Introduction
Every organization needs a good compensation strategy, which can motivate the employees and increases their performance in the organizations. This study revolves around the knowledge workers and a compensation plan for them. Different insights such as understanding knowledge workers, proposed compensation strategy, employee input, incentives, employee motivation, the fairness of pay structure, employee satisfaction, and communication plan.
Knowledge workers (Software Engineer)
Knowledge workers are workers, which needs the knowledge to perform different job activities. For this particular compensation plan, “Software Engineer” is the position to elaborate a plan. A software engineer in the company is different from other job positions, as they have to use critical thinking to produce some outputs. These employees are crucial for the company, and of course effectiveness of the plan seems imperative.
What is the compensation strategy being proposed?
The compensation strategy is based on different steps. For software engineers, the compensation strategy has been proposed with six steps. These steps are creating a pay philosophy, observing the competition, setting salary levels, considering the thing incentive compensation plan, rise in pay, using payroll software (Hadley, 2017).
Compensation Strategy Explanation
Well, concerning the steps in the strategy, the plans of the management keep the compensation competitive. Apparently, the role of the software engineer in the company is valued. First, the companies have to pay the engineers more than the competitors to make it competitive plan. Also, for Instance, if the competitor is paying $20,000 to software engineers, the company can propose $25,000. It is attractive pay for workers, but if the company wants to enhance the motivation, it intends to pay overtime per hour, which is double than the basic salary. Regarding incentives, the company contains the pay for performance for these knowledge workers, as only efficient, skillful and sharp employees can get the rewards such as annual holidays, cash bonus and free trips. Also, the company is also intending to increase the pay, based on the worker’s performance every year. It motivates the employees to work hard and improve the performance to get these incentives. Accordingly, modern payroll software will be used to calculate the basic salary per day, bonuses, incentives, and rise according to the company policy (Hadley, 2017).
Did employees provide input?
Yes, employees provide the input in for effective and efficient work. In software engineering, there is a need for high-level creativity and motivation to come up with something unique. Thus, through this compensation, the input of the employees has been increased, and finally, they got benefits from the company (Blazovich, 2013).
Who else provided input?
The input starts from the management, as salary and incentive levels provide a platform or opportunities for the employees to conduct their job activities according to the expectations. The input has been provided by the company through the allocation of the resources to let workers’ performance and get benefits (Miller, 2016).
What incentives are included in the plan?
The incentives that included in the plan are as under
Double overtime payments
5% of monthly sales
25% increment based on performance
Free gaming zones in working hours
Free trips with family
Massages
Free drinks & snacks
Casual environment
How will it motivate the employees?
These incentives will motivate the employees because these are an extra thing that the company intends to provide to these knowledge workers. The employees can perceive that the company is caring and understand the hectic work. Along with the attractive and competitive salary packages, these incentives are differentiated, which motivates the employees and forces them to work efficiently (Cloutier, Morin, & Renaud, 2013).
How will employees determine the fairness of the pay structure?
The significant measure of employee regarding the pay structure is a performance appraisal system. The integrated system will help employees review their performance and incentives accordingly. The fairness of pay structure can determine through sharing performance sheets with the employees, as they can understand the rationale of the pay structure for the whole team (Miller, 2016).
Employee satisfaction & motivational needs
I believe that these compensation plans will satisfy the employee. First, the salary is attractive, which is higher than other firms. Also, the incentives are triggered by the needs of knowledge workers, which can enhance the visibility of motivation. The management has conducted the research process to identify the motivational factors, and in the result, proposed the incentives. Thus, the compensation strategy supports the motivational needs of knowledge workers (Cloutier, Morin, & Renaud, 2013).
Communication plan for rolling out the new program
The communication plan for rolling out the new program is crucial for the management. The company will communicate with the employees to communicate the incentives through the compensation software a, which is quite integrated. Moreover, in the training process, the company can communicate each employee about the salary, incentives, and performance. When creating the new program for knowledge workers, the company will also use online employee newsletters to communicate the changes or incentives in the compensation plan (Hadley, 2017).
Conclusion
In the end, this is to conclude that the company should create the differentiated compensation plan for the knowledge workers, especially software engineers. In this study, the competitive salary level has been set for the workers along with some attractive incentives. The purpose is to motivate the employees to accelerate the performance, satisfy them at the workplace and retail them in the company for a long run.
References
Blazovich, J. L. (2013). Team identity and performance-based compensation effects on performance. Team Performance Management; Bradford, 19 (3/4), 153-184.
Cloutier, J., Morin, D., & Renaud, S. (2013). How does variable pay relate to pay satisfaction among Canadian workers? 34 (5), 465-485.
Hadley, B. (2017). Determinants of disclosures of alternative pay measures and their role in Say on Pay approval. Managerial Finance; Patrington, 43 (2), 263-280.
Miller, S. (2016). Talk Pays: When Talking Pay. HRMagazine, 61 (4), 45-52.