What are the two primary ways to make direct financial payments to employees? How does compensation for managers or professionals differ from compensation for clerical or production workers at a firm?

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: There are two basic ways to make direct financial payments to employees: base them on increments of time or on performance. Time-based pay is still the foundation of most employers' pay plans. Blue-collar and clerical workers get hourly or daily wages, for instance, and others, like managers or Web designers, tend to be salaried and paid by the week, month, or year. The second direct payment option is to pay for performance. Piecework and sales commissions are examples of performance-based compensation. Developing compensation plans for managers or professionals is similar in many respects to developing plans for any employee. The basic aim is the same: to attract and keep good employees. Managerial jobs tend to stress harder to quantify factors like judgment and problem solving more than do production and clerical jobs. There is also more emphasis on paying managers and professionals based on results—based on their performance or on what they can do—rather than on the basis of static job demands like working conditions. So, job evaluation, although still important, usually plays a secondary role to non-salary issues like bonuses, incentives, market rates, and benefits.