Sunday, 2 December 2012

Benefit Systems and Project Plans

A benefit is the desired result of a project that was created to meet a particular operational need. The whole point of benefits management is to make sure that the project provides clear benefits – as opposed to simply making sure the project is completed within specific time and resource limitations. So, while the success of project management is to deliver on time and on budget, the success of benefits management takes it one step further – to ensure that the initiative delivers the expected results. This issue of benefits is an important topic as compensation has an effect on improving or decreasing productivity. To have a satisfactory state of affairs there is the need for project plans with activities that can be measured by both qualitative and quantitative analysis. A benefits strategy establishes key conceptual guides for the development and deployment of benefit plans, such as competitive benefits position, cost sharing with employees, funding mechanisms, the role of voluntary benefit plans, etc.

Employee benefit programs can be defined as a group of private employer-sponsored plans that provide financial protections or financial assistance. Protection is offered on a mass basis against the financial requirements that usually accompany retirement, death, disability and medical care. An organization exists to accomplish specific goals and objectives. The individuals hired by the organization have their own needs. One is for money which enables them to purchase a wide variety of goods and services. Taken together, the money, goods, and services the employer provides constitute the employer's compensation systems. There are principal considerations that are common to employee benefit programs. Organizations that think through an overall benefit philosophy will be guided with constructive and consistent choices among the alternatives available for particular benefits and a means to communicate the resulting benefit programs to employees.

One popular approach to enhancing productivity has been linking rewards to performance. Benefits by and large help organizations attract and retain employees. Some arguments are that benefit programs by themselves do not directly motivate increased employee performance. From this point of view, the link between performance level and benefit level is virtually zero (Shaw, 2001). The trends of benefits are to provide financial assistance in the areas in which employers and employees have the freedom to select their goals and the benefit plans that will best achieve them. Those responsible for employee benefit programs can assure a timely flow of pertinent data to top management on present program operations and evaluating new developments and by initiating recommendations for changes that will maintain the organization's mission.

In considering its total compensation, the company might attempt to be a leader, to be among the leaders, to be competitive with industry and area practices, to be as independent as possible. The company's attitude toward financing benefit plans implies that the employee and the company should share costs on some predetermined basis. Even though there might be disadvantages of contributory plans, such as employee having little financial ability to contribute after deductions, the benefits of contributory plans might allow employees to place more value on the plan. Larger benefits are available, and employees ought to provide for their dependents and for their own retirement income. The primary purpose for sharing of company success should be to provide incentive compensation now, thereby motivating employees currently and repetitively. All employees help create a success and have an influence on it by their daily activities.

Evaluation methods of compensable facts may include such things as skills, effort, education, amount of responsibility involved, and working conditions. Fisher, Schoen and Shaw (2001) explain the most frequently used evaluation methods are job ranking, job grading as non quantitative comparison involving the job as a whole. Other means of evaluation are the quantitative that involves a comparison involving job components. Four dimensions for consideration of compensation are the skill (education, experience, and knowledge), effort (physical demand, mental or visual demand), responsibility (equipment or process, material or product, safety of others, work of others) and job conditions (working conditions, hazards).

This article has defined compensation, employee benefits and its trends, compensation considerations and evaluation. A successful compensation system needs to incorporate the equity concerns of all participants in the employment relationship. This is achieved by establishing a system that includes both external and internal comparisons in setting benefits systems. Realizing the agreed business benefits requires two key and inter-related activities. Firstly, the person responsible for ensuring that the project's outputs are used to generate the business benefits needs to be identified. Secondly, the plan for realizing the benefits needs to be documented, agreed and monitored through to conclusion. Realizing the benefit to the organization often requires substantial changes in the way the business operates day-to-day.
Source:
Fisher, D., Schoenfeldt, L and Shaw, B. J (2001) Human resource management Houghton Mifflin Company, p. 550.

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