You are facing 10 different issues raised by circumstances and various members of your organization that each concern these pay structures. Please specifically discuss how you would successfully address each of these 10 different issues. Each question is worth 2.6 points.

1. You plan to recruit for an individual of a job that serves as an anchor position of one of your pay grades. Your organization has determined that you need to pay this individual at no less than the range midpoint to successfully attract a person to fill this job. You have two senior employees who occupy the same job as the position for which you are recruiting. Each of these employees performs their position satisfactorily and are both paid slightly below the range midpoint of their pay grade. These employees have expressed concern that they will be paid below the new employee despite their years of experience with the organization. This outcome is very likely to occur. The organization has very little budget available to make any equity adjustment for the employees of the organization. What is your solution to this problem?

2. In one of the pay grades of your pay structure, you have a hybrid position that is proving difficult for you. The job duties of the position share 70% of the same duties as the anchor position of this pay grade (an anchor position sets the midpoint for a pay grade). The remaining 30% of the job duties for this position are very similar to the anchor position of the pay grade immediately above the pay grade of this hybrid job. The pay of the job is currently based on the pay grade of the lower grade of the pay structure. The manager of this hybrid position tells you that the organization has to make some adjustments in pay for this hybrid position because at the current pay rate his employees in this job are very dissatisfied with their pay. What solutions would you recommend to solve this problem?

3. You are hearing criticism from a number of your employees that the pay rates of the anchor jobs (an anchor position sets the midpoint for a pay grade) of your pay structure are far below market data. Specifically, many employees point to three web based surveys which are publically available to anyone with access to the web. All these web based surveys do seem to support the employees perspective that the salary rates established by your organization are far below that of other organizations. What steps would you take to justify the pay rates of the anchor jobs of your pay grades and give greater confidence to your employees about the organizations pay rate?

4. You have an employee who has been working as a purchasing agent for your organization. The employee earns the range midpoint of $60,000 a year. The range maximum for this pay grade is $68,866. The employee is performing the job at a satisfactory level. A job analysis has been performed for this position and based on the job duties and responsibilities performed by the job it has been reclassified as a Materials Manager. Your organization currently does not have this position slotted in your logistics and supply chain job family. Credible external market data reveals that the going market rate among your peer organizations for a Materials Manager is $84,000. External market data also reveals pay for Materials Manager at the 75^th percentile of pay is $96,300 and external pay for Materials Managers at the 25^th percentile of pay is $73,000.

Assume your company has limited resources available to provide equity and merit adjustments. What is your plan for the pay of this employee and what will be the new pay of this employee whose job has recently been reclassified? Please provide justifications for answer.

5. You are in the middle of a reduction of force for your clerical workforce. Because of this reduction in force you will be demoting an employee working in a Senior Administrative Assistant II position earning $43,674 a year to the job of an Administrative Assistant I position in the pay grade below the Senior Administrative Assistant II position. This employee has received outstanding performance appraisals in the past. The range minimum for Senior Administrative Assistant II pay grade is $38,825. The range maximum for the Administrative Assistant I pay grade is $42,000, the range midpoint is $37,000, and the range minimum is $30,030. The two other employees who will be working alongside the demoted employee as an Administrative Assistant I are currently earning $31,000 and $32,000.

What is your plan for the pay of this employee and what will be the new pay of this demoted employee? Please provide justifications for answer.

6. You are the human resource manager of a small hotel. You have two chefs that you employee. Your organization is too small to have formal pay structures. The first chef has three years of experience, has taken advanced culinary training and has the job title chef. The second chef has eight years of experience, has not taken advanced culinary training and has the job title of head cook.

Both chefs perform the exact same tasks: managing other kitchen workers, preparing meals, and basic clean up. The chefs work the same amount of time each week. Their performance is roughly equivalent.

Would you pay these employees similar wages, or would you pay one of the chefs more (if so which employee would you pay more). Provide a justification for your answer.

7. You are the new compensation manager for a firm that uses several very reliable external market sources to help benchmark your positions and then set your pay structures for your respective job families based on this market data.

You have just received the following e-mail from a line manager delivering the following message My people have been way underpaid for years, and now that you are here, you need to correct it so they dont walk, and also because they deserve it! The market compensation data we use is inaccurate. I know what you have to pay in this market and its way more than your market data says. This particular job has a micro-pay-market all its own that isnt captured in the more broadly assessed job titles that are surveyed in market data surveys.

What steps would you take to address this issue that has been presented to you?

8. You have just conducted a formal job evaluation for a senior customer service representative position and the job evaluation reveals that the position is currently overclassified (paid more than the job warrents). Based on this job evaluation your organization is recommending immediately lowering the salary range for this position. This action would leave one of your customer service representative employees current pay, which is $53,000, well above the new salary range maximum for this position, which is now set at $47,700. What compensation actions will you take with respect to this employee and what will their salary be at the end of your action?

9. A presumption of market pricing is that if you have employees occupying jobs in a pay grade who perform their tasks within the normal range of competency that you would expect to find elsewhere in the market you would expect to pay as many people less than the midpoint as are paid more than the salary midpoint. What factors do you think lead approximately half the employees in a pay grade to be above the range midpoint and the other half of the employees to be below the range midpoint?

10. You are planning to promote an individual from a Human Resource Associate position to a Human Resource Analyst position. In the HR career ladder in your organization, the Human Resource Analyst position is in the immediate pay grade above the Human Resource Associate position. In your organization, a promotion does not necessarily result in a salary increase. The general practice, though, is to provide a promotional increase of between 5 and 10 percent. Factors that influence whether a pay raise will be allocated following a promotion include the individuals qualifications and performance, the salary level and salary range of the new position, the pay of other employees performing the work in the HR unit and the organizations fiscal resources. As a practice, your organization strives to balance promotional increases so that they are large enough to motivate employees to seek promotions but also avoid internal inequity problems. A strategy for remedying any inequity with other employees should be developed if there is a potential internal inequity problem.

The organizations current financial situation is not strong with limited merit, promotional or equity adjustment resources available. The promoted individual has received outstanding performance appraisals in their role as a Human Resource Assistant and is currently earning $42,765. The range midpoint for the Human Resource Assistant pay grade is $40,350 and the range maximum for the Human Resource Assistant job is $45,170. The range minimum for the Human Resource Analyst pay grade is $39,150, the range midpoint for the pay grade is $51,590 and the range maximum for the Human Resource Analyst pay grade is $65,911.

There are three other employees currently serving as Human Resource Analysts. Two of these Human Resource Analysts received satisfactory performance appraisals as Human Resource Analysts and are currently earning $43,576 and $45,015 respectively. The third Human Resource Analyst received an outstanding performance appraisal and is currently earning $58,000.

What is your recommended pay for the Human Resource Associate that is being promoted to the Human Resource Analyst position? Justify your reason for this pay figure. How would you remedy any issue of internal inequity that may occur based on your recommendation?