The book being used is here - Gomez-Mejia, L. R., Balkin, D. B., & Cardy, R. L. (2010). Managing human resources (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

• The United States mandates only four benefits, yet U.S. employers provide many other benefits - such as health insurance, retirement benefits, and paid vacations - voluntarily. Why do so many employers provide these benefits even though they are not legally required to do so?

• Do you think a company should keep pay secret and request that all employees not disclose their pay to coworkers? Why, or why not?

• Pay-for-performance plans are based on the following assumptions below. . Do you believe these assumptions are valid? Why or Why not

1. Individual employees and work teams differ in how much they contribute to the firm- not only in what they do, but also in how well they do it.

2. The firm's overall performance depends to a large degree on the performance of individuals and groups within the firm.

3. To attract, retain, and motivate high performers and to be fair to all employees, a company needs to reward employees on the basis of their relative performance.

• How might the increasing diversity of the workforce affect the design of employee benefits packages in large companies?

• One observer argues that external equity should always be the primary concern in compensation, noting that it attracts the best employees and prevents the top performers from leaving. Do you agree?

• A customer survey for Landmark Company reports that people do not trust what sales representatives say about their firm's products. How might you use the compensation system to help change this negative image?

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of letting the team administer discipline to a team member?

• A minority of employees are actually demotivated by being given public recognition in front of their co-workers. What might be a reason why some employees feel uncomfortable being recognized in a public ceremony? Do you think that this could be an issue related to diversity in the workplace? Assuming that you are a manager and you are aware that one of your employees does not respond well to public recognition, what can you do to recognize this employee's good performance as an individual or part of a team?

• Lou Gerstner, IBM's retired CEO, founded the Teaching Commission in 2005 to improve teacher quality. Gerstner is using his corporate reputation as a charismatic CEO to help link teachers' salaries to performance. To do so, he plans to tie teachers' pay to test scores. Do you think Gerstner's proposal is a good idea?