Salary’s Difference in Same Position
Introduction
Transnational corporations are big companies that conduct businesses in different nations across the globe. The term ‘same position’ is used to signify tasks that are similar or generally comparable. Except when dissimilarities can be impartially vindicated, the same position ought to carry equal pay for the workers. Regardless of whether tasks are carried out by a female or male employee, workers from different races, workers with disabilities or the ones without, the rate of remuneration ought to be carefully considered with the aim of preventing discrimination (Ertug & Castellucci, 2013). The concerns of payment do not just indicate basic salaries but also holidays, overtime or other matters in the pay package. Employees could establish challenges in their organizations by examining the level of salaries in addition to other elements of the package. It is assessed whether wage discrimination arises in a transnational corporation through considering the salary that is paid to employees in the same position, the pay of individuals from dissimilar ethnic backgrounds, the remuneration of employees with disability and the ones without and a comparison of the wages of the male and female workers. This research study will review the literature on salary’s difference in same position within transnational corporations and embark on a primary method of data collection and qualitative analysis of such concerns in the Coca-Cola Company. If chances are high that there is a likelihood of employees from a given ethnic group, gender or age being favored over others in a transnational corporation, there is a need to discover why such an occurrence is taking place and whether it could be justified.
Statement of the Problem
Operations in many transnational corporations indicate that regardless of the examination of information, there exists a pay gap even when the nature of tasks are factored in and abilities such as learning and experiences are considered, and there is proof that discrimination results in constant pay inequality between females and males. Salary discrimination acts as an actual and determined challenge that keeps on shortchanging some employees in the United States and around the world. Sometimes the difference in payment for the same position occurs because the employees are rightfully given some additional tasks, work for a dissimilar number of hours and may have varying educational qualifications and levels of experiences. In most cases, the salary difference in the same position is the cause of the rising gender gap and unchecked discrimination. Even with the same experience, educational level, tasks and working an equal number of hours, numerous transnational corporations pay some employees, especially women and workers with disabilities, less than they pay their colleagues (Jagsi et al., 2012).
Justification of the Study
Justice and non-discrimination in the workplace demands transnational corporations to offer equal pay to workers in the same position who do similar tasks irrespective of being female or having disabilities. For equal pay in a given position, the extent of the operations ought to be identical or substantially comparable. It is the content in the job position that establishes the need for equal pay, and not the job title alone. Workers in the same position and who undertake similar tasks for an equal number of hours should receive the same remuneration in terms of the basic salaries, payment of overtime, insurance premiums, holiday payments, bonuses and other allowances and benefits. Some employers offer lower payment for equal work in a given position based on gender, religion, race or disability (Župerkienė & Žilinskas, 2015). This study will seek to affirm same pay for equal work and determine the measures that should be taken for cases of wage-based discrimination in transnational corporations.
Research Question
How does salary’s difference in same position influence the motivation, retention and productivity of employees in transnational corporations?
Literature Review
Discrimination based on the salaries of employees in transnational corporations arises when attributable to the processes in the labor market, employees in a similar position and who have equal work obtain varying salaries. Discrimination arises when salary is based on gender, race, sexual orientation, age or other attributes that have little or nothing to do with productivity. Because of such discrimination in salaries, some employees could end up obtaining lower wages for a given position or be allocated low-paying tasks within the corporation irrespective of their qualification. On the other hand, previous studies affirm that some salary differentials for employees in the same position may not be discriminatory (Festing & Sahakiants, 2013). If one employee is ready to operate in hazardous tasks when judged against an unwilling counterpart, he/she ought to receive a higher pay irrespective of their holding the same position and equal qualification. When the salaries are anchored in nature of employment and not other personal attributes of the employees, such a salary differential could be non-discriminatory. On the same note, if some workers receive lower salaries than their counterparts in a similar position on grounds that they are less skilled, such a condition has no salary discrimination unless there is a situation where even their low skills are unfairly rewarded.
Criticism on salary’s difference for same position should encompass the evaluation of the approaches employed to arrive at it and the strategies through which the gap is considered (Lawler et al., 2013). Some studies have affirmed that the measures by the government or other relevant authorities interfere with the freedom of the transnational corporations. They state that the critical concern is that the employer possesses the job and not the worker or other interfering authorities and that the transnational corporations ought to be left to come up with the policies of payment they deem fit. Nonetheless, previous studies did not answer the question as to whether transnational corporations ought to negotiate the salary in line with performance and not based on the job position. Transnational corporations cannot afford to lose their best-performing employees by paying them equal salaries with other lower performers just because they hold the same position. Doing this could result in high performing employees leaving for other better-paying corporations thus affecting overall productivity negatively.
