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Paper Instructions:

2. A job safety hazard analysis is a technique that focuses on job tasks as a way to identify hazards before they occur. More people than ever are now using fall protection equipment on the job. However, the numbers of injuries and deaths from falls continues to rise. What steps would you take in performing a job safety analysis involving fall protection equipment? How would you identify uncontrolled hazards? Discuss how impact and acceleration are important in analyzing the potential hazards involving fall protection equipment. 
   
   Your essay should be at least 500 words in length and include an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. You are required to use at least your textbook as source material for your response. You must also use one outside source. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying citations
   
   
   Goetsch, D. L. (2011). Occupational safety and health for technologists, engineers, and managers (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Paper Instructions:

Note: The companies mentioned herein are merely hypothetical organizations with characteristics developed to enable students to respond to the assignment. You may create and / or make all necessary assumptions needed for the completion of this assignment.

In this assignment, you, in the role of a risk manager at Simply Green Products, will draft a document that is commonly used in the business world—a memorandum to your boss.

Simply Green Products is a $10 million company that produces biodegradable packing materials that orchards use in the Shenandoah Valley to transport their apples, peaches, and pears nationwide. Biodegradable materials are more eco-friendly because they break down into the environment. Such packing materials are marketed under the name “SafePack,” which is heavily advertised in trade journals. Simply Green Products have had the name “SafePack” imprinted on all of their packing material since 2008; however, they never filed for either state or federal trademark protection. With the movement toward more eco-friendly agricultural production, the fact that such packing materials are biodegradable provides a primary marketing advantage over non-biodegradable competitors.

The company president, Shep Howard, has recently become aware of several issues that may require referral to the company’s outside counsel. Because you serve as the company’s risk manager, Howard has asked you to leverage your legal and managerial skills to draft a memorandum that addresses one (1) of the two (2) situations described below:

An environmental group is asserting that SafePack materials are not biodegradable. In fact, the group claims that these materials are causing an environmental hazard that is seeping from a local landfill into a nearby stream. An environmental group, SafePack Materials Pollute, has sprung up and launched an Internet campaign geared toward compelling fruit producers to stop purchasing your packing materials. The situation at hand raises environmental issues that relate to the Clean Water Act and the Solid Waste Disposal Act.
A company called Safe Choices, Inc. has accused Simply Green Products of trademark infringement, and has sent a cease and desist letter to President Howard, demanding that Simply Green Products stop using the name “SafePack”. The letter asserts that a) Safe Choices uses the SafePack name to market an emergency weather kit in the form of a backpack; and that b) Safe Choices had received a federal registration for the mark from the Patent and Trademark Office in 2002. This backpack is sold both online at safepack.com and in sporting goods stores nationwide. The letter goes on to suggest that Simply Green Product's use of this name “constitutes a false designation of origin which is likely to confuse customers as to the source of the goods”. The intellectual property issue at hand involves the Lanham Act.
For one (1) of the two (2) situations set out above, write a three to four (3-4) page memorandum to President Howard. Ensure that you address each of the questions below within your memo so that President Howard may assess whether or not Simply Green Products needs to hire outside counsel to address the matter at hand.

Discuss the elements that must be present in order for one to prove a valid claim under the law(s) specified (i.e., the Clean Water Act, the Solid Waste Disposal Act, or the Lanham Act).
Determine whether or not the activity of Simply Green Products amounts to a violation of the applicable law (i.e., the Clean Water Act, the Solid Waste Disposal Act, or the Lanham Act). If you chose the environmental issue, determine whether or not seepage from your products into a stream would violate the Clean Water Act, the Solid Waste Disposal Act, or both. Explain your rationale. If you chose the intellectual property matter, determine whether or not continued use of the SafePack name by your company would violate the Lanham Act. Explain your rationale.
Decide whether or not President Howard should refer this chosen matter to the company's outside counsel. Provide a rationale for your decision.
Use at least three (3) high-quality academic references. As the cases discussed within the assignment are hypothetical, you will not find any solutions to them on the Internet. Further, note that Wikipedia, blogs, and such Websites as Free Dictionary do not qualify as academic resources, whereas your textbook does. Use the Strayer Learning Resource Center (LRC) to locate high-quality academic references.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, your name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date.
Draft this in the form of a letter that is typed, double-spaced, and uses Times New Roman font (size 12) with one-inch margins on all sides.
Include your citations in the body of your letter and include your list of references at the end. All citations must follow the APA.
Be sure to follow all additional instructions provided by your professor.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

Describe the legal environment of business, the sources of American law, and the basis of authority for government to regulate business.
Use technology and information resources to research issues in business law.
Write clearly and concisely about business law using proper writing mechanics.

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MGMT-302 Individual Assignment #2 Winter 2015 Self-Assessment: The MBTI Personality Profiles
1st Part: Personality Self-portrait. Start by writing a description of your most essential character traits or personality attributes. You do not have to write an autobiography, just focus on generating a general sketch or profile of your self-concept. What are the most salient features that define who you are? What makes you unique or different from other members of your family, such as your brothers, sisters, cousins, or close friends? Are there characteristics that you have in common with others who are close to you? In essence, generate a self-portrait but instead of using visual-arts media, your tools consist of paper, ink, words, your self- awareness and your cognitive abilities. If you find that your self-portrait is only a few sentences long, or no more than one brief paragraph; you may elaborate your self-portrait narrative by describing yourself in terms of the various personality traits and personality dimensions discussed in chapter 4 of the Greenberg textbook. For instance, how would you characterize yourself relative to each dimension in the “Big-5” model of personality; how do you see yourself in terms of your locus-of-control; how do you respond when you are presented with new challenges or responsibilities (e.g., self-efficacy); how do you respond in situations that are emotionally-charged or to sudden emotional outbursts and anger directed towards you or someone close to you; what would you consider a viable response if you learned that a work associate was intentionally sabotaging your work and spreading rumors to tarnish your reputation; and so forth...
2nd Part: Your Myers-Briggs/Keirsey/MMDI/Jungian Typology Profile. Once you develop the self-portrait described in the previous paragraph, look at the video located at the URL link below. The video describes the Keirsey version of the MBTI personality test and the 16 personality profiles that the MBTI generates. You can look at the entire video and follow the instruction it provides to calculate your MBTI profile but the MMDI version can be completed online and you can still compare the profile descriptions provided by both versions of the MBTI. To complete the MMDI go to the 2nd URL link below and click on the button that states, “Personality Test MMDI.”
URL and hyperlink to the You-Tube video describing the Keirsey personality test and its procedures: http://www.newthinktank.com/2012/05/new-personality-test/
URL and hyperlink to the MMDI Intro Page and the MMDI Questionnaire:
http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/tt/t-articl/mb-simpl.htm Personality Test (MMDI)
You will receive feedback about your profile as well as instructions for saving your feedback. It will also offer you complete reports for prices ranging from $6 to $15; you do not have to purchase these reports. To access the different descriptions and interpretations of your profile, you can visit the URL below or the hyperlink with the four-letter profile generated from your answers to the MMDI personality test. The corresponding profiles from the Keirsey version of the MBTI can be accessed from the folder posted adjacent to this assignment on blackboard.
Jungian Typology Profile Descriptions: http://typelogic.com/
3rd Part: The Reflective Essay. Please submit a copy of the items indicated for parts 1 & 2 along with a one-page, typewritten reflective essay based on your initial self-profile and the feedback you received from the MBTI/Keirsey/MMDI/Jung Typology inventories. Your reflective statement should summarize the profile and related feedback you received as well as your personal views of the MBTI personality inventory. In specific terms, how accurately does it describe you and your initial self- portrait? Your reflective statement should also address the following questions:
· Do you think this assessment provides an accurate and useful profile of your personality archetype? (Explain)
· In retrospect, did you gain any insights about yourself from the exercise? (Describe insights and/or critique the MBTI)
· Can you suggest a preferable personality assessment or an alternative method or approach to assess personalities?
· What are some benefits/liabilities of giving managers access to the MBTI profiles of employees & job applicants?
· Was this exercise a worthwhile investment of your time?
· Do you have suggestions that may lead to a more meaningful personality self-assessment exercise?
· Be sure to include your name and the course number om the top-right section of the 1st page of your reflective statement This assignment is due at the beginning of the course session on Thursday February 5th

