Labor Management Relation

Usually institutions are conceptualized as the bricks and mortar of their buildings, but in reality their people, employees are the organization. Under that point of view it is easy to recognize that companies exist because of their people, they are the base structure of the companies. Therefore, what is important for any organization are the interactions, supports, feelings, frustrations, challenges, and hopes that come from the people who constitute it. According to Lockhart and Werther, this is what is called the institution's climate.

The relation between labor and management can be affected by the characteristics of the company's climate. This factor can have repercussion of the effectiveness of the health agency. This factor also can have influence in the feelings of the staff for the needs of be represented by a union. The management responds to employee needs, requests, problems, and concerns will be a major determinant of the organization's climate. Then, the primary administration task that companies need to address is to find a balance between employee's needs and organizational needs.

The term of human resources management usually is used to describe: specific human resources practices such as recruitment, selection, and appraisal; formal human resource policies, which direct and partially constrain the development of specific practices; and human resource philosophies, which specify the values that inform an organization' s policies and practices. This kind of system is supposed to be designed in a way that attracts, develops, motivates, and retains employees who ensure the effective functioning and survival of the organization and its members. But it is necessary to take in consideration that these human resources management components can be affected by the internal and external environments of organizations. The internal factors are represented by technology, struc­ture, size, organizational life cycle stage, and business strategy, and the external factors would be legal, social, and political environments; unionization; labor market conditions; industry charac­teristics; and national cultures. Today one of the new aspects that organizations need to considerer is managing four generations in the workplace. Managing Workplace

International Compensation

Many things need to be considered about remuneration and compensation in international Human Resource Management and these include the cost of living expenses in foreign countries, the taxation effects, and the expectation of the expatriates that they are suppose to receive additional compensation for the separation from part of their family in international assignments. Moreover, there is also the practical concern from many of expatriates that they do not lose out financially by going on an international mission. Usually most organizations deal with this problem by supplementing salaries to maintain the employees' standards of living as if they were in their own country. As a result, the expatriates may end up earning far more than the host-country nationals with they work, and that could create a interpersonal disaster in many cases. Therefore, expatriates remuneration and compensation may be something very complex. Wages and salary determination are normally area for conflict for national or international companies in general. Other aspects to consider would be internal and external equity, incentive and performance pay, and more latterly, packaging other benefits along with monetary remuneration that definitely increase the complexity of the problem.

One of the main problems is to define what is the salary level for the same job among different countries where the Multinational companies (MNC) operates. Parent company managers believe that the same remuneration should be paid to every employee without reference to their location. But the fluctuating exchange rates require constant attention in order to maintain constant salary rates in home country dollars. Global Payments and Benefits

Merit Pay

The Merit pay, the most complex provision of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. Merit pay provisions are based on a widely accepted perspective on motivation, people expect to receive a valued reward for high performance. The Merit pay is supposed to increase the effort and performance of employees as a result it will be an increase in the overall managerial performance. Managers can see more benefit by using this high performance program than the previous compensation system. On the other hand, there are other opinions at respect, some business people criticize the program saying that the performance of a complex job as whole is reduced to a simple and single measure of performance. They also argue that merit pay discourages teamwork. For example, people in a selling department that are evaluated on the number of contracts negotiated per year, the may not be interested in improving the quality of materials because that not help them as help people in manufacturing. Therefore, they are not going to worry about that kind of improvement even though that generate problems to the organization. The performance related pay also can generate some kind of hostility between employees during a tough economic period because multiple employees may compete for the attention of one customer. This situation can make employees appear to be performing to a lower standard and it does not measure really the actual performance.

Today one of the most frequently argument is if merit pay should be offered to public school teachers in the Uniter States. In June 2003 the National Education Association (NEA) President Reg Weaver said:

“Our members are open to alternatives, but we will always oppose quick fixes designed to weaken the voice of teachers and effectiveness of education employees in all jobs.” Marit Pay for teachers?