In some transnational corporations, managers that have comparable job roles and qualifications are usually classified under the same position. Slight variations in their tasks or performances could explain the salary’s difference for such managers. Moreover, promotions and advertisement directors in transnational corporations might earn vastly different salaries with regard to the success of their operations. For instance, a transnational corporation could opt to offer higher salaries for directors who coordinate an enormous amount of advertising tasks than other directors that have a minor oversight of the sales promotions (Kim, 2016).
Employees that face salary-based discrimination might file charges in a court of law against their corporations or seek the intervention of other relevant authorities. In this regard, the transnational corporations that offer dissimilar salaries to equally qualified workers in the same position that engage in similar tasks could face strict legal penalties. Since the law does not have set wages, employers are permitted to offer different salaries for workers in the same position if they can prove that their qualifications are dissimilar and that the higher paid employee undertakes some additional tasks. Though governments have an ethical responsibility of safeguarding all employees from salary-based discrimination they ought to let employers choose remuneration based on the value of work done by the employee on conditions that some employees are not discriminated against (Župerkienė & Žilinskas, 2015).
Some Reasons for Salary Difference in the Same Position
Doing the same work in an equal number of hours and getting unequal pay with an employee in the same position could appear unfair (Sidani & Al Ariss, 2014). Nonetheless, though it is normal for employees to have anticipations for what they believe is the right salary for their talents, skills and efforts, there could be justifiable reasons for salary’s difference for workers in a similar position. Legally, in many countries across the globe, there ought not to be a huge salary gap between employees in the same position and it is noble to talk about such concerns with the human resources manager or a supervisor.
One of the reasons that could justify salary’s difference in same position is the dissimilarity in education and experience. It is usual for transnational corporations to remunerate workers in accordance with a set scale (Bonache & Noethen, 2014). For instance, the job in a given position in a transnational corporation could be designed to pay between 10 and 15 dollars each hour. In such a corporation, an experienced employee who holds a higher level of education and some years of experience could end up receiving higher salary than a candidate that only satisfies the basic job requirements irrespective of their being in the same position. Some transnational corporations give bonuses to workers with respect to the level of degree they hold or increase salaries every year. Such corporations could offer bonuses or salary increment with respect to the length of time that a worker has served with the purpose of encouraging employee retention. In this regard, if a given employee earns higher than another in the same position does, there is a possibility that he/she has a higher academic degree or has worked in the corporation for a greater number of years.
Similar to every other instance under the law, there exist exceptions concerning salary’s difference for same position in transnational corporations (Rhee, Yang, & Yoo, 2013). Experience cannot be used every time as an excuse for pay inequalities for workers in the same position who undertake similar tasks. When there is a serious concern that makes it appropriate for transnational corporations to validate a pay inequality, they have to demonstrate that it is directly related to experience and that experienced employees have higher performance than their counterparts do do. It is usually tricky for transnational corporations to give reasonable explanations for salary’s difference when the dissimilarity in experience between employees on the same position is anchored in a time span of over five years and that could lead to the issue of indirect age discrimination against the younger and well-qualified employees.
In other transnational corporations, the employees that demonstrate a great mastery of unique skills could obtain higher remunerations regardless of being in a given position with lower paid colleagues (Rhee et al., 2013). For instance, some transnational corporations could choose to pay workers who can talk in different languages higher when judged against their monolingual co-workers since the corporations benefit from such an employee as they can shift him/her to different nations when necessary. Moreover, because of the concerns of internationalization, the higher payment of such an employee is a step in the promotion of diversity in the workplace. In a technology-based corporation, professionals that have higher certifications, for instance, in matters of computer science, could earn more than their colleagues in the same position could. In this regard, it is evident that a worker could be paid higher as he/she could sometimes be given additional responsibilities or tasks other than the normal duties.
However, though it is illegal, discrimination is an aspect that could lead to dissimilar rates of remuneration for workers in a given position. A wide pool of studies on salary’s difference in the same position establish that, in most instances, female employees are usually paid lower than their male counterparts by 23 cents for each dollar while taking part in a similar position (Brumley, 2014). Moreover, females in ethnic minority groups and the ones with disabilities are paid even lower than their female counterparts. However, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits employers in the United States from giving less salaries based on the employee’s gender, disability, ethnicity, age and religion to mention a few. On this note, the employees that could be encountering salary discrimination and can prove that they have been discriminated against should report their corporations to the Equal Opportunity Commission.
