Reward Strategy of Trisco Foods - Assignment Example

? Performance and Reward Executive Summary This paper discusses about the reward strategy of Trisco Foods. It also illustrates about the influence ofthe company’s culture and structure on its reward strategies. Furthermore, the paper also frames certain recommendations that will help in restructuring the reward strategy of the company. Correspondingly, the discussion of the paper indicates that the reward strategy of Trisco Foods follow both intrinsic as well as extrinsic approaches of rewarding its workforce and members. The company also follows Daniel Pink’s global motivational theory towards rewarding the employees intrinsically. However, the senior employees of the company have been observed to be disappointed with the current reward criteria and feel themselves and their experiences to be undervalued. The later part of the paper illustrates few noteworthy recommendations that might be effective in reframing the reward strategy of Trisco Foods. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Brief Overview of Trisco Foods 5 Analyzing Trisco Foods’ Reward Strategy 5 Analysis of the Workplace Scenario 10 Recommendations 10 Conclusion 11 References 13 Introduction In today’s business scenario, employees are considered among the most important assets of organizations. It has been noted that only an efficient set of workforce is capable of accomplishing the goals of an organization and its set objectives. Employees thus hold the key in performance efficacy of business concerns in the modern day context. In this regard, it has been noted that employees should be managed and utilized properly so that they can facilitate organizations with positive outcomes through their productive contributions. However, to steer employees towards productive contributions, it is important to motivate and encourage employees towards the accomplishment of the organizational goals. Hence, performance and reward management comes into concern. From a theoretical viewpoint, these aspects deeply relate with modern organizational practices that are incorporated for the purpose of employee motivation and therefore are related to the doctrine of Human Resource practices of organizations. Performance and rewards can also be observed as connected to each other in the sense that rewards are practiced or delivered on the basis of performance efficiency deciphered by employees. It has been observed in this regard that such practices in organization tend to be quite beneficial in the sense that it motivates workforce to perform and develop ownership among them which encourage them for continuous improvement of their work. This in turn results in overall effectiveness of the organizational performance (Shields, 2012; Deb, 2009). This paper henceforth aims to analyze performance and reward practices approach of Trisco presenting a report on the limitations and the strengths of Trisco’s management strategies with regard to employee satisfaction through effective motivational mechanisms. Brief Overview of Trisco Foods Trisco Foods is an Australian food manufacturing company that has been successful in building superior goodwill from its operations since 1875. The company has a good profile in this particular sector owing to their commitment towards the deliverance of quality product and/or services to the targeted customers. Although the company is primitively located in Australia, through the wide network of its supply chain, Trisco has been able to reach in most of the countries. From an overall perspective, it has been observed that strong market presence and vast range of products with appreciative quality are among the major success factors for the company to drive its superior goodwill in the national as well as international markets over the years (Trisco Foods, 2013; Trisco Foods, 2013). Analyzing Trisco Foods’ Reward Strategy With the virtues of its superior distribution network and quality goods, Trisco has been able to obtain a prominent position in the world of food manufacturing sector. The company believes in total commitment towards providing high quality products and/or services to the customers. This is the aspect that provided a commendable position for the company in the market. However, in regard to providing effective products and/or services to the customers, employees or the entire workforce of the company has a vital role to play. They work up to the maximum level of their expertise in order to ensure positive performance of the product and the organization. This positive approach of the company can be observed as fundamentally facilitated by its effective reward strategy that includes the adherence of crucial aspects such as employee satisfaction. Contextually, the reward strategy of the company includes both intrinsic as well as extrinsic forms of reward approaches. It has been learnt that intrinsic rewards is an intangible approach of recognition where employees are provided with personal satisfaction by encouraging their work verbally and apparently such as offering them with more responsible tasks in comparison to their peers apart from providing them with any sort of monetary benefits (Thomas, 2002). Employee encouragement through intrinsic rewards has been observed to motivate the workforce to perform above the set benchmark, especially in immense work pressure to deliver positive results deciphering lower stress level. This aspect provides self esteem to the employees which can be identified as one of the key constituents of Maslow’s