HRM Practices, Employee Involvement and Engagement - Wal-Mart - Literature review Example

HRM PRACTICES; EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT AND ENGAGEMENT (WAL-MART INC By HRM Practices; Employee Involvement andEngagement (Wal-Mart Inc.) Introduction The study aims to investigate the human resource management practices that lead to and promote employee involvement and engagement in an organisation. The Walmart Inc. will be used for the case study of the research because the company has demonstrated many years of success by considering its employees as its core strategic resource through which it realises quality services and product delivery to its customers. The Walmart has made a significant investment in training its staff and engaging them in various administrative tasks within the organisation (Robertson & Cooper, 2010:325). The Walmart Inc. is one of the most successful chain stores in the world with over 11,000 retail outlets in 27 countries globally (Walmart, 2015). The company was incepted by two Walton brothers in 1962. The chain store has its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas in the United States. The company has a majority of its businesses and outlets concentrated within America. In the course of growth, the company has underwent major structural adjustments to accommodate changes in the business environment both domestically and the overseas. In 2014, the company reported the highest profits among the Fortune Global 500 list of companies (Walmart, 2015). The chain store also obtained an award as the biggest private employer in the world during the same period with over 2.2 million people. This tremendous growth over the years has been attributed to better management and involvement of employees in decision-making to achieve both the long-term and short-term goals of the business. The Walmart came into business in 1962, with the mission of enabling people to lead better lives and to help them save money (Dickson, 2011). The primary focus of the company was, therefore, to reducing the living costs for everyone in America and the world. The Wal-Mart deals in general merchandise and selected groceries. For the people working in the stores, the company offers them attractive compensation structures based on the number of hours worked but also hires people on permanent terms such as the district managers and regional presidents, store managers and among other senior executives. (Walmart, 2015). Literature Review Employee Involvement and Engagement This area of study has attracted many researchers who have contributed significant literature on employee involvement and engagement. To demystify the importance of using HRM practices as a means to involve fully and engage employees, Jafri (2013, p.1) investigated the role of HRM practices as the predictors of employee engagement. He used data from 250 employees who were drawn from two corporations in Bhutan. The respondents included both female and male that were selected based on a convenient sampling technique. From his findings, he concluded that in the modern times, employee engagement is a critical tool for any business whose objective is to achieve tremendous success. Engaging employees helps organisations to stay current and relevant in the market but to realise the full benefits of employee engagement (Albrecht, 2010). Moreover, the human resource practices need to be utilised because they are the best predictors of employee engagement in any organisation (Robertson & Cooper, 2010:324). Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes (2002:268) conducted a meta-analysis that revealed the importance of employee involvement in generating meaningful business outcomes. The researchers argued that employees who are engaged and fully involved, intellectually and emotionally contribute to the growth of the business. They feel they are part of the business, and they do anything within their power to ensure that they obtain positive results for the organisation (United States Merit System Protection Board, 2009). Other major studies by Macey et al. (2011); Walker (2012) on employee engagement and involvement also suggest that employees that are actively engaged and involved in their duties are more reproductive to the organisation than those that are not engaged. According to Cook (2008), employee engagement is the creation of an enabling environment that helps the company to achieve high motivation for its employees to perform their duties effectively. He goes to note that, this enables an organisation to realise huge advantages such as high commitment from the employees, improved performance and high productivity. Conversely, when employees are actively engaged they tend to be more collaborative to other workers on different ranks; hence creating a conducive environment for team building, thus resulting in better performance of the company (Shuck, & Wollard, 2010; Guest, 2014.). Leadership Styles Due to the active study in this area, a number of models/approaches of employee engagement have emerged. Bhattacharya et al., (2008) did a research that proposed a number of models or styles through which employees can be engaged in an organisation. These models have received much support from other scholars in this field, and they include the transactional, relational and developmental approaches. Transactional model This model arguably is one of the best ways through which to engage the employees as fronted by Bhattacharya et al., (2008). These researchers set out the fundamental parameters of this model via corporate social responsibility. The first parameter in their study was internal marketing that leads to job satisfaction and high retention rates since employees are filled with pride about their employer and the company. Therefore, this contributes to high employee performance and fewer intentions to quit or low employee turnovers. According to these researchers, the transactional model helps the company to customise its CSR options for employees from different segments, thus giving them the option to choose between getting involved or not. In other words, in this model, the company focuses on satisfying the needs of the employees to facilitate their engagement beforehand. Relational Model This model according to the researchers, shifts from the "me" in the transactional model to "we". In this approach, the company or organisation involves