1、 中文 3940 字 外文翻译 题 目 A 公司员工福利现状、问题及对策研究 专 业 人力资源管理 外文题目 Employee benefits of multi-owner accounting firms: groundwork for benchmarking 外文出处 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.2005:P354-363 外文作者 Ronald McGaughey. K. Michael Casey. Victor Puleo. 原文： Employee benefits of multi-owner accounting firms: gro
2、undwork for benchmarking Ronald McGaughey. K. Michael Casey. Victor Puleo. Human resources (people) are arguably a critical resource in organizations. Even with the great advances in automation and IT, human resources remain critical to the success of organizations, both public and private. This is
3、particularly true in many types of service operations where the work remains highly labor intensive in spite of advances in technology. Efficient and effective management of human resources has the potential to profoundly influence present and future organizational success, particularly for labor-in
4、tensive services like those performed by a Certified Public Accountant. A critical aspect of human resource management today is compensation； furthermore, employee benefits are an integral part of the total compensation package. Among the forces increasing the importance of benefits are the followin
5、g: the rising cost and increased complexity of healthcare (including prescription drug costs) and related insurance coverage； increased skepticism about the future availability of government managed retirement benefits such as social security and cuts in government assistance programs； an ever incre
6、asing cost of living that increases post retirement financial needs； and growing concern about pension fund failures or reduction in pension fund payouts. Employee benefits provide considerable financial security to employees and their families. Benefits are also costly to the employer. According to
7、 a 1998 study by the United States Chamber of Commerce, the average cost of employee benefits provided by private employers equaled one-third of payroll. Attractive employee benefit packages, especially those that allow employees choices and greater control (flexibility) over their benefit package,
8、allow firms to recruit and retain the highly competent people required to manage and perform the processes critical to service system success. The broadest definition of employee benefits includes both legally required and discretionary benefits. In the US, legally required benefits include social s
9、ecurity, workers compensation and unemployment insurance. Discretionary benefits include protection programs (e.g. life insurance, disability insurance, retirement plans, health insurance and dental insurance), paid time-off, and accommodation and enhancement benefits (e.g. educational programs). Em
10、ployers have limited flexibility in the design of legally required benefits that are mandated at either the state or federal level. However, the proper selection and design of voluntary group benefits as part of a total compensation package, is crucial to a strategy of attracting and retaining the b
11、est, most highly qualified employees (Salisbury, 1998, p. 7). The purpose of this paper is to examine discretionary benefits of a service intensive industry, specifically benefits provided by multi-owner accounting firms. The results of this research might be used to benchmark current benefits packa
12、ges of multi-owner accounting firms, and potentially other professional service industries, against reported averages. External benchmarking examines best practice in other organizations, be they direct competitors or organizations in similar or unrelated industries. External benchmarking can be con
13、ducted among partners in different industries but under common ownership (companies comprising large multinationals are good examples), among partners in different industry sectors but sharing similar processes, and among competitors (Codling, 1996). The advantage of process benchmarking is clear in
14、 this approach diverse companies often utilize the same or similar processes, not just manufacturing processes. Purchasing, hiring, manufacturing, employee training and development, product development as well as other processes often have great commonality, even when undertaken in very different or
15、ganizations. The acquisition of resources necessitates that firms compete as buyers rather than sellers competitors are the buyers of said resources which would seem to make external benchmarking most appropriate. While benchmarking human resource management practices and processes has gained accept
16、ance in recent years (Rodwell et al., 2000), measures of the effectiveness of HRM practices such as compensation have historically been organizational level indicants of performance (Browne, 2000). Employee benefits are an important aspect of HRM. Managers must attract and retain competent people an
17、d this is particularly true of professional services such as accounting. Competence can be defined as “a knowledge, skill, ability, or characteristic associated with high performance on the job, such as problem solving, analytical thinking, or leadership” (Mirabile, 1997, p. 74). Public accounting f
18、irms must have competent people to compete and a good benefits package can help a firm attract and keep competent personnel. To date, little research has focused on benefits data that might be used for comparison purposes. In the context of a larger study of public accounting firms, Flaherty et al.
19、(1998) provided limited data on Arkansas public accounting firms versus the national average. However, data related to the top 25 percent most profitable firms was not included. One of the single most significant, as well as most costly, employee benefits is health insurance. Group health insurance
20、provides coverage to a group of employees under a single insurance contract (the master contract) issued to the employer. There are two advantages of group health insurance over individually purchased health insurance. First, most group health insurance plans do not require individual employees to p
21、rovide evidence of insurability. Instead, underwriting emphasis is focused on the group of employees, thus reducing the likelihood of an employee being denied health insurance coverage. Second, the total cost of providing group health insurance per employee is usually less than the cost of purchasing an individual health
