| Course | HR435 Total Rewards and Compensation Strategy |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 1 |
| Paper type | Discussion board post |
| Length | About 480 words, 2 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 discussion post |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration (Human Resources) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HR435 Unit 1
What a Matched Offer Told Everyone Else: Unit 1 Discussion Board Post About a Counteroffer
HR435 · Unit 1 Discussion Board Post
Posted by [Student Name]
Ironweed Pest Services, its staff and the reply are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.
Initial Post
I work in compensation at Ironweed Pest Services, which runs three branches and services restaurants and food plants as well as homes. Last month one of our senior commercial accounts technicians, who handles food-plant audits, received an offer from a national chain. The branch manager matched it the same day. His pay went from $64,000 to $72,960, a raise of $8,960. Three other senior commercial technicians with similar tenure, similar audit scores and similar route loads still earn about $64,000. They found out within a week.
The decision told them something specific: at this company, pay responds to a credible threat to leave, not to the work. Equity theory, as Adams (1965) set it out, says fairness is judged as a ratio, rewards over contributions, set beside the same ratio for colleagues. The three technicians are not comparing $64,000 to the market. They are comparing their ratio to their colleague's, and the outcome side just moved by $8,960 while the input side stayed the same. Card et al. (2012) found that workers who learned they were paid below their peers grew less satisfied with their jobs and more inclined to search elsewhere, which is the opposite of what a retention raise is supposed to achieve.
Pay rarely stays secret, and the company should not try to keep it secret. Most employees are protected under federal labor law when they discuss their pay with one another (National Labor Relations Act, 2018), so any plan that depends on the three not finding out was never a plan.
A counteroffer pays one person for threatening to leave and tells everyone else what they would have to do to be paid the same.
What would a defensible version have required? A market check on the role, not on one person. If the chain's offer showed that commercial technicians are worth about $73,000, all four are underpaid, and the fix belongs to all four.
What would you have done the afternoon the offer arrived?
Reply to Marcus
Marcus, you argued that counteroffers are the cheapest retention tool because $8,960 costs less than replacing a technician. On the arithmetic you are right: hiring and training a food-plant technician costs us well over a year of that raise. But the comparison leaves out the three colleagues. If one of them leaves because of what the match told him, the counteroffer has cost us a replacement anyway, plus the raise. The cheaper tool would have been to price the role and raise all four, which costs more this year and less over the next three.
References
Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 267-299. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60108-2
Card, D., Mas, A., Moretti, E., & Saez, E. (2012). Inequality at work: The effect of peer salaries on job satisfaction. American Economic Review, 102(6), 2981-3003. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.102.6.2981
National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. ยงยง 151-169 (2018).
The Purdue Global HR435 Unit 1 instructions
The Unit 1 prompt asks you to take a single pay decision and explain what it communicated beyond the person it was meant for. Start from facts a reader can check: the old salary, the new one, and who else holds the same role. Then name the message the decision sent, in plain words, and support it with one motivation or fairness theory that fits the case. Because pay information travels, the prompt also expects a sentence on whether the company could have kept the raise private, and federal labor law answers that for most hourly staff. A defensible alternative should follow, so the post does more than criticize. A closing question gives classmates something to argue with. Replies are a separate requirement: answer at least one classmate with a point that adds to the thread rather than repeating it, and keep it shorter than your main post.
Inside the HR435 Unit 1 example
The sample opens with Ironweed Pest Services, three branches, and a commercial accounts technician whose $64,000 salary became $72,960 the afternoon a national chain made him an offer. Paragraph two states the central claim, that pay at this company now answers threats rather than work, and runs equity theory through the three colleagues' ratio of reward to effort. Card et al. (2012) supply evidence that learning about a peer's higher pay lowers satisfaction and raises job search. A short paragraph cites the National Labor Relations Act on pay discussions. The highlighted line compresses the argument into one sentence. A market check on the whole role is proposed as the fix, and the post ends on a question. The reply to Marcus agrees that one raise is cheaper than one replacement, then counts the cost of losing one of the other three.
