Suppose you work in the HR department of a manufacturing company that is planning to enrich jobs by having production workers work in teams and rotate through various jobs. The pay structure will have to be adjusted to fit this new work design. How would you expect the employees to evaluate the fairness of their pay in their redesigned jobs? In terms of equity theory, what comparisons would they be likely to make? 

Answer:

Staff usually assess their salary by comparing it with the salary of the rest of the members within their teams . They would correlate their salaries in a specific role with that of other workers formerly in the same position. As far as equity theory is concerned, individuals tend to evaluate the results with regard to their input. In this scenario, the input will be the highest qualification that the worker has for a particular role, the skills they possess, the amount of time he/she will be required to be available per day/week, and the experience in a particular position, while the result will be the wages received. While the workers will be comparing their pay to those of others who have previously worked in a given unit, they put all these factors into consideration. For instance, if a person with 10 years of experience and Masters degree is offered $13000 for a certain position and the person previously working there had 3 years of experience and a holder of Bachelor's degree, this candidate may consider the structure as unfair since they may feel that they are not properly compensated for the extra years of experience.