HRM 533 Strayer Geico Case Insurance for Governement Employees Case Study

  

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I attached the instructions for the assignment and the chapter 2 reading that you’ll need. If you need anything else please let me know.

I did a lil research and Geico’s Total rewards is health & well-being, Education and Training, Finance and Retirement, and family and leave. You’ll be able to find this on the Geico website.

The top 5 advantages approaches that they are talking about in question 1 are

1.increased flexibility 2.improved Recruitment/retention 3.reduce labor cost/turnover 4.heightened visibility in a labor market 5. enhanced profitability

Go to the Geico website to read “Total Rewards Program.”
Write a five- to seven-page paper in which you:
1.
Determine which facets of the Geico total rewards program align with the five top advantages of a total rewards
program outlined in Chapter 2 of the textbook. Discuss your reasoning.
2.
Create a strategy for ensuring that the Geico plan addresses all of the advantages.
3.
Evaluate the effectiveness of the communication of Geico’s total rewards program based upon the website’s
descriptions of the benefits. Recommend two areas for improvement.
4.
Assuming employees are unhappy with the current plan, offer two improvements or changes to Geico’s total rewards
program.
5.
Use at least five quality academic resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not quality
as academic resources.
This course requires the use of Strayer Writing Standards. For assistance and
information, please refer to the Strayer Writing Standards link in the left-hand menu of
your course.
The specific course learning outcome associated with this assignment is:
•
Create a strategy for maximizing the advantages of a total rewards program, including how it’s communicated.
2
Why the Total Rewards
Approach Works
Throughout the decades, there has been compelling evidence showing that the best
way to attract, engage, and retain employees is to focus on total rewards, not just pay
and benefits.
In the 1950s, Frederick Hertzberg conducted his famous study of factors affecting job attitudes. He identified 16 factors and categorized them into 10 “hygiene
factors” and 6 motivators (growth, advancement, responsibility, work itself, recognition, and achievement). Note that the motivators do not include pay and benefits—
these are hygiene factors. To motivate, a total rewards approach must be taken.
Since the 1960s, psychologists (including Abraham Maslow) stressed how less
tangible needs, such as growth and self-actualization, were equally important to individuals’ sense of worth. Figure 2.1 illustrates how total rewards maps to Maslow’s
famous hierarchy. This message has been reinforced over the years by other leading
thinkers and management gurus, including Maslow, Ed Lawler, Peter Drucker, and
Edward Demming.
Most data show that work and career opportunities, leadership, and recognition
are leading drivers in employee engagement and retention—not pay.
What do you do when you get a job offer? Take a sheet of paper, draw a vertical
line down the middle, label one column “stay” and the other “take the offer.” Then
fill in the columns with a list of the total rewards associated with each opportunity. If
a total rewards mindset is used to make this individual decision, shouldn’t the same
mindset be applied when thinking about how to attract, retain, and motivate the
broader workforce?
In today’s environment, the case for a total rewards approach is stronger than ever:
• Total rewards addresses today’s business needs for managing costs and growth. Research suggests that a more limited view of rewards can be more costly, ­because
­organizations tend to respond to every situation with cash. Total rewards
­supports moving away from ineffective programs toward those that help drive
the business forward.
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Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons
The Top Five Advantages of a Total Rewards Approach
15
Figure 2.1  The link between total rewards andmaslow’s hierarchy
of needs.
Transactional Rewards
Self-Actualization
(Reaching Full Potential)
Advancement/Growth/
Affiliation
Aesthetic Needs
(Order and Beauty)
Interesting,
Challenging Work
Cognitive Needs
(Knowledge and Understanding
Learning and
Development
Esteem Needs
(Positive Self -Image)
Recognition, Promotion,
Performance Feedback
Belonging and Love
Affiliation and
Coworkers
(Affection, Identification with a Group)
Safety and Security Needs
(Long -Term Survival)
Financial Security,
Health and Welfare
Physiological Needs
(Short-Term Survival)
Hourly Wage,
Base Salary
• Total rewards meets the evolving needs of today’s employees. As the workforce continues to diversify, employees’ expectations change. For example, there is stronger emphasis on job enrichment, flexible work schedules, and the overall work
environment. A total rewards approach better addresses many of these varying
employee needs.
• Total rewards fits with a movement away from cash and stock. As the role of stock
becomes deemphasized in most companies, the hunt is on for other items that
help redefine a compelling and differentiated offer in the market for talent.
Total rewards can help do this.
The Top Five Advantages of a Total
Rewards Approach
1. Increased Flexibility
With the one-size-fits-all approach essentially gone, the twenty-first century may well
become the “rewards your way” era. Just as companies create niche products and
services to cater to small consumer segments (micromarketing), employers need
to start creating different blends of rewards packages for different workforce segments. This is particularly true in a global labor market where workforce diversity is
the rule, not the exception, and when specific skills are in short supply.
A total rewards approach—which combines transactional and relational awards—
offers tremendous flexibility because it allows awards to be mixed and remixed
to meet the different emotional and motivational needs of employees. Indeed,
­flexibility is a two-way street. Both employers and employees want more of it.
Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons
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Why the Total Rewards Approach Works
As the importance of flexibility has become more understood, more companies
are allowing employees to determine when they work, where they work, and how
