Multinational Energy Corporation: CVX - Term Paper Example

CVX is an American multinatioanal energy corporation. Recognized as one of the successor companies for providing oil of standard quality, this corporation has it’s headquarter situated in California at San Ramon. The corporation has good reputaion in different regions across the globe and has actively working branches all across the world in nearly 180 states. CVX is aimed to provide energy sources to its customers and is engaged with several energy industries including the geothermal, gas and oil industries to accomplish its mission. It moniters and covers all processes from exploration to energy production that includes refining, marketing, transportation, manufacturing and sales of products that are related to generation of power. Counted as a giant oil companies that operates on international level, CVX has acquired third rank in 2014 among the list of Fortune 500 public corporations that are under US hold. It is also ranked as twelfth best Working Corporation among the list of top 500 Fortune corporations, worldwide. CVXs operations at low levels include manufacturance and selling of various other products that fall in the realm of petrochemicals and include oil additives, various types of fuels and vehicle lubricants. The main sites where most of the company’s operations are held include the west coast of North America, the U.S. Gulf Coast, South Africa, some part of Australian continent, Korean region and also Asia. CVX set a record of sales in the year 2010 when the volume of its sales crossed 3.1 million barrels mark per day. Structure Frame: As mentioned by the Chairman and CEO of the company, the corporation has nine vice presidents; each of them has duties to handle functioning of different branches. However, company’s business is mainly controlled by central operating staff that has knowledge regarding business and geography and constitutes the basic "strategic business unit" that is in-charge for managing relevant operations. For the upstream operations of the company, the four operating units from Africa and Latin America; Asia Pacific; Eurasia, Europe and Middle East; and North America are responsible. This structural organization is to focus on the opportunities that can enhance long-term growth of company and can improve business partnership relations. All the units work in a composed way to meet their targets after deciding various milestones on the way of a successful journey and thereby, achieving high level corporate scorecard. The company believing in sahring its vision and progress with employees and staff in their own way, that we call CVX Way. It is the most admirable way of expalining the growing staff that what we are as a company, what we have to do, what we believe and what we plan to accomplish. Such a procedure develops understanding and confidence not only in staff members, but in all those who interact with the company. To ensure a good quality work, rules and responsibilities are clearly defined to each and every employee and their opinion regarding the applicability of polices is collected. Being a representaive of my branch, I get chance to meet representatives from all other units in a meeting recopgnized as ‘monthly community for practice’ for about two hours. In this meeting we share our lessons and practises that are earned during the whole month; this ensures the integration of different units and defines the consistency of work throughout the corporation’s network. Technology like Webx is also used for the purpose of online meetings all the people from different units can connect within seconds through video calls. Moreover, all the discussed points that can improve performance are ensured to be accessible for all HES workers from all units where they can make their comments regarding their own experiences. Such a practise confirms the consistent implementations of all standards and procedures, necessary for the growth and success of corporation. Human Resources Frame: Emloying and incorporating the right people is a key agenda for success of CVX. Therefore, CVX is always looking and hiring people who can work in collaboration, and can, therefore, enjoy the input rich and teamwork oriented environment of the company. CVX believes ininvesting in the people who can strengthen the organization with their professional capabilities and can constitute a talented team. Career development is one of the programme by which CVX invests in professional growth of the hired staff. CVX aims to provide all the possible resources and benefits for every emploee to ensure improve and grow of professional skills. Such resources include online training, on job training and in class training. For most of the mentioned functions, the company provides an online academy through which employees are able to learn and get updates about new technologies. As CVX is recognized as a company operating globally, CVX arranges a “Global Work Assignment” to cover the other aims of human resources frame. In this programme, some employees are to work in other overseas branches for a period of two or three years. The main idea behind this kind of programs is to ensure growth and development of professional and personal skills by exposing them to different working environment and thus, to promote diversity of skills among employees. Motivation Leaders that are willing to support their followers and aim to act accordingly your interests – usually win the trust of their employees in a short time. The employees, in turn, acquire the qualities of being loyal and target oriented. In my working profession, I once had a chance to be in close association with department manager.  He was a nice man who believed in communicating his performance level and expectations to me via direct feedback.  In all this working period, he never treated me like an employee at rank lower than his rank, and always looked forward to indulge me with him in senior management meetings. It was truly all his effort that motivated me to do more than what I was doing then and to seek my bright career. I, therefore, did all my efforts to attain higher position and to act accordingly to fulfil the expectations of my boss. Through this experience, I learned that trust is a powerful motivational tool that can enhance the working capabilities of the employee and leaders who are clear to their employees with trust can attain surprising results for the employee’s performance. Providing chances where employees can get training and learning about new skills brings a sort of motivation for CVX employees. The continuous development of professional skills ensures employees an increased pay rate and promotion. Potential employees are selected for a career development plan where they get a chance to set short and long term positions that they are aiming to achieve for their career growth. By having a close interaction with supervisors, they make an action plan to ensure obtaining all the necessary knowledge and experience for particualr goals. This practise serves as an inspiration and motivates employees to work more hard. Furthermore, all business units decide their targets in the start of a new year where emloyees are ensured to get bonus by the end of the year, if they can attain the mentioned targets. Other than being a chance of making more money, I consider this setting of goals as an inspiration to employees for contributing in the success of the company, by utilizing their potential skills. Another type of motivation that I guess is the fame and name of the company, globally. Knowing and having instinct, that employees are working in a company that is apprecaited worldwide, creates motivation in employees to be a part of the comapny and therefore, to perform at their best and be loyal to company success. The