motivational theory. This theory depicts that self esteem is an important aspect that motivates employees or any people to be self-motivated towards achieving a particular goal in the benefit of the organization. Hence, such reward systems not only increases employee satisfaction but also encourages employee morale and commitment towards the organization offering long term sustainability to the company (Dubrin, 2008). Furthermore, extrinsic rewards can also be identified as among the reward approaches of Trisco. Through this mechanism, the company intends to reward its employees mostly by providing monetary benefits such as attractive remuneration packages, bonuses, incentives, allowances and other forms of compensations to keep the professionals motivated and commitment to their job responsibilities. This aspect of employee motivation is also very effective for motivating employees towards performing more challenging tasks and therefore ensuring continuous development of the company (The University of Texas, 2004). Additionally, casual motivations or rewards such as ‘pat at the back’ and ‘periodic appreciation regarding good work’ can be identified as the key features of rewards strategy of the company. From a theoretical perspective, it can be observed that Trisco principally seeks to follow the motivational theories developed by Daniel Pink. According to the theory, there are three intrinsic motivational aspects, namely autonomy, mastery and purpose. In this regard, autonomy signifies that organizations should need to provide opportunities to the employees to control their intentions by allowing them to choose their team mates along with the preferred time to complete their tasks and techniques to be used among others. Hence, the aspect of autonomy exhibits the notion that employees can be motivated by rewarding them an opportunity to work with complete freedom under minimum supervision deciphering greater degree of reliance on their professional aptitude. However, such techniques tend to increase the risk of massive fluctuations in the operational processes. The subsequent aspect of the theory, i.e. mastery, depicts that employees should be allowed to develop themselves continuously in a particular genre of work which although encourages steady growth in employee productivity but limits diversity in relation to employee skills. Such a reward strategy can also increase dissatisfaction within professionals who aspire for regular challenges and tend to develop their skills in another more challenging dimension when accomplished expertise in a particular domain. The third aspect i.e. purpose discusses about the need of organizations to inform the employees about the determined goals or a particular task which deciphers greater dependence of the management on the selected employees rendering a feel of recognition to the workforce. Such rewards technique further has been observed to facilitate greater morale and satisfaction among employees (France, 2012; Minelli, Chambers & Dhiraj, 2012). It has been noted that reward strategies of Trisco strictly intends follow Pink’s motivational theory. However, considering the drawbacks of the two initial aspects, i.e. autonomy and mastery, the company has been successful to draw a positive impact on its performance. For instance, the company provides freedom to its employees on the basis of seniority and performance appraisal to choose their own working environment (You Tube, 2013). Contextually, the extrinsic reward approach of the company also has a vital role to perform in motivating employees. When deciding upon extrinsic rewards, the company intends to conduct a rational and transparent performance appraisal system in rewarding its employees through pay hikes, allowances and other forms of monetary compensation on an annual basis (You Tube, 2013). Thus, it can be stated that the rewards strategy of Trisco is a significant as well as productive component of its human resource practices to ensure its long-run productivity. Analyzing the strategic alignment of Trisco Foods’ Rewards Strategy In accordance to the information gathered from Trisco case, it has been learnt that the business strategy of the company is designed in a way that would be beneficial in gaining a competitive advantage over its competitors in a sustainable and profitable manner. For instance, the company incorporates a lean manufacturing process in its operational process thereby uses a less amount of input for delivering larger outputs. This particular manufacturing process has also been observed to reduce unnecessary waste generation in the long run rewarding the company with enhanced sustainable growth opportunities. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning in this context that the company intends to keep a minimum number of employees for its operation wherein its reward management strategies have a strong influence. As the number of employees is less, it is not hard for the management of the company to identify individual potentials of the professionals when conducting performance appraisals and accordingly, providing rewards and appreciations. In the similar context, lesser number of employees also might indicate increasing stress burden on the workforce wherein the strategy to offer autonomy and intrinsic rewards proved beneficial for the company at large (You Tube, 2013; Davis, 2009). Evidently, the performance management approach of the company has certain alignment with the rewards strategy of the company. As applied in Trisco, its performance management