ASSESSMENT TASKS ASSESSMENT TASKS Assessment: Research report (40 %) – Individual Task Word count: 2500 (excluding the reference list). Due date: Online: Week 4 – Wednesday 27 March by 11.59pm Rubric:...

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
[CHOSEN TOPIC: ARE EXECUTIVE PAY LEVELS UNREASONABLE? WHY OR WHY NOT? CRITICALLY DISCUSS WITH EXAMPLES]
Executive Summary
In the cu
ent report a critical assessment of executive pay has been evaluated on the two contrasting parameters, one supporting the high pay executives receives and the other critically opposes the high pay executives receives. The report first introduces the topic, followed by a
ief description of the way the gap between executive and regular pays have increased over the decades. The roles of executives have been discussed critically, with the help of peer reviewed journals articles. Further, the arguments for and against the high pay of executives are discussed, based on which the conclusions are drawn. It is worth the mention that the report provides real life examples that support both the type of arguments presented as well as the final decision that has been drawn upon rational assumptions.
Table of Contents
Introduction    4
Background of Payment Gap between Executives and Regular Employees Pay    4
Role of Executives in Organisations    4
Why Executive Pay is Not Justified    5
Why Executive Pay is justified    7
Conclusion    9
References    10
Introduction
The designation of an individual within an organisation and the subsequent nature of work as well as degree of responsibilities are not laid the same, thereby, catering different levels if significance in the providing or production of a service or product. The provided payments to the employees, considering the diverse degree of roles played by them, vary considerably and the higher management gets more than that of the regular lower level employees. However, the ratio of salaries have raised the question whether the executives deserve the high amount of payment, despite only performing tasks they are supposed to do or get paid extra, which is an unjustified payment and biased monetary resource distributions. In the cu
ent report, the argument of whether executive pay is reasonable or not has been discussed, critically evaluated and logically supported with examples, offering a higher degree of understanding of the modern human resource management.
Background of Payment Gap between Executives and Regular Employees Pay
The rapid increase in the gap between the payments made to executives and regular employees has not been very high in earlier time. It is found that in 1960s the payment executives of companies received were 20 times more than the regular employees, which became 30 times more in 1980s and 60 times within 1990s. However, after 2000, the multiple reached 300 times and remained more or less the same for the last 15 years. It is found that in order to restrict the higher payments of the executives there had been no legal framework developed. Instead, there has been legislature that seeks justification for the high pay of the executives (Fo
es, 2015). In the wake of the globalisation, the claims of higher pay for executives have become well accepted, although actively criticised. As mentioned by Florin and Irina-Stefana (2018), as globalisation process initiated, bog and risky decisions were to be taken, all of which are aimed at profound business expansion and higher earning of profit alongside sustained growth of business, therefore, the higher pay is even more prominently claimed by executives, as the take note of the global scale of profiting.
Role of Executives in Organisations
All executives come under the management department of business organisations, in the form of different posts of a single organisation or in different roles in different organisations. The executives do not take part in the manual labour or regular schedule-based tasks; instead, they manage the upper section of organisations that decide, react, incorporate, and change and evolve on the behalf of the lower level employees. As mentioned by Choi et al. (2018), executive take note of the legal framework of a selected marketplace and acts in a manner that safeguard s the company from legal complications. The executives take special note of the legal issues the respective companies are facing, or holding the potential chances of legal complications and try to either find legal ways of mitigating issues or using the loopholes for the benefit of the company.
Executives, for possessing more knowledge than regular employees do, make vital decisions, in terms of market expansion, business change, financial investments and many more, which directly affects the employees in the end of their career. As the executives take the risk, they are offered more payment than regular employees are, in a justified manner. The executives also manage the task of corporate negotiations, which as mentioned by Daff and Jack (2018), is a very responsible and difficult one, thereby, require higher pay for capable candidates acting as executive of a company. Vested with the higher power, the executives of an organisation is also given the responsibility of hiring top management and also set standards abided for the recruitment process. Executives also play the role of motivators in organisations. Being among the top management of an organisation, executive members generate a sense of power and responsibility that makes the lower level managers and employees give heed to the remarks of executive members. As the executive members prise the management and staffs, they get motivated, work better helping in coping with situations, and optimise existing performance.
Why Executive Pay is Not Justified
Firstly, latest updates of executive pay around the globe show that majority of the executives of companies get 300 times more than the salary of regular employees of the organisation, which poses a drastic gap between the two stakeholders. As noted by Steenkamp and Wesson (2018), in order to pay company executives huge amount of money, company management take huge risks and focus on higher earning, taking high risk in the market, often leading to serious monetary shortages.
In order to sustain the supply of huge amount of pay for the executives, company assets are put to risk, creating potential hazards for employability of the staffs. As mentioned by Jiang et al. (2018), as the management had to pay the executives, huge amount of money...