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Paper Instructions:

• "Every action is motivated by one's strongest desire." Explain how this claim might be used to argue for psychological egoism. How would opponents of psychological egoism respond? Which side do you think has the stronger case? Defend your answer.
  ·Write on the relationship between psychological egoism and ethical egoism. Define each theory, and explain how they are similar and how they differ. Does accepting one theory commit you to accepting the other? Does rejecting one commit you to rejecting the other? Why or why not?

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Paper Instructions:

Describe how the management systems approach to ESH management results in continuous improvement.

    Describe what is meant by the term ‘integrated management systems’. Be sure to provide appropriate emphasis on the concept of integration.

Your response should be a minimum of 200 words in length.

Edit and rewrite the below:

Integrated management systems are the requirements of all constituent systems that can be managed together. (Pardy & Andres, 2010, p.13) Integration brings all management systems together so that overall the goals are achieved. In management systems there are common elements that follow the Plan, Do, Check, Act, model. You have to first start with policy, then planning, then implementation and operation, and a performance assessment needs to be done. Next two are improvement and management review. In the IMS each of the following management systems could be run by the same person within a company. You have quality, environmental, health and safety management systems. 


Ref:
Pardy, W., & Andrews, T. (2010). Integrated management systems: Leading strategies and solutions. Plymouth, United Kingdom: Government Institutes.

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Paper Instructions:

Consider the relative value of the planning phase, specifically the objectives and targets, in relation to management system improvement efforts. How can the development and implementation of objectives provide an organization with a clear path to quality and ESH improvements which are related to the risks identified by its operations?

Cognitive Biases in the Workspace Directions

Introduction

With daily interactions in the workplace, constant decisions are made, which rely on consciousness and unconsciousness in thoughts, perceptions, and beliefs. These are the attributes that might result in cognitive bias, defined as the systematic errors in humans' decision-making due to varied reasoning or thinking. In this lesson, we will learn some specific cognitive biases, the reasons for addressing them, and exercises to identify these biases (Lawrence, 2021). Also, we will discuss the expectations from the co-workers, and various biases experience in different industries.

There are many types of biases, but we will discuss some of the common ones in the workplace. Some of the predominant include positivity, negativity, and confirmation bias. However, the most important aspect is to understand how to recognize these biases and minimize the negative consequences. Commonly, people are more interested in negativity than positive or neutral experiences; this is why the negative bias is top-ranked. Various studies have revealed that humans have a gene variant, predisposing people to perceive emotions, which are negative more seriously than others. These experiences are commonly defined as negativity bias, which is the reason for more attention on negative experiences (Lawrence, 2021). Importantly, having negativity helps our brains recognize danger and avoid hostile environments; the amygdala is responsible for apparent fear by causing a freezing syndrome. The latter syndrome is unconscious, leading to automatic reaction, especially where an individual cannot control it, helping them improve personal responses.

The negativity bias in the workplace works can be demonstrated by thinking about the positive compliments that a co-worker might receive. After a positive remark, people feel grateful and continue with normal daily chores without a second thought. In contrast, receiving a single negative compliment from a co-worker will affect an individual more adversely, which might consume their thoughts even for months. Therefore, in the workplace, however, the small negative remark might seem to get remembered more over the positive experiences. This negativity bias has been a common experience for over a million years, built-in our brains, and people believe it is passed across generations. It is important to ensure that people overcome or lessen the effects of negativity bias (Gazzo Castañeda et al., 2016). This can be achieved through embracing self-awareness, which is done by observing people’s experiences and emotions. More importantly, awareness is practiced through discussion with family, friends, or trusted co-workers on experiences to obtain an external view of the situation. Through this, people can get insights or a bigger picture of their situation and how they have influenced them in the workplace, helping them reframe the situation to a positive view.

Moreover, individuals can address negativity through appreciation and search for positivity within situations. This is through restructuring experiences in the workplace in a positive way. People are then encouraged to keep negativity under control, taking them as minor issues and outweighing positives. Additionally, we need to be more optimistic and understand how we can turn all negative experiences into positive ones, an experience that impacts a person’s well-being (Shahid, 2020).  People’s brains cannot operate on both negatives and positives; it has to let one interfere. It is always good to embrace the positivity bias; for instance, receiving a congratulatory text after completing a project helps build good emotions, lowering the levels of negativity. Keeping positive bias promotes positive thinking in the workplace; even with negative experiences, they can easily get reverted by positive emotions.

The last form of bias that we will discuss is confirmation bias, which is the capacity to get a second viewpoint on the issues under discussion. For instance, getting another viewpoint from a co-worker, listening with an open mind, and increasing a person’s thoughts on this topic. However, when trying to overcome confirmation bias, there is a chance of emotional escalations; therefore, it is essential to ensure that the shared ideas educate only the positive aspects on both sides of the topic (Knobloch-Westerwick et al., 2020). Also, it is important to keep out emotions when arguing, listening to people stands, and getting open on the information.  Keeping this will make most people fall for this form of bias and make their minds committed to it.

Various exercises have been carried out to show what different biases present in the workplace. Some of the common exercises are the in-group bias and the optimism bias. The in-group bias highlights the feeling of comfort and favoritism for some people of the same genre. For instance, leaders favor other leaders or members of a specific group. The primary role of this exercise is to examine the tendency of some leaders to favor certain employees within the organization. Additionally, other companies rely on optimism bias, especially in hiring (Adejumo, 2018). This is the bias defining the difference between expectations and outcomes. These entail exercises such as interviews based on organizations’ history, among other hiring processes. The role of this bias is to examine whether the hired candidates are the right for the available position.

Although difficult to examine bias among co-workers, various push-backs might be inherited from others. This difficulty arises as the co-workers will only display their strengths and never their weaknesses. Yes, people will not easily admit to the existence of biases that drive their decision, which might adversely affect the company. Therefore, it is essential to educate the co-workers on how to accommodate these push-backs, the existing biases, and how to overcome them. This gives people awareness of certain situations, which can effectively address the issues at hand.

