Transcript Page 1 of 8 P r int HRM 5055 : CapraTek™ Activity Key Issues and Initial Analysis • • • • • • • • • • Introduction Email from Evelyn Intranet Documents Interviews Email from Evelyn Email Response Email from Evelyn Conclusion Credits Introduction Progress on the new manufacturing facility in Mahomet, Illinois is moving briskly and the role of human resources is significant. The executive leadership team is aware that decisions made about staffing and compensation at the front end have the opportunity to be more strategic than reactionary. Your overall responsibility is to create a comprehensive compensation and reward plan for one of the job families found at the Mahomet plant. In this activity, you will gather information about the key tactical and strategic issues that should inform a well-designed total compensation plan. After completing the activity, you should: • Be able to identify key issues that will affect a strategic compensation plan. • Gather and analyze the basic organizational information necessary to make decisions and recommendations about a strategic compensation plan. ↑ Back to top https://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/HRM5055/KeyIssues/transcript.asp 1/23/2018 Transcript Page 2 of 8 Email from Evelyn Key Issues and Initial Analysis From: Evelyn Unger, Senior HR Generalist To: Lindsey Lafond Thanks again for volunteering to be part of this project – things are moving fast and there is a fair bit of information gathering to be done before we can even start talking about what kind of a compensation approach to recommend. I'd like you talk to some of our internal stakeholders to get a sense of the key issues we need be aware of. I'll see who is available to talk with you this week, but in the meantime, I can put some information on your network folder so you can get up to speed on the project. You need to understand the key strategic and tactical issues and how they might differ from previous staffing decisions we've made here at CapraTek. Thanks again for being part of the team. I'm looking forward to hearing your ideas. Evelyn ↑ Back to top Intranet This activity does not have required Intranet content. View additional Capratek Intranet Content » ↑ Back to top Support Documents MAHOMET, ILLINOIS FACT SHEET Timezone: Central Standard Time Postal Code: 61853 Area Code: 217 Mahomet Median Age: 36.3 years Illinois Median Age: 42.2 years US Median Age: 37.6 years Mahomet Median Household Income: $74,429 https://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/HRM5055/KeyIssues/transcript.asp 1/23/2018 Transcript Page 3 of 8 Illinois Median Household Income: $53,234 Estimated per Capita Income: $47,487 Median Earnings-Production Occupations: $44,550 Spartanburg Median Earnings-Production Occupations: $31,552 Mahomet Illinois Population in 2012: 7,513 12,861,970 Population in 2011: 7,282 12,859,752 Population in 2010: 7,259 12,830,632 High School Graduate or Higher (age 25+): 98.5% 86.6% Bachelor's Degree or Higher (age 25+): 45.5% 30.7% Veterans: 635 Mean Travel Time to Work (minutes): 21.7 Median Value of Owner-Occupied Homes: $180,900 Households: 2,638 Median Household Income: $83,586 Persons Below Poverty Level: 3.3% 770,388 28.1 $198,500 4,773,002 $56,576 13.1% ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON SMART HOME TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH Sang, H. P., So, H. W., Jong, B. L., & Sung, W. K. (2003). Smart home - digitally engineered domestic life. Personal & Ubiquitous Computing, 7(3), 189-196. doi:10.1007/s00779-003-0228-9 This article provides descriptions of a number of potential "smart" home elements. The focus of the article is on brainstorming and exploring novel applications for smart home technology. It would be a useful springboard to those teams working on expanding Alfred! capabilities. Balta-Ozkan, N., Davidson, R., Bicket, M., & Whitmarsh, L. (2013). Social barriers to the adoption of smart homes. Energy Policy, 63, 363-374. The authors of this paper examine the social barriers consumer adoption of smart home technology. Their research identifies control, security, and cost, as key areas that the industry should consider. They also offer specific challenges that manufacturers and developers in home automation should be aware of: the desire of consumers to reduce energy consumption, the need to demonstrate and clearly identify benefits devices and technology are claiming to deliver, the need to create devices and technology that improve consumers' ability to control their environment, and the need to https://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/HRM5055/KeyIssues/transcript.asp 1/23/2018 Transcript Page 4 of 8 address privacy concerns. The potential for this technology to provide societal benefits is also addressed. Viani, F., Robol, F., Polo, A., Rocca, P., Oliveri, G., & Massa, A. (2013). Wireless Architectures for Heterogeneous Sensing in Smart Home Applications: Concepts and Real Implementation. The authors look at two specific wireless strategies in order to