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VI. Your Turn: Burger Boy
Summary of Case
Burger Boy is a fast food restaurant. The case explains the scenario at the restaurant on a
excess crowd, some of them have volunteered to double up on the absentees’ duties.
Learning Objective
The students are expected to understand the management of the restaurant and identify the
discrepancies, and analyze the best possible compensation package to motivate the
employees at Burger Boy.
Teaching Guideline
Use this case to help students relate the issues at a demanding workplace to compensation
and to provide solutions to these issues.
Discussion of Case Questions
1. What appear to be the problems at this Burger Boy?
decreasing the drive time from the current 3.05 to 2.30. There seems to be absolute
Boy seems to be highly disorganized and incapable of coping with changes, and
stressful periods. There is also an apparent lack of communication between employees
2. How many of these problems could be explained by compensation issues?
employees are absent on the busiest day of the week and is grumbling about it. This
could show that he is unhappy with the pay and the extra responsibility that he needs
compensation.
3. How many other problems could be lessened with diligent use of rewards other
than pay?
The lack of motivation and the sense of unrest can easily be combated with the regular
productivity and morale. Communication between the employees and the management
and positive, regular feedback can also boost this entire process.
4. Are hours of work a reward? What might explain why I was happy to be
working 20 hours per week, but Chuck was unhappy with 30 hours per week?
How might schedules be used as a reward?
Student answers may vary.
In the current scenario presented, hours of work are probably not considered a reward.
the allotted 10, he does let the assistant store manager know he’s angry! The fact that
Chuck is unhappier as compared to Jerry shows that its not the number of hours, but
the service/orders does not suffer. Obviously, stress and over-work have resulted in
just that. Over-time, if required, can be planned and accommodated and justly paid so
Answers to Review Questions
1. A father decides to put his two sons to work landscaping. The business involves going
to a customer’s home and providing landscaping services (cut grass, edge sidewalk,
pull weeds in flower beds, prune bushes and trees, rake leaves). Rather than paying a
flat wage, the father decides to pay an incentive according to the following schedule
(average across all lawns):
Task Piece Rate
Incentive per
Person
Physical Effort Time to
Complete per
Person
Charge to
Customer
Cut grass $4 Easy .4 hr $30
At the end of the second week under this arrangement the boys are quarreling with
each other and not happy with their dad. All of the disagreements revolve around the
incentive system. What might be the problems?
First, the amount of money each boy could expect to make from each activity (cutting
Prune bushes, etc. $5 $10.00 $80
Rake leaves $5 $10.00 $80
Notes related to calculations: Wages per day (8 hours) for cutting grass, edging sidewalk,
pulling weeds in flower beds, pruning bushes and trees, raking leaves are calculated
day. Also, since the boys do not receive any base pay for the landscaping business, they
incur a high level of risk. All their pay depends on the number of units, i.e. houses at which
grass is cut, sidewalks edged, houses at which weeds are pulled, houses at which bushes
Several changes need to be made:
time taken, and the charges made for the job.
2. Father Michael’s Wraps’ (pitas, wraps, flat breads) is experiencing turnover in the
range of 100 percent. Most of this occurs in the first 18 months of employment. How
would you determine if this turnover rate is high? How would you justify to your boss
that lower turnover is strategically important? What would you look at in both pay
and other forms of rewards to identify ways of reducing turnover? Justify your
choices based on your reading of this chapter.
Several assumptions have to be made. Although it is known what type of product is
have elements of stress attached to it, one can easily assume that it is a high turnover rate
for the industry. One of the most likely reasons is that the employees are leaving due to
incentive component.
Any incentive component should be based on work performance over which the
oProviding regular feedback
oEnsuring the working conditions are safe.
3. Eric Dempsey Associates (EDA) is a relatively small Public Relations/Advertising firm
in Western New York. They recently shifted their strategic plan to focus almost
exclusively on clients who generate $200,000 or more in revenue for the firm. There
are six employees in the firm who focus exclusively on business development,
identifying new client prospects and making “pitches” to these prospects about ways
that EDA can help them. While the payout for landing these prospects is high,
averaging four times the revenue of the typical EDA client in the past, the likelihood
of getting these new clients is considerably lower. In the past the Development
associates (as they are called) were paid heavily on incentive pay (4 percent of revenue
generated by clients landed by the associate) along with a base pay that was 95
percent of the market rate for comparable jobs in Western New York. What changes
do you think should be made in compensation to reflect changes in the strategic plan
of EDA?
Any good answer should talk about the increased difficulty of “landing” these larger
clients for EDA. We could either increase the size of base pay and lower or eliminate
impossible to determine.
4. Companies focus heavily on cost-saving strategies to be competitive today. Identify
both monetary and nonmonetary ways of cost saving that would be relevant to a
compensation person's job.
advancement. And there is growing sentiment for letting workers choose their own “blend”
of rewards from among elements such as compensation benefits, social security, etc.
line, buying more or less of the 13 rewards as their needs dictate. While widespread use of
5. You supervise in a company that is a low payer relative to competitors. What things
do you have control over to increase the likelihood that workers will feel fairly
treated?
As a supervisor, the base pay, pay-for-performance (if put in place), and other benefits and
rewards cannot be directly controlled by you. These are decisions affected by the upper
procedures and having supervisors who are viewed as fair in the means they use to allocate
rewards are perceived as more trustworthy and command higher levels of commitment.
appeals. In a union environment, this is the grievance procedure. Something similar needs
to be set up in a nonunion environment.