I have been interested in opening and running my own business, and I am very aware of the existing biases. Some biases include the suck cost fallacy, especially after losing things that cannot be recovered. This bias exists when there are errors in rational decisions, resulting in a loss of money. While seeking to address this bias, it is essential to accept that money has been lost and making decisions on how to make good use of time and money to avoid losses in the future (Haita-Falah, 2017). Another common bias is the Dunning-Kruger effect, faced by entrepreneurs, who feel like experts in a certain field only to realize that they know very little. Common victims are people starting a business, which they feel much equipped, only to realize that they know very little.  This bias is addressed by acquiring the right education or hiring experts to run the business.

Conclusion

Generally, the human brain is under constant function processing various situations, which results in various cognitive biases. However, there is a need to address the negative effects, removing them from minds, which is possible by first understanding them and appreciating that they exist among ourselves. Following this appreciation, persons can embrace and exercise cognitive capacity, thinking positively, and achieve success in the workplace.

References

Adejumo, A. O. (2018). Role of optimism bias, knowledge, and demographic profile on perceived infectability to Lassa virus infection. African Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences, 47(4), 451-461.

Gazzo Castañeda, L. E., Richter, B., & Knauff, M. (2016). Negativity bias in defeasible reasoning. Thinking & Reasoning, 22(2), 209-220.

Haita-Falah, C. (2017). Sunk-cost fallacy and cognitive ability in individual decision-making. Journal of Economic Psychology, 58, 44-59.

Knobloch-Westerwick, S., Mothes, C., & Polavin, N. (2020). Confirmation bias, ingroup bias, and negativity bias in selective exposure to political information. Communication Research, 47(1), 104-124.

Lawrence, K. (2021). Understanding unconscious bias in the workplace. Bulletin (Law Society of South Australia), 43(2), 14-15.

Shahid, S. (2020). Positivity at the workplace: examining the relationships among leadership, employee psychological capital, organisational virtuousness, employee thriving and job performance (Doctoral dissertation, RMIT University).

Leadership at the bedside.

 The concept of a leader revolves around their ability and influence to lead. The operation of any organization is dependent on the leader’s ability to influence the workers to work hard and diligently. Generally, in nursing, the nurse leaders are the registered nurses that are assigned the role of leading in the nurses' operations. The leaders are required to possess the necessary skill that enables them to communicate with other nurses, delegate duties, to demonstrate conflict-resolving ability among other skills of a good leader (Blanchard, & Miller, 2019). In nursing, most of the nurse leaders demonstrate the skill of allowing them to influence the fellows that they can do it allowing them to work diligently in providing patient care. The lead nurses are responsible for overseeing their fellow nurses, setting the policy, while setting the vision for the patient care and relevant strategy of achieving the goals in the patient care.

Leader at the bedside.

Bedside nurses are the clinician in health care who are responsible for the provision of care to the patient in the hospital directly. They deal with the cases of patient assessment and diagnosis, cases of catheterization, and medication to the patient (Al-Dossary, 2017). The leader nurse at the bedside is responsible for the supervision of the fellow nurses in providing care to the patient who is bedridden in the hospital. They are thus the key in overseeing patient care while ensuring the safety of patient care through managing the provision of their services. The key aspect of the nurse leader at the bedside is the possession of skills. The leader nurse should ensure the nurses operate as a team; uses evidence-based practices in patient care, ensures the safety of the patient, and nurses in the practice.

The key to the delivery of quality services to the patient is a combination of teamwork among the leader and the nurses at the bedside. In the care, provision the clinician, therapists, and other specialists work together to ensure the provision of quality services to the patient. Teamwork is essential where good communication helps in promoting and patient outcomes and safety in the decision making (Murray, & Cope, 2021). Evidence-based practice is aimed at ensuring the improvement in the patient's care outcome through the provision of the most effective care. The practice allows the nurses to decide on the practice most applicable to the patient's condition while considering the validity of the practice, the impact of practice, and its applicability to the patient. This allows the patient care to be safe through detection of errors in the practice, a better understanding of the process for the leader nurse, and weakness in the system and leadership involved.

Literature review.

According to Franks-Meeks, (2019) leadership in nursing at all levels in the health care department is meant to improve the patients’ outcomes.  The accomplishment of this outcome is based on the leaders’ skill, knowledge, and attitude in the field, which is based on the role the nurse, partakes in the leadership. The competencies in the field include the cases of system thinking in the leaders, planning for the activities, and changes in the management that are based on the competencies that are expected from the nurses. Despite this professionalism among the nurses and the leaders involves accountability at the professional level. This includes the observation of the ethics in nursing allowing nursing to operate with patient safety and outcome in their mind allowing them to ensure the safety of the patients. The key competencies in nurse leadership include the possession of knowledge in the clinical practice, the economies in the healthcare as well as the evidence-based practice as a key aspect in nursing among other like patient care.

The study on nurse leadership indicates that the cases of clinical leadership are related to job satisfaction thus improvement in the quality of services provided to the patients. The key aspect being effective communication in health care to ensure that the quality of the services provided to the patient is improved. The inspiration in the nursing profession is enhanced through effective communication, teamwork where other health professions are included in the decision making while considering the patients' consent especially when the patient safety is at risk (Fennimore, 2019). Job satisfaction allows the nurses to operate under the policies and set procedures that are key to the improvement of quality of the patient care. The use of the clinical leaders’ behaviours in the practice allows the coordination of all the processes and operations in health care allows the nurses to demonstrate professionalism in the provision of high-quality services to the patients.

Planning for the leader at the bedside.

In the medical-surgical unit, evidence-based practice is a vital tool in ensuring patient outcomes. This is facilitated by the practice use of available research on the practice in question while involving other available shreds of evidence in developing procedures and policies in health care. The fact that the practice involves the concept of teamwork makes it essential in decision-making. It involves the clinician-asking question on the practice involved, for instance in surgery, questions on how the procedure will take place. The questions are answered based on the use of evidence where the evidence is considered critically to determine the effectiveness of the procedure. The members on the practice make the recommendation or other practice that can be applied to the patient where the clinician implements the recommendation and awaits the outcome on the patient.

A patient who has undergone surgery will require the presence of the patient care technician for the provision of services that help improve the patients’ outcome. The key services that are required for an operated patient include the observation of the patient's vital to ensure patient safety among other services. The services include delegation of duties for the patient care tech in the activity of the daily assistance in the provision of medicine and patient observation. In cases where the patient needs therapy services, a therapist is involved in the provision of the services to the patient as well as observing the patient's development from the therapies involved. After the patient is free from the observation of the patient care tech, they provide the relevant education to the patient and family members offering care to the patient on the ways to observe the patient ensure their safety.

Conclusion.

