HR Practices Of Woolworths: Performance, Culture And Engagement Strategies
Performance-related initiatives
The purpose of this report is to enlighten the reader about the human resource management practices in an Australian organization Woolworths. The company is an Australian based retail organization that was originated in 1924. The company is known for provide supermarket goods to the customers at nominal prices. Further, the below mentioned report will highlight the ways in which the HR management of the company is aiming to improve the performance of the employees, organizational culture, and employee engagement rate of the company (Forsyth 2012). Further, Woolworths is a giant supermarket so it is important for the company to initiate effective HRM practices in the environment.
Performance-related initiatives
Performance management is essential part of the business as it helps the management to acknowledge the fact that the employees of the company are working efficiently towards the direction of the business objective or not. Effective performance management helps the organization to identify the hard working employees and promote them accordingly.
Further, in the company Woolworths, as the organization structure is huge and diversified due to which it becomes difficult for the HR management to identify talented people present with the company and appraise them accordingly (Bussin 2017). Resulting in which, the company implemented self-evaluation performance management system to uplift the performance of the company. This type of system helps the employees to create their own performance development system and present it in the appraisal meeting.
This will help the employees to evaluate their own performance truthfully and present to the board stating the changes that they want to achieve in them and the aspects that they have overcome till date. This type of performance related initiative will help the company to analyse the actual performance of the employees and develop a career path for them on the basis of results of the evaluation. Self-evaluation process will also help the employees at Woolworths to develop, grow and learn using the resources and training provided by the company (Bayne, Schepis, and Purchase 2017).
Further, along with performance management system, the company should provide adequate rewards to the employees as well. Rewards will initiate effectiveness of the performance management system of the company, as more rewards should be provided to the employees who successfully achieve their measured goals and targets in the appraisal meetings. Success of this scheme of the HRM of the company Woolworths can be measured in terms of growth of the company on global base. As the employees of the company will work effectively then it will directly how upgrade in the profit scale of the company (Vom Brocke, et. al., 2014).
The fact should be noted that every organization has their unique style of working that influence the behaviour of the employees to effectively work and achieve profits for the company. The beliefs, ideologies, values and principles together form an organizational culture. The culture of an organization control the ways in which employees behave with other employees or with people outside the business. Thus, it can be clearly understood that culture is one of the biggest influencer for the employees.
Culture-related initiatives
At Woolworths, the organizational culture is very friendly and energetic, the company commits with the employees to provide them respect (Carter, Murray, and Gray 2011). As the company has huge extended business due to which many times there is work pressure on the employees, considering that aspects, the company has also adopted family friendly policy so that the employees can manage work life balance while being a part of the company. Further, the management at Woolworths make use of hierarchical structure of organizational management which makes it difficult for them to interact with most of the employees of the company (Moscardo, et. al, 2013).
Thus, the company should conduct regular meetings with all level of employees so as to eliminate the gap present between communication. Along with this, the top level management should follow open door policy with the employees so as to make them comfortable and initiate friendly environment as well. Open door policy will help the employees to solve their problem by directly contacting the higher authority and eliminating middle level management for that case (Boedker, 2011).
So, it should be concluded that the management should implement informal relations along with hierarchical system so as to create a family like bond with the employees. This aspect will also help organization to build loyalty of employees towards the company. The top level management should also communicate with the employees of the company so as to motivate them to work effectively in the organization. As informal communication brings more motivation than formal, so this type of initiative will bind all the employees to work together for the company (Powell 2016).
Engagement-related initiatives
Organizations in the current environment have understood the importance of employee engagement in the business as it provided them various new dimensions to grow and succeed in the market. Employee engagement refers to the process of interacting with the employees while taking decisions for the organization and seeking their suggestions for different tasks as well. Initially the fact should be noted that self-evaluation performance management system is the first department where the management of Woolworths is going to implement the practice of employee engagement.
Secondly, the organization should also seek the guidance of experienced as well as millennial employees while taking decisions for the company (Balmer, Abratt, and Kleyn 2016). This will help the organization to take decision while considering all the possible facts and figures and innovating the business with the help of diversified minds. Retail sector is fluctuating on regular basis and it is importance for the management to initiate practices in such a way that position of the company is secured.
Thus, the management should indulge diversifies minds to collectively take a unanimous decision for the growth and success of the company. Further, the company should also implement employee engagement survey so as to attain a clear picture of the expectation of the employees from the organization. In response to that, the management should implement programs to motivate the interest of employees and increase their attention towards work (Rowley 2014). The management at Woolworths should also ensure that all the employees participate in group and fun activities.
By attaining information from the survey, the company should work accordingly to develop their interest in the company. Further, reward system, group meetings and team targets etc. activities should be implemented in the company so as to engage the employees in the working of the company. Lastly, the HR manager should align the job specification with person specification in order to develop the interest of the employees towards the work and the company. Developing a career path will also increase employee engagement in the company Woolworths.
Recommendations
Currently, the company is working efficiently in the Australian retail market however diversified activities of the company somewhere creating management issues for them. So, the below mentioned are the recommendations provided to the company:
- In the case of performance related initiative, the company should combine the high performing staff of the company with low performing staff so as to increase the growth of all the employees of the company. Further, the company should aim to measure the performance of the employees only on the basis of response that they provide to the management during review and their past performance. The employees should not be judged on the basis of their relationship with other person. Aligning the talented and performing staff with non-performing staff will automatically improve the performance of non-performing staff (Balmer, Abratt, and Kleyn 2016).
- In case of culture based initiatives, it should be recommended to the company that conducting informal meetings and informal communication with the middle and lower level management will itself convert the culture of the company. Implementing friendly culture will initiate positive culture in the environment. The management should be loyal with the employees and seek integrity with the employees as well in order to implement positive environment in the company.
- Lastly, in case of employee engagement related initiatives, the company should involve the employees in most of the crucial decision making process. It should depend on the discretion of the top management to implement on their suggestion or not. But they should always ask for their suggestions in the environment. This will increase the extent of innovation and creativity in the company (Volonté, and Gantenbein 2016).
Conclusion
Thus, in the limelight of above mentioned events, the fact should be noted that the report evaluated information about the human resource management practices of the company Woolworths. The human resource management of the company is effectively working to provide benefits to the company but the company should improve its practices by making use of above mentioned recommendations. The report adequately complies with the requirement of the assessment.
References
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