Furniture Company: Employee Management and Working Environment

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Wages
Overview of key events
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Employee relations imply the general behavior and interaction of workers within the workplace. The employer is often endowed with the responsibility of managing employee relations within workplace and ensuring that harmony prevails. The management should always be approachable to employees.

Good employee relations help in the improvement of communication between employees which at times results into higher levels of productivity. Usually, training and development presents avenues of preventing future disputes.

All employees are expected to offer responsible services in different sectors within the organization; such services ultimately are rewarded through salary or wage payment (Marchinton and Wilkinson, 2005).

Wages

Employees from furniture Company are demanding a 20% increase on their wages every single year they work for the company. Linking of pay to performance based on the percentage of pay should be considered for the employees.

The factory should introduce the concept of variable pay which links the pay to performance and where overall pay structure is broken down into appropriate components. The employees within the factory should be paid subject to the nature of their performance.

The variable pay would act as a good incentive for motivating employees since they would take ownership and feel responsible for their work. Wages should be paid based on whether the employee works full-time or part-time. The rules safeguarding payment of over-time wages should be adhered to for the purposes of avoiding delays.

Overview of key events

The overall evaluation represents satisfaction levels on the model of working conditions. The data used from the factory was obtained from forty five employees and management team. There was a discussion concerning human resource management tactics with most of the analysis based on the existing policies within the Union of Australian Factory and Retail Workers Agreement Act.

From the analysis carried out, several findings came up including the role of strong communication in implementation of workable policies concerning working hours, salaries and meal allowances.

Retention of employees within the factory largely depends on the nature of opportunities offered to employees. The major discovery was that the level of employee satisfaction determines the management prowess of human resource department.

Strategic location of any business plays a vital role in influencing its success. Employees normally have the tendency of linking the kind of satisfaction they gain out of their work to the location and environment. Such factors determines to a large extent the duration one stays within a working environment.

An assured progress and profitability of the factory acts as source of motivation to employees. The contrary is true, whereby inappropriate location would result into less attraction hence low customer turnout. Maintenance of employees within workplace usually results into creation of some form of interconnectivity in the marketplace.

However, employee satisfaction comprises of general attitude and acceptance of the available working conditions (Khan, 2005).The nature of services offered by employers under competitive environments determines the level of satisfaction hence providing the necessary motivation to employees.

This determines the willingness and rate of accomplishment on given duties within the factory’s environment (Khan, 2005).

Several welfare benefits are usually provided by employers, such as health benefits. The various welfare benefits availed to employees should be insured and included as compensation in the employee’s ultimate income. Employees can either be subjected to group or individual life insurance where family members are all included.

Other welfare benefits associated with employees can as well be provided as fringe benefits based on given terms and conditions. The benefits should be non-discriminative and granted under employer’s health insurance plan.

Other benefits considered under fringe benefits include; scholarship and tuition reductions, qualified group legal service plans, transportation and assistance programs on education. Valuation on meals provided to the employee by the employer should be included in the employee’s income unless specified otherwise.

However, some benefits under this might be excluded and these comprises; meals and lodging provided based on employer’s conveniences, parsonage allowance and eating facilities operated by employers.

All forms of compensation should be subject to tax in accordance with agreement between the union and the company as provided by the code. The code is derived from IRC 61(a) (1) which provides for income from derived sources from the work place.

The factory should understand that all payments made as compensation services should be subject to tax unless mentioned otherwise by the government payment policies. Any form of payment made by the factory to retailers or other workers within the workplace to some extent is not considered to be form of compensation for services rendered.

Such payment is always considered as a gift, while other benefits received from employers are considered compensatory. The principle of Receipt should utilize the use of cash receipts and accounting disbursement methods. In such a case all provisions included in the employees’ gross income are governed by IRC 451 and underlying regulations.

The principle of Economic benefit doctrine basically provides for taxation on cash compensation and fringe benefits. However, the nature of demand presented by the employees could lead to negative responses detrimental to the factory’s progress(Meyer and Allen, 1997).

The factory should provide for changes to enhance employee’s personal identity based on the working hours and wages. These could be enhanced by providing for effective communication channels within the workplace. The act of removing communication barriers enhances behavioural component such that views of all employees are articulated with respect to the work done.

