Staffing defined, страница 10

Transfers are also used to staff a new operation, department, or division with a top-ranking, experienced nucleus of competent leaders. These persons will staff the operation over time, fleshing out the lower positions and. in some cases, providing for their own replacements.

v Demotions

Another employment decision is demotion. A demotion is a movement from one position to another that has less pay or responsibility attached to it. Demotions can be used for punishment, but most organizations refuse it as an option, preferring instead to suspend the employee or assess a financial penalty through the forfeiture of pay. The reason for this reluctance is that a demotion staffs a position with an embarrassed and often angry worker who is not likely to be productive or any better behaved than she or he was in the former position. What this reluctance means is that a person who is promoted cannot usually return to his or her former position if he or she has trouble adjusting to the new one. This is especially true where the lesser position has already been filled.

Demotions have their place in staffing, however. When a demotion is made to keep an employee, presumably as a temporary measure, it can be an important staffing solution. If a person's job is being eliminated, he or she may be offered a position that represents a demotion. There is no shame or embarrassment attached to such a move, only concern for the individual. The hope is to give the person time to get retrained or qualified for a higher position. Some people survive the experience quite well, while others begin the search for other employment immediately, with or with out their employer's knowledge or consent.

8.  SEPARATIONS

The last category of employment decision making by management is separation. Separation is the loss of an employee to an organization. If an; employee has not performed well, management can terminate (involuntarily separate) the employee from the company. Separations also may happen naturally in the course of the business operations: People retirej or resign. These separations are categorized as voluntary separations.  I At times, it is necessary to temporarily separate employees from tin, company. A temporary separation is categorized as a layoff and is dictated! by the level of business the company is experiencing. Companies have; developed layoff procedures combining criteria of performance and senjg iority to determine the order of layoff.

Compensation of employees is a major part of the staffing environment. Compensation includes the wages and salaries paid to the employees and the benefits the organization designs to accompany them. In designing compensation, the company is concerned with creating a program to attract and retain qualified applicants. In doing this, the company must measure the worth of each job and establish compensation that is fair in relation to other jobs in the organization.

What Influences Compensation?

Legislation, a union contract, rising prices, and competitive activities all influence the pay system. The Fair Labor Standards Act is a 1938 federal law that requires most employers to pay a minimum hourly wage and overtime pay of one-and-one-half times the base rate for any hours worked in excess of forty per week. Executives and professional employees are exempt from this overtime provision, and the law also applies in different ways to different types of businesses. It has been amended extensively since the original minimum wage of SO. 25 an hour went into effect in 1938i by 1991, the minimum wage was S4.25 an hour.