all the employees towards a common goal (Deo, 2014:262). This model is also called expressing identity because employees get involved in order to identify themselves with the larger business. Developmental Model This model enlarges the extent of engagement through the CSR perspective further i.e. from “me” on to “we” then to “all of us”. The model is widely used by Walmart whereby the company has engaged, its stakeholders and employees (Bhattacharya et al., 2008). Walmart formulated a strategy that was codenamed ‘Sustainability 360 strategy’ whose realisation requires the engagement of all employees. Through this strategy, the company has motivated over 600,000 of its employees to come up with personal sustainability projects that have helped them to live healthier lives. Researchers also equated this model to the realisation of the purpose. Employee Engagement and Involvement at Walmart Walmart has successfully pursued many sustainable strategies. According to Ling, Mat, & Al-Omari (2013), the number of people the company has helped to change from bad lifestyles to better lifestyles evinces this fact. The company management believes that a happy employee equals a happy employer because a happy employee feels valued, cared for and engaged at the same time (Thomas, 2010). This in return leads to a better, more productivity and loyalty to the employer (Pritchard, 2008:18). This project was unveiled in 2010, and each employee was given time to develop a sustainable plan under the Code ‘my sustainability plan, ‘my life’ and ‘my planet’. Under my sustainability plan 28, countries were associated, and the goals that were given focus included healthy living that involved eating healthy, quitting tobacco, getting active and reducing stress (Kerns, 2014:36). Under my planet, the employees were involved in the following areas of focus, that is, saving water, enjoying nature, reducing waste, and saving energy. Under my life, the employees dedicated their attention to the following areas, i.e. proper financial management skills, helping others, making of quality time, and learning of new skills (Xu & Helena, 2011:412). To realise this, the company developed an online tool that has seen many associates signing up and using it. The tool has also made it easier for the company to track the level of engagement and involvement in the organisation (Alamelu, et al., 2014:37). For this reason, the Wal-Mart has realised positive results and this has motivated other companies to the company as the benchmark to improve their performances through employee engagement and involvement. For instance, the company has so far offered free royalty licences to more than 35 organisations including Unilever, J.B, UPS, United Healthcare, etc. (Kerns, 2014:36). Human Resource Planning at Walmart Human resource planning refers to the process through which an organisation determines its current and future human resource needs to achieve its goals and objectives (Endres & Mancheno-Smoak, 2008:69). HRP serves as the link between the company’s human resource management and the overall strategic goal of the company (Torraco & Swanson, 1995:10). According to Torraco & Swanson (1995:18), many companies invest in good job design to give their employees maximum flexibility and this enables them to realise the required value from their employees. Many successful organisations in the world give human resource planning the seriousness it deserves because a properly planned human resource, ensures that the company reaps maximum value from its deployment. Many companies face human resource challenges such as high employee turnover, low retention rates, low labour productivity and among others due to the lack of proper human resource planning. Walmart has successfully implemented better job design and human resource planning models that have enabled it to achieve tremendous and accelerated growth over the years. Human resource planning in this company is stratified in terms of programs and solutions offered at Walmart. A central human resource department creates and reviews the company’s annual human resource plans (Sabath, et al., 2001:101). The management utilises a software that helps human resource managers to analyse the changes in the company’s required workforce and thus the software has enabled the management to predict its human resource requirement in advance (Torraco & Swanson 1995:19). This has saved the company huge costs of employee turnover and enabling it to register high retention rates. For instance, through HRP, the Wal-Mart has been able to utilise optimally its available human resources and at the same time providing them with flexible working hours and lucrative packages (Becker & Huselid, 2010:382). Job Analysis and Design Job design involves putting together a number of tasks and responsibilities related to a given task to enable people carry out their work properly (Brannick & Levine, 2002). Human resource researchers today grapple with many challenges that are currently giving the human resource managers a hard time. One of the common challenges that any successful manager must tackle is the work-life balance to enable their employees to fulfil their obligations both at the workplace and at home. Employees, who have high levels of work-life conflicts, tend to be less satisfied, less motivated, and less likely to be involved or engaged in work. On the other hand, employees who have better work-life balance, tend to be happier and more committed to work and, therefore, are more willing to be involved or engaged in the companys activities. The Walmart has a centralised and hierarchical organisational design. Although the company has some levels of decentralisation, it is largely centralised with significant use of technology. The company uses the matching approach in designing its jobs. The design involves the use of interviews and surveys on the applicants, supervisors and employees. This helps the company to determine issues of concern early for faster mitigation. This approach has successfully helped Walmart to align the actual needs of the company with the human resources available (Walmart, 2015). Job descriptions are significantly varied but the majority will involve sales activities since the companys core business is sales. Job specifications are also varied, but most of the jobs call for skills in marketing and sales. For instance, in most instances the company