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Purpose of Course: Compensation can be a dynamic part of a company's business strategy. In this course we will study what compensation is, how a compensation plan is developed, what the underlying strategic objectives are, what the legal framework is applicable to compensation plans, and what the impact of compensation is as measured by the success of the enterprise. Students will gain a firm understanding of the concepts behind various compensation schemes and be able to critically appraise the design of diverse compensation and benefit plans. Students will be given the opportunity to use their analytical skills to solve various applied compensation issues and problems presented in class.

Course Format: Classes will include lectures, discussions of hypothetical cases, Mini Cases (see Blackboard), and material at the end of each chapter in the textbook. Pop quizzes might be given in class; and outside readings will be assigned periodically. Students should check Blackboard for new assignments, announcements, and grades. The Instructor's Power Point slides also appear both on the website and Blackboard. They represent the important issues and subtopics of the course. Power Points will usually not be shown in class; the student is expected to check and read them on his or her own.

Writing Requirement: Consists of two parts-(1) Comprehensive Writing Assignment -- Students will prepare and design a comprehensive compensation plan for a company. The details of this assignment are more specifically described below. (2) Students will also be required to submit written homework assignments regarding the Instructor's Mini Cases and other projects as directed. All writing assignments must be typed and submitted on time.

Comprehensive Writing Assignment
With the approval of the professor, choose a company or public agency and describe its products or services, its basic business operations, its competitive situation, its financial position, and the current business strategy. Identify its HRM practices and, with the approval of the instructor, 8 distinct jobs or positions within the company for which you will develop a compensation plan. The positions can be in more than one job family. Note: This is to be your original work. Do not simply copy data and compensation schemes from the company. Once you have an understanding of the business and completed a Job Analysis for the 8 jobs, you are to write original ideas and approaches for each of the following steps:

A. Evaluate, and if appropriate re-write the company's business strategy.

B. Determine, evaluate, and if appropriate re-write the company's business values.

C. Assess how HRM is aligned with the strategy and the values. What, if any, are the gaps?

D. This assessment should include: job design, organizational design, recruiting and selection, training and development, reward, measurement and evaluation.

E. Determine generally what Compensation Goals and Strategy are best aligned with the existing or proposed business strategy and values.

F. Determine whether and how your compensation strategy is aligned with the remaining elements of the total HRM strategy.

G. Identify workflow, job design, organizational design, and job levels for your 8 positions.

H. Prepare a written job based Job Analysis for each of the 8 positions.

I. Write job descriptions for each.

J. Propose Person Based Systems using both a skill based and a competency based approach for the 8 jobs.

K. Take the following steps to develop your own, original, written Job Evaluation and Pay Line for the 8 positions: (1) based upon the business strategy what should the company value in developing its job evaluation criteria? (2) Applying these values, develop a detailed point based job evaluation system, scale and weight the factors and apply to the 8 jobs; (3) re-assess your compensation strategy and re-state it; (4) gather competitive market pay data (total compensation) for benchmark jobs in relevant markets. Using the market protocols discussed in class and stated in the Instructor's Power Points for this course; (5) draw your pay line with appropriate mid points and pay ranges.

L. Identify how the system you have created will integrate with the remaining HRM practices

M. Develop an optimal incentive pay system for the 8 jobs that will best affect behavior of the employees and improve their productivity.

The paper you submit must be typed and include an Executive Summary as well as each of the above described steps, analyses, and data summaries. It is expected that there will be several due dates for the submission of parts of the paper. The entire work product should take most of the semester to complete and the Instructor will identify each of the due dates.