The concept of a leader at the bedside is vital to the patient conditions outcome. This nurse ensures that services are provided to the patient to facilitate their recovery. The key aspect in the leader at the bedside involves the safety of the patient, with the best practice for the patient treatment through the incorporation of evidence-based practice. Teamwork has been the best means to facilitate and ensure that the decision-making in health care is effective in improving the quality of the service to the patients. This is due to the collaboration of the various health care professionals ensuring the services provided are of high quality and in the patients’ interest. The incorporation of safety, evidence-based practice, and teamwork are the key aspects that the leaders' health care should consider due to their ability to provide high-quality services to the patient.

References.

Al-Dossary, R. N. (2017). Leadership in nursing. Contemporary Leadership Challenges, 251.

Blanchard, K., & Miller, M. (2019). DEFINING LEADERSHIP: WHAT IT TAKES TO LEAD TODAY. Rethinking Your Unit Council Structure, 59.

BOAMAH, S. A. Full title: Emergence of informal clinical leadership as a catalyst for improving patient care quality and job satisfaction.

Franks-Meeks, S. D. (2019). LEADER AT THE BEDSIDE: A MIXED METHODS STUDY ESTABLISHING CLINICAL STAFF NURSE LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES.

Murray, M., & Cope, V. (2021). Leadership: Patient safety depends on it!. Collegian.

Retirement Benefits and Planning

Introduction

Retirement is a significant area of concern among the employees. These schemes are of great concern among companies that deal with employees regardless of the numbers. This area has become one of the greatest issues among the employees as most companies do not offer retirement benefits for their benefits once they grow of age and are released from the companies. The greatest challenge is with young companies, where no retirement offers to their employees. However, concerning the same issues, most operational plants are mandated by the local or state government's laws to offer retirement packages or pensions to all employees. Commonly, organizations offer themes plans (retirement) to help their employees to save for their retirement. Over the recent years, most of the organization fails in the execution of the retirement process and thus hired Human Resource specialists, who are knowledgeable on how organizations and employees can benefit from the schemes set by the organization.

The benefits should be made eligible for both employees working in profiting and non-profiting organizations. The latter profiting organizations commonly enjoy 401k plans and 403b for non-profiting organizations, both known as contribution plans. In some companies where there are no sound retirement schemes, individual employees are at times forced to look outside their employers to supplement their personal retirement schemes (Krishnan et al., 2017). Some common forms of the supplement include personal investments or the formation of employer-sponsored retirement where the employee opens accounts that they contribute to purposely to be used upon retirement. This paper is a retirement plan proposal as a Human Resource (HR) practitioner in the Walmart Inc. Company.  The company is a multinational retail corporation that operates department stores and hypermarkets, whose head office is situated in Bentonville, Arkansas, United States. The reason behind the selection of this corporation is due to its huge number of employees worldwide. According to a report by CNN Business in 2020, the company was found to have about 2.3 million employees. Thus, a big danger if these employees would retire without a profound retirement or pension plan. This proposal is a comprehensive structure of the retirement plan that can best suit the employees of the Walmart Inc. Company.

Assessment

Based on the selected company, it is essential to assess to examine the existence of a retirement scheme. From this examination, we can generate a robust understanding of areas of the plan to initiate as HR practitioners in the organization. Initially, one of the central concepts that we need to keep in mind is that Walmart Inc. is a profit-oriented company, which will guide the investigation of the nature of this plan and its success. Meanwhile, identifying whether the 401k is adequate to ensure that all the employees enjoy the best retirement benefits. From the Walmart checklist on retirement, getting ready with retirement encompasses an exploration of insurance options. Upon retirement, regular benefits and coverages come to an end. The retired individuals are left with medical, dental, and temporary vision coverage offered by the COBRA, but in this case through WageWorks (Trumbull, 2014). With the 401k in place, after retirement, the employees are entitled to contact Merrill, from where they can check their 401k account, where they learn how to withdraw their money from the retirement income.

Additionally, employees are entitled to get health insurance from Medicare. This is primarily an insurance company that offers health covers for individuals regardless of age and employment status. To check for qualifications and apply for this cover, US citizens are entitled to visit the Medicare website and then proceed with the application. This is not part of the Walmart retirement benefit; however, before retirement, these individuals enjoy support on life challenges such as support, encouragement, financial planning, practical tools, and guidance on the retired and the family in the process of coping with the transitions. Although some efforts are seen with the company's retirement plan to help the retired person, these strategies are still not comprehensive enough. It is important to note that the company withdraws coverage once an individual retires from the company. There is, therefore, a need to come up with strategies that will offer the employees total coverage upon retirement. However, this should only consider the individual who is retired by meeting the age limit of the company, which is usually 55 to 65 years Dufour et al., 2021). These benefits are essential as they ensure that these fellows do not suffer from mental problems associated with old age. We can, therefore, conclude that Walmart Company needs to refine its retirement scheme to make sure all the employees live a reasonable life even after they stop working.

Design

A good retirement plan needs to be considerate of all the ex-employees and ensure that they live a good life. The work of the HR practitioner on retirement would thus ensure that the plan meets all the requirements of the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). This body has a central concern on ensuring strategic plan and achieving set visions and goals. In this context, our mission would be to ensure the retirees live a reasonable life even after they quit the job market. The purpose of these strategies would thus ensure that they produce a stronger society, whose imprints can be felt globally. Its influence and contribution impact organizational success.

Jackson (2015) published in the HR magazine adequate evidence for the importance of Human Resource departments. The role of HR is to ensure that the organization is strategic, which he highlighted is not optional for organizations. Primarily, HR should work as a link between the International Human Resource Management and the SHRM. Similarly, Walmart Company should embrace this collaboration between the international and local HR departments to ensure that there is a set of retirement benefits that suits it. In this strategy, the SHRM competency model, which served as a path whose aim was to ensure a more strategic leadership. The model realized great progress by helping the HR professionals and teams assess their strengths and opportunities (Jackson, 2015). Walmart should thus have a strategic design for its retirement plan. This includes making a 401k plan which is comprehensive and favors the employees. One of the best firms that the company should ensure that the plan adequate enough to sponsor the employees and make money available for withdrawal at the retirement age.

Implementation

Once the company has realized how to design a practical and strategic retirement scheme for its employees, it should now proceed to the implementation process. This is the most critical step in the entire task; it entails incorporating all the needed tools and materials, which aim to offer the best retirement plan. Indeed, this is the process where the HR practitioners point out the plan or benefit to offer to its employees. Commonly, one of the promising retirement plans that stands out as an essential plan for both the employer ad employees is the self-funded, where employers benefit by attracting and retaining quality associates. This benefit is mutual as the employees also benefit from deferring more pre-tax dollars from retirement. This is the importance of the 401k plan for the employees that would affect the employees at Walmart.

However, the process of implementation is complicated and entails various steps. For this process in the company, the company should ensure these steps are keenly adhered to; the first step is to choose where various plans are reviewed and determine which among the available options suits benefits the company. Having it in mind that Walmart is profiting and with millions of employees, 401k and plan will be effective to meet the needs of the retirees (Carlin & Davies, 2015). The next step is always the implementation, where a written plan, with an arrangement on the transfer of funds to notify employees to have a close track on their retirement option and keep records. Thus, this step is followed by the actual operation, where the employee makes a contribution, stays updated on retirement laws, manages the plan, and distributes benefits. It is always important to ensure the retirement plan is active and renewed constantly.

