Question

A. Cost Containment per Textbook. Cost containment is very prevalent in organizations today. What is the biggest cost-containment strategy in recent years, according to your textbook?

B. Company Cost Containment Measures. What cost containment measures has your company undergone in recent months? Why? What has been their impact on (a) the organization and (b) the employees?

C. Crangle Fixtures As HR director at Crangle Fixtures, your bonus this year is based on your ability to cut employee benefit costs. Your boss has said that it’s okay to shift some of the costs over to employees (right now they pay nothing for their benefits) but that he doesn’t want you to overdo it. In other words, at least one-half of your suggestions should not hurt the employee’s pocket book. What alternatives do you want to explore, and why?

D. Christian Worldview. How could an employer integrate the concept of benefits with an understanding of those same or similar concepts from a Christian worldview, especially when considering that many organizations are seeking ways to contain benefit costs?

Answer 1

The answer to the following questions

Containment

a. According to the textbook, the biggest cost-containment strategy is outsourcing. Outsourcing is the practice of hiring outside vendors to perform functions that do not directly contribute to business objectives and in which the organization does not have a comparative advantage .

b. When the company was acquired by Global Payments, we picked up many of their policies. One of their policies, affected our stock plan. In the past, Heartland Payroll automatically provided employees with stocks after three years of service. However, this policy ended when Global took charge. After three months of service, employees are able to join a stock purchase plan. It will deduct funds directly from each pay check to purchase the company’s stock.

c. Some alternatives what we would explore would be shopping around for other providers with reasonable costs. Another would be to negotiate with current benefit provider to come to an agreement on a price that is reasonable for all parties. Another would be to orchestrate co-pays and deductibles or reduce some of the benefits offered.

d. Christian worldview can be similar to an organization that is considering containing benefit costs by consider the well-being of both parties (employee and employer).