The purpose of this paper is to discuss various aspects of employee compensation. There are many laws in place that help to protect workers and to help set some standards in fair compensation policies

The FLSA also help to reduce the abuses some employers did relating to child labor. "The FLSA now sharply restricts the use of child labor, with the aim of protecting children's health, safety, and educational opportunities." (Fundamentals of Human Resource Management p. 349). These laws set in 1938 are still in effect today that restricts what types of jobs they can are allowed to do and how many hours per week they can work.

Salary Surveys

For an employer to attract and retain the right talent for the right jobs setting a fair level of compensation is paramount. Salary Surveys are tools that allow employers to understand how much a specific worker is paid based on many factors including but not limited too: level of education, job market conditions (do conditions favor the employer or worker), type of job and other statistical favors. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is one resource that employers can use to help gauge compensation levels for specific jobs. This is a services provided by the federal government based on ongoing research.

There are also many private resources available. Salary.com is a private web based tool that employers and prospective employees can use to get guideline salary information for hundreds of job categories. Salary.com has an extensive methodology for gathering specific details on salary conditions for job type and geographic region.

"To determine the market pay ranges, Salary.com's compensation consultants have collected and reviewed data covering more than 1.3 million individuals working at more than 5,000 companies" (www.salary.com)

These tools allow employers to set proper pay ranges for the jobs they are offering and remain competitive as they are seeking talent in the available work force.

Using salary surveys to determine what to pay an employee can be helpful when used as a guideline and not a hard rule. Perhaps an employer wants to attract and keep the most talented people for competitive reasons. Then paying above market may help to attain this goal. Other initiatives can be used to set pay and compensation for employees. In the world of high tech stock options are used as a means to keep people with the possibility that the options many have high value after a certain amount of time (usually 3 years). Management by Objectives (MBO) plans are bonuses paid to employees for meeting specific goals and objectives in a certain amount of time, an example would be producing a new marketing campaign with set results over a three month period.

Comparable Worth and Compensation

Inequities in pay has been, and still is, an on going issue for employment compensation. Particularly the disparity wages for the same job type for males vs. female employees (as well as differences in the same jobs for people of different ethnic groups). Over the years there have been some improvement in this comparable worth gap but a recent report published by the Press Associates Union News Services stated the following:

"We have a long way to go to achieve equality," said Professor Amy Caizza, who directed the IWPR study. Women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn in comparable jobs" (Gruenberg, 2004)

Ultimately understanding comparable worth in forming an employers compensation practices helps to promote an atmosphere of equal work and equal pay irrespective of the race or gender of the employee.

Three Benefits

Over the years I have had decent benefits from all the companies I have worked for. My roles have varied from individual contributor to executive management. In all levels of the jobs I have had my benefit packages where comparable and fair. From my perspective the following are the three benefits that are most important benefits for employees:

. Health Benefits is a controversial subject these days with more of the burden going to the employee as health care costs continue to rise. However covering your employees with options for different types of health plans and family coverage encourages both good health but is an incentive to keep good employees.

2. Stock options have been popular in many industries to keep good talent and even in these days where you don't see 25 year old paper millionaires too often they are a good tool in giving employees a part of the company and if the company successful the employee will be able to financially participate in that success.

3. The finally benefit I think employers should consider is some form of 401k or equivalent retirement savings plan. Whether or not the employer provides matching funds it is wise to allow the employee to contribute to a plan that encourages long term savings and can ease their tax burden

As discussed employee compensation is a complex and multi faceted topic. Laws have been established to help make a relatively fair playing field for workers however there still is a lagging disparity in compensation for certain groups of individuals. And strong and fair benefit packages will not ensure the retention of good talent but certainly can help make an organization more competitive for seeking the best candidates for employees.

References

Fundamentals of Human Resource Management, R.A. Noe, J.R. Hollenbeck, B. Gerhart, & P.M. Wright McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2004 New York, NY

Male Female Pay Gap Static Over 20 Years Mark Gruenberg, Press Associates Union News Service, 2004 Washington DC, Retrieved From http://www.cluw.org/PDF/PAIonEqualPayDay.pdf, Dec 5 2004.

Salary.com Data Methodology, Salary.com Needham MA. Retrieved from http://www.salary.com/ourdata/layoutscripts/datl_display.asp?tab=dat&cat=nocat&ser=Ser324&part=Par480, Dec 6 2004

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