Evaluation

Evaluation is an assessment done through judgment on the progress of a project or plan. In this context, this is the assessment based on the 401k retirement plan to assess the fund lineup works effectively across all the employees. More importantly, the evaluation would help discover how the employees can keep a constant track of the retirement goals. Based on Fisher, the evaluation should meet the framework for evaluating retirement plans. The framework entails responsibilities, expenses, tracking, investment solutions, resources, and engagement (R.E.T.I.R.E). The evaluation should assess the capacity and how the employees have learned to meet their financial and legal requirements, more importantly, understanding how to maximize the plan benefits while reducing personal risks (Krishnan et al., 2017). This is done by examining how the employees can analyze, assess and monitor plan fees.

Additionally, in the evaluation, the 401k plan has to assess the resource and engagement. Besides, to ensure the efficiency of this plan, it is essential to measure the ability to manage the overall 401k plan. Also, this evaluation would serve as a tool to examine the mastery of common terminologies and benchmark ways for a personal 401k plan. Based on investment evaluation, it is important to seek to understand the biases that make it difficult for employers and advisers to get a complete picture of each option for a complete comparison of funds for others. This evaluation is commonly used for reviews on employees’ investment options for 401k plans. The purpose of this evaluation is to ensure that all investment biases are overcome through making sound decisions for both the employers and the employees. Moreover, the evaluation also incorporates enrollment of the 401k plan, where the employees are offered an opportunity to get started with saving for retirement. Comprehensively, the enrollment is one of an essential strategy which focuses on various tips. These tips include scheduling 401k service, with a primary role to ensure a constant meeting with employees. Enrollment also constitutes a reminder to employees on support available, interest on savings and participation, review of the investment options, and knowledge on personal 401k plan fees.

Compensation

Based on a 401k retirement plan, many risks might arise. Some of these risks arise from the limitations associated with this plan, especially on constraints concerning withdrawal times and the amount they can contribute. With this plan, there are potential risks that can even lead to loss of money. To start with is the lack of guarantee for future results based on past performances. Additionally, investments with securities involve risks, thus susceptibility to money loss upon investment with these securities. Another source of losses includes asset allocation, rebalancing, and diversification, where profits or protection are not assured against losses that are faced during the declining markets (Yen, 2018). It is thus advisable that before making financial decisions, consultations are made to ensure that employees are well informed on these plans. However, this investment is deemed a retirement plan, but; at times, it is a guarantee that it is effective to support the needs of the retirees.

The majority of these risks are barriers to employees’ motivation. There is a need to offer benefits that are assured as opposed to the investments that these employees are entitled to and prone to fail upon losses. With this in mind, it is essential thus to offer pension schemes, which serve as a retirement account where the employer maintains to give their employees a fixed payout once they retire (Andrioff, 2017). This benefit in the company should be guided by the number of years an employee has worked with the Walmart Inc. Company and the salary each individual earns. Once an individual retires, they can decide whether the pension will be awarded to them in a lump sum or monthly payment.

Philosophy Alignment

More importantly, the retirement schemes would be best if they align with employees' interests. This brings out the aspect of collaboration and cooperation in the decision of the best retirement to offer to the workers. The plan is only aligned with the interests after an informed consultation where each individual decides which form of benefit he would prefer at the end of the work period. However, in most of the stances, employers avoid taking into consideration all the employees' decisions but instead follow the organizations' retirement benefit philosophy. These philosophies are aimed at supporting employees, through the provision of sufficient income, throughout their retirement. The latter efforts are deemed inefficient as employees have varying needs (Topa et al., 2018). Most of these philosophies are grounded on the institution's goals, demographics, culture, financial constraints, and retirement needs of the employees. The latter base, which entails the needs of the employees, is the most critical aspect that an organization should consider when offering retirement benefits to their employees. In the plan of retirement, therefore, it is essential to engage all the stakeholders in a discussion on their priorities concerning retirement offers that would guide the plan and decision-making.

Legal Alignment

In order to qualify to operate in a specific country or state, companies have to comply with operation laws and regulations. These regulation take control of both private and public companies as well as the profiting and non-profit companies. The area of concern in this context is alignment with the set laws and Acts concerning employee retirement. This information is vital in examining the alignment of the Walmart Inc. Company to the United States laws and the agreed-upon United Nations (UN) retirement schemes. In the US, the retirement rights of employees are well regulated by the U.S Department of Labor, which formulated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) (Ciccone, 2017). The role of this federal body is to set minimum standards that industries should voluntarily provide protection for individuals.

Additionally, the Act is essential to provide participants with information on the plan, features, and funding. More essentially, offering fiduciary responsibilities for those who manage and control plan assets requires a plan to establish grievances and appeals when the employees are deprived of their retirement benefits.  The importance of law is to ensure compliance, where the employers and employees are all entitled to meet the preconditions set by ERISA to qualify in operation in the specified region. More critically, the ERISA also offers customer information on all the available retirement plans, and these plans are listed in booklets, sheets, and other information sought from the Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). For operation, the Walmart organization should be bound by all these legal regulations.

Cultural Alignment

This is the conformation with the values of the organization. The importance of cultural alignment is to create an intuitive sense between the employee and the set organization's operation values. Organization where there is harmony between the stakeholders, mutual benefit is mutual, everyone wins. The plan on retirement should be pat f the organization's culture, that even employees get attached to the operation, they clearly understand the benefits that are offered by the company. There are vast advantages that organizations enjoy for setting up good working conditions, which is an important implication of the culture. Purposefully, this alignment is what defines the overall performance of organizations.  In the same way, Walmart should embrace a culture where all its employees feel important and part of the organization. Concerning retirement benefits, a good culture should align with the needs of the employees, putting into consideration the needs as highlighted in the SHRM (Davis, 2021). One of the most promising strategies by the SHRM is to leverage retirement savings and planning for benefits to either retain or recruit employees at all levels of their organization.

Workforce Preferences Alignment

Employees have their interests and preferences. Some of these preferences might force people to seek retirement even before the retirement age. Others decide to seek a late retirement based on personal interests; however, there has been a challenge to whether organizations have room to listen and offer the employees the chance to feel good. The challenge with these preferences is only for the employees whose delivery of services is not of great significance to the entire business. Late retirement may also be a complication as new college graduates might miss job opportunities, where old-aged individuals are long-retained in operation. Primarily, the concern on retirement should be rooted with the employees (Block & Goldman, 2015). Based on the history of the retirement benefits, retirement responsibility has shifted from employer to employee, seeking all possible measures that can be implemented to ensure employees retire smarter and more financially secure.

The alignment on workforce preferences concerning retirement in the present day generation should be assured of the best retirement plan. The alignment should be sought from the employees, indicating their will on both the 401k and pension schemes. With this knowledge in place, the Walmart organization has to offer the best retirement benefits for the employees. Thus, the company needs to examine employees' productivity and the impact on performance that the individuals can have on the company. Those with insignificant effects on production and demand for early retirement can be released and retirement benefits awarded.

