Image transcription text mn’n:Tl|l fmaerh Normala Medical Center is a privately owned hospital that serves Sarawak. The IUD-bed hospital has a staff of 351] employees,

Image transcription text mn’n:Tl|l fmaerh Normala Medical Center is a privately owned hospital that serves Sarawak. The IUD-bed hospital has a staff of 351] employees,
including over 200 nurses and 4D clerical and secretarial employees (an almost exclusively female group). In the last month,
discontent concerning pay levels has been mounting among the hospital’s nurses and secretarial-clerical employees. Discontent was
spurred by recent developments at the Kuching General Hospital, a public facility. There, the hospital administration agreed to
demands by nurses and secretarial-clerical workers for a 5 percent pay increase. The administration filrther agreed to launch a Job
evaluation program that would evaluate the nursing and secretarial-clerical jobs on the basis of comparable worth. The administrators
pledged that the study’s findings would be used as the basis for any further pay adjustments. The administration’s moves came afier demonstrations by nurses and clerical-secretarial workers and by a clear threat of
unionization by the Nurses Trade Union and the Office Workers Trade Union. Union organizers had held discussions with the nurses
and office employees and had circulated the results of a comparable worth study (shown in Exhibit 1) to illustrate the extent of pay
inequities. David Khoo, director of HR at Nomiala Medical Center (NMC), was acutely aware of the troubles brewing at his hospital.
He knew that union organizers were meeting with employees and distributing the study flier. Overall, NMCs’ pay levels for iB nurses
and office staff were very similar to the levels at Kuching General Hospital before the 5 percent increase. However, the levels were
not competitive with compensation available in Kota Kinahalu. In the last week, Khoo had met with representatives of the two
employee groups at their request. There, the spokeswomen made three requests: an immediate 5 percent pay increase, the
establishment of a job evaluation program based on the concept of comparable worth, and a pledge to base wage adjustments on the findings of the study. Exhibit I: Hudim on: One Com mole W011}! Stud Head Nurse .- Truck Driver
244 122 106 61
Knowledge and Diploma; Health Ministry Apprenticeship; Secondary school Commercial Driving
Skills license; good judgment; technical know-how certificates; word license
people skills processing 60 wpm
Mental Demands 106 30 26 10
Life-and-death decisions; Troubleshooting; Always told what to Heavy traffic; speed
administer doctors’ orders; public safety do; pressure to get work limits
emotional stabili done; monoton
Responsibility 122 30 35 13
Supervise patient care; Order supplies; safe Neat documents; Tmck maintenance;
manage ward stalf wiring manage small tasks on-time deliveries
Working Conditions 11 15 O 13
Always on feet; Cramped quarters; Padded seat, constant Erratic schedule; tight
constant demands; strenuous assignments; interruptions; space, long hours
rotating shifis fairly dangerous regular hours
Total Points 483 19? 16′? 9′?
Month] Sale RM2 95E] RM2 35C! RMI 320 RM2,055 David informed Ali Ahmad, the hospital director, of the employees’ requests: Ali asked for a recommendation for action
within three days. Before developing an action plan David met with his two top aides (Janet Seling and Charles Lee) for an initial,
informal discussion of the situation. In David’s view, the key question focused on whether to evaluate the jobs on the basis of
comparable wonh. Image transcription text "I favor launching the job evaluation program," said Janet Seling. "Nationwide, there is a disturbingly large gap between the
pay levels of predominantly male and female jobs. Consider that there’s no difference in the median education levels of men and
women about – 12.6 years. Yet with the same median amount of education, women on the average earn 40.8 percent of a man’s median
pay. If we take a close look at our compensation levels across jobs from the perspective of comparable worth, we’ll probably find
some pretty disturbing gaps of our own. "There’s a growing precedent for comparable worth-based pay adjustments," she continued. "Many federal government
agencies have implemented the concep ." "That’s precedent in the public sector, not private industry," said Charles Lee. r"I would favor a pay increase, perhaps 5
percent, to keep us competitive with Kuching General Hospital. However, agreeing to a job evaluation based on comparable worth is
opening the door to a very questionable and costly concept.” "l’m troubled by the concept of comparable worth for three reasons," he continued. "First, if you implement comparable
worth, you destroy our free market system. The market does discriminate, but on the basis of supply and demand, which accurately
reflects a job’s worth. The market is blind to gender”. "I’m not so sure about its visual shortcomings in that regard,” Janet said. "I agree wilh Janet. thal a sizable wage gap does exist," Charles continued. "Bul according to some studies, much of lhal. gap
is not due to gender. For example, I’ve just reviewed a study by the US. Labor Department that found that over 50 percent of the gap
