Compensation, Benefits, and Information Systems - Coursework Example

Compensation, Benefits, and Information Systems Student’s Name Institution Affiliation Compensation, Benefits, and Information Systems Each compensation element possesses a behavioral purpose and aims at fulfilling a need, either physiological or psychological, and attaining a goal. According to Luthans (1998), motivation refers to a process, which begins with a psychological or physiological lack or need, which stimulates a behavior, which is aimed at an objective. Reward systems have an objective of compensating individuals for their skill, endeavor, accountability, as well as working conditions in addition to motivating them in order to improve performance. There are three categories of behavioral science namely content, contemporary, and process theories, from which the four major behavioral wage theories emerge: Need-fulfillment, expectancy, reinforcement, and justice theories (Allen & Sawhney, 2009). The discussion concerns the four main theories as well as how they may influence compensation policies in contemporary organizations. The Four Major Behavioral Wage Theories a) Need Fulfillment The theory of fulfillment can be explained by the Maslow’s Hierarchy. All human being needs must be met. They cannot be explored by an average person that performs their daily activities without reflecting on the reason they do those things. Abraham Maslow categorized five needs, which reveal why people behave the way they do (Daft, 2008). First are the basic needs. These are the physiological needs that have to be met before focusing on any other aspect of living, such as the social life. These needs are required for sustenance and include food, water, and air among others. When an individual lacks one among these needs, he or she attempts to obtain them at any given cost. When these needs are satisfied, the person is motivated. From the perspective of an organization, basic needs can be said to work breaks, lunch breaks, rest periods and wages too. The second fulfillment need is safety, which cannot be a motivating goal until the basic ones are fulfilled. These needs concern security, stability, and protection in the interpersonal daily life events. Third need in the hierarchy is the social needs. This is the need for love and affection as well as a sense of belongingness in relationships with the others in the organization. Exemplars include teamwork, firm’s softball outings and work groups. Research shows that promotion on social interactions increase morale and productivity. Fourth is self esteem need; it is the esteem for the rest, that is, prestige, respects, and need for recognition because everyone wants to always be praised for his or her performance in the organization. This motivates them in working harder for the organization. The last need in the hierarchy is the self- actualization need. This is the need to fulfill one’s goal in growing and using his/her abilities maximally and being more creative. That can be further explained as a promotion after graduating, which offers happiness to the intended person (Allen & Sawhney, 2009). Maslow’s theory increases workers’ motivation due to the fulfillment of all the hierarchical needs. Therefore, remuneration to employees is often increased due to high productivity brought about by the motivation from the employees. b) Expectancy Theory This theory was proposed by Victor Vroom. It insists and focuses on outcomes and not the needs like in Maslow. It states that intensity of tendency to perform in a given way is usually dependent on intensity of expectations that performance shall be followed by an outcome appealing to the individual. Thus recruiters responsible for in – house job posting, do it in a way, which generates interest to the current work staff. Recruiters are responsible for giving a selection of suitable as well as qualified candidates who stay in the firm. The main objective is to meet the expectations of the human resource section. The success of the company lies on the hands of the recruiter who should recruit qualified candidates who can be promoted from the current employee base (Allen & Sawhney, 2009). Concerning the interview section, the expectancy theory is evident in many interviews from both sides of the desk. Interviewees normally study literature of the company and brush up on their skills for presentations expecting to impress the manager responsible for hiring so that he or she can give and invite interviews or even extend their job offers. Interviewers come up with questions to determine the potential of the candidate and their reactions towards given workplace situations. On the other hand, employee performance counts for the expectancy. Employees work is based on output, quality or even anticipation of employer’s response. For instance, an expert in information technology improves on methods of capturing business data and he does it with expectations of being rewarded by his employer positively. The response can be in form of pay bonus, or even his name being eliminated from the list of employees and is laid off. The quality of work is normally related to the level of response by the employee expectations as a result of the efforts made (Mayhew, 2013). Expectancy theory focuses on the employee’s motivation as the outcome of how much a person wants the reward to be. It is believed that the likelihood of efforts made will lead to the performance and believing that performance will guide towards the reward. In other words, valence is associated by a person on the expected outcome. It is the expected and not the actual satisfaction that a worker hopes to obtain after achieving the set goals. Expectancy is said to be the faith that will result to a better performance. This is influenced by the availability of the right sources, possession of the right skills as well as obtaining support for the completion of tasks. c) Reinforcement B.F. Skinner came up with the Reinforcement theory, which is one of the oldest theories that explain behavior and why people do what they do. It is also known as behaviorism or operant that is commonly taught in psychology today. This theory states that, “an individual’s behavior is a function of its consequences” (Allen & Sawhney, 2009). As psychology is frequently associated with human mind as well as evolution of cognitive awareness, Skinner seemed to move at a different direction. Although Skinner applied his thoughts on the adjustments of the motivations, he used various stimuli like, government, prisons, education, business and mental institutions. For one to understand why a person behaves the way he does, Skinner did not identify an area for dwelling on an individual’s purposes or goals.” According to Skinner, it was the outward behavior and how its environment mattered. The most important contribution he made to students of psychology was the reinforcement concept, which was