fit their needs. It will also be crucial to keep up with the latest fitness and training trends, as knowledge about fitness is continually increasing, along with new and different types of specialized equipment. A key aspect of company strategy is to be the most up-to-date and advanced supplier of new products and techniques. Although Susan has given a lot of thought to her business, one thing she hasn't really given much thought to is how to compensate her employees. Since she doesn't really know much about compensation, she tends to feel that the safest thing would be to just do what her competitors are doing