Reference no: EM133179600

HRA 831- NUU - Design and Administration of Compensation Plans- Assignment 2

CASE: HealthyWe Ltd Value: 20 % Due Date: Due April 15 th @ 11:59pm (Toronto Time) Professor's Name: Aisha Husain;

Case Study:

HealthyWe Ltd. is a brand-new firm that will open its doors exactly three months from today. Its business objective is to provide health and wellness advice and services to the general public. HealthyWe Ltd. plans to provide customers with personalized advice geared to a customer's specific physical, mental and emotion needs so that they can be a healthier and happier version of themselves. Services involve specialized full body evaluation services that include evaluations of and/or plans for nutrition, physical fitness and training and emotional well being. Each of these service offerings involving evaluations/plans can be purchased separately as well. In addition, HealthyWe Ltd. will also offer physical training equipment for sale at each of their locations. Their service/equipment offerings would be available for any customer from the ages of 10 to 70. In order to provide high-quality advice, each location will employ a physiotherapist (to provide advice on problems such as injuries or chronic back pain), a nutritionist (to provide advice on healthy eating habits and specifically focused eating plans that are best suited for personal wellness goals), a kinesiologist or a person with a bachelor's degree in kinesiology (to provide advice on training for various sports or other physical activities), a massage therapist and a yoga instructor (to provide advice on reducing issues like heightened anxiety and stress through movement and breathing work) . In the initial appointment, a member of the sales staff will sit down with customers and develop a personalized program with various specialist offerings that meets their own specific objectives and needs. The remainder of the staff in the location will consist of a manager, with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, and sales staff, who will have at least high school diplomas. Locations will open in select shopping malls/strip plazas and will have long opening hours. It is expected that between 8 and 12 salespeople will be needed for each store. Because the stores are located in shopping malls, they will operate on a seven-day-a-week basis, open 9:00-9:00 weekdays, 9:00- 6:00 Saturdays, and noon to 6:00 on Sundays. Aside from personally helping customers with their plans and evaluations, the roles of the physiotherapist, nutritionist, massage therapist, yoga instructor and kinesiologist will be to train other employees in understanding the service offerings and training equipment that can be used for various conditioning and rehabilitation purposes. Initially, sales staff will be given general training, but as time goes by, each salesperson will be expected to learn in depth about all the different services and pieces of equipment, to help customers diagnose their needs accurately, and to be able to explain intent of the service offering and/or the proper use of the equipment. Because of the high level of training required, all employees will be full-time. The owner of the business and CEO has found through personal experience that she has been unable to find a one stop health and wellness offering that can help people improve their well being both from the inside and the outside. In her previous experiences she has also found that the people selling training equipment had very limited knowledge and often gave poor advice on what to buy , how to use it or even what benefits the equipment can provide the user. The owner of the business and CEO has secured funding from private investors and from a large Canadian venture capital fund. In order to get volume discounts on the equipment she will be purchasing and to beat competitors into the market, she wants to start off quite large, with stores in major cities in Ontario and the four western provinces, before expanding to Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. She knows that this is a risky strategy, and that cost control will be essential to keep the business going long enough to become well known and develop a stable clientele. She does not expect the business to make a profit for at least one year, or maybe even two. Her investors are in full support of this strategy. Main competitors to HealthyWe Ltd. will be individual health care service offerings, sporting goods megastores, bulk warehouse retailers and department and discount stores, each of which sells some of the same equipment. Some of these outlets will be able to price their equipment lower than HealthyWe Ltd. will be able to, but none have the range of equipment that HealthyWe Ltd. will have, and none will provide the personalized and complementary wellness services that HealthyWe Ltd will. The owner believes that the key to her business success will be highly motivated and knowledgeable employees who have a strong concern for their customers and who are able to work as a team with the other employees to provide the best possible customer service. Since no two customers are exactly alike, employees will have to be innovative in developing solutions that fit their needs. It will also be crucial to keep up with the latest health, fitness and training trends, as knowledge about health and fitness is continually increasing, along with new and different types of specialized services and equipment. A key aspect of company strategy is to be the most up-to-date and advanced supplier of new services, products and techniques. Although the owner has given a lot of thought to her business, one thing she hasn't really given much thought to is how to compensate her employees. Since she doesn't really know much about compensation, she tends to feel that the safest thing would be to just do what her competitors are doing. Assignment Details: Up to this point, you will have covered off how organizations develop and design a compensation system that will add the most value to the organization. You have examined the three main components of a compensation system and how organizations determine the most appropriate compensation mix. You have also covered the three methods that organizations can use to determine base pay

1. You will apply the course concepts and tools utilized in the 12 units (mostly units 4 to 6, 7 to 9, 11 & 12) of this course to complete this assignment Step 1: Read the case "HealthyWe Ltd." that has been provided above. Step 2: Answer the following three questions related to this case QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED IN THIS DELIVERABLE:

Questions:

1. Base pay is an important component of the compensation for the staff. Identify and explain how HealthyWe Ltd. can utilize the three methods for determining base pay for their staff. Be detailed in your discussion by discussing advantages, disadvantages and applicability. Look at Chapters 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9 for guidance. Look at Chapters 4, and 9 for guidance

2. You are going to utilize market pricing to collect compensation information. A) Conduct pay/salary research using three credible online sources to develop a salary range for only one of the jobs mentioned above in the case study (i.e., sales staff, physiotherapist, nutritionist, kinesiologist, massage therapist, yoga instructor or manager) using current information from the labour market. B) Explain the reasoning behind your recommended salary range, citing sources as necessary. Indicate the percentage of compensation that would be fixed base pay and the percentage allocated to variable pay-for-performance and explain why and what metric(s) you would use to pay for performance in this job. Be thorough and detailed in your answer to this question. Look at Chapters 4, and 9 for guidance; Compensation Notebook 9.1

3. What other options would HealthyWe Ltd. have in order to collect compensation information from the labour market ? Explain what theses are and what process must be undertaken. Look at Chapter 9 for guidance