Unit 9 Final

Running head: COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE 1

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE 1

Competitive Advantage

Stephanie A. Gillmer

Purdue Global University

HR 410-01 Employee Training and Development

Professor Lisa Hone

August 11, 2020

Competitive Advantage

The organization I have chosen for the final is the BNSF railway. The relationship with the company is working with them currently as an intermodal equipment operator. BNSF is a fascinating corporation comprised of nearly 400 different railroad lines that have merged over 170 years (Intermodal Resources and Tools: BNSF. (n.d.). BNSF is one of the largest railroads in North America, it runs and operates in 28 states in two-thirds of the western U.S. and three Canadian provinces over 32,500-miles of the rail network (Jobs at BNSF. (n.d.). BNSF is one of seven North American Class I railroads and has over 42,000 employees (Jobs at BNSF. (n.d.). BNSF is in a competitive market as it is only one of a few Class I railroads. It strives to be the best in compensation plans and provide adequate on the job training.

The research strategy I plan to use is to read through BNSF policies, read more into information about the company, training regiment, company mission statement, ask a question from local management and corporate, and contact HR personnel and rules. There are plenty of resources at one’s disposal to find useful and accurate information, find articles, and the BNSFs personnel webpage to find in-depth knowledge. When hiring employees, it is crucial to know the hiring structure, training, and continued training processes; this can be for field workers to upper management. Understanding the inner workings of training and compensation to the employees is a reflection of how services go to clients.

Different compensation plans are depending on if employees are hourly or salary. BNSF also has unions for labor workers; various crafts have different compensation plans from pay to medical coverage. Railroads also have railroad retirement that is offered to employees once they become vested. Another compensation perk is when employees put into the 401k BNSF will match up to 3%, and stock purchasing options into Berkshire Hathaway through the employee stock purchase plan (ESPP). Depending on the employee, some compensation is better than others, but the railroad retirement is the best compensation offered.

Organizations can gain hard-working and reliable workers from good compensation plans. Depending on what the corporation has to offer, it can establish trust and good relations between it and the employees. With an excellent report between organizations and employees, the turnover rate will be lower, and they will want to show up for work with enthusiasm. It is allowing the company to meet company goals. Another way to reward employees is to offer bonuses that will keep the top performers and continue to grow profits.

If BNSF offers better compensation as a competitive advantage and employee retention is higher, it will allow for the intermodal department to make more company goals. When there are not enough employees, it is hard to complete the job as efficiently as they need. When BNSF cannot make goals, it drives customers to look elsewhere to get their product shipped in a reasonable time. That can have a severe impact on BNSF; client relationship goes down; income goes down and could cause the company to downsize (cut jobs) (Strategic Compensation as a Competitive Advantage: CFMA, n.d.). When compensation is excellent and competitive compared to other companies, it has the opposite reaction. Customers receive their product on time, and employees work harder, company income goes up, and more jobs come available or expand.

References:

Intermodal Resources and Tools: BNSF. (n.d.). Retrieved August 10, 2020, from https://www.bnsf.com/ship-with-bnsf/intermodal/intermodal-resources.html

Jobs at BNSF. (n.d.). Retrieved August 10, 2020, from https://jobs.bnsf.com/

Strategic Compensation as a Competitive Advantage: CFMA. (n.d.). Retrieved August 10, 2020, from https://www.cfma.org/content.cfm?ItemNumber=2699