determine real world functionality and limitations in using wireless as a platform for smart home technology. Focusing on energy use and assistive services for the elderly, the authors review the literature, examine existing devices and technologies, and describe the model for their research. While the findings are somewhat limited and specific to the construct of their research design, the lessons learned could be useful in our own exploration of options and issues. Baraka, K., Ghobril, M., Malek, S., Kanj, R., & Kayssi, A. (2013, June). Low cost Arduino/Android-based Energy-Efficient Home Automation System with Smart Task Scheduling. In Computational Intelligence, Communication Systems and Networks (CICSyN), 2013 Fifth International Conference on (pp. 296-301). IEEE. The authors present their successes and observations in designing and implementing a smart home model using Arduino and Android technologies to interface with wireless (Zigbee) and hard wired (X10) platforms. The result, according to the authors, is an affordable system that merges the benefits of wireless and wired technologies. Also of interest is their discussion of the algorithm they used for scheduling events. ↑ Back to top Interviews Review the interviews below. Session 1 Mark Cranston, Plant Manager Tell me some of the concerns you have regarding staffing the new facility in Mahomet. Well, there are two things. One is attracting the best people right from the start. The prototype has been produced on a small scale by a contract manufacturing facility, but one of the top priorities for the Mahomet plant is the need to get full production up as efficiently as possible. I don't want a lot of churn or turnover when it comes to getting people in place, trained, and ready to work. https://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/HRM5055/KeyIssues/transcript.asp 1/23/2018 Transcript Page 5 of 8 The second, though, is finding ways to implement some best practices at the beginning. We all know that there are not enough skilled workers in manufacturing and I am sick of watching the people we train get picked up by other companies. We need to figure out what will make the production teams engaged and happy ... and less likely to jump ship. How will staffing at the new plant be different from staffing at Spartanburg? The biggest difference is that I expect a much younger workforce overall. At the Spartanburg plant, we have a broad mix of ages, but it's pretty much a bell curve, with most people - line workers, supervisors, and managers coming young Boomers or old Gen X ers. Based on what I've seen so far, I expect that at Mahomet we'll see a mix of Millenials and gen X and very few boomers. I want to make sure we know what these employees are looking for in a work environment. In an ideal world, how would people be rewarded? Some kind of a pay-for-performance model, but that's not really my bailiwick. I'm assuming that whatever HR recommends will have been well thought out. One thing, not necessarily a compensation issue, is that I want us to offer employees the opportunity to make their jobs better by giving them an opportunity to participate in finding solutions. I think if we look at quality of life issues from the perspective of improving work processes, we'll have employees who are engaged and we'll improve the bottom line at the same time. Ashlei Smith, Director of Compensation and Benefits What are the most important things to keep in mind in designing a compensation strategy for this division? I'd say that your team needs to remember that there are a number of things to think about. You need to think about equity - not just at Mahomet, but for CapraTek as a whole. You need to consider how the plan will motivate employees and assist in recruiting the kind of talent the organization needs. At the same time, you are looking at a big picture, long-term strategy. A total rewards plan looks at career needs and work-life balance. So you have to be careful not to get lost in the weeds ... it isn't just about recruiting or just about retirement or just about career development. What pitfalls do we need to keep in mind as we start gathering information? It's important to remember that Rome wasn't built in a day. This plant and the wireless division are new and exciting, but we have to remember that they are still part of the overall company. We can't change everything; we can't offer every benefit that every employee could want. The plan your team recommends needs to align to company priorities and the overall strategic plan. It needs to take the current financial climate into account but you don't want to be overly cautious, either. Gather as much information as you can, get the data to support the recommendations you are making, and https://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/HRM5055/KeyIssues/transcript.asp 1/23/2018 Transcript Page 6 of 8 then make your best case for what you think will best position us for success - by attracting and retaining the people we need to succeed. Which stakeholders are you