Equity Alignment

One of the key issues on retirement is equity. The equity aspect addresses compensation on the requirement in the retirement portfolio that all the workers should be equally compensated. Retirement benefits on majority of the organizations favor employees depending on the employment positions; people on top positions have higher retirement benefits over those ranked lower in the organizations. Similarly, this happens with small businesses that share common experiences with those workers with little pay. According to Wolters Kluwer, there has been so much challenge with retirement savings, where only about half of the organizations offer retirement benefits for their employees (Davis, 2021). This fact has great, long-lasting impacts on the well-being of the employees. Our company of discussion Walmart Inc.,) though a multinational company has instances of inequality, some individuals enjoy hiring retirement and pension benefits over others. The HR department should thus work in collaboration with the institution to ensure that there are set conditions that offer acceptable and equitable plans across all the individuals. However, this should be considered of the period that an employee has worked for the organization. To minimize the gap of inequality, therefore, the institution has to offer equitable retirement benefits such as equal insurance covers and other health-related services.

Global Alignment

            The global alignment shows concern on the measures on retirement that are acceptable across all employees worldwide. These would primarily include the rules and regulations set by the Unity of Nations that govern all workers. In our case, we highlight the benefits that the Walmart firm has to adhere to, in conjunction with the United Nations. For retirement schemes, the UN has set aside the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF), whose role is to control retirements of all kinds. Thus, our company should meet all the retirement needs of this body to ensure the smooth running of the organization. Walmart should then offer early retirement benefits to any employee who has worked for the company in the last five years, which is categorized as early retirement (Fronstin & Helman, 2015). Alternatively, observe keen procedures awarding un-reduced retirement benefits for those individuals who have reached their normal retirement age. Lastly, is taking into keen consideration the retirement individuals who have delayed retirement, especially those retained because of their productivity, should be entitled to better retirement and pension plans.

Diversity and Inclusion Considerations

It is a best practice to make a company competitively advantaged and retain employees. This has been made possible by embracing diversity and inclusion of all organization members in essential practices. A critical aspect that we cannot avoid is the aspect of retirement and pension planning. Making a good plan for employees for our organization will primarily include understanding, accepting, and valuing the contrasting bits, people the employees (Dufour et al., 2021). When making the plan, it is critical to take charge of the differences in race, ethnicities, genders, disability, religion, education, sexual orientations, skills, and knowledge. When making retirement plans, it is, therefore, essential to take note of the schemes that best suit each employee’s preferences. The latter can only be achieved if the organization adopts good communication between the employer and the employees.

Final Recommendations

With this reference to this discussion, we point that all employees should enjoy a form of retirement benefit or pensions. This is regardless of the nature of the organization, whether a profitable or non-profitable company and public or private. The nature of the benefits, from a majority of the profit-oriented companies, uses the 401k plan, where the employees need to invest for their retirement plan, the investment matures after retirement, from which the employee can decide to withdraw the amount in whole or in annuities. However, much challenge has been experienced when trying to implement retirement schemes based on various alignments. Some of these alignments include legal alignments, equity, work preferences, and global. Thus, to achieve success in retirement, the organization should consider the needs of the employees, incorporating them in the plans as they are the primary beneficiaries. A company that meets the majority of these strategies is subject to success.

References

Andrioff, J. (2017). Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Provisions of the Tax Cut and Reform Act. Retrieved 26 May 2021, from.

Block, L., & Goldman, T. (2015). Saving for Retirement? I Just Want to Get Through the Month. Benefits Quarterly, 31(3), 40.

Carlin, B. I., & Davies, S. (2015). The Implementation of State Sponsored Retirement Plans. Available at SSRN 2589701.

Ciccone, J. R. (2017). Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). In Principles and Practice of Forensic Psychiatry (pp. 927-932). CRC Press.

Clark, R., Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O. S. (2017). Employee financial literacy and retirement plan behavior: a case study. Economic Inquiry, 55(1), 248-259.

Davis, S. (2021). SHRM's International Diversity & Inclusion Study Reveals Global Trends and Best Practices. Retrieved 26 May 2021, from.

Dufour, M. E., Saba, T., & Leiva, F. B. (2021). Planned retirement age: do attachment to work and expectations relating to workplace adjustments matter?. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal.

Fronstin, P., & Helman, R. (2015). Pension Benefits. Employee Benefit Research Institute And Greenwald & Associates, EBRI Notes,. Retrieved 26 May 2021, from.

Jackson, H. (2015). Being Strategic Is Not Optional. HR Magazine. Retrieved 11 June 2021, from.

Krishnan, V. S., Cumbie, J., & Ice, R. (2017). Defined benefit plans vs. defined contribution plans: An evaluation framework using random returns. Defined Contribution Plans: An Evaluation Framework Using Random Returns (April 17, 2017).

Raleigh, A., Counsel, S., & Hogan, B. (2016). The necessity of having effective workplace policies: Potential risks for employers. Retrieved 26 May 2021, from.

Topa, G., Lunceford, G., & Boyatzis, R. E. (2018). Financial planning for retirement: A psychosocial perspective. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 2338.

Trumbull, K. (2014). Putting It All Together-Benefits Integration Boosts Health, Productivity. Retrieved 26 May 2021, from.

Yen, W. T. (2018). Pension plans and retirement insecurity. Ageing International, 43(4), 438-463.

Fiedler’s Contingency Model in Organization Leadership

Introduction

In organization leadership, various theories have been developed. One of the oldest theories on leadership was developed by Fred Fiedler; he is the founder of the comprehensive contingency model in leadership. Primarily, his model was based on effective leadership, predicting and measuring the interaction between leaders’ personality and their situational control; the aim was to foresee the overall leadership performance. Critically emphasizing the latter performance, he stated that “the quality of leadership, more than any other single factor, determines the success or failure of an organization.” More importantly, he highlighted that the success of a leader is subject to the individual’s basic leadership style. This could be evaluated using the least preferred co-worker (LPC) questionnaire, which was critical in determining whether a leader was task-oriented or relationship-oriented (Crockett, 2019). This white paper seeks to expound on Fielder’s contingency model, examining the model's changes and offering additional evidence about the efficacy of the model in organizational behavior.

The Contingency Model

Various scholars appreciate shifts in leadership and thus the need to develop contingency theories. These theories are meant to explain the effectiveness of leadership performance. We must therefore appreciate the contribution of Fred Fiedler in the development of the first comprehensive contingency model. In this model, Fiedler stated that group performance effectiveness depends on a proper match between the leader’s style and situation control. Fielder’s model was primarily put forward in 1964 to solve questions emerging with concern on leadership study (Suharyanto & Lestari, 2020, December).  These questions were concerning leadership and group effectiveness, social, organizational psychology as well as leadership ineffective management. During this time, there was much questioning concerning personality characters and traits that make some leaders effective. The theory had two major components; one was situational favorableness and leadership style.  According to Fiedler, the performance of a group is contingent upon the motivational system of the leader and the leader’s control of influence (Crockett, 2019).  The leadership situation is what he defines as the arena, from where the leader seeks to satisfy their own and organization goals. In this context, a group is defined as sharing proximity, similarities, and common fates on related events. In this mode, the concern was on group members, who, despite being independent they share the common goals.

