My company is Xfinity (Comcast).

Identify specific practices within the areas of compensation and benefits that would aid your organization in developing the kind of employees that it needs and for retaining its most valuable human capital.

Your organizations compensation and benefits programs are based on traditional design principles typical of a company of its age and history. For example, almost all employees receive annual pay increases of two to five percent. This is frustrating to both managers and high performing employees. Managers would like to give better pay raises to high performers. However, budgets are only enough to cover the “required” raises to all employees; this leaves too little for more significant raises to high performers. Naturally, as a result, high performers who feel underpaid often seek other employment. The company’s policies have tended to reward seniority rather than performance, and because of the job evaluation system, compensation is tightly compressed. Benefits are thought to be generous in that the company pays for most of the cost. However, the structure of the benefits is rigid and only includes such traditional benefits as health insurance, life insurance, retirement plan (defined benefit) and a 401(k) plan (defined contribution).

The company recognizes that things are changing in its business environment as well as relative to the needs of its people, especially now that so much of its business in world-wide. As part of the ongoing analysis of trends that should influence the redesign of HRM in the company, what are the relevant trends in compensation and benefits that the company should pay the most attention to? To answer this question, address the following:

• Identify and explain at least three trends or recent approaches in compensation that your organization should consider in its redesign effort.
• Identify and explain at least three trends or recent approaches in benefits that your organization should consider in its redesign effort.
• Discuss the pros and cons to the trends/approaches identified in compensation.
• Discuss the pros and cons to the trends/approaches identified in benefits.
• Of all the trends/approaches you have discussed, which is the one that has the most merit for compensation and which one has the most merit for benefits? Justify your answer using examples and reasoning.

Answer the following four questions in order and number the beginning of your response to each question
Product Name Cheesecake Factory Company
Segmentation. (Please read the first bullet point in the directions above for this answer). Using the various criteria of the segmentation bases described in the week’s readings and in Table 4.1 Identify two distinct market segments for your product or service. Each market segment description must include at least three (more if needed) of the characteristics from among any of the four bases categories, e.g. one from demographic variables, one or two from psychographic variables, and one from behavioral variables, or a similar scheme. Be sure to explain your choices based on what customer need the product or service offering can fill for each segment. These should be important characteristics that describe the segments and should focus on different aspects of the customer. The goal, here, is to present two different groups of customers. The first should be the most obvious customer segment your product currently serves. The second one will be the basis of all future answers. This is a customer segment of your choice. Name this segment. Your name should be descriptive of the segment’s characteristics like ‘savvy young shoppers’ or ‘educated baby boomers’, or ‘urban hipsters’, or the like. The goal is for your faculty member to get a mental image of your target market for the remainder of the semester. The three characteristics should be clear in the name.
Target market. Using the customer segment you chose, described, and named in (1) above explain why you feel it can represent profitable growth for the company. In your explanation, refer to each the six criteria for an attractive market segment as described in course content under ‘Selecting Target Markets’. Name the criteria and present your case, using sources or examples of ads, etc. you have seen to support your reasoning for each of the six.
Target market strategy. Using the concepts from the course, discuss your targeting strategy going forward with your new target segment. Should the company focus all of its resources on this new segment (Concentrated marketing) or should they continue to pursue the existing target markets while embarking on special marketing for your new chosen target segment. (Multi-segment marketing)? Alternatively, is the market so saturated that they might they be more successful by focusing solely on an even more narrow market segment, perhaps an even narrower version (niche marketing) of your selected target market, as their best chance for growth? What is your reasoning? Use your marketing terms from the course in your discussion and present any research that supports your decision. You should be able to draw on the research you used for your previous answer.
Positioning. This answer assesses your understanding of the marketing concept, positioning. Please do not get so involved in the mechanics of putting together the map, that you forget the story your map means to convey. Put this map as an Exhibits attachment and just speak about your analysis in this answer narrative. See the last bullet point in the directions above about the construction of the map. Draw yourself a perceptual map as illustrated in the week’s readings or use the websites noted in the directions. Be sure to pick two criteria that are important to your new target market for your two axes, perhaps two of the criteria you used in Week 1 in your competitive analysis. Map at least six major competitors. Describe what the perceptual map is telling you regarding how each product is perceived in the minds of the new target market you described above. You may have to make a series of educated guesses for some of the data points. Ideally, you want to find uncontested space. If your product overlaps with a competing offering discuss whether or not your product or service should try for an ‘uncontested’ space on the map and ‘reposition’ itself; or if it should keep the same position and compete head on with the other product. (You will have a chance to make changes to the product, the pricing and the distribution to change the product’s positioning and find uncontested space in the coming weeks). Notice how the Beer sample map does not show four different criteria, but two different criteria with opposite ends of the axis for both.