results for this instinct are always satisficatory and productive. Within HES function, one of the functions is to motivate workers to do their jobs rightly. The policy ensures that a worker may be expelled out by the authority if he is found to be involved in unsafe activates and behaviors. Similarly, the authority have rights to stop working with any of the interacting contactors and companies if it is found to be involved in suspicious activities. Diversity CVX is recognized to possess global diversity. The location of 180 units in different countries, rich with unique cultural and creative activities, increases the cahnces for incorporating the beneficial mission points and therefore the improved working environment. The setting of units in different regions of the world enables CVX to meet the different demands by people of different countries and therefore improve the capabilities of workforce by providing understanding of competition. Employees can select one among more than ten working networks to join. I am member of Asian Employee Network that incorporates Asian and non-Asian employees working in combination to enahnce cultural awareness. We, as the part of CVX Corporation, share our cultural diversity within community and especially those employees who are going for global work assignments. Another aspect of human resources frame covers the social assistance to employees. CVX believes that working as a family can lead to effective output and to ensure it, CVX routinely provides work/life balance tips and personal assistant to employees through confidential consulting service. This consulting service is not limited to only employees, but to the family members and retired people; advisors try their best to slove the problem with a proper plan. Resources are available to assist in understanding work/life balance and the social, cultural and personal factors that may impact our livesResources are available to assist in understanding work/life balance and the social, cultural and personal factors that may impact our livesPolitical Frame: In CVX, managers hold a powerful position as they decide the task and assign responsibilities within a group. In addition, the manager has responsibility to discuss the development plan for all employees within his group which ultimately determines the employee’s future. I work in department of energy technology unit that occupies position of a consultant for all CVX business units, therefore demands power of expertise. Here, a colleague who has been working in CVX for 42 years is considered as an expert and the employees within the group has to go to him for assistance. He has responsibility to visit all business units and to solve problems there because of his wide experience and knowledge. Working in different countries, CVX also faces the risk for conflicts among regulators for different units. To overcome this risk, CVX has applied a set of standards to be considered in every situation. CVX has adopted this strategy after comapring standards for all different units and then selecting the promising ones to be utilized further. CVX Hot Line is another example of proper political frame. The Company regulates a Hotline where employees and contractors can direct report activities which they find as violation of laws, including possible criminal conduct, violations of CVXs Business Conduct & Ethics Code or Company policies. The maintenance of proper Hotline serves as direct, effective and risk-free way to report harsh activities. This Hotline doesn’t ask information about the reporter, so employee feel comfortable while reporting bad activities. Networking and building coalition is quite obvious for the success of the company. It is important for people who want to move from sort of work to any other type of work within the same location. CVX encourages and ensures the particiaption of employees to participate in different networks where they can build good relationships to indulge with employees of other work. Negotiation skills are important in our job as HES specialists I have to interact with people from different employees of the company who have different set of skills and knowledge. So it is important to be possessing good negotiation skills that can make our job easier and allow people to respond to our comments and observations for making their work planned. In such regards, we have a programe named Behavior Based Safety, by which all the workers in the company submit their responses of observations on monthly or quarterly basis depending on their role and location of work. In this program I have role to observe a coworker during appointed task for some time and then to give him feedback regarding his performance including what he did right in that time period or what he should avoid to give good performance. Symbolic Frame: I consider that company foundation is built on moral values that distinguish us and demostrate our actions. We conduct our business by practising all social and in ethical manners. We respect the law for protecting the environment and aim to work for the benefit the communities. Every member in our corporation agrees to the responsibilities and accounts himself for all work and an actions thatis esential for the success of the company. We are honest with others and ourselves. We meet the highest ethical standards in all business dealings. We do what we say we will do. We accept responsibility and hold ourselves accountable for our work and our actions. Trust We trust, respect and support each other, and we strive to earn the trust of our colleagues and partners. Diversity We learn from and respect the cultures in which we work. We value and demonstrate respect for the uniqueness of individuals and the varied perspectives and talents they provide. We have an inclusive work environment and actively embrace a diversity of people, ideas, talents and experiences. Ingenuity We seek new opportunities and out-of-the-ordinary solutions. We use our creativity to find unexpected and practical ways to solve problems. Our experience, technology and perseverance enable us to overcome challenges and deliver value. Partnership We have an unwavering commitment to being a good partner focused on building productive, collaborative, trusting and beneficial relationships with governments, other companies, our customers, our communities and each other. Protecting People and the Environment We place the highest priority on the health and safety of our workforce and protection of our assets and the environment. We aim to be admired for world-class performance through disciplined application of our Operational Excellence Management System. High Performance We are committed to excellence in everything we do, and we strive to continually improve. We are passionate about achieving results that exceed expectations – our own and those of others. We drive for results with energy and a sense of urgency. CVX management promotes safe culture in many ways. To achieve this goal, all business units have meetings that we call safety moment. In such meetings a beif discussion regarding safety issue is given and employees are pursued to practise the told precautions. CVX uses slogans that can be easily picked up and repeated by employees, such as “No name no blame” - used during BBS observations that means nobody is monitored for bringing negative impact but to improve safety levels in the company. As CVX has been working with a huge number of small companies and workers from these comapnies, another aspect of symbolic frame is apparent when such workers are allowed to occupy old possessions like symbols, gifts, flags and sometime shirts having their old company logo. This doesn’t mean that these workers do not like working with CVX but the permission to work with their good memories. Read More