Category: Business and Management

For this individual assignment, you are asked to choose a platform that employs or has employed a freemium business model and analyze its strategy in a paper that does not exceed 1,500 words. Please do not choose any of the online storage companies (i.e. Dropbox, Google Drive, Apple iCloud, Box or Microsoft SkyDrive) for your assignment, as we are discussing those in an in-class case. By October 7, please send me an email with the name of the company you have selected. For the essay, you are asked to address the following questions:

1. How does the underlying technology enable a free version of the product?

2. What are the advantages and the costs of offering a free version of the product?

3. What is the impact of offering a free version of the product on the firms competitors?

4. Could the platform offering the product earn more by not offering a free version of the product? Explain the assumptions (e.g. economic & behavioral assumptions for consumers) supporting your analysis and provide information and evidence to justify those assumptions.

After reading the service measurement module, provide a minimum 2-page single-spaced assessment of a service business that you use, have analyzed, or have worked for according to the 4 GAP MODEL of Service Quality. (Note: You can be longer than the prescribed length)

Include in your answer 1) how the business is doing at RATER attributes of service and then 2) how they are doing for each of the GAPs. These are also called principles in your MODULES of Service Quality (GAP 1, 2, 3, 4). It is easy to do this by choosing the GAPS and the sub-areas under the GAPS and assessing the business on those.  Aside from the Service Measurement handout, feel free to google scholar GAP THEORY MODEL of Service Quality, there are several visuals under images which will make this assignment more clear.  3)What other method could you use to measure the service of this business? Use originality and expression in this assignment.

Case Scenario:

A Silicon Valley recruiting firm searches for artificial intelligence (AI) and technology personnel for major companies around the world. The recruits workplace could be located anywhere the company operates, depending on their skills and expertise, although the tendency is to hire in-country nationals in each respective country. The company uses technology-oriented magazines, the company website, and social media to recruit the candidates they need for their clients. They started up about a year ago and went from 3 to 50 recruiters. Their recruiters are hired for their charm, communication skills, and industry expertise; however, most of the recruiters graduated from Ivy League colleges in the U.S. and most are white males. Lately recruiting numbers have been slowing down drastically, while general demand in the marketplace by employers for AI and technology personnel for the coming year is up 300%.

The current recruiting practice involves hiring people via the firms website recruitment area. The potential candidate merely attaches their resume and includes a short note to the recruiter (Step 1). These resumes are then screened (Step 2) using a data mining program, looking for certain criteria and terminology in their resumes. Those candidates getting through the initial screening are then auto-contacted by email (Step 3) to tell them they need to complete a quiz on the website using a particular password. If they pass this second screening, they are given an individual interview (Step 4) via the companys online conference room. The final candidates are sent to the potential employer for the final interview (Step 5) and selection (Step 6).

Now, however, the president is getting complaints from the EEO Commission and the technology firms that they need to be hiring a more diverse workforce and that there are no disabled candidates, and the number of minorities and women is almost nil. The president is now worried about losing clients and about potential lawsuits as a result of the firms recruiting and selection processes. The company needs to address a diverse client base. Their clients customers are predominantly Northern European, African American, Indian, and Hispanic.

Checklist: As the HR specialist of the company, you are tasked with overhauling the selection and hiring process to address the following:

-Identify problems with the potential candidate characteristics for which they are hiring.
-Analyze the companys recruitment and selection process and problems.
-What multicultural and diversity planning concepts would you apply at the company to make a positive change?
-Describe what changes you would make to address complaints from the EEO Commission and the technology firms.

Include at least two references from your reading assignments, or other academic sources, to reinforce and support your own thoughts, ideas, and statements using APA citation style.

The format for your each article review includes APA citation, Part I: Summary divided into research objectives/questions, literature reviews, methodology form used, data analysis technique employed, discussion, results and future research and Part II: your response to the importance of the research and questions it left you with and your suggestions for researchers and/or practitioners of service based on the topic.

NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Association, is  essentially the same agreement hammered out by the Clinton administration. It has been in existence now for decades. What is your opinion on how it has done? Remember that all posts are due by saturday at midnight. No late posts can be accepted. Also keep in mind what constitutes a substantive post and substantive responses.

Composition must be 2-3 pages (approximately 500-750 words).
Double-space the composition and use one-inch margins.
Use a readable 12-point font.
All writing must be appropriate for an academic context.
Composition must be original and written for this assignment.
Plagiarism of any kind is strictly prohibited.
Submission must include your name, the name of the course, the date, and the title of your composition.
Include all of the assignment components in a single file.
Acceptable file formats include .doc and .docx.

Case: Imagine that you are a manager working at Facebook. You know that employees in your division have seen this recent article from Fortune because you heard them discussing it in the break room. After, one employee came to you and said that he’d heard others discuss whether they should start looking for work elsewhere. You want to address the bad news and generate confidence in the company — not only do you think that this bad news will blow over, but a major project is going to be unveiled soon and you will need everyone to be focused on their work — not looking for work elsewhere. You know that it’s often better to be transparent, so you’re planning to acknowledge the bad press and then describe why employees should have confidence in Facebook. It’s now November 2018.

