Read the CASE: XCEL ENERGY PAYS FOR EMPLOYEES WHO EXCEL at the end of Chapter 12. Answer the three questions at the end of the case in a 2 page paper. Follow the project guidelines below. Project Requirements: 1.Complete a 2 page paper APA format, not including the title page and reference page 2.Include at least two references from your reading assignments or other academic source to reinforce and support your own thoughts, ideas, and statements CASE: XCEL ENERGY PAYS FOR EMPLOYEES WHO EXCEL The management of Xcel Energy, an electricity and naturalgas utility based in Minneapolis and serving eight states, believes in linking rewards to performance. For example, an incentive plan called Xpress Ideas pays employees an immediate bonus for submitting beneficial suggestions. The company’s employees loved the idea; in one year alone, they submitted 6,133 suggestions, and most of them were implemented—and rewarded. The downside of this plan is that Xcel Energy hadn’t set up a system for measuring whether the rewards were worth the money—more than $427,000 for the 6,133 ideas. So the company is trying to tie future rewards more closely to its strategy by focusing more on merit bonuses paid for a combination of individual, group, and corporate performance. The company’s strategy is to be a top utility by “continuously improving our operations to be the lowest cost, most reliable and most environmentally sound energy provider.” If Xcel can excel at its merit-pay program, it will be far ahead of the average company. Typically, corporations try to keep everyone satisfied by spreading a rather small pool of merit pay fairly evenly across all employees. Recently, the average share of the payroll budget devoted to merit pay was just 4 percent. With a budget that size, at many companies, a top performer might get a bonus that is just 2 percentage points higher than that of an average worker. The average and poor workers might be happy, but the best people might actually be annoyed. One way Xcel is addressing this challenge is to channel more of the merit-pay budget to nonmanagement employees. Managers’ merit increases are limited to 2 percent, freeing more money for everyone else. Then it is urging managers to give bigger raises and bonuses to the best employees. Chief financial officer Ben Fowke says this arrangement is intended to “send a signal about how you can be rewarded if you’re a performer.” Xcel is also considering a long-term incentive plan for nonmanagement employees. Managers already can earn bonuses in the form of stock shares. The company may extend the stock plan to employees who are not managers. 362 PART 4 Compensating Human Resources As Xcel develops these programs, it is keeping issues of fairness in mind. An unfair compensation arrangement will fail as an incentive for good performance. One outcome is that when rising health care costs forced Xcel to begin deducting more for health insurance from employees’ paychecks, the company also cut some perks for its executives, including medical coverage without a deductible, free financial planning, and home security systems. Michael Connelly, Xcel’s vice president of human resources, explains the decision this way: “Employees understand that executives are going to be paid more, but they also respond well when they see a company being consistent in its actions.” SOURCE : Roy Harris, “Just Rewards,” CFO, February 2007, pp. 71–74; and Xcel Energy, “About Us,” Xcel Web site, www.xcelenergy.com , accessed February 25, 2008. Questions 1. Based on the information given, do you agree with management’s conclusion that merit pay can support Xcel’s strategy better than paying for suggestions? Why or why not? 2. How might Xcel continue to encourage suggestions as it aligns incentive pay more closely with its strategy? How do you think employees might react to these changes? 3. Imagine that Xcel has asked you to be a consultant advising on how to improve its merit pay system. Make three suggestions for ensuring that merit pay at Xcel is effective as an incentive.

Resource: Table 2.2 in Introduction to Information Systems

 

Scenario: Imagine that you and a business partner are considering starting a small, brick-and-mortar, nostalgic record store. Your friend does not have much experience with information systems or technology, and needs a basic understanding of the different types of information systems available to businesses.

 

Write a proposal of the types of information systems that would work well for your chosen business, and their benefits and drawbacks. The proposal must explain five types of information systems. See Table 2.2 in Introduction to Information Systems.

 

Include the following in your summary using the features of Microsoft^® Word:

 

·         A table of contents

·         A table

·         A minimum of two styles

·         An image

Either a bulleted or numbered list

I need a five page paper in a word format. Apply APA standard of writitng in this paper and also use scholarly source not wikipedia and use information from text book “Legal Environment of Business.”

Thanks

 

One of the key aspects of developing a strategy for the human elements in information technology (IT) project is to identify the roles and responsibilities of those affected by and involved with the projects. These people are called the stakeholders, and they will be the ones who determine the success of the projects. The key aspects of a project’s success include the identification of the stakeholders and planning and preparing for the strategies of communication between those stakeholders.

For this assignment, you will continue to work on the Human Elements in IT Strategy document by identifying the stakeholders and defining their roles and responsibilities within the IT projects. You will then establish a strategy for communication between these stakeholders, including the methods of communication and identification of the key artifacts of project information that must be communicated during project execution. This is the Key Assignment First Draft.

The project deliverables are as follows:

• Update the Human Elements in IT Strategy document title page with a new date.
• Update the previously completed sections based on instructor feedback.
• IT Project Stakeholders
  • Stakeholder Identification, Roles, and Responsibilities
    • Create a list of the key stakeholders in your organization’s IT projects.
    • Describe the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder with respect to IT projects.
    • Summarize the issues related to the organization’s IT projects that are important to each stakeholder.
  • Stakeholder Communication
    • Develop a strategy for communication between the stakeholders identified in the first part of the assignment.
    • The communication strategy should identify the major communication that should occur during the project and the key artifacts that should be communicated.
      • For example, a design document should be one of the key artifacts, and it should be communicated to specific project stakeholders.
      • A communication matrix would be appropriate for this part of the assignment.
• Be sure to update your table of contents before submission.

2 pages..

There is 2 pictures amd u have to solve question number 8.9 as shown in the 2 pictures..

and there is a link which u can get the summary of the chapter 8 for this quesion..

This is the link

http://www.engin.umich.edu/scps/html/08chap/frames.htm

 

THe name of the book is Strategies for Creative Problem Solving