Compensation practices & organizations Essay

Through the use of compensation practices, organizations effort to both reward and motivate diverse types of behavior. Compensation practices comprise pay and benefits, and contemporary total compensation approaches expand the definition of compensation to comprise a variety of favorable outcomes experienced by the employee (Milkovich & Newman, 2002). As of the importance of pay to employees, compensation and benefit programs can provide as a major indicator of possible discrimination in the organization. However, pay policies can also be used to lessen discriminatory behavior and encourage diversity. Though potential race and age discrimination in compensation is a significant concern, most of the applied and research attention has been aimed at sex related issues, particularly comparable worth and pay equity (Treiman & Hartman, 1981). Organizations can lessen the negative effects of their compensation practices by auditing their policies and then, based on the results of the audits, distill their procedures to eliminate bias, and where necessary, regulate the pay of minority group members. The type of audits that organizations can engage in will correspond to the three major theories, approaches, or techniques used in significant pay discrimination. The three major approaches or types of audit are (a) an equal pay audit, (b) a pay equity audit, and (c) an analysis of across-the-board problems. Employee and Labor Relations The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 ( NLRA) specifically stated that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was empowered to remedy unfair labor practices by the issuance of cease and desist, and reinstatement and back pay orders, and by ordering affirmative action in effectuating the policies of the NLRA. Though the NLRB’s authority is limited by the statutory requisite that its orders should effectuate the policies of the NLRA and should be remedial, not punitive, the principle is one of governmental flexibility and authority to need affirmative acts by a party who has violated the law, so that an unlawful act is efficiently remedied. Such affirmative acts include, inter alia, the employment of individuals who were not hired or were fulfilled for discriminatory reasons, and, in cases linking unfair labor practice strikes, the reinstatement of striking employees yet where the discharge of striker replacements would be necessary. Interestingly, there is little or no evidence that the use and principle of affirmative action in the NLRA framework had any bearing on or resemblance to the use of those words in the context of favored treatment of minorities and women. For employee, performance appraisal can be conceptualized as an organized description of an individual’s job-relevant strengths and weaknesses that is their job performance. Though job performance data can be obtained either objectively (hard criteria) or judgmentally (soft criteria), the term â€Å"performance appraisal† is characteristically used in the context of, albeit not limited to, the latter. Performance evaluations can result in discriminatory outcomes via two mechanisms, (a) poor or ineffective appraisal or rating practices and (b) intentional distortion resulting from motivational and political factors. Concerning the former, two strategies have traditionally been advocated to address the problems with judgmentally based performance data: rating scale development and rater training. The results of rating scale comparisons indicate that format modification alone does not result in much improvement in performance evaluations (Woehr & Miller, 1997). Though, frame-of reference training, which emerged from the social cognitive approach to performance appraisal, appears to be quite effectual as a rater training approach to increasing the accuracy of ratings (Woehr & Huffcutt, 1994). In addition to rater training, job analysis must serve as the basis for constructing the appraisal instrument and the appraisal process so that employees are appraised only on job-related factors. Conclusion EEO and affirmative action in its classic form is mandated for companies entering into agreement with the federal agencies by executive orders 11246 and 11375. Yet the term has come to signify a much broader range of policies. Affirmative action has become a blanket term that refers to any number of active policies approved by organizations to remedy the effects of discrimination. In spite of of the multiplicity of affirmative action program types, however, the perception of affirmative action remains comparatively undifferentiated. In particular, many continue to associate affirmative action with quotas. There seems to be a widespread assumption that affirmative action is little more than favored selection based solely on demographic group membership. The objective of this paper has been to review and confer HR practices that can be used to achieve diversity in organizations. Practices pertaining to staffing and human resource development discussed in terms of reducing negative effects resultant from these practices and altering the behaviors of organizational members by these practices to lessen discrimination and increase diversity. References †¢ AARP (1993). How to recruit older workers. Washington, DC: Author. †¢ Arvey, R. D. , Gordon, M. E. , Massengill, D. P. , & Mussio, S. J. (1975).Differential dropout rates of minority job candidates due to â€Å"time lags† between selection procedures. Personnel Psychology, 28, 175-180. †¢ Avery, D. R. (2003). Reactions to diversity in recruiting advertising—Are differences Black and White? Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 672-679. †¢ Delahoussaye, M. (2001). Leadership in the 21st century. Training, 38, 50-59. †¢ Doverspike, D. , & Arthur, W. Jr. (1995). Race and sex differences in the reactions to simulated selection decisions based on affirmative action. Journal of Black Psychology, 21, 181-200.