Before doing this assignment, please open this link and read it.

https://fortune.com/2018/11/08/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-reputation/

Case: Imagine that you are a manager working at Facebook. You know that employees in your division have seen this recent article from Fortune because you heard them discussing it in the break room. After, one employee came to you and said that he’d heard others discuss whether they should start looking for work elsewhere. You want to address the bad news and generate confidence in the company — not only do you think that this bad news will blow over, but a major project is going to be unveiled soon and you will need everyone to be focused on their work — not looking for work elsewhere. You know that it’s often better to be transparent, so you’re planning to acknowledge the bad press and then describe why employees should have confidence in Facebook. It’s now November 2018.

Please see this report before doing this assignment.

This is for two separate replies. Part A is the original and you must ** Reply to at least 2 of your classmates. Attempt to draw a parallel between your classmates threads and your own with respect to connecting back to your initial thoughts on strategic compensation and what you had hoped to learn.**
Part A is what I wrote

Part A and Part B = 125 word reply
Part A and Part B = 125 word reply

**Part A**
The most important issue surrounding compensation would be that of minimal wage. There are several things that can cause an uncertainty when it comes to compensation, but I feel that minimal wage changes are the greatest uncertainty facing many workers; especially workforce diversity and changes in the preferences of employers.  The minimum wage is a cornerstone of the United States’ labor system, and has been a cutting-edge labor law topic among employers and workers alike for decades. One of the main negative impact is that it will cause an increase in unemployment among unskilled and low wage workers. Studies have shown that a 10% increase in the minimum wage caused a 1 to 3% reduction in employment (Dube et al., 2016). Over the years economists have studied the impact of minimum wage on fast food and other minimum wage industries with conflicting results.  If there is a significant increase in the minimum wage it will have a negative impact on employment rates. This impact will be mainly felt in markets that have low skilled workers such as the food service, retail and entry level positions that require little to no education or training. Gittings & Schmutte (2012). There are so many views for and against the debate of increasing the minimum wage but it should be mandate by the federal government for all states to increase their minimum wage. Pay rates should match the cost of living in each state so that the low-income workers can better provide for their families ultimately reducing income inequality. Raising the minimum wage is a crucial step in having an economy that is beneficial for everyone not just the wealthy.

**Part B**
    Minimum wage has remained static in the United States since 2009.  However, inflation has increased roughly 22% since then.  This means the buying power of $7.25 in 2009 is equivalent to $8.85 in 2020.  Although it seems logical that minimum wage should keep up with inflation, modern technology has made the equation far more difficult.
            Automation has become more evident in nearly every aspect of American life.  The cost of the technology has been decreasing while the efficiency has increased.  Lordan & Neumark (2018), find that increasing the minimum wage decreases significantly the share of automatable employment held by low-skilled workers, and increases the likelihood that low-skilled workers in automatable jobs become nonemployed or employed in worse jobs (p. 42).  Former McDonald CEO, Ed Rensi, bluntly stated that if minimum wage were increased to $15 an hour, there would be massive layoffs and workers would be replaced with machines (McDonald’s Reacts, 2016).  In some ways, the CEO was being honest.  However, the world is already headed in that direction; technology will continue to improve and costs for that technology will decline.
            Another interesting effect of increasing minimum wage is the overall buying power of money.  Bourque (2020) believes when we increase their costs, they have to raise their prices. Although employees may get a raise, their cost of living increases will provide a net gain of zero or even less (p. 12).  Additionally, those increased prices could drive customers away.  Many businesses, especially within the food industry rely on slim profit margins.  The decreased revenue, compounded with the increased overhead could cause many companies to fail completely.

**Part C**
The five important issues that will shape compensation professionals work for years to come include increase to the federal minimum wage rate, trends in performance appraisal, compensation-productivity gap, gender pay gap, and pay transparency. All five of these issues are very important parts of a compensation professionals career. They must all be taken into consideration when being responsible for others compensation plans and handling the pay of employees. I believe the issue that raises the greatest uncertainty for compensation professionals is gender pay gap. This will consistently be a concerning topic and an issue in our society. As compensation professionals will be faced with dealing with the gap in pay as they set the pay for the different genders as they hire new talent and are faced with the difficulty of fair pay and ensuring fair pay within the workforce. Gender pay gap is continuously discussed in the world today in many different avenues and in the public sectors in an attempt to understand why there is a pay gap amongst genders in the workforce (Martocchio, 2020). It is not fully understood as to why there is a gap in pay still to this day as the world has moved to a greater acceptance of women in the workforce and the movement of feminism. One option to ensure equal pay is to provide equal pay for equal work no matter the gender (). Another option is comparable pay for comparable worth (Martocchio, 2020). This option is a debatable option as it insinuates not all genders perform the same level of output of work. The consistent issue that is found with gender pay gap is no matter what the process is, women pay is consistently lower than male pay. The arguments of comparable pay for comparable worth do not align as a job description for a woman can be the same job description for a male, yet he will receive a higher level of pay than the woman will receive. The job duties will be the same and the level of output will be equal, and the woman may even produce a higher level of output, yet the gender makes all of the difference.  Gender pay gap has improved over time. However, research shows that women still earn twenty percent less than men (Grove, Hussey, & Jetter, 2011). Research has dug deep into attempting to understand why women are paid less than men. Society continues to put pressure on the idea that women with the same education, skills, and work experience are paid less than men. Research shows otherwise, explaining that it is less about discrimination and more about a lower skill set, a lower education level, and less work experience (Grove, Hussey, & Jetter, 2011).