formalized in his principles of operant conditioning (Daft, 2008). The theory focuses on observable behavior and not personal states like the needs theory does. It majors on environmental factors that contribute to the shaping of one’s behaviors. This theory has four approaches: negative and positive reinforcement, extinction and punishment reinforcement. For the positive reinforcement, it gives a person what he likes while performing the behavior of his desire, whereas the negative one provides that what an individual does not prefer in the performance of a desired behavior. They both have connotations, which are similar when it comes to punishment. There are two ways of eliminating the undesirable behavior that is positive and negative punishments. A positive punishment gives that what one thinks while thinking of a punishment in terms of what one likes in performing the undesired behavior. Contrarily, negative punishment is that which removes what a person likes while they perform the undesired behavior. On the other hand, extinction involves withholding the pleasing stimuli, which maintains unwanted behavior each time the behavior occurs (Allen & Sawhney, 2009). c) Justice Theory There are three categories of justice theory as follows; i. Mill’s Utilitarian Theory of Justice It views justice as a part of morality and does not view justice as having a higher priority than any other moral concern. This theory assumes that we ought to promote goodness, which can be in a single good, e.g., flourishing, desire satisfaction, or happiness. The theory tries to bring together morality to the law, politics and economic distribution. The theory advocates for social welfare because every one’s wellbeing is all about moral interests as well as social welfare, which tends to be a good way of making everyone flourish minimally. Additionally, the utilitarian advocate for free trade because a free trade helps to reward people for their hard work and encourage others to be productive. Second, free markets allow a great deal of freedom. Third, freedom leads to prosperity and lastly, taking away freedom cause sufferings to people (Masterson, Lewis, Goldman & Taylor, 2000). ii. Nozick’s Libertarian Theory of Justice Libertarians are people who favor negative rights, a free market as well as a small government. Libertarians’ views deny the existence of rights and are in favor of a Laissez- fare market free market despite how terrible the outcomes. Nozick tries to argue that we have “Lockean rights” by our nature before any political institution, e.g., the right to have property. These rights cannot violate any alternative action according to Nozick, but it would even directly violate more rights. He considers taxation as a form of theft because people give their property by being told to pay taxes (Allen & Sawhney, 2009). iii. Rawls’s Theory Of Justice Rawls tend to agree with Nozick that justice is a separate thing from morality and he rejects Utilitarian form of justice. He comes up with a new way of learning the principle of justice, which is the original position. It asks us to think of a group of individuals and how they will decide on the principle of justice (Allen & Sawhney, 2009). He tends to argue that in veil of ignorance, they could not have been biased regarding their profession, gender, race, or even age because they would not tell which category they are in. Looking at the self interest, Rawls says that individuals want the principle of justice, which will distribute goods fairly, which every one values called the “primary social goods.” He says that people holding the original position have to discuss the principle of justice before voting, and the best principle will be worth will reach “reflective equilibrium.” The principle will be favored and the less incompatible will definitely have to be rejected. According to Rawls, two intuitive principle of justice will reach a reflective equilibrium (Cohen, 1986). Theories of justice argue that one should be fairly remunerated according to his/her performance on his job. Remunerating individuals well will increase their morale on their job leading to increased productivity and freedom. Influence on Modern Organizations It is sensible for firms to review their spending on workers’ wages as well as benefits plus the way they spend on numerous items (Tella, Ayeni & Popoola, 2007). If firms ask their workers the manner they wish the amount to be allocated across varied as well as compare the manner the firm is spending, disparities, if they arise, between the firm’s actual spending and the worker preferences concerning the manner they prefer the amount to be allocated will offer insights on the manner the firms could optimize the pay satisfaction devoid of cost raise to the firm on employees’ pay and benefits account. It is a reason why many private segment firms have envisaged and operationalized programmes such as cafeteria type benefit for their workers, especially in executive cadres. To explain briefly, an ethali kind menu, which is fixed, implies that workers lack the decision to choose whereas some may be coerced to abscond numerous items being offered because of the inability to avail them because of their personal as well as family situations and preferences. Contrarily, cafeteria method allows workers to select items within a particular range of amount they are eligible. Implications of compensation in regard to reinforcement theory are that increased employee performance result in monetary reward and thus a likelihood of future increased performance. With the same incentive, high performance without a recompense will result in reduced performance the future. The theory emphasis is on the importance of an individual experiencing the reward (Gerhart, Minkoff & Olsen, 1995). References Cohen, R. (1986). Justice: views from the social sciences. Springer Daft, R. (2008). The leadership experience + infotrac. Cengage Learning. Gerhart, B., Minkoff, H. B. & Olsen, R. N. (1995). Employee compensation: Theory, practice, and evidence. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cahrswp/194 Luthans, F. (1998). Organisational Behaviour. 8th ed. Boston: Irwin McGraw-Hill Mayhew, R. (2013). Expectancy theory in the workplace. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/expectancy-theory-workplace-11482.html Masterson, S., Lewis, K., Goldman, M., & Taylor, M. (2000). Integrating justice and social exchange: the differing effects of fair procedures and treatment on work relationships. Academy of Management Journal, 43(4), 738-748 Tella, A., Ayeni, C.O., & Popoola, S.O. (2007). Work Motivation, Job Satisfaction, and Organisational Commitment of Library Personnel in Academic and Research Libraries in Oyo State, Nigeria. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/118 Allen, J., & Sawhney, R. (2009). Administration and management in criminal justice: a service quality approach. SAGE Publishers. Read More