A leader of the group is an individual whose is role is to direct and coordinate tasks that concern a specific group’s activities. These groups, whether appointed or elected, influence the question of tasks, with effectiveness in their leadership determined by their group performance on the assigned tasks. An excellent example presented by Fiedler is concerning the psychotherapeutic relations where the productive psychotherapists regarded them as equals to their patients (Suharyanto & Lestari, 2020, December). On the other hand, the poor therapist deemed themselves as completely unlike their patients. His postulations were that therapists who feel similar to others are psychologically close to, accepting, and permissive towards other people and thus able to discover attitudes related to team performance. This brings two categories of leaders, one being relationship-oriented and task-oriented.

In the running of the groups, relationship-oriented leaders were more effective than those who were task-oriented. Indeed, the relationship-oriented would be psychologically closer to their teams than those in task-oriented teams. The task-oriented groups are characterized by psychologically distant and less accepting leaders and commonly no support from individual members. Fiedler’s proposition was to develop an integrated framework that highlights the factors determining the leader’s personality that affect performance. This came with the appreciation that the group environment will make it relatively easy or challenging for the leader to influence the group members. The contingency model "hypothesized that the leader's perceptions of his co-workers reflect important, task-relevant attitudes and that these would materially influence group interaction and performance (Crockett, 2019).”

Fiedler highlighted the importance of the Least Preferred Coworker (LPC) component in the contingency theory in the measure of organizational leadership success. Besides, he offered various interpretations of occasions at the same time that the leaders face in the workplace as leaders. However, to avoid confusion, he mentioned that LPC is not a self-report measure of personal behavior or values; instead, a group of respondents answers a questionnaire concerning the basic leadership style. The score contained the component of assumed similarities between opposites (ASo) score, which correlated with LPC and thus usable interchangeably (Sharma, 2019). The score was obtained when a leader described the most preferred co-worker (MPC) and the least preferred co-worker (LPC). These descriptions were achieved using an eight-point, bi-polar checklist, which description of personality attributes. “…such as pleasant vs. unpleasant, friendly vs. unfriendly and rejecting vs. accepting (Crockett, 2019).” While measuring an individual’s profile similarity, an individual, either most or a least preferred co-worker, will have a high assumed similarity score; those with strong differences between the two opposites on the co-workers will have a low score.

Generally, effective leadership is predicted by the ASo or LPC score. This score points out the degree of good interpersonal relations in the groups, and the direction of the relationships was contingent on these relations and the nature of the tasks. More so, leaders who were permissive, accepting, high LPC performed better in the groups, especially on creative tasks under relatively free-stress conditions. On the contrary, d "the managing, controlling, low LPC leaders had better performance under relatively less pleasant, more tension-arousing group climates.” Additionally, Fiedler comes to the admission that the model is a prediction of curvilinear relationship and that leaders with low LPC scores “… would perform more effectively in very favorable and unfavorable situations, while high LPC leaders . . . would perform more effectively in situations intermediate in favorableness (Crockett, 2019)." Ultimately, we need to either make the situations meet the leader’s capacity or improve the leader to meet the situation.

The Change in Contingency Model Overtime

However, the theory was highly applicable in measuring and determining factors that would limit performance in the organization; there were shortcomings associated with the theory. One of the challenges associated with the theory is its rigid characteristic in analyses to achieve quantifiable results, which would in most of the time, be irrational and un-contingent. Additionally, Fiedler, in one way, which is the theory, and acts in another (model), although we would not call him a hypocrite, the contingency theory becomes difficult or impossible (Covelli & Mason, 2017). Also, the explanation regarding ASo scores, especially with low LPC leader, o tsk accomplishment concerning task accomplishment with the co-workers feeling, borrowed from the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, makes the model doubtful. Overly, the model has a focus on the leader’s perspective leaving out the member’s contribution. We all understand that performance cannot be achieved with isolated leaders, which makes the theory weaker. These drawbacks make the theory not applicable in the present-day organization, thus, a need for a change.

These changes are intertwined with the waves of theory and research. Aftermath World War II, research took another pace on behavioral and attitude, behavioral, social-cognitive, and contingency, as well as transformational, social change, and gender-related research. The contingency theory has followed by expanding the focus on leadership, where the leadership findings were revisited. This was done through meta-analysis on studies and literature to examine the leadership outcomes (Lord et al., 2017). These changes also included transformational and charismatic leadership to examine the antecedents and mechanisms used in leadership and their effects on followers’ perceptions and attitudes towards leaders. More precisely, the transformational model had a focus on development, which was purposely to outdo the criticism on conceptualization and measurement of the leadership styles as well as offering clear dimensions on leadership, thus shaping the performance outcomes.

In the recent research on leadership, the researchers have developed the leader-member exchange theory. This theory is relation-ship based, whose focus is on the relationship between the leaders and their followers. In this model, individuals members of the workgroup are treated differently to transform strange members into acquaintances, creating mutual trust. In this, some relationships are created; some of the sections in this leadership include gender and leadership, especially concerning the top positions (Lord et al., 2017). This ensures the elimination of gender bias, which might result in gender inequality and sometimes discrimination. Moreover, another concern is team leadership, which encourages synergy among team members to foster team development. Some common forms of team leadership include functional leadership, transformational leadership in the teams, which ensure the creation of an enabling structure and resources to influence the overall outcomes.

Evidence on the Efficacy of Contingency Model in Organizational Behavior

Since the development of the contingency theory of leadership, it has been in a position to remain valid even with the current organization. This has been possible as it has made teams or organizations achieve the best performance, which is the designated leadership outcome. According to Murschetz (2017), contingency theory provides a major framework that forms the basis for organizational structural design. The efficacy of the model is based on the opportunities it offers to organizations. Some of these include hetero-performance, especially on the organizations that fit, with the structural contingency theory as opposed to those that do not fit. This fit in an organization will result in a high level of performance, which is the expected outcome in most organizations. Additionally, Murschetz highlights how organizational change, when overcome, an organization will enjoy a higher performance, which will thus result in expansion.

Also, organizations need to shift from the traditional development strategies. Instead, these organizations have adopted new developments in information technology, and these also involve the creation of new structures. Some of these strategies include the elimination of hierarchies and embrace the relationship-oriented leadership strategy (Rüzgar, 2018). The importance of technology is to foster the spread of data and calculations. In this context, the organization needs to appreciate the work that the organization can produce real outcomes due to operational effectiveness, which translates to high performance—improved performance in the goal of all the organizations, which defines its success.

References

Covelli, B. J., & Mason, I. (2017). Linking theory to practice: Authentic leadership. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 16(3), 1-10.

Crockett, M. R. (2019). Effective Leadership Styles in Long-Term Residential Stroke Facilities: A Phenomenological Study (Doctoral dissertation, Northcentral University).

