Ensuring the Success of Companies - Essay Example

?The success of companies in the 21st century is highly dependent on the ability of the firm to develop and manage its human resources. The most valuable asset of a company is its human capital. Human capital can be defined as recognition that people and businesses are an important and essential asset that contributes to development and growth of a company (Brocaglia). Companies such as Microsoft, McDonald’s, and Wal-Mart have stayed at the top of their respective industries due to the quality of its human resources. It is important to adequately train your employees. Due to the importance of the management of human resources I am in the process of assessing the operations of my father’s business in order to improve the operation. The three human resource topics that will be emphasize in this analysis are managing sex and gender issues, employee benefits and compensation, and equal employment opportunities. My father’s company currently has only two employees. I envision tremendous growth for this company and within five years it is highly likely the firm could approach a payroll of over 100 employees. One of the topics that must be emphasized by the managers and the human resource department of the company are sex and gender issues. The civil rights and feminism movements of the 1960’s helped women reached equality in the United States. In the past women served the role of housewives. Today there are as many women in the workforce as men. In the 1900 only 19% of women worked, but by 2007 women composed 46% of the labor force (Lee & Mather, 2008). Due to the importance of women in the workplace the company must protect the rights of its workers and provide equal opportunities for employees of both sexes. My father’s business will become a place where people feel secured and happy to work there. The best way to achieve that goal is by complying with labor laws to ensure the employees are provided with a safe working environment. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Right Act prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace. “Title VII applies to private employers, state and local government employers, labor organizations, employment agencies, and joint employer-union apprenticeship programs with 15 or more employees” (Equalrights, 2011). The company will utilize an ethical framework to ensure all employees are respected. Another problem related with gender is a concept known as glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is an invisible barrier that affects the chances of women and minorities to reach the managerial level in an organization due to prejudice (Businessdictionary, 2011). To prevent the glass ceiling from occurring at the organization the firm must hire women and minorities to become a part of the managerial team as the firm begins to grow. The company must audit its human resource composition every three months. The manager will compare the ethnic and gender composition to determine if the firm’s human resources have a similar composition as the population of the United States. The second human resource issue that the company must manage well is its employee salary and benefit packages. Employees participating in the U.S. labor force expect to get compensated well. In the United States the average salary is $41,673 (Ssa, 2011). The company must perform adequate research on how much each profession is paying in the United States. The salary the company will pay its employees will be equal or higher than the average salary for the profession based on experience. A website that provides excellent information regarding the salaries of different professions based on work experience is Salary.com (Salary, 2011). The company will be able to maintain a higher employee retention rate if the firm pays competitive salaries. A second component of a total compensation package is the benefits. In today’s economy sometimes employees value benefit as much if not more than salary. The employees knows that a salary can be replaced by getting a different job, but a job that offers tremendous benefits are hard to come by. I will recommend to my father a package of benefits to offer its employees that will ensure the employees are happy and satisfied with their total compensation package. The company will offer extended vacation and sick days. The firm will offer 15 vacation days and 15 sick days per year. The benefit will be cumulative and the employees will qualify to cash out accumulated benefits once every three years. The second and third benefits are medical and dental plan. The organization will pay 60% of the plans monthly expenses, thus the employee will be responsible for a payment of 40% of the plan. The benefit offered by the company is better than the industry standard of paying for half the medical plan. The company will offer child day care. This benefit will help single parents out a lot. The firm will build a child day care center within its facilities within three years. Prior to the implementation of the day care center parents with young kids will be eligible for a child day care allowance of $400 a month. Another benefit the organization will offer is maternity and paternity leave. Women are eligible for one month off prior to the pregnancy and three months off with pay after the pregnancy. The paternity leave benefits will be two week off with pay after the birth of the child. An additional benefit the employees of the company will be eligible to is income participation. The company will create a pool of 5% of the net income to be distributed by the firm equally among all employees at the end of the fiscal year. Another important benefit the organization will offer its employee is a wellness plan. The wellness will include a monthly allowance to pay for gymnasium for each employee as well as food vouchers to purchase fruits. Once the child day care is built the company will invest in building its own gymnasium for its employees. An indirect benefit the firm will offer its employees is flexible time. Flexible time allows the employees to select the hours they will work during the day (McKay, 2011). The third human resource topic that my father’s business must focus on is equal employment opportunities. As stated earlier the company will not allow the glass ceiling to occur at the firm. The business will utilize a proactive strategy to hire minorities and women. The firm will hire both women and minorities to become a part of the executive management team. The firm will have a cero tolerance towards discrimination policies. Any employee that violate the discrimination polices can be fired. To ensure that the company complies with equality in the workplace the firm will utilize a quota system to fill vacancies based on the need to have a balance workforce. For instance if the firm has 100 employees and only five are Hispanics the firm will impose a hiring system to fill up new job position targeting the recruitment of Hispanic. In the United States Hispanics represent the largest population of minorities at 16.3 % of the population (Census, 2011) Based on the above hypothetical scenario the company would have to hire 11 new Hispanic employees. As the company grows it will pay close attention to the ethnic composition of its employees. Due to the fact that sometimes people are afraid to step forward and tell on another employee the firm will institute an anonymous complaint box. The box will give the employees the opportunity to express their concerns regarding any work related issue including any discrimination occurrences. One of the best ways to raise awareness about discrimination in the workplace is though education. The employees of the firm will receive several seminars on the discrimination subject in order to educate them about what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in the workplace. Employees that are knowledge about the subject will adapt their behavior and will realize the importance of having a work environment with strong values. Another way the company can eliminate discriminatory behavior is by having a strong corporate culture. Human resources are an important function that must be monitored closely by businesses. My father has a business with a lot of potential that is bound to grow in the near future. As the company grows it must pay attention to its human resource practices. The workforce in the United States is changing as more women and minorities are part of the domestic workforce than ever before. Gender issues are extremely important. The firm must hire as many women as men in order to avoid discriminatory practices. The organization must foster a working environment of equal opportunity. By complying with the Civil Rights of 1964 the company can ensure compliance with anti-discriminatory practices. The compensation package the firm offers its employees must be competitive both in terms of salary and benefits. Some of the benefits that my father’s company will offer include income sharing, dental plan, medical plan, extended vacation and sick days with cumulative benefits, child day care, wellness program, flexible time, maternity leave, and paternity leave. References Brocaglia, J. The Importance of Human Capital. Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://www.altaassociates.com/pdf/06-AUG-CC.pdf Businessdictionary.com (2011). Glass Ceiling. Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/glass-ceiling.html Census.gov (2011). State & County QuickFacts. Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html Equalrights.org (2011). Know Your Rights: Sex Discrimination. Retrieved November 23, 2011 fromhttp://www.equalrights.org/publications/kyr/sexdiscrim.asp Lee, M., Mather, M. (2008). U.S. Labor Force Trends. Population Bulletin, 63(2). Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://www.prb.org/pdf08/63.2uslabor.pdf McKay, D.R. (2011). Flextime. Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://careerplanning.about.com/cs/flextime/a/flextime.htm Salary.com (2011). Salary. Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://www.salary.com/salary/index.asp Ssa.gov (2011). National Average Wage Index. Retrieved November 23, 2011 from http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html Read More