You will complete the following two assignments to begin to think strategically about your future career and to assist in planning your time here at Marymount:

1. Focus 2 – This is a self-exploration online tool that profiles your interests, skills, values, personality, educational preferences, and leisure preferences. It will help you begin to understand the kinds of careers and majors that are of most interest to you. To access Focus 2 visit https://www.focuscareer2.com/Portal/Register.cfm?SID=345 (Links to an external site.) and the Access Code is “saints”.
2. Reflection on the Focus 2 – After completing the online tool you will complete a set of questions on the designed to help you think about and apply your Focus 2 results. Please type your response and bring the worksheet to class…click HERE.
3. Bring the completed worksheet to class and be prepared to discuss your findings.

Assignment 4: Recognizing Employee Contributions

Due Week 10 and worth 300 points

You are the HR manager of a relatively new retail company that has both retail stores and Internet sales. Your company is steadily growing in revenue and profitability. The company realizes that in order to retain the solid, highly productive workforce it currently has in place, it is important to enhance the base compensation and benefits package offered to the employees. The company currently offers a basic compensation program and only federally mandated benefits. Employee surveys suggest the compensation and benefits program may be out of date. Employees are beginning to consider leaving the organization.

Write a six to eight (6-8) page paper in which you:

1. Propose two (2) methods an HR professional could use to determine incentive pay. Specify the principal manner in which the proposed methods take into consideration individual, group, and company performance. Justify your response.
2. Examine the core legal requirements affecting employee benefits in today’s competitive environment. Determine the legally mandated benefits that the company must currently offer to its employees.
3. Recommend at least four (4) additional benefits that the organization should consider providing to its employees. Suggest at least three (3) important concepts that a company must consider when designing benefit plans. Provide a rationale for your response.
4. Assess the efficiency of common techniques for effectively communicating compensation and benefit plans to employees. Support your answer.
5. Suggest two (2) ethical risks of making incentive pay a large portion of employees’ total compensation. Propose two (2) recommendations for ways the company might mitigate or reduce these risks.
6. Use at least four (4) quality academic (peer-reviewed) resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

• Examine the influences on and various approaches to compensation.
• Analyze issues related to developing and implementing employee benefit packages.
• Apply relevant theories and knowledge to human resource practices in organizations.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in human resource management foundations.
• Write clearly and concisely about human resource management foundations using proper writing mechanics.

Health Care Information Systems are important in dispensing of information throughout the organization. You will develop a research paper on a health care technology that has become essential to the sharing of information via electronic communication mediums (i.e., EMR, Telehealth, HMR, etc.).

• Explain each part of the key components.
• Explain each part of contributing factors.
• Provide examples of ways to measure each part.

Present your findings as a 4-5 page Word document formatted in APA style.

Submit your assignment.

Submitting your assignment in APA format means, at a minimum, you will need the following:

1. TITLE PAGE. Remember the Running head: AND TITLE IN ALL CAPITALS
2. ABSTRACT. A summary of your paper – not an introduction. Begin writing in third person voice.
3. BODY. The body of your paper begins on the page following the title page and abstract page and must be double-spaced (be careful not to triple- or quadruple-space between paragraphs). The type face should be 12-pt. Times Roman or 12-pt. Courier in regular black type. Do not use color, bold type, or italics except as required for APA level headings and references. The deliverable length of the body of your paper for this assignment is 4-5 pages. In-body academic citations to support your decisions and analysis are required. A variety of academic sources is encouraged.
4. REFERENCE PAGE. References that align with your in-body academic sources are listed on the final page of your paper. The references must be in APA format using appropriate spacing, hang indention, italics, and upper and lower case usage as appropriate for the type of resource used. Remember, the Reference Page is not a bibliography but a further listing of the abbreviated in-body citations used in the paper. Every referenced item must have a corresponding in-body citation.