Lord, R. G., Day, D. V., Zaccaro, S. J., Avolio, B. J., & Eagly, A. H. (2017). Leadership in applied psychology: Three waves of theory and research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 434.

Murschetz, P. C. (2017). Connected TV: Conceptualizing the Fit Between Convergence and Organizational Strategy Within a Contingency Theory Framework: The Case of Germany. In Media Convergence and Deconvergence (pp. 261-283). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Rüzgar, N. (2018). The effect of leaders’ adoption of task-oriented or relationship-oriented leadership style on leader-member exchange (LMX), in the organizations that are active in service sector: A research on tourism agencies. Journal of Business Administration Research, 7(1), 50-60.

Sharma, U. (2019). Giving contingency theory of management accounting and control a critical edge. International Journal of Critical Accounting, 11(1), 16-25.

Suharyanto, A., & Lestari, R. D. (2020, December). The Fall and Rise of The Contingency Theory of Leadership. In Iapa Proceedings Conference (pp. 479-496).

Internal Memorandum

TO: Human Resource Team Leaders and Staff

FROM: Human Resource Manager

DATE: 

SUBJECT: Employee Payment and Compensation

Recruiting new members of staff requires close analysis and proper examination of the organization and the environment in which it operates. When selecting 10 new members of staff for support positions in the organization it is important to identify the different features of each support position and how best to select a suitable candidate as well as the responsibilities that each recruit will be required to fulfill when performing their duties. Other than the needs of the recruits, it is also important to factor in the organization's position and ability to accommodate the needs of the employees as well as the policies and regulations that govern the environment in which it operates. Concerning the composition and creation of these new positions, my initial thoughts focus on the diverse mix of geographies nationalities gender ethnicity, and the functions of the new employees.

Since the recruitment practice will stretch across geographic and national boundaries the approach taken to hire recruits will have to factor in diversity and inclusion to ease the composition and creation of these new positions. Diversity will comprise of the similarities and differences that exist between the employees. It is important to factor in both visible differences like age and gender as well as those that may not be visible such as the recruits' values a style of thinking in-built belief and other factors (Derven, 2016). The inclusion will therefore focus on creating an ideal working environment that is respectful of each recruit's viewpoint and belief to encourage everyone to participate and perform their duties to the best of their abilities.

Pay practices for different organizations are expected to adhere to the laws and regulations of the region or country the organization operates in. To facilitate implementation I will use the balance sheet approach as it is best suited to address compensation management especially for an organization that has local international and virtual employees (Bonache & Oberty, 2016). The balance sheet approach will start by litter meaning the employee’s reference salary and then divide it into four categories of expenditure. The four categories will comprise housing taxes goods and services and savings. The approach helps to ensure that the amount paid to each employee is greatly dependent on the level of income and the size of the household (Bonache & Oberty, 2016). The approach is influenced by the notion that individuals that are more and live in a big household also tend to spend more and therefore require more income. The income is meant to serve needs like transport food clothing and entertainment and is, therefore, a good measure for determining the amount of income that an employee should get.

The balance sheet approach is also ideal as it allows HR to identify different needs for employees across geographic boundaries to develop hospital bill payment plans for all recruits. When employees are located in different countries the host country balance sheet approach will be most suitable especially in cases where the amount of payment given for certain positions tend to be higher in the country the employee resides in compared to the host country (Bonache & Oberty, 2016). In such a case the salary level for employees in the host country will act as the point of departure for the subsequent calculations. Rather than paying a fixed salary to all employees across geographic the organization will factor in the payment policies that exist in different countries and compare them against those that exist in the host country to come up with a more suitable payment plan.

Another approach that will be suitable for the recruitment process is the global balance sheet approach. The method is better suited for employees that travel between countries and therefore not held under the same policies and laws that determine the ideal payment practices for employees within their respective countries (Bonache & Oberty, 2016). Since the recruitment practice will also involve hiring virtual employees and other members of staff that will be required to travel from country to country doing business it may become difficult to identify which country the employee resides in to determine the appropriate compensation concerning the laws and regulations set by the country (Kennelly, 2015). The global balance sheet approach helps to create an international scale that will assist in setting allowances benefits and pay increase among other advantages that are neither influenced by the policies of the country in which the employee is located or the host organization. The organization will however ensure that the payment and compensation issued to give the employee enough purchasing power and income to maintain an ideal standard of living regardless of whether they are located in one specific country, have to travel from one country to another doing business, or are employed on a virtual basis where employment does not restrict them to a specific location especially with the advancement of the worldwide Web.

When determining global compensation the major challenge that the organization or human resource management faces has to do with the shareholders' expectations. While some various laws and policies determine the payment and compensation for employees, shareholders also have a say especially in an organization where they are more involved in the daily operations of the organization. Problems may occur if the shareholder’s expectations of the appropriate pay differ from what is legally expected of the organization from the laws of the region it seeks to serve (Derven, 2016). The problem can however be overcome by keeping shareholders informed and maintaining transparency throughout the processes. This will ensure that the shareholders are kept in the loop of the steps that will be taken and their expenses to help them get on board with the payment and compensation packages that will be given to the recruits.

 Another challenge has to do with gaps in employee expectations of the ideal payment and compensation. Oftentimes the organization may disagree with the employees because the amount they expect to be paid is more than what the organization is willing to pay. The challenge is further intensified when employees fail to factor in benefits and other compensation packages as part of their net pay which makes it difficult for the organization to meet their expectations (Derven, 2016). Employees will therefore be provided with total compensation statements that elaborately communicate the value of the compensation package in its entirety. Keeping the employees informed of the benefits that the compensation and payments offer them will make it easier to differentiate between the net pay and other benefits that are issued through compensation packages.

Lastly determining global compensation is greatly affected by external competition. To be successful organizations have to be innovative and constantly improve the quality of their products and services. Since innovation comes from the employees, organizations face a lot of competition from other companies for employees with special skills and abilities (Bonache & Oberty, 2016). Payment and compensation will therefore have to factor in the payments and benefits that other organizations offer to their employees and then develop packages that will attract talented recruits and encourage them to choose the organization over its competitors.

The external competition presents both internal and external pressures for the organization. Internally the organization has to offer special packages and payments to employees to attract and retain talent. External pressures exist as the different organizations will continue to develop new strategies to attract the same talent. While this is a major challenge for the organization it is a problem that can be resolved through strategies that will cause little damage to the organizational budget. One approach will be the provision of lucrative vacation time offers, development of child care facilities, and extended leave for employees. The approaches are ideal in that they give employees time off the duties thus allowing them to take care of their responsibilities. Since the provisions only require the organization to extend the time in which the employee spends away from work the organization will lose little to no capital especially where other members of staff can carry on the responsibilities in the absence of a few.

References

Bonache J and Oberty C, (2016) “The traditional approach to compensating global mobility:        Criticisms and alternatives” The International Journal of Human Resource Management,       VOL. 28, NO. 1, 149–169 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2016.1239123

Derven M, (2016) “Diversity and inclusion are essential to a global virtual team’s success”          Human Capital

Kennelly J, (2015) “Embracing the virtual workforce” The Workforce