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Ex. 4. To learn more about pay and benefits read the following extracts from dialogues. Guess the meaning of the words in bold.
Wages, salary and benefits
My name’s Luigi and I’m a hotel manager in Venice. I get paid a salary every month. In summer we’re very busy, so we work a lot of extra hours, or overtime; the money for this is quite good. Also we get nice perks, for example free meals!
I’m Ivan and I work as a waiter in Prague. I like my job though I don’t earn very much: I get paid wages every week by the restaurant. We get the minimum wage: the lowest amount allowed by law. But we also get tips, money that customers leave for us in addition to the bill. Some tourists are very generous!
I’m Catherine and I’m a saleswoman in Paris. I get a basic salary, plus commission: a percentage on everything I sell. If I sell more than a particular amount in a year, I also get extra money – bonus, which is nice. There are some good fringe benefits with this job: I get a company car, and they make payments for my pension, money that I’ll get regularly after I stop working. I have all that makes a good benefits package.
Compensation 1
My name’s Alan. I’m a specialist in pay and benefits. Compensation and remuneration are formal words used to talk about pay and benefits, especially those of senior managers. Compensation package and remuneration package are used in the USA to talk about all pay and benefits that employees receive. For a senior executive, this may include share options (BrE) or stock options
(AmE): the right to buy the company’s shares at low prices. There may be performance-related bonuses if the manager reaches particular objectives for the company.
Compensation 2
Compensation is also used to talk about money and other benefits that a senior manager (or any employee) receives if they are forced to leave the organization, perhaps after a boardroom row. This money is in the form of compensation payment, or severance payment. If the manager also receives benefits, the payment and the benefits form the severance package.
Ex. 5. In pairs discuss pay and fringe benefits companies provide for their workers in your country. Have you heard of any unusual ones?
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Ex. 6. Before reading the article it’s better to work with vocabulary. Match the words to their Russian equivalent.
A.
1.a pay cheque
2.on-site childcare
3.masseur
4.garden allotment
5.subsidized housekeeper
6.ergonomic chair
7.counseling
8.cash bonus
9.a vexed problem
10.work-life balance
11.bounty
12.daunting
B.
1.to single out
2.to be content
3.to ensure
4.to be dead set on (+gerund)
5.to take the load off one’s shoulders
6.to fill leisure hours
7.to lay on smth.
8.to whisk off
9.to set the standards to follow
10.to eliminate
11.to mount a take-over bid
12.to sever from an employer
13.to practise healthy behaviour pattern
14.to balance one’s life
15.to tackle the problem
a.удобное для работы кресло
b.щедрость, вознаграждение
c.массажист
d.острая/спорная проблема
e.оплачиваемая домработница
f.консультации у специалистов
g.соотношение между работой и личной жизнью
h.устрашающий, пугающий
i.детский сад на предприятии
j.денежная премия
k.садовый участок
l.чек на получение зарплаты
a.снять груз с плеч
b.уравновесить жизнь
c.установить нормы, которым надо следовать
d.разорвать отношения с работодателем
e.активно браться за решение проблемы
f.предъявлять права на что-либо
g.вести здоровый образ жизни
h.гарантировать
i.довольствоваться чем-то
j.иметь намерение, быть полным решимости
k.быстро перебрасывать
l.устранять
m.выделять, отбирать
n.заполнить часы досуга
o.устраивать, предусматривать
Ex. 7. Read the article about benefits provided by companies. Fill in the table bellow when reading.
Satisfying factors |
Dissatisfying factors |
- on-site childcare |
- setting the standards to follow in private |
|
life |
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Is There a Place for Time in Corporate Utopia?
Employees in SAS Institute live in a workers’ Utopia. On the company’s wooden campus in North Carolina is everything a person could need: doctors, dentists, on-site childcare, masseurs…
SAS has just been chosen by Fortune magazine as one of the best companies to work for in the US. Like the other 99 companies singled out, SAS is not content to reward employees with a mere pay cheque. Instead, the company is dead set on making their lives easier.