has preferred people with over one year of working experience. The company’s CEO places huge value on the employees of the company and has named the HR. Department as the Peoples division. At Walmart stores, three basic beliefs or values make the whole difference that is, respect for the people, service to the customers, and striving for excellence. To respect people, the company employees are expected to show servant leadership, accountability, open door, trust, teamwork, confidentiality, diversity, caring, and empowerment among others. To show service to customers, employees are expected to offer a friendly atmosphere, pleasant shopping experience, show a sense of urgency, aggressive hospitality among others. The company strives for excellence through continuous improvement; focusing on the results, taking risks, cost controlling and among others. Flexible Work Scheduling at Walmart Flexible work schedules bring flexibility both in an organisation and in the lives of its employees. According to Jose & Mampilly (2012:424), flexible work schedules have a number of advantages both to the workers and to the employer. For the workers, they can meet the family, personal, and life obligations more conveniently; there is reduced commuting time and cost; employees feel they can work when they are at their best and among others. The company, on the other hand, realises the following advantages improved employee morale, reduced employee turnover, reduced absenteeism, extended hours of operations, improved image as an employer of choice and among other advantages (Kruse, 2012). The Walmart realises the importance of offering a flexible working environment to all the employees. This has in return has led to improved productivity within the firm and fewer labour costs. The company achieves this through the computerised system that has changed how employee scheduling was previously done in the company. The store chain places a high value on family obligations, and thus this initiative has helped the company’s associates to create more time for their families. Apart from families, the management believes that a flexible working environment gives the employees’ time to reflect upon their work and make decisions that are both relevant and innovative. For instance, under the leadership of Bill Simon, the company affirmed its serious commitment to making working hours flexible for all the employees. The scheduling system that was unveiled in 2013 has created an opportunity for the associates to assign themselves the available shifts throughout the stores regardless of the department that an individual comes from. This has in return has led to a happy working environment as people avoid assigning themselves duties when they have other commitments elsewhere. By utilising this system, workers have developed cross-functional skills that are very useful for the company. Moreover, this system has provided the employees with the discretion to choose when and for how long they would be willing to work. Thus, this shows the companys commitment to ensuring its workforce is happy and dynamic. This in turn has enabled the Wal-Mart to build a responsive workforce, which has made it easy to involve or engage them. These are the reasons the company is doing well in the American and the global retail market and it is expected that the company will continue to remain the primary source of flexible jobs in America and the global market. Walmart Organisation Structure Organisation structure as defined by Lansley et al. (1974:469) refers to how activities are allocated, coordinated and supervised to achieve the set organisational goals. Different organisations adopt different organisational structures based on the type of business they do. Organisational structures affect organisations in two major ways, that is they provide the foundation on which the organisations bases standard operating procedures and regular routines and lastly they determine the nature of individuals to participate in various decision-making processes within the organisation (Lansley et al., 1974:484). Sam Walton values provide the basis on which Walmarts structure is created or moulded. Walmart adopted an organisational structure that was formal and bureaucratic. The company, however, changed this structure in 2010 to a more decentralised structure. The company has three most successful divisions of operations i.e. logistics, store operations and real estate. In all these departments, there is a clear chain of command from the top to the bottom and each division is open to focus its efforts on specific goals. This has helped the company to grow in all areas since departments compete on performance. The divisional structures are further divided into product, geographic and market. Product structure approach groups the employees according to the specific geographic region or location. This structure is used mostly by Walmart both in the United States and overseas. Conclusion The Walmart like any other successful company in the world gives its employees the value they deserve. The company has better employee engagement models that have helped it to achieve more out of its employees. From the review of the literature, it is evident that human resource practices often lead to better employee involvement and good performance. The study identified three models used in employee engagement i.e. transactional, relational and developmental. Walmart uses the developmental model in engaging its employees, and the company has registered success with the model. The company has successfully used the model to engage employees in three major areas namely my sustainability plan, my life, and my planet. The company utilises human resource planning system that help the management to determine and predict its current and future staff requirements. The company also uses flexible job design where employees can balance their work life and family life. As a result, this has contributed to high motivation within the organisation, and this has conversely fuelled better employee engagement and involvement. The company uses a bureaucratic structure that has so far worked well but lately in 2010; the company decentralised to some extent. Organisations pursuing employee engagement and involvement can, therefore, comfortably use the human resource practices to achieve greater involvement. 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