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An open compensation plan (or system or policy) is one with a defined pay scale and no rules about keeping employee pay confidential. Open compensation plans are noted for reducing employee turnover. One example of an organization with an open compensation system is the U.S. military.
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A pension is a fund into which amounts are paid regularly during an individual's working career, and from which periodic payments are made to support the person's retirement from work. A pension may be:
Workers' compensation or workers' comp is a form of insurance providing wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured in the course of employment in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee's right to sue his or her employer for the tort of negligence. The trade-off between assured, limited coverage and lack of recourse outside the worker compensation system is known as "the compensation bargain.” One of the problems that the compensation bargain solved is the problem of employers becoming insolvent as a result of high damage awards. The system of collective liability was created to prevent that and thus to ensure security of compensation to the workers.
In general, incentives are anything that persuade a person or organization to alter their behavior to produce the desired outcome. The laws of economists and of behavior state that higher incentives amount to greater levels of effort and therefore higher levels of performance. For comparison, a disincentive is something that discourages from certain actions.
Employee benefits and benefits in kind, also called fringe benefits, perquisites, or perks, include various types of non-wage compensation provided to employees in addition to their normal wages or salaries. Instances where an employee exchanges (cash) wages for some other form of benefit is generally referred to as a "salary packaging" or "salary exchange" arrangement. In most countries, most kinds of employee benefits are taxable to at least some degree. Examples of these benefits include: housing furnished or not, with or without free utilities; group insurance ; disability income protection; retirement benefits; daycare; tuition reimbursement; sick leave; vacation ; social security; profit sharing; employer student loan contributions; conveyancing; long service leave; domestic help (servants); and other specialized benefits.
Personnel economics has been defined as "the application of economic and mathematical approaches and econometric and statistical methods to traditional questions in human resources management". It is an area of applied micro labor economics, but there are a few key distinctions. One distinction, not always clearcut, is that studies in personnel economics deal with the personnel management within firms, and thus internal labor markets, while those in labor economics deal with labor markets as such, whether external or internal. In addition, personnel economics deals with issues related to both managerial-supervisory and non-supervisory workers.
Deferred compensation is an arrangement in which a portion of an employee's wage is paid out at a later date after which it was earned. Examples of deferred compensation include pensions, retirement plans, and employee stock options. The primary benefit of most deferred compensation is the deferral of tax to the date(s) at which the employee receives the income.
Performance-related pay or pay for performance, not to be confused with performance-related pay rise, is a salary or wages paid system based on positioning the individual, or team, on their pay band according to how well they perform. Car salesmen or production line workers, for example, may be paid in this way, or through commission.
For the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) tax or Social Security tax in the United States, the Social Security Wage Base (SSWB) is the maximum earned gross income or upper threshold on which a wage earner's Social Security tax may be imposed. The Social Security tax is one component of the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (FICA) and Self-employment tax, the other component being the Medicare tax. It is also the maximum amount of covered wages that are taken into account when average earnings are calculated in order to determine a worker's Social Security benefit.
Merit pay, merit increase or pay for performance, is performance-related pay, most frequently in the context of educational reform or government civil service reform. It provides bonuses for workers who perform their jobs effectively, according to easily measurable criteria. In the United States, policy makers are divided on whether merit pay should be offered to public school teachers, and other public employees, as is commonly the case in the United Kingdom.
Commissions are a form of variable-pay remuneration for services rendered or products sold. Commissions are a common way to motivate and reward salespeople. Commissions can also be designed to encourage specific sales behaviors. For example, commissions may be reduced when granting large discounts. Or commissions may be increased when selling certain products the organization wants to promote. Commissions are usually implemented within the framework on a sales incentive program, which can include one or multiple commission plans.
Tax equalization is a policy applied by some international companies under which employees who are hired in one country and later accept a (temporary) assignment in another country do not have their total after-tax ("take-home") compensation changed depending on the tax regimes of the country they move to. If the employee is assigned to a country with lower taxes, the company takes the savings. On the other hand, if they move to a country with higher taxation, the company pays the excess. Either way, under a tax equalization policy, the after-tax compensation received by the employee is same. The purpose of such policies is to help companies fulfill international staffing needs without employees being incentivized or disincentivized from accepting particular assignments due to tax differences between countries.
A pay band is sometimes used to define the range (band) of compensation given for certain roles. The range is based on factors like location, experience, or seniority.
Paid time off, planned time off, or personal time off (PTO), is a policy in some employee handbooks that provides a bank of hours in which the employer pools sick days, vacation days, and personal days that allows employees to use as the need or desire arises. This policy pertains mainly to the United States, where there are no federal legal requirements for a minimum number of paid vacation days. Instead, U.S. companies determine the amount of paid time off that will be allotted to employees, while keeping in mind the payoff in recruiting and retaining employees.
A pay scale is a system that determines how much an employee is to be paid as a wage or salary, based on one or more factors such as the employee's level, rank or status within the employer's organization, the length of time that the employee has been employed, and the difficulty of the specific work performed. Examples of pay scales include U.S. uniformed services pay grades, the salary grades by which United States military personnel are paid, and the General Schedule, the salary grades by which United States white-collar civil service personnel are paid. Private employers use salary structures with grades to define the ranges of pay available to employees in each grade/range.
Executive compensation is composed of both the financial compensation and other non-financial benefits received by an executive from their employing firm in return for their service. It is typically a mixture of fixed salary, variable performance-based bonuses and benefits and other perquisites all ideally configured to take into account government regulations, tax law, the desires of the organization and the executive.
Staff management is the management of subordinates in an organization. Often, large organizations have many of these functions performed by a specialist department, such as personnel or human resources, but all line managers are still required to supervise and administer the activities and ensure the well-being of the staff that report to them.
Lockstep compensation is a system of remuneration in which employees' salaries are based purely on their seniority within the organization. For example, in the legal profession, where this system is most commonly found, all law school graduates hired by a law firm who graduated in the same year receive the same base pay regardless of background, experience, or ability. These associates will also receive automatic annual pay raises, bonuses, and promotions. Alternatively, some law firms implement a lockstep compensation system starting with partners or partner-track associates. During the late-2000s financial crisis, some law firms began replacing the lockstep system with "merit-based" systems.
Compensation and benefits (C&B) is a sub-discipline of human resources, focused on employee compensation and benefits policy-making. While compensation and benefits are tangible, there are intangible rewards such as recognition, work-life and development. Combined, these are referred to as total rewards. The term "compensation and benefits" refers to the discipline as well as the rewards themselves.
Employer compensation in the United States refers to the cash compensation and benefits that an employee receives in exchange for the service they perform for their employer. Approximately 93% of the working population in the United States are employees earning a salary or wage.
A human resources management system (HRMS) (alternatively, human resources information system (HRIS) or human capital management (HCM) system) is a form of human resources (HR) software that combines a number of systems and processes to ensure the easy management of human resources, business processes and data. Human resources software is used by businesses to combine a number of necessary HR functions, such as storing employee data, managing payroll, recruitment, benefits administration (total rewards), time and attendance, employee performance management, and tracking competency and training records.