Task One

Individual Portion

• Search the library and the Internet and research a problem solving court (i.e. drug court, veterans court, teen court, re-entry court or homeless court)
• Each team member will address the following in 250-500 words individually:
  • Generally speaking, what are some of the criminological theories that serve as a foundation for these specialty courts? Explain.
  • You have been tasked to create a new problem solving court that addresses a special type of offender. Discuss the components of the court and its approach to dealing with these special offenders based upon criminological thought.
  • Remember to post your submission as soon as possible in order to allow enough time to complete the Group Portion of the project.
• Be sure to reference all sources using APA style.

Task 2

In the past few years, there have been several studies on psychopathic personalities. Psychopathology has always been considered a psychological theory of crime. With these new studies (where they have tested the firing neurons in the brain), there is now a controversy over whether a psychopath would fall under the category of a psychological or biological theory.

For example, one study showed incarcerated psychopaths a series of slides that showed not only photos of happy families and pleasant landscapes but also photos of gruesome crime scenes. It was noted that in what was deemed the normal population, the neurons fired in several sections of the brain when the pleasant photos were shown and in a different section when the gruesome photos were shown. In the psychopathic population, all neurons fired in the same area of the brain.

Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400–600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.

• Do you think psychopaths are more likely to exhibit violent criminal behavior? Why or why not?
  • What factors could increase the likelihood that a psychopathic individual will engage in criminal behavior? Explain.
  • What factors do you think could reduce the likelihood that a psychopathic individual will engage in criminal behavior? Explain.
• Do you believe that the person who is deemed a psychopath would fall under a psychological theory or a biological theory? Why or why not? Explain your rationale.
• Should this make a difference in the incarceration of this person? Why or why not? Explain.

Task 3

Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400–600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas:

• Which CIKR sectors do you think you and your community rely on most? Why?
• What do you think are the most significant vulnerabilities that exist in the most important assets associated with each of CIKR sectors? Why?
• What types of hazards do you think are most likely to adversely impact the assets you described? Why?
• Out of all of the 16 Critical Infrastructure sectors, what do you think is the most significant vulnerability? Explain.
  • What mitigation efforts would you suggest to mitigate the vulnerability selected?
    • Be sure to address cost, implementation, practicality, and past results.

Task 4

You are the emergency manager in a city with a population of 250,000 in the southeastern United States. Your city manager wants to aggressively reduce the city’s vulnerability to natural hazards and wants you to develop a policy to facilitate the city’s vulnerability to natural hazards.

In a policy proposal of 750–1,000 words, explain how your city could reduce the city’s vulnerability to natural hazards. Provide at least 1 recommendation for improving the city’s protective measures for critical infrastructure. All recommendations must be sufficiently justified or backed up by academic sources. You should ensure that you address each of the 16 CIKR sectors.

Demonstrate an understanding of vulnerability by identifying 1 vulnerability in each of the 16 CIKR sectors.

For example, in the Agriculture and Food sector (among many others), a common vulnerability is flooding. Flooding is routinely mitigated by structural controls such as levees and dams (another sector).

Assignment Guidelines

• Address the following in a policy proposal of 750–1,000 words:
• For each CIKR sector, do the following:
  • Identify 1–2 vulnerabilities that exist in your locality.
    • Describe the vulnerability or vulnerabilities, and explain their significance to the sector.
  • Provide 1–2 recommendation for improving the city’s protective measures for critical infrastructure.
    • How will the vulnerabilities be addressed (mitigation)?
      • Consider cost, practicality, complexity, danger, and maintenance in your recommendations.
      • For example, in the Agriculture and Food sector, a common vulnerability is flooding. Flooding is routinely mitigated by structural controls such as levees and dams.
  • Conclude your proposal with a summary of your findings.
    • Provide an overview of how your city could reduce its overall vulnerability to natural hazards.
• Compile your responses into your final proposal, and submit the file to your instructor.
• Be sure to reference all sources using APA style.