approach involves constant supervision of the work done by the employees, although due significance is rendered towards employee autonomy through which the management concludes rational performance appraisals to further decide upon the rewards. The data driven method of Trisco also allows it to measure the performance of the employees in the workplace. Moreover, feedback is also taken about the performance of the employees from the seniors and measures their performance. Thus, the company is able to obtain a complete understanding of the potentials in its individual employee which further offers it better control on employee motivation and rewards strategies (You Tube, 2013; University of California, n.d.). The organization culture of Trisco also plays a vital role in designing as well as executing its rewards strategy. As observed from the case study, even though new technologies and innovative ideas are followed in the organization, the culture of the company is quite traditional. The company follows a hierarchical decision making process rendering high priority to its employees, as they work with maximum effort to ensure better organizational performance. This culture of the company exhibits employees as its key asset and further influences the designing of appropriate reward strategies that can achieve maximum employee satisfaction. Hence, the reward strategy of the company strives hard to ensure adequate, just and transparent accreditation of every potential employee. From the above analysis, it can be stated that all the aspects such as business strategy, performance management approach and organizational cultures of Trisco have worthy impact on its reward strategy (You Tube, 2013). Analysis of the Workplace Scenario Referring to the case scenario, exhibiting the workplace of Trisco, it has been observed that one of the senior employees of the company named Bernard deciphered high degree of dissatisfaction with the present rewards strategy of the company. He has further been acknowledged to be among the most consistent as well as effective performers of the company responsible for training new members. However, at a certain point, Bernard learnt that he receives wages similar to that of new employees of the company. This affected his confidence and left him feeling undervalued. Apparently, channelization of such perplex feeling is quite likely to cause dissatisfaction among a major proportion of Trisco’s workforce thus hindering its overall productivity. In this context, it will be vital to depict that the reward strategy of the company failed to balance between satisfying the experienced as well as the new entrants. Emphasizing on this context, the discussion henceforth intends to suggest few recommendations that can mitigate the limitations persisting in the rewards strategies applied by Trisco. Recommendations Since employee satisfaction is vital factor towards developing their attitude and behavior for Trisco, it is crucial that the rewards strategy created by the company offers equal accreditation to its employees in a transparent manner on the basis of their potentials and job positions. One particular limitation that can be witnessed with reference to the reward strategy of Trisco, the components which were used to determine the rewards for employees lacked transparency in terms of employee awareness. It is in this context that Trisco should convey the bases or criteria it uses to determine the rewards for each employee which again should also consider the experiences and job positions of the professional. With better awareness among the employees regarding the reward strategy of the company, they are likely to have a clear idea regarding their expected accreditations and therefore obtain greater satisfaction mitigating the possible chances of conflicts as witnessed in the case of Bernard. Such mechanism shall also contribute towards further development of a better culture in Trisco (Armstrong, 2002). Conclusion From the overall analysis of the paper, it can be summarized that the reward strategy of any organization in the modern day context plays a vital role in the performance development of the business on the whole at a continuous rate. Contextually, based on a similar notion, it has been noted that Trisco applies a reward strategy and performance management approach that intend to identify the well performing employees along with their skills to praise them appropriately and in a just manner for their contribution to company prosperity. The company follows both the intrinsic as well the extrinsic reward approaches which has further proven to be highly effective for them. Notably, in its reward strategy, the company follows the Daniel Pink’s motivational theories to motivate its employees effectively. The cultural bases as well as the performance management approach of the company also impose a substantial degree of influence on Trisco’s reward strategy. However, in the later section of the paper it has been learnt that Bernard, a senior employee of the company is not satisfied with the reward strategy of the company which was fundamentally due to the lack of employee awareness regarding the reward strategy criteria applied by the organization. Hence, it is recommendable to Trisco that employees at every level is made aware of the reward strategy criteria applied by the organization so as to mitigate any possible chances of conflicts or biases in its overall performance management system. References Armstrong, M. 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