Marketing tactics of Accenture & Selection Process - Case study | Total Rewards & Compensation | Man

Part I - Accenture's Marketing Tactics

PART I

Go to the  Accenture  website, www.accenture.com,  to  research  and  gather  job-and  career-related information that might need to be adapted by other employers. This firm has approximately 261,000 employees and clients in more than 120 countries.

Question: Discuss how Accenture markets itself to current and potential employees?

PART II

Utilizing Chapter 7 “Selecting Human Resources”, read the below case and answer three questions below it.

CASE: 
Selecting a Programmer Marie  Pendergrass  has  been  a  data  processing  supervisor  for  two  years.    She  is  in  the  process  of selecting a candidate for a programmer trainee position she has created.  Her plan is to develop the trainee into a systems analysis within two years.  Since this is a fast track, she needs a candidate whose aptitude and motivation are high.

Fourteen  candidates  applied  for  the  job  in  the  employment  section  of  the  personnel department.  Six were women, eight were men.  An employment specialist screened the candidates for Mary,  using  a  carefully  prepared  interview  format  that  included  questions  to  determine  job-related skills.  Six candidates, three women and three men, were referred to Marie.

Marie then conducted structured, in-depth interviews and further narrowed the selection to one woman and two men.  Her boss, a company vice-president, agrees wither judgment after hearing Marie’s description of the candidates.

However, Marie’s boss feels particularly unsure of the abilities of the female candidate.  From the selection interview, past job experience, and education, there is no clear indication of the candidate’s ability to perform the job.  The vice-president is insistent that Marie screen the candidate with a programmer aptitude test devised by a computer manufacturing firm.  

The test had been given four years ago, and some of the most successful current analysis had scored high on it. Marie  went  to  the  personnel  department  and asked  them  to  administer  the  test  to  the “questionable” candidate. The personnel manager informed her that the company policy had been to do no testing of any kind during the last two years.  Marie explained that the request had come from a vice-president and asked that she be given a decision on her request by Friday.

Questions

1.Identify and evaluate the stages of the selection process reflected in the case.

2.If you were Marie, what would you do?

3.Do you think the vice-president can override the personal manager?

PART III

Utilizing Chapter 11 “Total Rewards and Compensation”, read the below case and answer two questions below it.

Part II - Selection process case study

CASE: 
Is the FLSA a Dinosaur? Is workplace flexibility out of reach for employees? Based on the Fair Labor Standards Act, nonexempt employees and their employers are restricted by the definitions of a workweek that were established  in1938  when  the  law  was  enacted.  A  Congressional  subcommittee  on  workforce protections recently held a hearing to explore calls for reform of the FLSA.

High-profile companies like  IBM  testified  that  current  regulations  are  neither  employer  nor  employee  friendly.  Companies have  instituted  policies  to restrict  flexible  work  hours,  telecommuting,  and  the  use  of  mobile technology to comply with the wage and hour law. Overtime “exemptions” were granted by the government to only a small subset of workers with an intent to require companies to pay nearly all workers an overtime premium for work hours over 40 in a week.

Life was different in 1938 when the vast majority of workers were men working in manual  labor  jobs.  These  jobs  took  a  physical  toll  and  long  work  weeks could  lead  to  injuries  and fatigue.  All  work  was  done  onsite  under  a  bureaucratic  organization  hierarchy.  Workers  had  little discretion  and  input  into how  the  work was  to be done. Fast forward 75 years and look at today’s workplace.  

Technology  and  communication  tools  allow  workers  to  carry  their  work  with  them wherever they go. No longer do we have to travel to a job site to complete our work. Women make up approximately half of the U.S. workforce. Many jobs are “knowledge” jobs rather than strenuous manual labor. Employees are empowered and engaged, and their input into work design is welcomed by their employers. While public-sector employees are allowed to take comp time rather than pay for 3 overtime hours, it’s strictly forbidden in the private sector.

This limits employees from working hard early in the year in order to “bank” some time to use for summer vacation or winter holidays. It’s a lose-lose because the employee can’t get what she wants and neither can the employer. So, no flexibility for you! If it’s such a good deal, who could be against revising the FLSA? There are those who believe that employers would take advantage of workers and things would return to post-Depression era worker abuse.  

Without  being  forced  to  acknowledge  and  pay  overtime  premiums,  employers  might  make unreasonable demands on workers’ time. There continue to be major lawsuits and settlements by workers who have been underpaid for their work hours. So, perhaps companies can’t be trusted to treat workers properly. It’s worthy of discussion and debate. Is the FLSA an artifact of working conditions that no longer exist? You be the judge.

Questions

1.Does the 40-hour workweek still make sense? Would you recommend changing to a “pay period” calculation for overtime? For example, if a company pays workers every two weeks, should hours over 80 in a pay period be used to determine overtime rather than 40 in a week?

2.How should nonexempt workers track their time spent away from work doing tasks such as responding to e-mail or text messages?

PART IV

Utilizing Chapter 12“Managing Employee Benefits”, answer the below two questions.

Questions

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of offering unique and creative benefits to employees?

2. What are the pros and cons of allowing individual managers to design and offer creative benefits to their employee group? How would it impact overall company morale if the benefit offerings are not universal?