Unit 4 Assignment

ASSIGNMENT DETAILS

Review the SHRM case: “Designing a Pay Structure” 

You will prepare the SHRM case analysis on “Designing a Pay Structure,” which consists of your completion of Tasks A–J that simulate the creation of a compensation system for an organization in meeting its goals and supporting its mission. In your analysis, respond to the following tasks found in the case study by using Excel. 

Your case analysis should consist of:

• Task A: Create a complete job description for the benefits manager position using O*NET.
• Task B: Calculate the job evaluation points for the administrative assistant, payroll assistant, operational analyst, and benefits manager jobs. Provide a rationale for assigning specific degrees to the various jobs.
• Task C: If there were any outliers (i.e., extreme data points) in the data, what would you recommend doing with them? From this point forward, assume no extreme data points exist in the dataset.
• Task D: Conduct a simple regression in Excel to create a market pay line by entering the job evaluation points (on the X axis) and the respective weighted average market base pay (on the Y axis) for each benchmark job.
• Task E: What is your R squared (variance explained)? Is it sufficient to proceed?
• Task F: Calculate the predicted base pay for each benchmark job.
• Task G: Because your company wants to lead in base pay by 3%, adjust the predicted pay rates to determine the base pay rate you will offer for each benchmark job.
• Task H: Create pay grades by combining any benchmark jobs that are substantially comparable for pay purposes. Clearly label your pay grades and explain why you combined any benchmark jobs to form a grade.
• Task I: Use your answer to Task H to determine the pay range (i.e., minimum and maximum) for each pay grade.
• Task J: Given the pay structure you have generated, consider the following: Does this pay structure make good business sense? Do you think it is consistent with the organization’s business strategy? What are the implications of this pay structure for other HR systems, such as retention and recruiting?
• Your analysis of this case and your written submission should reflect an understanding of the critical issues of the case, integrating the material covered in the text, and present concise and well-reasoned justifications for the stance that you take. You are to complete this case analysis using Excel in a spreadsheet analysis format.

You may discuss your case analysis assignment with the class, but you must submit your own original work.

Case analysis tips: Avoid common errors in case analyses, such as:

• Focusing too heavily on minor issues.
• Lamenting because of insufficient data in the case and ignoring creative alternatives.
• Rehashing of case data — you should assume the reader knows the case.
• Not appropriately evaluating the quality of the case’s data.
• Obscuring the quantitative analysis or making it difficult to understand.

Typical “minus (–)” grades result from submissions that:

• Are late.
• Are not well integrated and lack clarity.
• Do not address timing issues.
• Do not recognize the cost implications or are not practical.
• Get carried away with personal biases and are not pertinent to the key issues.
• Are not thoroughly proofread and corrected. 

Make sure your document includes:

• Your name
• Date
• Course name and section number
• Unit number
• Case name
• Page numbers

The case analysis should contain Tasks A–J stated in the case in Excel. Check for correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and usage. Citations should be in APA style.

Here is the assignment grading rubric.

Assignment submission: Before you submit your assignment, you should save your work on your computer in a location that you will remember in Excel format. Save the document using the naming convention Username_Unit4_Assignment.xlsx. Submit your file by selecting the Unit 4 Assignment Dropbox.