ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the contemporary pay and benefits environment. It also describes the elements included in a total compensation package. The chapter presents the laws governing compensation policy and practices. It explains the comparative advantages and disadvantages of competing systems used to determine pay—point-factor job evaluation, rank-in person, and broad-banding. Bureaucracies are established as rational instruments of public policy, and nothing appears more rational than rewarding employees monetarily on the basis of their performance. The chapter discusses how pay-for-performance systems work and how they differ from traditional civil service seniority and cost-of-living adjustments. It also discusses the issues involved in pay disparity based on race and gender. The chapter analyses how pay is set in alternative personnel systems. It also analyses the benefits to which all employees in the United States are legally entitled. The chapter explores discretionary benefits such as pensions, health insurance, and paid vacations. It proposes other emergent benefit issues and their relationship to work/family conflicts.
