[Excerpt] As organizations continue to face mounting competitive pressures, they seek to do more with less and do it with better quality. As goals for sales volume, profits, innovation, and quality are raised, employment growth is often tightly controlled and in many cases, substantial cuts in employment have been made. To accomplish more with fewer employees calls for effective management of human resources. Typically, the employee compensation system, the focus of this chapter, plays a major role in efforts to manage human resources better.