Page 662 - Business Principles and Management

Chapter 24 • Rewarding and Developing Employees

HOURS OF WORK
To respond to the changing lifestyles of workers and the operat-
ing needs of businesses, some companies have experimented
with changes in the standard 40-hour, five-day workweek. One
such change involves scheduling employees to work 10 hours a
day for four days per week. Another variation, flex-time, lets
employees choose their own work hours within specified limits.
Job sharing allows two people to share one full-time job. Each
person works half the time, either half days or alternate days of
the week.
Companies may also stagger the workweek by having some
employees start their week on days other than Monday. In this PHOTO: © GETTY IMAGES/PHOTODISC.
way, the business can operate seven days a week without having
employees work more than five days, thereby obtaining maximum
use of facilities and equipment while controlling labor costs. It is
also a way to reduce traffic congestion or demands on employee
services, such as parking and food services, at specific times.

OTHER BENEFITS Some companies include a
generous retirement plan in
The benefits described above are most common and are available to employees the benefits package as one
in many companies. Increasingly, businesses are providing other types of benefits way to attract and retain good
for employees. Many companies provide free or low-cost parking, food services employees. How important is a
and cafeterias, and discounts on the purchase of products produced or sold by retirement plan to you?
the company. Many businesses contribute to the cost of college classes or other
educational programs completed by employees. More and more companies are
providing parents time off to visit their children’s schools. Some companies today
even offer unique services, such as hiring someone to do gift shopping or take cloth-
ing to a dry cleaner for busy employees and offering transportation to employees
who carpool but need to go home due to an emergency.
Free or low-cost professional services for employees, including the services
of financial and investment advisers, lawyers, accountants, and counselors, are
offered by many benefit plans today. An increasingly important benefit for em-
ployees with young children is the availability of day-care facilities. That same
benefit is being extended to families with elderly parents living with them, in the
form of elder-care programs.
Some companies offer a profit-sharing plan, which pays employees a small per-
centage of the company’s profits at the end of the year. Profit sharing encourages
employees to do things that increase company profits in order to obtain the benefit.
As you can see, the range of employee benefits is quite broad. Companies offer
new benefits as employee needs change and as companies compete to attract and
keep good employees. Because individual needs can be quite different, businesses
have a difficult time providing the right set of benefits for every employee. Some
companies have attempted to solve that problem by letting employees choose
from among a number of available benefits. A program in which employees can
select the benefits that meet their personal needs is known as a cafeteria plan. In
this program, each employee can choose among benefits with equal value or
give up certain benefits and receive their cost as additional compensation.

CHECKPOINT
On average, what percentage of employee wages and salaries
do companies spend on benefits?

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