HR Solutions: Benefits, Incentives, and Workforce Retention
This paper examines the strategic role of human resources in bridging employer and employee needs, with a focus on practical improvements to existing workplace policies. The author identifies three areas for improvement—benefits/incentives, pay rates for specialized roles, and outdated job descriptions—and proposes concrete best practices for each. Central recommendations include restructuring medical and dental plan options to better serve single-parent employees and implementing 401k contribution matching. The paper also addresses how to measure outcomes through employee surveys and anticipates potential challenges in gaining management approval, offering a pre-survey strategy to build a data-driven case for change.
- The Strategic Role of HR in the Workplace: HR as intermediary supporting organizational culture
- Current Practices and Areas for Improvement: Three key HR practices needing reform
- Restructuring the Benefits and Incentives Program: Expanded health plan tiers for single-parent workers
- 401k Matching and Positive Workplace Culture: Matching contributions to boost morale and retention
- Measuring Outcomes and Expected Results: Survey methods to evaluate policy effectiveness
- Overcoming Implementation Challenges: Building board support with pre-survey data
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds abstract HR concepts in a concrete, real-world scenario—specifically the gap in health plan options for single-parent employees—making the argument immediately relatable and practical.
- Uses a clear problem-solution structure: each identified issue is paired with a specific recommended remedy and an anticipated outcome, giving the paper strong internal logic.
- Supports claims with academic and professional sources (Schyns & Schilling, 2013; Feloni, 2016), lending credibility to both leadership theory and practical business advice.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied policy analysis: it identifies gaps in existing organizational practice, proposes evidence-informed solutions, and outlines a measurement and implementation plan. This reflects the real-world HR competency of translating workforce data into actionable recommendations while anticipating stakeholder resistance.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by defining the HR function and its strategic value to employers, then pivots to diagnosing three specific areas of weakness. The bulk of the analysis focuses on the benefits restructuring proposal, supported by leadership theory. The paper closes with a measurement strategy (employee surveys) and a discussion of how to overcome board-level resistance through pre-survey data collection.
The Strategic Role of HR in the Workplace
The service provided by the human resources (HR) function to an employer is to serve as a go-between for employers and employees, relaying information, needs, and assistance in a two-way flow so that both parties achieve their desired aims. The strategic advantage the HR component provides to an employer in hiring and retaining qualified employees is that it allows the cultivation of organizational culture to be properly facilitated and maintained through the addition of appropriate employees.
Current Practices and Areas for Improvement
Three current practices used by the employer that can be improved are the incentives program, the pay rate for specialized jobs, and the job descriptions, which need to be updated. Each of these areas represents an opportunity to better align organizational practice with employee expectations and market standards.
Restructuring the Benefits and Incentives Program
One best practice that can be exercised to improve the benefits and incentives program within the firm is a restructuring of the medical and dental options made available to employees after 90 days. Currently, the only two options available to employees are (1) an employee-only plan and (2) a full family plan. However, a significant number of employees are single parents with one child. The employee-only option does not cover the costs of care for the employee's child, while the full family option is too expensive for many workers.
Therefore, a third option should be considered—one made available to workers based on the number of children they wish to include in their coverage. This would be a positive alternative for employees who need a plan that covers their child but cannot afford a full family package. Such a tiered approach to employee benefits is increasingly recognized as a best practice in workforce management, as it accommodates the diverse household structures of a modern workforce.
401k Matching and Positive Workplace Culture
A second practice that would incentivize workers and promote greater positivity in the workplace is matching employees' contributions to their 401k plans. Employees would be grateful for this new option, and the match would signal that management genuinely cares about their long-term financial well-being. As T-Mobile CEO John Legere acknowledged to students at business colleges he visited, a good CEO is one who listens—to consumers and to employees alike—and then acts on what he hears (Feloni, 2016).
As research on leadership quality demonstrates, good leadership tends to promote positivity and uplift workers from within, which in turn produces better outcomes for the external environment—while poor leadership primarily generates negativity that damages the company, its workforce, and its morale (Schyns & Schilling, 2013).
References
Feloni, R. (2016). The T-Mobile CEO who calls his competition 'dumb and dumber' explains how he doubled customers in 4 years, and how a group of employees made him cry. Business Insider.
Schyns, B., & Schilling, J. (2013). How bad are the effects of bad leaders? A meta-analysis of destructive leadership and its outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 24, 138–158.
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