particularly concerned about as we begin this process? The short answer there would be employees themselves, our own leadership, and government entities. I'd say a major concern is factoring in potential changes to our legal requirements. Obamacare is the obvious regulatory change we need to understand, but also, for instance, how would an increase to the minimum wage at either the state or federal level affect our compensation strategy. It's a complex issue ... which is why while a third of the surveyed leadership wants their rewards package to be a differentiator for their company, only 10% believe theirs is. Peter Kennedy, Director of New Product Development Can you explain the shift in strategy for the Alfred division? No, because there isn't a shift in our corporate strategy or our compensation strategy. Think about our vision statement - "CapraTek will provide excellence in everything we do as we define and deliver technology solutions for tomorrow's problems." What we need is for the HR strategy and this is Kathleen's department, obviously - to support that vision statement. What will represent a shift will be the tactical decisions we make in order to achieve those strategies. What issues - particular jobs, types of individual we want to recruit, and so forth -will require a more creative approach to the compensation system? There are two areas that come to mind-the fact that we will be drawing heavily on gen Y ... millennials means that we need to know what makes these workers tick - how do we attract them, particularly at a time when manufacturers are struggling to fill key positions. The other thing is that we need to remember that what works in our existing plants or at corporate, may not work for this plant. Illinois is different than South Carolina or Arizona. Those plants aren't located in a college town with an award-winning research incubator. We'll have access to the kind of talent we want, but we need to know how to get them and definitely how to keep them. I do not want CapraTek to be seen as a springboard to working for someone else. Are there any elements of the compensation systems we currently have in place that you think should or should not be reflected in the plan that is created for the Alfred division? I'd like to know that we've looked closely at pay differences. There's a lot of attention on this area because of that Ledbetter legislation ... the Fair Pay Act. The pay grades you put in place will help to keep us right with the legislation, but when you're creating those grades make sure we also build room to compensate people for bringing particular assets to the team... unique skills, differences in education or certifications. The main thing is that https://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/HRM5055/KeyIssues/transcript.asp 1/23/2018 Transcript Page 7 of 8 we don't create situations that can grow into roadblocks for employees in a given group ... particularly protected groups. ↑ Back to top Email from Evelyn Touching Base From: Evelyn Unger, Senior HR Generalist To: Lindsey Lafond I just wanted to touch base to hear what your impressions are on this project. I know you've only just started working on this, but at a high level, what would you say are the key things you learned today? I'm in meetings for most of the rest of the day, so just drop me a brief email pulling your thoughts and impressions together. Thanks! Evelyn. ↑ Back to top Email Response ↑ Back to top Email from Evelyn Re: Mahomet Compensation Plan From: Evelyn Unger, Senior HR Generalist To: Lindsey Lafond Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! I'm probably going to want your help putting together an executive summary of the key issues that will need to be addressed in the compensation plan. We need to call out the various practical and contextual issues that we know about at this point, identify key stakeholders… basically, what we need to be thinking about as we move forward. Anyhow, I'll get back to you on that. Thanks for all the time you've put into helping us move forward with this. ↑ Back to top https://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/HRM5055/KeyIssues/transcript.asp 1/23/2018 Transcript Page 8 of 8 Conclusion You have completed the CapraTek Key Issues and Initial Analysis activity, which allowed you to begin gathering information on the factors that need to be considered by CapraTek leadership as they work on developing a strategic compensation plan for the new division at Mahomet, Illinois. You will use the information you've gathered and your analysis of it in this week's assignment in the course. ↑ Back to top Credits Subject Matter Expert: Robert W. Bigelow, JD Interactive Design: Estelle Domingos, Peter Hentges, Christopher Schons Instructional Design: Peter Lindner, Felicity Pearson Project Manager: Josh Bondy, Amanda Holman, Tom Kapocious Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. https://media.capella.edu/CourseMedia/HRM5055/KeyIssues/transcript.asp 1/23/2018
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