Calvert Group is a mutual funds company in Bethesda, Maryland. Concerned that a 30 percent turnover rate was too high, Calvert executives restructured their benefits and human resource programs to address four human needs. These are: survival, social/emotional, psychological, and spiritual.

Survival needs are addressed through a Personal Choices Benefits Plan that offers different medical, dental, long-term care, time-off benefit, and savings plans. These plans are concerned with employee health, wellness, and long-term well-being; and employees are able to make choices.

Social/emotional needs are addressed through work and family programs, such as flextime, job sharing, and parental leave, as well as through a variety of training programs in diversity, sexual harassment, and ADA awareness.

Psychological needs are addressed through job opportunities, educational assistance, on-site learning opportunities, management development, employee empowerment, and numerous reward systems.

Spiritual needs are addressed through career development, community involvement, volunteerism, and an employee giving campaign.

Calvert Group's explicit recognition of employees' basic needs and providing choices in meeting these needs is a human investment with high returns. Calvert has become an employer of choice and the turnover rate dropped to 5 percent in 1995.

SOURCE: D. Anfuso, "Creating a Culture of Caring Pays Off," Personnel Journal (August 1995): 70-77.

SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATION

Are You Worth $2 Million?

Graduate students in a business school read a salary scenario and a brief description of a senior executive who made $2 million for one year. The descriptions included job title and responsibility, a brief history of the executive, and personal and/or family information about the executive. In addition, some students were asked to assume that they were the executive.

The students rated how fair the salary was on a five-point scale: very fair to very unfair. Then students were asked to rate the extent to which the following 14 factors justified the salary: personal need, hard work, work experience and training, market forces, level of performance, company's ability to pay, unique talents and abilities, contribution to the reputation of the company, positive benefit to society, "in America, people should be able to make this much," similar executives make similar amounts, difficulty of the job, good luck, and high job responsibility.

Justifications for exceptionally high salaries varied by job and rater perspective. The results indicated that different justifications were associated with different occupations, but the justifications were consistent across genders. Hard work, talent, and performance factors were viewed as more important considerations than were external factors. The perceptions of salary fairness increased when the rater was the recipient (I'm worth $2 million!). While the sensitivity to the obvious inequity of a $2 million salary was low, tomorrow's managers are likely to base pay on performance, not social norms, the market, or gender.

SOURCE: T. R. Mitchell, J. George-Falvy, and S. R. Crandall, "Business Students' Justifications of Exceptionally High Salaries: Is It OK to Make $2 Million a Year?" Group & Organization Management 18 (1993): 500-522. Copyright © 1993 by Sage Publications. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications.

ORGANIZATIONAL REALITY

Wixon Fontarome at Walt Disney World

J. H. "Bud" Morgan is president of Wixon Fontarome, a manufacturer of food flavorings in Milwaukee that employs 150 people. In 1994, the company had revenues of $50 million. "Bud" Morgan used $300,000 to finance a trip for each of Wixon's 150 employees, and a companion, to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The trip was designed to motivate and reward employees for years of consistent growth in sales and profits. Morgan believed that Wixon's employees had achieved the performance, so they deserved the reward. In addition to fun and games, the trip was designed as a learning experience.

The employees went to Walt Disney World in three groups for four-day trips each. Each employee was given $300 in spending money, a park pass, and the freedom to go, play, and observe. There were two mandatory employee meetings at Walt Disney World that focused on quality and teamwork; hence, the learning component of the trip. Morgan saw Walt Disney World as a quality organization that could provide an ideal model for training in total quality and from which Wixon's employees could learn.

Who said training, learning, and total quality cannot be fun? "Bud" Morgan thinks they can be. He was also clear that the reward followed the performance, and was designed as a possible investment in future performance.

SOURCE: R. Maynard, "Building Teamwork for Fun and Profit," Nations Business (April 1995): 10. Reprinted by permission, Nation's Business, April, 1995. Copyright © 1995, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

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