Establishment of regular meetings with the management provides excellent opportunities for discussion on work-related issues. There is need for reviewing extrinsic rewards including payment rewards and at the same time check for available opportunities meant for advancing employee skills as per job descriptions.

Payment of wages based on performance provides good base for hardworking culture within the factory (Meyer and Allen, 1997). The retailers should work during weekdays from 8a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays they should work half-day up to 1 p.m. promotions should be provided within the various line of duty. This acts as an incentive for enhancing self-sufficiency and sense of appreciation within the factory.

Within the weekdays workers should be granted double time within the first two hours of the day and thereafter granted double time and a half. During weekends the first two hours should be granted double time and a half and the rest of the hours also the same rate.

Public holidays are resting days for all workers, hence in case they are placed to work then they should be given triple time from the first two hours of the day and the rest of the hours worked. However, weekend public holidays should be rated at quadruple time and a half for both (Mason, 2001).

For assurance of best management results, hybridized kind of leadership should be adopted.The expression and concern given to employee views give the implication that the organization values everybody for their contribution and hence cultivating sense of belonging to the organization.

Both retailers and those working at the factory should be assured of their right to access companies incentives towards sensitive needs (Hollander, 1986). Management leadership should have the necessary machines capable of motivating and uniting employees working within all sections of the factory and retail outlets.

It is the responsibility of the management to control and cope with major changes and challenges within the workplace. There is need for the employees to embrace the various espoused values in line with valuable information on the current trends, hence avoid overlooking past performances (Charness and Rabin, 2002).

At the same time any additional work done by Furniture Company staff should be compensated. The extended trading within the retail outlets should be provided for within the agreement. At the same time it is important for the company to implement modern reward system which include; deferred compensation, welfare benefits, fringe benefits, Traditional Individual Retirement Account (IRA).

Deferred compensation usually follows the kind of program in operation within the company. However, deferral is safeguarded under strict rules such that all deferral should originate from qualified plans. Employee beneficiaries qualified for deferred income are usually not subjected to tax on the basis of existing trust (Charness and Rabin, 2002).

Extrinsically motivated behaviours are essential and instrumental in progressive development of a company. Within the scenario of Furniture Company, it can be noted that one extrinsic motivational factor lackingis attractive wages.The employees including retailers require appreciation for their hard work in terms of monetary compensation.

When the focus is factored the employees have the tendency of shifting their goals in offering excellent services to the company since they will be subjected to perform excellent duties with relation to their financial rewards. This helps in internalizing their various roles in performing tasks (Lahlry, 1991).

In the process of retaining employees and reducing turn over several factors are considered of major concern to the management. Employees are grouped based on individual background, educational experiences and at the same time different social classes. The factory should be capable of focusing on primary interest of employees based on satisfaction of their personal needs, ambitions, desires and goals.

Provision of meal allowances should be provided to any employee working more than five hours with fifteen minutes break. Those working for more than ten hours should be entitled to thirty minutes break with two meals intervals per day. The employees should be entitled to meal allowance of at least $ 25.00. Such compensation is meant to cater for their various basic and security needs (Marchinton and Wilkinson, 2005).

Conclusion

Furniture Company should be vigilant in matters that directly affect the employees. Trust and mutual respect is vital for reinforcing working relationships between workers and employees.Reasonable salaries, meal allowances and good working environment are some of the necessities on the side of employees.

The nature of employee-customer satisfaction determines the status of businesses within the market place. There is need for the factory to make employees feel part of the company’s success by recognizing their individual contributions.

References

Charness, G. & Rabin, M. 2002, ‘Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 3, no.117, pp 817-869.

Khan. A. 2005, ‘Matching people with organizational culture, Khan organizational Culture’, Newport Beach, New York.

Lahlry, S. 1991,‘A blueprint for perception training’,Journal of Training and Development, Vol. 8, No. 45, pp 21-25.

Marchinton, M. & Wilkinson, A. 2005, Direct Participation and Involvement in Managing Human Resources: Personnel Management in Transition, (ed. S. Bach), Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford.

Mason, L. J. 2001, ‘Retaining Key Personnel. Plus: Top 10 Retention Tips, Stress Education Center’. Web.

Meyer, J. P. & Allen, N. J 1997, Commitment in the workplace: Theory, research and Application, Sage Publications, New York.

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