Targeted work class essay

Currently, organizations are in pursuit of outside consultants and in-house human resource personnel who are ready to offer specialized services who understand organization customers and goals. This has been as a result of most firms’ future strategic maps does not merge with the Human Resource Management (HRM) System and practices. Such organizations want to come up with integrated HRM systems. These systems are joined with the organization’s business strategy aimed at reaching its overall goals. This paper will look at the organizational behavior of employees, and how best to bring out the required behavior in order to realize a focused organization strategy by looking at staffing, reward systems and development (Dreher, 2002).
. A work process is a sequence of activities used in an organization, to yield goods and services. These activities use different resources such as human labor, raw materials and information. Looking at the work processes and the way all the activities and departments contribute to the organization goals is an essential part. At Walmart, which is a giant retail store, every employee is acquainted with the work processes so they can appreciate the varied contribution of other workers in different departments. They understand how their individual and groups contribute and relate to the tasks of other terms and departments performances (Henderson, 1997).
. They come to comprehend how goods and services supplied related with customers of such commodities. These helps them to realize that they are each employee is virtually a customer to other employees who provides them with inputs to carry out their tasks. Also, they are suppliers who supply outputs to others in order to perform their tasks in the organization. It is crucial for all employees to note that they do not work in isolation and are part of a greater network of the work process that involves being a supplier and consumer for various work processes dealing with inputs and outputs (information, services and materials) sent and received from others. This involves adding value to outputs and outputs passing through each employee in a supplier-customer chain (Dreher, 2002).
The Walmart has developed factors that showcase the value in their employees. They have come up with policies, practices and codes of behavior which reinforce the relationship between employees and with their managers. Assessing the work processes helps to identify the loopholes between the projected work culture and the reality that employees are going through. This is through looking at the interests and values that certain programs benefit the employee in his productive capacity.
The daily management behaviors at Walmart, are the bedrock of organization culture, which underlies an audit of the organization programs, policies and practices. The responses got from the assessment are gauged based on the integrity, creativity and authenticity, all-inclusiveness and human touch. This will show the organization’s exceptional capacities and drawbacks. This provides exploration areas that can be capitalized in the creation of a culture which reflects global standards. Also, action and coach planning follow up fills in the gap between impact of policies and practices of an organization in the workplace and how workers understand them (Henderson, 1997).
In return for job commitment and performance organizations as employers reward their employees. Sufficient compensation and rewards entice a quality human labor force, help in maintenance of existing staff, hold quality workers from seeking greener pastures, and serves as a motivating factor. However, this should be done in line with the labor markets, job analysis and the careful review of pay structures. Rewards can be intrinsic or extrinsic.
Intrinsic ones are fulfillments from ones work such as, feelings self-sufficiency and achievement and include promotions and monetary rewards. Extrinsic rewards mostly called compensation includes basic salary and wages, as well as incentives which can be per hour, per week, or monthly. Benefits include are given on the count of membership to an organization and include sponsored vacations, retirement pensions and, health insurances (Dreher, 2002).
Determinants of compensation are internal equity; equitable and fair rewards to all employees within the company, and external equity; fairness and equity in regard to the external market. The labor market, scope of the work, and characteristic of the individual worker determines pay adequacy. Job payments within a given area may vary depending on the nature of the job, job locality and the living standards. The rating of a job in the market is guided by prevailing economic conditions, union contracts and living cost in that given area which explains why urban areas have high pays due to the higher cost of living than rural areas.
Employee job qualifications, skills, abilities and previous experience determine compensation. Compensation should be centered on the job and not an individual. Innovations have led to changing and competitive markets where companies are unable to match the pace and hence have opted for innovative compensation plans. Such plans include incentive compensation where workers are paid proportionate to their performance, skill-based/ knowledge based compensation where workers are paid for the skills they posses. There is also team-based compensation, which recognizes cooperation and mutual growth and development of a group. Performance-based compensation is a traditional concept where workers are paid for their presence at work and avoidance of being fired (Henderson, 1997).
There is no single compensation strategy and in comparing which is more effective, fairness and applicability, understanding for who and how it works for is important. A good compensation plan ensures profitability for the organization, encloses the core values of the business, is flexible in terms of rewards for exceptional performance and encourages employees to do what is best for the consumer. It should be tied to the strategic goals and be predictable annually but adjusted every year. Doing that helps to cater for changing needs of the organization as well as firms survival after retirement considerations of senior owners.
Every organization has to change its culture to realize its strategic plan. Walmart, for example, has chosen to slow its development plans in Brazil and China in order to ensure its current stores makes profit. The company reported that their consumers were facing a hard time with the economic problems in US and overseas. Walmart has focused on low prices for its merchandise. The company survived through the previous economic recession by getting rid of common goods and cutting the prices of it other commodities.
Workers at Walmart have no complains as they have fixed time schedules and shifts of work although sometimes they are given extra work outside what they are used to. The compensation is moderate and adequate to the work they deliver and tasks done. Workers engage well with the management and make working fun and enjoyable. Walmart has been a role model for other companies. This seen through its smart business process where the company reduces the costs and adds customer value making the firm profitable.
This was by reducing costs by 6% and provided for discounts on most helpful goods to their consumers during the economic recession. This led to new consumers going in to buy the discounted products and thereby scaled up the lower sales per consumer leading to unexpected profits. This can be summarized as visualization, illustration and understanding of an organization supply chains, discount negotiation with suppliers, and inventory costs reduction. It also includes engaging customers in their value adding goods, satisfy customers effectively, and report all results even the bad one in an open transparent way.
Walmart has engaged in four types of assessments for its factories; Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red. Green assessments imply that the company has minor or no violations at all and are gone every 2 years; Yellow ones are those with medium risk while Red is the most serious where factories are cut off from Walmart. When it comes to auditing, the integrity is observed, where third-party firms registered and approved by Walmart conduct the audits.
When it comes to competition, Walmart knows how to do it; as a witness when Target Canadian was launched and preparing for the competition the firm said it will put aside $450 to expand its business in Canada. It has outsmarted other companies such as Costo. This has been done through taking advantages of remodeling stores to entice new consumers, discount on prices, building strong brands and coming up with new centers that provide one-stop shopping. However, the company failed to address the strategy of identifying the problem, not having a well motivated and energized work force and prepare the organization for success (Henderson, 1997).
Walmart has been on both the bad and good side of the capitalist world of today. Analyzing Walmart totally is quite a task. However, this is applauded since its ways of handling challenges along its strategic plans are better compared to other companies. It’s, work processes are well defined, and the role of employees is well stipulated out through the expected skills, knowledge and abilities in the different roles and tasks a worker is expected to oversee. It provides a good learning point about the integration of human resource management and the changing world markets and economy (Dreher, 2002)
. Customer and employee behavior go a long way in determining the success of an organization. This brings in the issue of employee compensation, which is quite a tricky issue. In today’s world quality and not quantity collide as well as royalty and commitment to the organization. How firm integrate all the above matters into their strategic plans, together with how they address the various challenges they encounter comes out in their profit margins and future business.

References

Dreher, G., & Dougherty, T. (2002). Human Resource Strategy: A Behavioral Perspective for the General Manager. Boston, MA : McGraw-Hill
Henderson, Richard I. (1997). Compensation Management in a Knowledge-Based World, 7th ed. New York: Prentice-Hall.