Executive Compensation
This refers to the monetary and non-monetary benefits that senior employees get from organizations. This includes salaries, shares, benefits, bonuses and company stock. These rewards are called executive because they are not like the ordinary allowances that other employees get.
Employee motivation is a key factor that determines the success of a company (Pynes 2013). Managers play significant roles in ensuring the activities of their organizations are aimed at achieving their objectives.
Even though, they do not perform the actual labor intensive duties like other employees they are very important in supervising their subordinates (Martocchio 2012).
Therefore, this justifies the presence of executive compensations in their organizations. They deserve executive compensations because they combine the efforts of various departments to ensure their companies achieve their goals.
Thirdly, they are responsible for making major decisions regarding their organizations and this puts them at the center of the operations of different departments (Pynes 2013). This means that they subconsciously perform the roles of more than one department and this justifies the suitability of their huge compensations (Martocchio 2012).
On the other hand, some critics do not support executive compensations in organizations because most managers have very few duties. Secondly, this practice promotes inequality in organizations because it favors employees in executive positions.
In addition, it discourages junior employees from working hard because their efforts will be celebrated by people who never soiled their hands (Pynes 2013).
Lastly, there is no mechanism for determining the achievements of senior employees in organizations; moreover, teamwork and cohesion among employees is more important than the supervisory roles played by managers. Therefore, executive compensations are unnecessary expenses if they do not benefit all employees in an organization.
Contingent Workers and Core Employees
Contingent workers are employees that are ready to work for other companies when there is the need to recruit workers on a short term basis. They are usually supplied by staffing companies that specialize in offering outsourcing services.
Core workers are those employed by an organization through their human resource department or recruitment agents (Martocchio 2012). Companies that allow their core workers to work with contingent employees face the following problems.
First, contingent workers may not understand the policies of a company and this makes them unable to articulate their skills to help an organization to achieve its objectives. In addition, they may lack the skills required to perform some tasks and this will compromise the quality of work produced.
Moreover, staffing firms train their employees to perform general duties; therefore, they lack specialized skills that are important in an organization (Pynes 2013).
Contingent workers are usually hired when there is a seasonal shortage of employees; therefore, they may not do their best to promote the image of the company because they know they will not be there for a long time.
Moreover, these workers are likely to expose the secrets of a company to its competitors and compromise its abilities to compete properly.
Lastly, employees should work in an organization for sometime so that they can understand its traditions. This means that contingent workers do not have time to understand the operations of an organization and this limits their abilities to produce good results.
It is necessary to explain that an organization should use its staff to ensure it does not compromise its quality and secrets; therefore, it does not matter whether contingent workers and core employees perform the same job (Martocchio 2012).
Core workers interact freely with their colleagues than contingent employees and this means that there will be uneasy relations among them if they work together.
Benefits of Telecommuting
MedEx should consider telecommuting as a way of ensuring its workers are motivated to provide quality services and enjoy their work. This company employs more than 100 medical billing specialists and if they telecommute it will save a lot of money used to hire or create offices for them.
In addition, it will eliminate the challenges employees experience when traveling to work everyday (Reeves 2012). This includes long traffic that causes delays.
Moreover, the high parking costs will be eliminated because employees will not be required to travel to work. Telecommuting will help them to balance their personal responsibilities and work and this will reduce high stress levels in employees (Reeves 2012).
Challenges of Telecommuting
This practice should be adopted by organizations that have disciplined workers. Lack of close supervision makes workers lazy. In addition, workers may submit poor results because of interference at home.
Telecommuters may ignore their office work and concentrate on personal responsibilities and this means that there will be delays in delivering their results (Reeves 2012).
Lastly, employers will not be sure that their employees are the ones who perform their duties. Some workers may decide to hire others to work for them and this violates the policies of their organizations.
Recommendations
MedEx should allow some of its staff to telecommute. Those that come from distant regions and experience traffic challenges should be allowed to telecommute to ensure they do not experience challenges when traveling to work.
The human resource department should ask those interested in this program to submit their requests. However, the company should monitor the performance of telecommuters to ensure they do not compromise the quality of services offered by the company.
References
Martocchio, J. J. (2012). Strategic Compensation: A Human Resource Management Approach. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Pynes, J. E. (2013). Human Resources Management for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Strategic Approach (Essential Texts for Nonprofit and Public
Leadership and Management). New Jersey: Jossey-Bass. Reeves, A. (2012). Telecommuting – A Guide on How to Be a Successful Telecommuter. Washington D.C.: Anthony Reeves.