Question

Incident 14-1 Fair Pay for Pecan Workers Cloverdale Pecan Company is one of the country’s largest processors of pecans. Located in a medium-size southern town, it employs approximately 1,350 people. Although Cloverdale owns a few pecan orchards, the great majority of the nuts it processes are bought on the open market. The processing involves grading the nuts for both size and quality, and shelling, packaging, and shipping them to customers. Most buyers are candy manufacturers. Cloverdale, which was started 19 years ago by the family of company president Jackson Massie, has been continually expanding since its inception. As do most growing companies, Cloverdale has always paid whatever was necessary to fill a vacancy without having a formal wage and salary system. Jackson Massie suspected that some wage inequities had developed over the years. His speculation was supported by complaints about such inequities from several good, long-term employees. Therefore, Massie hired a group of respected consultants to do a complete wage and salary study of all the nonexempt jobs in the company. The study, which took five months to complete, confirmed Massie’s suspicion. Wages of several jobs were found to vary from the norm. Furthermore, the situation was complicated by several factors. First, many of the employees earning too much were being paid according to union wage scales. Cloverdale is not unionized, but most of its competitors are. Second, many of those in underpaid jobs were being paid at rates equal to those for similar positions in other companies in Cloverdale’s geographic area. Third, because of a tight labor market, many new employees had been hired at the top of the range for their respective grades. The study also revealed that the nature of many jobs had changed so much that they needed to be completely reclassified.

Incident 14-1 Fair Pay for Pecan Workers

QUESTIONS 1. What should Cloverdale do to correct the existing wage inequities?

2. How could the company have prevented these problems?

3. If it is recommended that some jobs be placed in a lower pay grade, how might Cloverdale implement those adjustments?

Answer 1

What should Cloverdale do to correct the existing wage inequities ?

In the past 19 years it has evolved out of a family-owned company with about 1,350 employees. The majority of families are formed by individuals with little to no business experience and/or formal business education (schools, business schools, accounts, etc.). Individuals with this experience, however, are typically employed as required and/or provided in the family over time. In the first place therefore, the Massie family took part in the present mess of pay and salary. Your company expanded without the need for such systems being recognized for any reason.

It is also why a team of respected experts is named to report on all non-exempt workers and pay a comprehensive salary. If, since certain staff positions are over-paid, they had been able to carry out this audit long ago and have decided not to pick the penalty of employing those consultants. The inquiry couldn't have been completed until those workers were compensated for 19 years.

I don't believe the support was why the advisors had hired them late. Jackson Massie has suspected some wage inequalities over the years. He did not see such differences for himself until now, relying purely on the financial details of his organisation. Despite his doubts, Jackson was not inspired and persuaded to hire consultants to perform an audit until many successful , long-term employees submitted complaints. Due to his lack of company experience, preparation and/or awareness.

A business focused on Pecans is owned by The Massie. It has a horticultural theme. As a result, almost everyone can retain most of their employee positions and needs very little, if any, form of technical expertise or education. In order to fix the wage and salary processes, the essence and skills of each position within a business must be specifically identified. Both positions within the business must then be divided from those needing the most skills (education and/or experience) and even the lesser ones.

When that is done, I will pay everyone inside the company a little more for the job challenges and skills alone than people employed in similar roles in other businesses around my geographical area. Titles in the company may also need to be renamed to reflect changes in the working conditions during the years. This could enable employees who feel underpaid, if they are more qualified than their current position needs, to receive an immediate promotion.

I can't even let my company pay wages of unionized Union if they're not. Employees who already feel underpaid should migrate away from the geographical region and search for a different, higher paying employer. Most will not be close to their extended families because they want to stay. It depends on the importance of the employees that I would permit to be paid in the top ranking of their respective pay grade and on the difficulty in replacing them.

In the case of wages, payrolls, corporate benefits and so on, I 'd advertise with the Regional Job Recruiting Agencies to fill all positions. Employees of the Staffing Agency typically earn far less benefits than full-time employees from the Staffing Agencies.

How could the company have prevented these problems ?

These problems could have been avoided by the highest ranking family members, who received a certain type of business education before they set out and/or at least carried out significant and profound market research before doing so, or employed someone with a business knowledge in areas that they lacked from the start. This would have told them that a salary and pay system would be required after the company was founded and/or as their business expanded. A wage and a system would have to be implemented once a company in the family was founded, or at least when the company further expanded. As early as possible, a standardized pay and wage structure will be introduced across the business.

If it is recommended that some jobs be placed in a lower pay grade, how might Cloverdale implement those adjustments ?

Florida is a jurisdiction with a "right to life." Such changes can be enforced in our State in compliance with Florida Law, without effect on employers in our State, even if the two parties enter into a contract in employment. I should remind all the workers impacted by these new changes in advance by reminding them in writing of the phases over a six-month span of these changes. This will allow the unsatisfied workers time to find new jobs before their pay starts to decline, and encourage the company to absorb them gradually over the course of six months, as they continue to do other things.