The benefits and pension package offered by a company can be one of the most important tools for attracting and retaining qualified personnel. A good benefits package can encourage workers to stay with an organization while a poor package can result in valuable employees leaving prematurely. In the context of human resource management, "good" can be defined as meeting the current and future needs of the particular workers at a particular company. In this way, the benefits package that is most appropriate to a computer software company, with highly skilled and professional employees, would be different than a benefits package offered to a fast-food franchise operation with less skilled hourly workers. However, a benefits package also represents a significant cost to an organization, and a package which is not evaluated and modified to meet the changing needs of today's dynamic companies may well be expensive and not achieving the company's long-term objectives. This research examines the benefits package offered at Granite City Steel, a division of the National Steel Corporation, and makes recommendations as to how the company can improve its competitive position by modifying its benefits and pension package.
Granite City Steel is a division of National Steel that came into the company through acquisition. In recent years, Granite City has been the most profitable division of the company, and it competes in the integrated steel mill industry rather than in the mini mill industry. This means that Granite City is able to produce more varieties of steel than the mini-mills, but it has a different cost structure and requires more skilled workers in order to do so. Located in the heart of steelmaking country, Granite City faces stiff competition in the market both for its steel, and also as a way to attract workers.
The company has a union relationship with most of its hourly workers; these comprise most of the production worke...