between men’s and women’s pay is due to vocational training, the industries that women choose, and geographical location. The
remaining gap could be due to sex discrimination, but frankly I’m not willing to destroy the free market system to find out. Image transcription text "Second, there’s the issue of implementation," Charles said. "Here, comparable worth floats in a sea of subjectivity. If we
conduct the evaluation, we must evaluate all jobs in the hospital, not just the nurses, secretaries, and clerical workers. Doing so
requires one evaluation system with one set of job factors. Which factors do we use? How do we weigh the factors in calculating a
job’s worth? Few objective guidelines exist for us to use." "And suppose we did implement comparable worth," he continued. "We might create internal pay equity across our iobs but
it would not address our need to be externally competitive. For example, suppose we determine that two jobs are very similar in worth.l
almost identical. Using comparable worth as a basis, we provide the same pay for both jobs. However, marketwise we’re paying far
too much for one job and far too little for another. How do we attract people for the underpaid position? We end up with too many
applicants for jobs already filled and not enough for jobs that go unfilled. "Third, there’s our primary concem–costs. We won’t know how much comparable worth will cost us until we’re into the
evaluation program. However, given adjustments made in clerical and secretarial pay by government offices that have implemented
comparable worth, the cost should be hefiy. Look at the estimated price tag for implementing comparable worth nationwide—over
RMl’D billion. Business and society would pay the bill via inflation and lowered productivity." "We could conduct an effective job evaluation program -other companies have done it." Janet countered. "Shell has
overhauled its job evaluation methods to reflect concerns about comparable. Bank of America has also made some changes: it’s
incorporated job factors into predominantly female jobs that weren’t there before, such as physical demands for computer VDT
operators and bank tellers. We could also talk with Kuching General Hospital about how they plan to conduct their job evaluation
program. "I’d suggest that we develop a job evaluation plan that’s tailor-made for our hospital,” Janet confirmed. "We could form a
committee composed of 6 to 10 members with representatives from all functional areas. The committee would be charged with
identifying the elements that should be considered in evaluating all jobs in the hospital. It would also determine the weights for all
factors. For some factors, such as knowledge and experience, accountability and judgment would be more difficult. But we could do
it; others have done it.” "What about costs? " David asked. "Charles is right." Janet replied. “We won’t really know until the evaluation task is complete.”But as a very rough estimate,
I’d say we would be raising the nursing and office workers’ pay by at least 10 percent, probably more. However, we can phase in the
increase over a number of years, a bit at a time.” "What happens if the evaluation determines that some male-dominated jobs are overpaid?” asked Charles. "Do we reduce our
pay while boosting the women’s”:’ Threat of unionization is a factor in regard to the nurses and clerical staff. What about the possibility
of male employees unionizing because of pay cuts?” "We’d have to address that question," Janet replied. "But given that most of our staff are women, overall our employees
would benefit from comparable worth." "You know, I’ve heard a lot about women benefiting fi’om comparable worth," said David. "But over the long term, I’m not
sure. It seems to me that if the concept is implemented nationwide, companies will have a higher wage bill with no increase in
productivity. So they may pay the bill by reducing the number ofjobs with the highest wage increases – jobs that women hold. Many
women may find themselves out of work." "That might be," Janet said "However, that hasn’t happened in countries like Australia and Great Britain that have actively
closed much of the gender-based wage gap in recent years. "Any other thou ghts’?"r asked David. “We should take a good look at a pay increase, and perhaps even more than the 5 percent requested", Charles said, “But stay
away from comparable worth for private business, it’s uncharted and dangerous tenitory." "This whole situation has raised questions in my mind about the fairness and validity of our pay structure," Janet said. "We
may have problems. Let’s look at it, and let’s consider comparable worth. We may not be able to go the all the way with this
comparable wor1h. How about a first step?” Image transcription text Questions
1. Based on the scenario 6:. the type of company highlighted above, is comparable worth a legitimate strategy for NMC in determining its job compensation? Justify your answers. {30%)
2. As the director of’NMC’s HR department, what recommendations would you make to Ali Ahmad? Justify your answers. [40%)
3. From an l-LRM perspective. What are the challenges of implementing comparable worth? Justify your answers. (30%)