Blog 8 - Wages

Wages, as global leaders we have lead this nation in innovation and entrepreneurial ship. The workers who have created this have been consistently paid, in a handsome manner in most instances. Sure there are those who have been exploited, and not rewarded appropriately. Unions have helped to ensure everyone is paid their fair share, when it comes to unions. The rest has taken care of itself, management has lavishly spoiled many executive managers as well. And lastly salaried employees have benefited from this model, corporation pay them similar salaries to ensure everyone else doesn’t jump ship.

My question how much is enough of a salary, yes cost keep skyrocketing and we need to keep making more money in order to keep paying for our basic needs. As new emerging countries begin to attracted offshore work they soon will begin to raise salaries to meet new needs as their communities grow.

How much salary is justifiable enough, I believe the writing is on the wall already. I throw this out there because I just came across an article in which workers were actually getting 10% & 12% pay cuts in order to keep their jobs. Please read it and consider are we ready to consider this option in our present society? Or can we continue on demanding more and more in salary? I believe we are on the tipping point of our model in this country.  This scenario played out in the 1930’s. INDUSTRY: Next: Wages? 

Blog 7 - Wage and Benefits

Today’s society needs to better understand and become more realistic when it comes towards the facts of wanting more and more as they pay less and less for two items. Those items are wages and benefits.

Let’s look at wages. I believe that unions are important in our work force. They have created great working conditions and have ensured employers are kept in check in regards toward abuse. This scenario follows the statement of give a man (organization, employer) unchecked power and see what he does with it. As history has shown, a majority of the time those with power will abuse it.

However with that said there has comes a point in the development of our society that unions must become realistic in their ask. Which brings me to the first item, wages. Unions usually seek across the board similar pay for a position versus pay for output in that position. In my career I have seen a gross abuse of this. I have seen employees with NO incentive to work harder, faster, or become more innovative in their positions simply because they would not get any more money for doing so. The creation of a strong pay and incentive system would resolve this situation, but in most instances unions prevent this. 

The other item I see getting out of hand is the benefit situation. Cost are becoming extremely out of hand for employers. This of course causes a loaded salary for employers, which eventually becomes a burden for most employers. In this scenario, I believe that government needs to become more involved in sharing those cost. In fact the cost needs to be split by three, employer – 1^st, employee – 2^nd, and government – 3^rd. 

The employer is first in bearing this cost since the more creative compensation is the better the ability to attract top talent. To the employee 2^nd, if employers offered more cafeteria type of offerings when it comes to benefits then employees could better customize plans more to their needs. Lastly government’s involvement in this arena would position our nation as one creates situation for win-win scenarios for all of us.

Blog 6 - Health care benefits as a Human Resource Issue

Healthcare as a Human Resource Issue 

A human resource issue which many companies have to content with this year and for the next several years is the challenge of proving quality health care for their employees. 

In the last decade many companies met the challenges of a global economy by quickly following suit and joining the outsource trends set forth by many competitors. A little more than a decade and companies are beginning to remedy the aftershocks employee loyalty, and brand image.

Healthcare cost  have risen to more than double of what they once were, in some cases triple. Here in America employees have been sold on the fact that they are in control of their own heath care needs. And thus have to now spent more of their equal share in paying for those benefits. All the while there’s been a shift in congress and at the senate level towards legislation favoring health care reform, and thus creatively providing opportunities towards a society where all can have quality care. 

While democrats and republicans battle the responsibility of this issue, who will ensure we do not leave a significant segment of the workforce without an opportunity for quality care.

As companies begin to consider the rebuilding of loyalty from their employees by providing compensation plans that meet the needs families, legislation is sure to put up new barriers for many human resource departments as consideration is given towards the sharing of cost of expensive heath care benefits. This dilemma  is just beginning to be realized by many growing companies.

Imagine being a young family desiring to have kids and you have a choice between working for a company offering day-care, and quality health care to go along with that young family versus facing one that offers no benefits at all.