Indeed, there is little these good employers will not do to take the load off their workers’ shoulders. Some provide subsidized housekeeper. Some deliver readycooked gourmet meals to employees’ doors in the evening. Other offer haircuts, free Viagra, cut-price sushi, free ergonomic chairs. One company even provides $10,000 towards the cost of adopting a child.
Not content with above, some employers are helping their staff fill their leisure hours too. Many offer swimming pools and fitness centres, some arrange guitar lessons or provide garden allotments. Some even lay on company holidays, whisking workers and their partners off to luxury island locations.
And that is not all: some companies also set the standards for employees to follow in their private lives. At First Tennessee, employs get a $130 cash bonus if they are seen to be practicing 10 specified healthy behaviour patterns.
For these forward-looking employers the vexed problem of work/life balance – assumed to be one of the greatest workplace issues facing us – is magically eliminated. These companies are mounting a take-over bid for their employees’ lives with the result that the issue of balance no longer arises.
And at these companies hardly anyone ever leaves. Which might mean everyone is gloriously happy. Or it might mean the prospect of severing one’s entire life from an employer is so daunting that it seems easier to stay put.
Amid all this bounty there is just one thing that none of these companies offer. And that is time. If employers really want to show that they are helping employees balance their lives, the answer is not to do their shopping, fix their teeth and issue them with laptops so that they can work “flexibly” right through the night. It is to ensure that people do not work too hard. To write it into the company’s culture that no one will be expected to work more than, say, 40 hours a week on average. And for the Chief Executive to show the way.
Certainly this would not be easy and probably not cheap either. But an employer that tackled the long-hours culture would be reaching the parts that all the free hairdos, Viagra and guitar lessons in the world will never reach.
FINANCIAL TIMES World business newspaper.
Answer these questions about the article.
1.How can employees at First Tennessee earn $130? What do you think they have to do to earn this money?
2.What is the problem of work/life balance? How are companies in the article trying to solve the problem? Have they been successful?
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3.What two reasons does the writer give for employees remaining with one of these companies? Which do you think is the more likely one? Why?
4.“SAS is not content to reward employees with a mere pay cheque.” Does this mean
SAS thinks workers should: |
|
a) have more than a salary? |
b) be happy with a salary? |
What satisfying and dissatisfying factors have you written down? Are the employees working for these companies happy?
Ex. 8. Translate these phrases into English:
Уроки игры на гитаре; массажист; зубной врач; детский сад на предприятии; дачные участки; оплачиваемая домработница; денежная премия; больной/спорный вопрос; заполнить часы досуга; установить нормы, которым надо следовать; льготы; привилегии; вести здоровый образ жизни; довольствоваться; снять груз с плеч; проблема равновесия между работой личной жизнью; консультации у специалистов.
Ex. 9. Discuss these questions with a group.
1.How much should companies be involved in the lives of their employees?
2.How can businesses help to improve the balance between employees’ working and leisure hours?
Ex.10. Listen to the interview (Market Leader Upper Intermediate, Rec. 5.1) and answer the questions bellow.
A. To understand recording in a better way you have to work with vocabulary: match the words to their Russian equivalents.
1. |
survey |
a) отсутствие гарантии занятости |
2. |
promotion |
b) влиять на, воздействовать |
3. |
job security |
c) сравнительная таблица |
4. |
job insecurity |
d) произвольно отобранные люди |
5. |
commuting time |
e) представление об одной работе на всю жизнь |
6. |
a significant impact |
f)научное исследование |
7. |
to be close to being sacked |
g) работающий на себя |
8. |
league table |
h) опрос произвольно выбранных людей |
9. |
random sample of people |
i) значительное влияние |
10. changing patterns of work |
j) время поездки на работу и обратно |
|
11. the notion of a job for life |
k) быть на грани увольнения |
|
12. to affect smth. |
l) возможности продвижения по службе |
|
13. hierarchy |
m) гарантия занятости |
|
14. self-employed |
n) смена видов деятельности |
|
15. research |
о) иерархия |
|