Job Analysis vs. Job Evaluation Essay

Describe the differences between job analysis and job evaluation and how these practices help establish internally consistent job structures. Job analysis is the organized gathering, documenting, and analyzing information to describe a job. A job analyses describes the job duties, worker requirements, working conditions, etc. Job evaluation is the recognition of differences within a set of jobs and establishes pay rates according to the job. A job analysis provides information about what duties the job consists of and what is required to perform the job which in turn allows the manager to know what types of people to hire for the positions. The job analysis results aid in establishing compensation for the various positions by the differences between job content and work requirements. Job content refers to actual job duties as well as the tasks that employees must perform on the job. Worker requirements are the minimum qualifications and skills that people must have in order to perform the job in question. Companies use this to develop pay grades and salary ranges to determine how much pay each position is worth. Describe the challenges in developing compensations that are both internally consistent and market competitive. Internally consistent compensation systems help allows companies to develop relative pay scales. Relative pay scale means that jobs within the company pay different rates in comparison to other jobs within the same company. The means that these internally consistent compensation systems are developed are based on simple principles and fundamentals. Jobs that require a person to have a higher level of education, experience, or a specific skill will be assigned a higher pay than a job requiring less. Another factor that affects the relative pay of a job within the company includes the complexity of the job as well as the level of responsibility that comes with it. This is very useful for a company but it will become necessary for employees to take on the duties of  other positions or even duties of newly created position in order for the company to remain competitive within the market. This could be caused my several different things. The company may downsize in the future, making employees take on more tasks. Or responsibilities can be added prior to the company becoming fully staffed or adding staff. This would increase the employee’s responsibilities or skills without increasing pay. One way to plan for this would be for the company to have the ability to give additional pay for additional responsibilities as defined by a defined policy allowing the company to grow based on market changes while still being able to fairly pay the employees for the work they do. This would make the company have a market competitive compensation policy which mean that the pay scale for jobs will attract and retain the most skilled and knowledgeable workers. A draw back to a market competitive compensation policy would be that it would not help keep costs low. An example would be the company paying too much for a specific job based on what the company can afford to pay, which can limit the company from doing other important things like training and development. Discuss whether it is fair to give one employee a smaller percentage merit increase because his pay falls within the 3rd quartile but give a larger percentage merit increase to the other because his pay falls within the 1st quartile and explain why. I do not believe it is fair to give one employee a smaller percentage merit increase because their pay falls within the 3rd quartile but give a larger percentage merit increase to the other because his pay falls within the 1st quartile. I think both should be evaluated on the work they are doing and their contributions to their team no matter what quartile they are in. Employees are rated by their management on job specific objectives as well as performance ratings over a course of time in order to determine whether an employee is due to receive a merit increase and the amount of increase. This typically happens after management does a performance appraisal of their employees work. If it is found that both employees do the exact same work, and they both have the same skill sets, and the same statistics on job performance then both should be given the same percentage merit increase. Discuss the basic concept of insurance and how this concept applies to health care. The basic concept of insurance is that it covers the costs of a group of services that provide employees with coverage for services. This is to provide the employees with the ability to take care of their physical and mental health. This includes and is not limited to covering physical examinations, diagnostic testing, surgery, hospitalization, dental care, vision coverage, as well as prescription drug coverage. Health insurance can be purchased by an individual directly through an insurance carrier, or it can be purchased through payroll deduction with their employer. The costs can be a lot more expensive if purchased directly from the carrier, deductibles may be higher, and the benefits may not coverage as much as group health coverage through an employer. Group health coverage through the employer is for a larger group of people and coverage negotiated. The company pays a portion of the benefits, allowing their employees to pay a lesser cost. In a fee for service plan there are deductibles, and this means that over a period of time an employee will have to pay for services needed before insurance benefits start to pay for services received. Describe the changes in the business environment and society that might affect the relevance or perhaps the viability of any of these benefits. Companies faced with rising cost of benefits and health care may cut employment in order to reduce benefits costs. This will make unemployment rise. Unemployment insurance payments for are there to provide temporary financial assistance to unemployed workers who meet their specific state requirements. Eligibility for unemployment insurance, benefit amounts, and length of time benefits are determined by the state law under which employment insurance claims are awarded. The problem with unemployment benefits is that due to a decline in revenue there are budget deficits. Other factors affecting the business and/or society that might affect the relevance or viability of benefits are things like companies closing, off shoring work, as well as layoffs. Anything that’s causes people to lose their jobs to pay for coverage’s and out of pocket expense or just loosing the coverage itself affect this. Without employer group coverage’s for health insurance, employees may not be able to afford to pay for medical services. References Dessler, G. (2011). Human Resource Management: 2010 custom edition (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.Martocchio, J. J. (2011). Strategic compensation: A human resource management approach: 2011 custom edition (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. What is health insurance? Retrieved May 22, 2012, from http://www.investorwords.com/2289/health_insurance.html