Where the points sit in the HR435 Unit 1 rubric
Points in this first HR435 discussion tend to follow three things: whether the post reasons from the case's own numbers, whether the theory is applied to named people rather than defined in general, and whether the alternative is practical. A post that only says counteroffers are bad earns less than one that explains who reads the decision and why. Citing a theory without connecting it to the three technicians' comparison costs credit. The legal point about pay discussions should be accurate and brief. The reply is graded separately, and instructors reward replies that add a consideration the classmate missed. Mechanics count for a smaller share: APA 7 citations for Adams, Card and colleagues and the statute, a reference list, and a post that stays near the length the discussion sets. Late posts and replies posted on the last day often lose participation points.
HR435 Unit 1 help: mistakes that cost points
The most frequent weakness in Unit 1 posts on this topic is arguing about counteroffers in general instead of about this decision. Another is quoting equity theory's definition and never applying it, so the reader cannot tell why the three technicians would care. Some posts assume the raise can stay secret, which ignores both how workplaces work and the legal protection for pay discussions. Others recommend a pay freeze or a ban on counteroffers without explaining what would replace them. In replies, simple agreement earns little; a reply should test the classmate's claim, ideally with a cost or a consequence they left out. Before posting, match every in-text citation to an entry in the list, and make sure the closing question is one you would want answered. If your discussion uses a different pay decision, tell us the figures and a writer can shape the post around them.
Get an HR435 Unit 1 example written to your instructions
Which pay decision should anchor the post: the one in this section's Unit 1 prompt, or a raise watched at an earlier employer with names and numbers disguised? Attach the rubric either way. Within 24-48h the post lands with its reply beneath it, arithmetic visible. A first sample carries no cost. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More HR435 papers and BS in Business Administration (Human Resources) samples
- HR435 Unit 2: Job Evaluation Exercise
- HR435 Unit 3: Market Pricing Analysis
- HR435 Unit 4: Pay Structure Design
- HR435 Unit 5: Compa-ratio Calculation Set
- HR435 Unit 6: Merit Increase Matrix
- HR435 Unit 7: Incentive Plan Proposal
- HR435 Unit 8: Seminar Reflection
- HR435 Unit 9: Benefits Cost Analysis
- HR435 Unit 10: Total Rewards Strategy
- HR420 Unit 1: Discussion Board Post
- HR410 Unit 1: Discussion Board Post
- HR400 Unit 1: Discussion Board Post
HR435 Unit 1 questions, answered
Is equity theory the only framework that fits?
No. Expectancy theory or organizational justice research would also work, and some instructors prefer one of them. Equity theory suits this case because it centers comparison with a referent, and the three colleagues have an obvious one. Whichever framework you use, apply it to named roles in the scenario rather than defining it in general terms.
Should the post say counteroffers are always wrong?
No, and the example avoids that position. A counteroffer can be the right decision when the market has genuinely moved. The argument is narrower: pricing one person without pricing the role sends a message to everyone in it. That distinction is what a stronger reply to your classmates can build on, whichever side of the cost question they took.
Where can I find a free HR435 Unit 1 sample paper?
A complete HR435 Unit 1 discussion board post on a matched counteroffer at Ironweed, a composite pest control firm, appears here with its reply to a classmate, three cited sources and margin notes.
Why does the post use three colleagues rather than the whole company?
Because the three senior technicians hold the same role with similar tenure and results, so they are the natural comparison group for equity theory. The wider workforce matters too, but the sharpest reaction comes from the people whose ratio of reward to effort just fell behind.
Can the reply disagree with the classmate completely?
It can, but the strongest replies concede what is right first. Here the reply accepts that one raise costs less than one replacement, then shows that the comparison leaves out the three colleagues, which changes the answer without dismissing the classmate.