Question

As a recent college graduate, you are excited to start the search for your first career position. You have already started interviewing for opportunities as a management trainee.

You have been fortunate to have two interviews so far, and you identified several other

companies to apply to at a recent job fair. From what you have learned, it seems that the

starting salary for a job as a management trainee in your area is about the same at all

companies. Therefore, you know that salary isn’t going to differentiate one job offer from

another. It will, of course, be important to understand the work environment and future

career opportunities at a given company as you compare offers. As you think back to some

of the career-search seminars you’ve attended, you remember that you should also compare

benefit offerings. As you look through the Web sites of the companies you have applied to, you quickly see that there are lots of different benefits plans offered. In fact, as you look at this information, you start to become concerned that comparing benefits is going to be a challenge.

You think that you need to have a better understanding of the value of different benefits

when you consider the total compensation you would receive from a company. You decide to

start by more closely looking at the benefits offered by your current best prospect, which is a

position at a large established corporation where you interviewed last week. You pull up the

careers page on the company Web site and find a chart that lists the benefits offered.

Old age, survivor and disability insurance Medicare

Unemployment insurance Workers’ compensation

Family medical leave Medical insurance   

Dental insurance Holidays Employee assistance program

Sick days Tuition reimbursement Jury duty   

Defined contribution retirement plan Vacation days

As you review the chart, you aren’t sure what you should pay attention to and what

will make a difference in evaluating an offer. You think about lists that you’ve read

on other company’s Web sites and think that other companies seem to offer benefits

plans very similar to this one. At this point, you think that maybe benefit offerings

don’t really make a difference. You decide you need to learn more before you go much

further in the interview process. If the benefits information provided to you is unclear,

you know you should be prepared to ask questions. The future is exciting, but you

know that once you receive an offer, it is an important decision that you should make

with full information.

After taking the course in HRM 410, would your answers be the same as when you first started the course? In your own words, answer the following questions, by using at least 5 sentences for each question.

1. If two different companies list the same benefits offerings, should you assume that the value of the benefits are the same?

2. What are some benefits offered from this company that you should find more information about in order to fully understand a job offer from the company? Why?

3. Why don’t all companies just offer the same benefits?

4. What other benefits will you be interested in, aside from those offered in this case?

Answer 1

Answer 1

If two different companies offer same benefit, the value of the benefit neednot be same.

Each company have different component and contribution to such variable pay benefits.

It is explained below in a form of an example

Benefits	Company A	Compaany B
Sick Leave	7 Days	5 Days
Maternity Leave	45 days paid leaves	60 days Paid leaves
Medical Insurance	Self + Spouse + 2 kids Coverage value- $ 6500	Self + Spouse + 3 kids Coverage value- $ 10000

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Answer 2

To evalue the present offer it is important to understand the value of each such benefit component as mentioned below:-

a) Family Medical Leave - How many leaves it includes?

b) Medical Insurance - How many members it covers in the family?

What is the value you can avail during medical Emergency?

Is it a cash lass Insurance policy?

Does it cover critical illness too?

What all hospitals in cover?

Is it valid during your International travel?

c) Dental Insurance -

How many members it covers in the family?

What is the value coverage?

d) Holiday Employee Assistance - What is the Cap limit in terms of value?

e) Sick Leave - No of days covered?

Paid leaves are given in case of critical illness beyond the standard sick days?

f) Tution Reimbersement - Value coverage?

g) Vacation days - Number of days offered?

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Answer 3

Every Company has a different Pay structure and the limit of Non statutory variable component can be decided internally by the management after studying the market trend in the industry.

Company can offer such benefits at different level in the heirachy and even to attarct employees at the time of joining and retaining the employees.

Such benefit component in the CTC help organizations to negotiate the package at the time of annual increments too.

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Answer 4

Apart from the above mentioned benefits I would also enqire for below mentioned components:-

a) Employee Stock Options (ESOPs)

b) Maternity Leave and Paternity leaves

c) Annual Privilage leaves

d) Annual Casual leaves

e) Compensatary Offs in case of overtime

f) Relocation Allowances

g) Travel Benefits

h) TA & DA benefits

i) Phone Allowances