International Compensation Difficulty
International business operations present challenges to human resources managers in transnational corporations as most of their remuneration actions are confined to a given nation where they experience diverse political networks, regulations and policies. The human resources managers seek to confront the varying economic occurrences and approaches but sometimes the arising dissimilarities generate both opportunities and challenges. Opportunities generated by such dissimilarities act as the fundamental motivators for transnational corporations to enhance their global business operations (Rhee et al., 2013). As the transnational corporations expand globally, be it through continued success, cross-national deals, acquisition, or enhanced development, the independence of their global operations could lead to considerable dissimilarities in the rates and forms of salary, benefits and allowance programs offered in every nation or region.
Transnational corporations are engaging in businesses in countries with cultural, economic and legal diversities, in addition to different labor laws and living standards (Brumley, 2014). In some instances, the influences of the trade unions could play a significant role in the establishment of salary policies. For instance, in a country such as Australia, the government and unions engage in negotiations for salary rates for employees across the nation. On the contrary, in Hong Kong, the labor unions are exceedingly weak and the rates of remuneration are established by the free market. The arising dissimilar aspects in the global community influence the international remuneration approaches strongly. In this regard, the establishment of a perfect universal approach for transnational corporations to establish a compensation system to equalize the pay of employees in the same position and working in different countries is simply turning dreadful.
In transnational corporations, traditional approaches of offering salaries with the purpose of attracting, retaining and motivating workers are still being employed (Sidani & Al Ariss, 2014). Nonetheless, the emphasis is gradually shifting from attracting and retaining workers to the motivation aspect. Transnational corporations are seeking to make sure that the employees with high skills are remunerated for the achievement of objectives that result in successful business operations. Since dissimilar nations have varying standards of rewards and benefits for employees in the same position, human resources managers in transnational corporations ought to mull over the use of inducements amid the global community. For employees in American, a high salary has a likelihood of being the driving force even when no monetary inducements such as recognition, autonomy and influence might offer adequate motivation. In other countries, employees could greatly be motivated by job security, a pleasing living standard, respect, social recognition or promotion. Attributable to the existence of numerous alternatives to money, the goal is to match the benefits with the values in a given culture.
The operations of transnational corporations in different countries offer different management difficulties regarding the equal compensation of employees in the same position (Kim, 2016). Human resources managers in multinationals ought to focus their strategic goals in the development of a wide-ranging compensation package, with respect to the basic salary, long-term and short-term enticements, growth opportunities and benefits. The aim of such kind of a strategy is to make sure that the long-term and short-term goals are provided in a comprehensive compensation approach devoid of overlap, which could replicate a single remuneration program for the same intention. The idea of a comprehensive pay plan is also to ensure that the remuneration, attraction, retention and motivation of employees in the same position support their needs equally in the international community.
Even with a comprehensive pay plan, the fundamental challenge that is hard to tackle is the salary and benefits offered to employees in the same position and who carry out equal work; they remain different amid the nations in which a transnational corporation operates. International remuneration plans have a significant task in the enhancement of global opportunities for transnational corporations (Sidani & Al Ariss, 2014). Labor costs (both indirect and direct remuneration) are the greatest motivational factors in the operations of transnational corporations. In this regard, human resources managers could employ compensation packages to facilitate a generally comparable salary for employees in the same position. Nonetheless, unlike compensation approaches could result in conflicts if the employees in a given country compare their salary with that of their counterparts in a different nation and believe that they are treated unjustly, such an occurrence could lead to bitterness and resentment for some employees, which could lower their motivation and overall productivity. Therefore, human resource managers should seek ways of offering equal pay for the same position across its countries of operation irrespective of the culture and compensation environment.
Methodology
Research Method and Research Design
This research proposal will embark on the primary process of data collection, and data will be acquired from executive directors at the Coca-Cola Corporation’s Atlanta, United States plant. The research design for this study will be qualitative. The demographic variables will be the skills, gender, age, experience, race, and religion; the dependent variable will be motivation, retention, and productivity of employees; and the independent variable will be salary’s difference in same position. A survey will be utilized to present the provision of a thorough grasp of the phenomena backing the study.