they work. Total rewards recognizes that employees want, and in many instances
demand, the ability to integrate their lifestyle and their work.
2. Improved Recruitment and Retention
Organizations are facing key shortages of best-in-class workers (top performers),
Information Technology (IT) workers with hot skills, and workers for entry-level,
unskilled jobs. The classic initial solution to a recruitment and retention dilemma is
to throw money at the problem. But because this solution is so overused, it does not
offer a competitive advantage. Furthermore, it immediately raises costs.
A total rewards strategy is critical to addressing the issues created by recruitment
and retention. It can help create a work experience that meets the needs of employees and encourages them to contribute extra effort—developing a deal that
addresses a broad range of issues and spending rewards dollars where they will be
most effective in addressing workers’ shifting values.
Indeed, today’s workers are looking beyond the “big picture” in deciding where
they want to work. Work and personal life should be seen as complementary priorities, not competing ones. When a company helps its employees effectively run both
their personal and work lives, the employees feel a stronger commitment to the
organization. In addition, numerous studies show that employees look at the total
rewards package when deciding whether to join or stay with an organization.
An actual summary statement can be prepared for potential employees, enabling
them to see the whole value of being employed by a company. As such, as highly
desirable job candidates explore their options with various companies, companies
with total rewards have a competitive advantage because they are able to show the
“total value” of their employment packages.
3. Reduced Labor Costs/Cost of Turnover
The cost of turnover—often the driver of recruitment and retention—is sometimes
invisible. In reality, it’s far from cheap. Estimates of the total cost of losing a single
position to turnover range from 30 percent of the yearly salary of the position for
hourly employees (Cornell University) to 150 percent, as estimated by the Saratoga
Institute, and independently by Hewitt Associates (Lermusiaux 2003). In addition,
the cost of turnover includes indirect costs such as losses from customers and sales,
as well as decreased efficiencies as productive employees leave and the remaining
workers are distracted.
4. Heightened Visibility in a Tight Labor Market
Talent shortages have become a chronic condition of business life, and experts
agree that the tight labor market is going to get tighter. As a result, employers can
no longer afford to simply view their employees as interchangeable parts. Organizations quickly are realizing that every employee matters even more when there are
not enough employees to fill the available jobs.
Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons
Reference
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In addition, demographic shifts (e.g., the increasing number of women in the
workforce) coupled with new economic forces (e.g., global competition) have
changed the employment landscape, creating an unprecedented need for committed employees at a time when loyalty is low. If people can find an environment that’s
more in sync with their needs, they will make changes for that. Likewise, they will
stay put when they feel their needs are being met.
By gaining a clear understanding of what employees value, and mixing and
matching rewards within a comprehensive framework, companies can reallocate
their investment dollars to match what employees say they value most, and can communicate the total package versus a patchwork of individual components.
5. Enhanced Profitability
Aside from the high costs of technology, HR professionals also are saddled with
escalating benefits costs and changes in health care coverage and medical protocols. Employees want a “new deal” at the same time that companies—struggling to
deliver their financial targets—are readily cutting programs to trim costs. How to
balance these two realities? Change the mix.
A big misconception about total rewards packages is that they are more expensive. That’s because a number of companies equate the notion of rewards with
“more”—more pay, more benefits, and more combinations of rewards. What companies need to realize is that by remixing their rewards in a more cost-effective way,
they can strengthen their programs and improve employees’ perception of value
without necessarily increasing their overall investment. It’s largely a matter of reallocating dollars rather than finding more dollars.
Indeed, as companies discover the power of targeted reallocation of rewards and
begin promoting the total value of their programs, they are abandoning the practice
of setting pay, benefits, and other budgets in isolation, without reference to broad
strategic and cost objectives. As they begin understanding their true aggregate costs—
often for the first time—they are in a position to measure the extent to which their
expenditures are in line with, over, or under competitive practice. And they can then
measure whether they’re getting a reasonable return on their overall investment.
In addition, today’s workforce includes several distinct generations, each with a different perspective of the employer-employee relationship. Most employee research indicates that younger employees place a far higher priority on work environment and
learning and development than on the traditional rewards components. In contrast,
older workers put more emphasis on pay and benefits. All employees are concerned
with health care, wealth accumulation, career development, and time off. It simply is
no longer possible to create a set of rewards that is universally appealing to all employees or to address a series of complex business issues through a single set of solutions.
The challenge is to develop and implement a flexible program that capitalizes on
this diverse workforce. Valuing each employee includes understanding that everyone does not want to work the same way or be rewarded the same way. To achieve
excellence, employers need a portfolio of total rewards plans.
Reference
Lermusiaux, Yves. Calculating the High Cost of Employee Turnover. Taleo Research, 2003.
www.taleo.com.
Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons

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