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Managing Labor Cost

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Assignment 9: Managing Labor Cost

Cheryl Cunningham

Professor Laura Sankovich

Compensation and Benefits Management

June 9, 2013

INTRODUCTION
“There are two major approaches to coming up with budgets for any home, small business, or larger company: the traditional method of budgeting is known as bottom-up budgeting, though many businesses and corporations, along with the United States government, are moving towards more top-down budgeting, particularly during times of fiscal stress (Peterson, 2012).”

BOTTOM UP The components of the Bottom Up approach are as follows:
Instruct managers in compensation policies and techniques, distribute forecasting instructions and worksheets, provide consultations to managers, check data and compile reports. Analyze forecasts, review and revise forecasts and budgets with management, conduct feedback with management and monitor budgeted versus actual increases.

TOP DOWN
Top down approach the budget starts with an assessment from upper management of the pay increase budget for the whole organization. Once the total budget is determined, it is then distributed to each manager, who plans how to dispense it among assistants. Planned pay-level rise is another approach of top down which is the percentage increase in average pay for the unit that is planned to happen. There are several factors that come into play on how much increase the average pay level for the next period and they are as follows: how much the average level was increased this period, ability to pay, competitive market pressures, turnover effects and cost of living (Milkovich, Newman & Gerhart, 2011).
The approach my current workplace uses is the Top down approach. I agree, this is wise because the company is small and upper management knows everyone and is able to recognize the duties and responsibilities of each employee and if they are effective in their work. This will also encourage employees to work hard in order to move up in their company.
I feel the bottom up approach is more for a larger company due to the fact that managers and supervisors know in great detail what each employee is doing and how the employee is managing their duties and responsibilities. In regards to larger companies upper management just do not have the time to recognize what the employees are doing first hand because of time spent away from the office in most cases.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
Disadvantages of Bottom Up: Managers and supervisors may often ask for more funding than what is needed when a project is on the table for completion. This is considered a waste. Also, it can be difficult to try and implement a plan to be exact for the completion of the project. This can cause serious problems in the budget overall (Peterson, 2012).
Advantages of Bottom Up: Bottom up involves each member of a particular task which can be beneficial to the company as well as the employee. It also helps build the company morale and employee’s involvement (Peterson, 2012).
Disadvantages of Top Down: “If overall project managers cannot come up with an accurate budget, the lower-level managers and employees will find themselves scrambling for money, so that they can accomplish their tasks with not enough money. This can and will cause problems with the company morale and employee involvement (BusinessKnowledgeSource.com).”
Advantages of Top Down: Money comes down from upper management to lower management until all task has what is needed to complete the project. The budgeting process starts with overall project managers (BusinessKnowledgeSource.com).

REFERENCES
BusinessKnowledgeSource.com (n.d.). A Look At Top-Down Budgeting. http://www.businessknowledgesource.com/finance/a_look_at_topdown_budgeting_024714.html

Milkovich, G., Newman, J. M., Gerhart, B. (2011). Compensation (10th ed.). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Peterson, Luke. (2012). A comparison of top-down to bottom-up budgeting.
http://larkin284.blogspot.com/2012/11/in-bottom-up-budgeting-lower-level.html

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