Creating a work environment for more creativity and ideas in Falzer's Tool Coating Company

Conducive schedule for new product ideation

We need two peer responses to the two following posts. Each response needs to be at least 200 words and require APA citations (minimum of 2 scholarly sources each). References require APA format with URL address to sources. Post 1 2. You own Falzer's Tool Coating Company, a high-tech firm specializing in the coating of cutting tools (e.g., drill bits, cutting blades) to provide longer life before resharpening is needed. You are concerned that the competition continues to develop new coating methods and new applications of coating in different industries. You want to create a work environment where employees offer more new product ideas and suggest new industries where these ideas might be applied. What type of compensation plan will you recommend? What are some of the problems you need to be aware of? As the owner of Falzer’s Tool Company, to create a work environment where more creativity and ideas are introduced, I would first look at the daily schedule that occurs in the organization. Is it conducive to brainstorming new ideas? Is there a process in play that an individual can submit their proposal? Are employees aware and trained in this process? One awesome strategy I’ve seen is in Google, where time is actually given to employees to promote creativity. Google owners Larry Page and Sergey Brin stated in a 2004 IPO letter, “"We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google," they wrote. "This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner." (D’Onfro, 2015). Strategies like this could bee implemented in the Tool Company that designates time and encourages individuals to come up with new design ideas and marketing strategies. Additionally, incentive plans could be implemented to employees who come up with new ideas. This could be monetary rewards, or paid time off. These types of rewards would give employees the “why” and purpose in giving extra time and effort in projects that could better the organization. One downfall to this strategy is it could put employees against each other and breed unhealthy competition. It promotes more of an I environment than a team environment. The best plan would to be to make team awards where employees work as a team to bring forth a new idea and as such get rewarded as a team. Thank you, Oscar Post 2 4. Angela Lacy, an African American employee in your accounts receivable department, has filed a charge of discrimination, alleging she was unfairly passed over for promotion and regularly receives smaller pay increases than do employees who perform less well (she alleges). You have to go to your boss, the VP of HR, and explain what elements of your HR system can be used for your legal defense. What things do you hope you did to set up and administer your systems to counter this discrimination charge? To begin, the firm should review the The Equal Pay Act (EPA) of 1963. This act forbids wage discrimination on the basis of gender if employees perform equal work in the same establishment. "Jobs are considered equal if they require equal skill, effort, and responsibility and are performed under similar working conditions. Differences in pay between men and women doing equal work are legal if these differences are based on any one of four criteria, called an affirmative defense: seniority, merit or quality of performance, quality or quantity of production or some factor other than sex," (Gerhart & Newman, 2020). In order to provide evidence to counter the discrimination charge, Human Resources should be prepared to give evidence of performance logs. Daily performance ratings of employees should be used as a source of defense as well as employee evaluations of one another. By having supervisor performance ratings and employee performance evaluations of one another all should be considered because implementing both forms of evaluations help to bridge a gap of discrimination or “favoritism.” The 360-degree feedback method is used to perform evaluations as such. This method of 360-degree feedback works to provide feedback to employees from a variety of sources, develop and strengthen teamwork and accountability, uncover procedural issues that can hinder employee growth, reveal specific career development areas, reduce rater bias and discrimination tendencies, offer constructive feedback to improve employee outputs, and can supply insight on training needs (Heathfield, 2021). This this method isn’t currently being used at the firm already I would recommend implementing now in order to be able to provide evidence in the future of unbiased performance evaluations and to help in preventing a discriminatory charge of happening again. If it is found she was being paid inaccurately and wins the discriminatory case, the firm may need to consider Back Pay. Back pay is lost earnings resulting from the discrimination from the date of the discriminatory act to the date of a judgment. This can make up for the wages she believed she earned, but wasn't receiving.