1. You are the compensation director for the New York Fruit Pies Company, which has 100 employees and is located in a small city of 50,000 in a rural agricultural part of New York State. You have just joined the company and have identified the need to create a revised compensation system.

You are familiar with the four strategic pay policies that are typically found in pay models. Discuss each of the strategic policies as they would apply to your company. Are there any goals that your compensation system should incorporate?

2. As the new lead for the compensation services team, you have been given the responsibility for developing a job-based point evaluation plan for the Satellite-to-Home video company. The bulk of the employees are in-home service technicians with technical skills and customer-service expertise. You meet with the compensation services team to discuss the assignment. What are the four compensable factors that you want to include in the plan? What are weights that you would assign to each factor? What is the definition for each of the factors? What is your justification of why you have selected each factor? Explain why you weighted it the way that you did.

Briefly describe a job-based point evaluation plan. Discuss four compensable factors you would include in the job-based point evaluation plan. Be sure to define each factor, justify why you selected it, and provide the weights or scales that you would assign to it.

3. You are the compensation director for Forever-Green Plywood, Inc. The company buys timber, manufactures plywood sheets, and sells on the international market. The organization's three major units are timber purchasing (with five employees), manufacturing plant (with 120 employees), and sales and management (with 12 employees).

You need to develop a job evaluation plan for the organization. Describe the difference between person-based plans and job-based plans. Explain which one you would use. What factors would you consider? What is one advantage and disadvantage of each?

4. The new HR VP is concerned about the performance appraisal process in the hand-held video game company where you are the compensation manager. You then review the results of the last performance appraisal cycle. It appears that supervisors and managers may be having difficulty in doing the appraisals. You are concerned about validity and reliability of the process.

In preparation for a training program for supervisors and managers, identify at least three common errors in the performance appraisal process and describe them. In addition, describe steps to minimize these errors.

5. You are the HR VP for the Carringten Auto Brake Lining Company. A recent economic downturn has seriously affected the auto industry and your company, as well. Your company has merged with two other brake component companies in an effort to gain production efficiencies and lower unit costs. You are the lead HR person for the new entity. Based on your analysis of the three previous executive compensation approaches, you have decided with board approval to redesign the executive compensation for the new combined organization.

Describe the components of an executive compensation plan. Explain how these components can help support organizational strategies, attract candidates to the executive team vacancies, and retain the other current executives. (Points : 30)

6. As HR Director, you have arranged a management training program for managers and executives on the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) because it is probably the most comprehensive and far-reaching legislation that affects compensation decisions in the organization.

Describe the four key requirements and why they are important in compensation.

7. As a compensation consultant, your newest client is a Southwest steel fabrication shop that specializes in producing supermarket shopping carts. The company has one production facility that employs 130 people. You learn that 90 of the jobs are for machine operators. The machine operators bend and weld steel rods and wire. The production lines are well established and product lines have a great deal of consistency. The job appears to you to be a low-level one with prescribed tasks and routines.

Should you recommend a straight ranking approach, a rating system such as a behavioral anchored rating scale (BARS), a management by objectives (MBO) format, or a 360-degree multirater approach? Describe the four types of performance assessment approaches. Recommend one and justify why you have chosen it.

8. The CEO of your company has just had lunch with several CEOs at an industry leadership group. He meets with you and explains what he heard about incentive plans such as gain-sharing and profit-sharing plans. He thinks you should research them and get back to him with a recommendation.

Briefly describe what gain-sharing and profit-sharing plans involve. What conditions should exist prior to implementation to make it easier to implement? What are the advantages and disadvantages of group incentives such as gain-sharing and profit-sharing plans?

9. You are the compensation manager in an established video game company that is having difficulty in hiring staff members in the game development division. Until recently, this division has been able to attract some of the best new graduates of computer science colleges but has seen candidates accept positions with other companies.

What competitive market pay policy would you recommend for the company to use? In order to make your recommendation, what additional information would you need about the company? Describe four competitive market pay policies, and give an example of when an organization might want to use each policy.