Sarge Industries currently uses a compensation system that uses job grades and steps. The union contract is negotiated every 3 years and includes approved grades and steps used to compensate bargaining unit members. Non-union members also use a similar plan and several managers have complained there is not enough flexibility in compensation to pay the market rates for technology based positions. The current system is up to $20 an hour below current rates for some of the highly specialized positions the company needs. Job descriptions were updated about 15 years ago and are still in use and they do not reflect the current distribution of the duties and managers rely on the "other duties as assigned" part to justify the job requirements when employees inquire.

Raises for the bargaining unit members are strictly based on seniority and non-union employees earn merit pay based on job performance throughout the year. All employees have the opportunity to purchase employer-sponsored benefit plans. The plan includes expensive PPO medical and dental plans and the opportunity to purchase additional life insurance above the full-paid $10k benefit each employee receives. Employees have to wait 90 days before being eligible for medical/dental. Employees have expressed frustration at only having an employee-only and family option for benefits as there are many single parents with one child and the family plan isunaffordable. There is a 401k plan without an employer match.

Each year open enrollment is processed using paper packets for each employee that then must be converted into a spreadsheet to be sent to the benefits broker.

Explain the service provided by the HR component to the employer.

Define the strategic advantage the HR component provides to an employer in the hiring and retaining of qualified employees.

Internal Audit: Using the scenario, describe 3 current practices used by the employer that can be improved.

External Audit: Using your textbook and outside research, describe two best practices for ONE of the 3 issues you identified in the above prompt.

Using the results of your external audit above, make a recommendation on how to improve the selected issue

Explain the expected results and how they will be measured.

Discuss the possible challenges and how you will overcome them.