Sampling and Participants
This research study will use the non-random, convenience sampling method to obtain the participants. The population for the study will be the employees of the Coca-Cola Company working in the Atlanta, United States plant. A request for the collection of data in the company will initially be addressed to the managing director of the Coca-Cola’s Atlanta plant. The approaches of obtaining the suitable executive directors in the plant will be talked out with the managing director before requesting him to send appeals to eight female and eight male directors spread across different skills, ages, races, experiences and religions. The directors that turn out for the interview will constitute the final sample for the study
Data Collection and Materials
Open-ended interview questions will be presented to the interviewees. Open-ended questions will assist the interviewees to express their concerns fully since they are characteristically lengthier than the close-ended ones. The open-ended questions will also permit the participants to answer the questions in an essay form thereby offering much information devoid of restrictions (Doody & Noonan, 2013). The survey approach of collecting data will allow the discussion of crucial interests of salary’s difference in the same position. The researcher will initially seek the interviewees’ comprehensionthrough explaining the reasons for the research and the form of questions to expect. The researcher will then emphasize the confidentiality of the given information and the freewill of the interviewees to take part in the study before inquiring about their understanding of all the concerns and allowing them to proceed with responding to the questions. The questionnaire will contain 10 questions distributed across the dependent, independent and demographic variables (See Appendix). The length of time for the interview will be approximately 45 minutes to one hour. The participants will also be informed of the application of a tape recorder in the study with the purpose of enhancing the accuracy of information and providing a permanent record. After the collection of data, information in the tape recorder will be transcribed to offer a reliable source for affirmation and reference.
Results, Findings and Data Analysis
The results and findings for this study will rely on the responses by the interviewees and will form the basis for data analysis. Qualitative analysis of the nominal data obtained will be descriptive to assist in the examination of the influence of salary’s difference in same position within the Coca-Cola Company on the motivation, retention and productivity of employees.
Conclusion
This qualitative research study will discuss the influences of salary’s difference in same position within the Coca-Cola Company on motivation, retention and productivity of workers. This will offer a foundation for the recommendation of the best steps that the Coca-Cola Company and other transnational corporations ought to take. The issue of salary’s difference does not just concern the employees but also the success of transnational corporations. Effective approaches to salary’s difference in same position are fundamental. Once solutions to the underlying challenges are discovered in the course of assessment, interventions will have to be geared towards the best means of remunerating employees with the intention of curbing negative impacts not just for the Coca-Cola Company but also other transnational corporations
References
Bonache, J., & Noethen, D. (2014). The impact of individual performance on organizational success and its implications for the management of expatriates. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25(14), 1960-1977.
Brumley, K. M. (2014). ‘Now, We Have the Same Rights as Men to Keep Our Jobs’: Gendered Perceptions of Opportunity and Obstacles in a Mexican Workplace. Gender, Work & Organization, 21(3), 217-230.
Doody, O., & Noonan, M. (2013). Preparing and conducting interviews to collect data. Nurse Researcher, 20(5), 28-32.
Ertug, G., & Castellucci, F. (2013). Getting what you need: How reputation and status affect team performance, hiring, and salaries in the NBA.Academy of Management Journal, 56(2), 407-431.
Festing, M., & Sahakiants, I. (2013). Path-dependent evolution of compensation systems in Central and Eastern Europe: A case study of multinational corporation subsidiaries in the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. European management journal, 31(4), 373-389.
Jagsi, R., Griffith, K. A., Stewart, A., Sambuco, D., DeCastro, R., & Ubel, P. A. (2012). Gender differences in the salaries of physician researchers. Jama, 307(22), 2410-2417.
Kim, J. (2016). Global cultural capital and global positional competition: International graduate students’ transnational occupational trajectories. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 37(1), 30-50.
Lawler, J. J., Chang, P. C., Hong, W., Chen, S. J., Wu, P. C., & Bae, J. (2013). Going abroad: HR policies, national IR systems, and union activity in foreign subsidiaries of US multinationals. Industrial & labor relations review,66(5), 1149-1171.
Rhee, M., Yang, D., & Yoo, T. (2013). National culture and friendship homophily in the multinational workplace. Asian Business & Management, 12(3), 299-320.
Sidani, Y., & Al Ariss, A. (2014). Institutional and corporate drivers of global talent management: Evidence from the Arab Gulf region. Journal of World Business, 49(2), 215-224.
Župerkienė, E., & Žilinskas, V. J. (2015). Analysis of factors motivating the managers’ career. Engineering Economics, 57(2), 23-45.
Appendix 1: Questionnaire
Interview Questions
What were your experiences of salary’s difference in same position?
Explain the influences of salary’s difference in same position, from your experiences
Discuss whether there are any cases that can justify salary’s difference in same position within the corporation
Discuss what you consider to be the best approach to triump
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