Assignment 2: LASA 2—Townsend Rock Industries

Assignment 2: LASA 2—Townsend Rock Industries

Townsend Rock Industries Inc. (TRI) and its subsidiaries make and market concrete construction materials and produce and sell concrete building materials.
Click here to learn more about TRI.
In this assignment, you will apply what you have learned so far in the course.
Tasks:
You are hired by the HR consulting group to analyze TRI’s compensation, benefits, and rewards policies as well as its performance appraisal system and present senior management with an improvement plan.
Write a multipart report covering the following sections in about 8–10 pages:

• • Section 1: Compensation
    • Subsection A: Evaluate options for compensation models that would be appropriate for TRI. These compensation models will include, but not be limited to, salary, hourly wage, individual bonus, team-based bonuses, executive stock options, and profit sharing.
    • Subsection B: Given the wide variety of employees in the company (ranging from senior executive staff to senior management, middle management, supervisors, laborers, and truck drivers), evaluate the compensation models and benefit packages that would be appropriate. Keep in mind employees’ levels of education, experience, and training and demographic and cultural factors. In addition, keep within legal and ethical boundaries of the various locations.
    • Subsection C: Consider the future growth and success of the company relative to staffing needs. For this, analyze the role of compensation in attracting employees as well as aiding in their personal and professional development and retention.
  • Section 2: Motivation
    • Focus on the effective management of employees and the most appropriate ways to motivate them to ensure that the company can meet and exceed the expectations of its multiple stakeholders.

Help the company develop an appropriate performance appraisal system that can help it maintain and develop appropriate workforce. Develop a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation for senior management that covers the relevant motivation theories, including both monetary and nonmonetary rewards and the way they could be integrated into a new, company-wide performance appraisal system (embed your presentation in the report). Include theories of motivation and rewards that support your recommendations to the company.

• Section 3: Communication Plan
  • Develop a communication plan in which this new performance appraisal system and related compensation and benefits program can be rolled out and presented to all employees in a manner that allows appropriate dialogue and discussion.

Support your assumptions by citing in APA format any reputable source material used for this discussion.
Submission Details:

• By the due date assigned, save your report as M5_A2_lastname_firstinitial.doc and submit it to the Submissions Area.

This assignment is worth 300 points and will be graded using a rubric.
Case Study—Townsend Rock Industries
The company operates quarries, plants, and distribution sites in the southeastern and mid-Atlantic United States and serves commercial, industrial, residential, and governmental construction companies. It owns and operates quarries and distribution centers in Canada, the Bahamas, and Argentina.
Its headquarters are in Jacksonville, Florida, and the company has production and distribution facilities in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, Canada, the Bahamas, and Argentina. Currently, it employs twenty- five hundred employees, in positions ranging from executive-level administration to engineers, geologists, and technicians. Within each geographic location, there are employees of different levels (executive team, senior management, middle management, and salaried and hourly employees). The executive team is located in Jacksonville, Florida, and most of the corporate and administrative functions are handled from there as well. However, there are also some production plants and distribution facilities in other parts of Florida and in Virginia, Maryland, and Georgia. These operations are more likely to hire lower-level managers and hourly workers. The facilities in Canada, the Bahamas, and Argentina have both middle management and hourly production workers.
The company is regarded as a leader in the cement industry and is known for its fair and equitable treatment of employees. The company’s mission is:
. . . to be an excellent construction materials company providing long-term growth and a superior return on investment. Through employees committed to continuous improvement, we will provide quality materials and superb service for our customers; operate safe, environmentally responsible facilities that are well maintained and cost effective; and develop mutually beneficial relationships with our suppliers and the communities within which we operate.
TRI was started as a family business in the 1930s, and, over the years, it grew by acquiring competitors and other firms in related services. Employees perceive the management team to be fair, and there have been no efforts to introduce a union. The company is publicly traded on the NASDAQ.
The company leadership in the early days focused more on production and servicing customers and less on the efficient organization of its various business functional areas, which has resulted in a number of inconsistencies throughout the operations of the company. Five years ago, the company needed to improve plant and facilities management. So the management adopted a software package that helped it optimize key areas in production processing. This resulted in increased production and improved consistency across shifts and produced a return on investment (ROI) for its shareholders.
Recently, it has implemented an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to improve coordination of internal business functions (e.g., production, human resources [HR], inventory management, operations, finance, project management, distribution, and supply chain). During the implementation process, however, the company realized that there were a number of inconsistencies, particularly in the HR areas of compensation, benefits, and reward systems, that needed to be corrected going forward. So the company has hired an HR consulting firm to assess this situation. These decisions are critical to the future and continued success of the company since they have an impact on employee and public perceptions as well as in the company’s culture.