Setting Goals and Motivating Employees in the Organization - Assignment Example

? Job Redesign and Workplace Rewards Assessment Job Redesign and Workplace Rewards Assessment Part One Introduction The modern business environment considers motivation as a vital component of overall organizational success since in influences employee successfulness. Therefore, appreciating the process through which organizations establish objectives, conduct employee assessment and provide rewards is essential. These processes have the effect of influencing the company’s growth and reputation. Rewards are offered to employees whose performance is of superior quality, and ultimately push employees to assess themselves to attain personal growth and job satisfaction (Thomas, (2009). Conversely, goal setting can have both positive and negative implications on workplace productivity. Organizations continually seek innovative ways of increasing employee satisfaction and enhancing productivity. Companies set up external motivators with a view to incite intrinsic motivation and enhance employee loyalty, commitment and productivity. This paper seeks to assess the managerial position of Walmart in the state of Georgia in terms of performance evaluation, job satisfaction and workplace rewards that affect productivity. Tasks and Responsibilities The purpose of the Walmart managerial position is to offer leadership, as well as administrative guidance, to in-store employees. The duties and responsibilities associated with the position include diverse administrative functions such as making all necessary price modifications. A Walmart manager is also charged with ensuring that all product recalls are both accounted for and off the store’s shelves. The manager also ensures all endcaps are placed in accordance with Walmart’s corporate planning strategy (Soderquist, 2005. The manager oversees the construction and establishment of all needed displays within the store. The store manager’s duty is also to dispense all formal communications, including press briefings. The managerial position, therefore, requires the holder to possess immense leadership skill, as well as an in-depth knowledge of Walmart’s corporate culture. Walmart managers are responsible for handling customer and employee complaints them so as to guarantee satisfaction. Walmart stores strive to ensure satisfaction among their customers and employees. Managers are, thus responsible for maintaining an amiable working relationship with store employees in order to deter turnover. The Georgia store manager also performs employee reviews and promotions. Motivation A Walmart manager is required to be capable of working independently and ensure continued self-management to support the store’s workforce. This allows for intrinsic motivation, which is essentially a sense of pride in the work performed, including the challenges and functions. This is a notable motivation for the manager, particularly since the work encompasses responsibilities such as decision-making and employee motivation. Special responsibilities include hiring associate managers and making important business announcements such as charity contribution campaigns. The desire to integrate leadership skills, experience and intelligence to improve the functioning of the store is what motivates the employee intrinsically. Thomas (2009) argues that real motivation lies on intangible psychological elements such as self-esteem. Therefore, assistance in this area is bound to influence people to perform personal evaluations, for instance, assessing their desires for accomplishment, status, dignity, prestige and independence. Consequently, most associate managers strive to become managers in order to enjoy the perks linked to the position, including higher and fixed pay packages and additional vacation days. Company Rewards Walmart provides a generous compensation plan for the managerial position. The store manager receives extra compensation contingent upon the store’s profitability and productivity. In addition, since 1980, Walmart has been providing its managers with shrinkage bonuses in order to deter losses from damage and theft. Whenever a store achieves shrinkage below corporate standards, the manager receives a substantial bonus. This is a highly effective incentive program that motivates deterrence of theft and damage (Soderquist, 2005. In addition, the managerial position encompasses benefits such as personal and family comprehensive health care and dental insurance; a policy covering business travel accidents; paid vacations; purchase discounts; salary continuance and long-term disability insurance. Store managers also benefit from a munificent stock purchase plan. The company rewards plan aims at assisting managers meet their personal and family financial needs. Career benefits provide the manager a chance to advance, prosper and grow. The company assures managers of access to different career paths regardless of their demographic characteristics such as age, sex or nationality. Additionally, Walmart offers diverse training such as computer-based, classroom, on-the-job and in-store training, mentorship and other opportunities capable of influencing a successful career. Financial benefits offered to managers include ways to save and invest for future financial security. The company’s 401(k) and profit-sharing plans enable managers save for their long-term financial needs after retirement. The Associate Stock-Purchase Plan enables associates and managers purchase company stocks through payroll deductions (Soderquist, 2005). Personal benefits bestowed on managers include discounts on travel, education and child care. Clearly, these rewards attract experienced and highly qualified candidates to apply for the managerial position (Soderquist, 2005). However, after attaining the position, candidates’ intrinsic motivation dwindles dramatically, particularly after receiving all the benefits that come with the job. This is primarily because managers get overwhelmed by their managerial responsibilities, as well as job-related stressful situations. Intrinsic motivation is vital for enhancing on-the-job performance; hence without it, performance and productivity decreases. In most cases, after getting the benefits and diminishing their intrinsic motivation, managers regret taking the position. Use of Goals The company has established strict requirements that must be met in order for a person to acquire the managerial position. The candidate must possess a college degree and managerial experience in a relevant field. Additionally, the candidate must excel at the company examination before attaining the position. Having this objective in mind, Walmart junior employees often go for training in order to attain the managerial position. However, Reeve (2001) argues that in order for goals to instigate motivation, they must be specific and difficult. Walmart’s human resource has a set of prescribed goals for the managerial position. The department expects all managers to surpass the requirements of their position. The company uses an annual performance evaluation program to establish goals for the manager (Soderquist, 2005. This evaluation influences intrinsic motivation by inciting managers to enhance their desire to learn and pinpoint their weaknesses thereby increasing the quality of their work and overall productivity. Part Two Job redesign encompasses all work modifications aimed at increasing productivity and quality of work. Potential job redesign approaches for this position include job enrichment and job enlargement. Job enlargement entails increasing the manager’s responsibilities while job enrichment increases the manager’s authority in controlling and planning work (Thomas, (2009). Through job enrichment, Walmart will expand the manager’s job vertically, thereby providing direct control over functions that were previously performed by other individuals. For instance, the manager may now be in charge of interviewing job applicants. Additionally, job enrichment will open up the store’s feedback channel, allowing the manager to communicate directly with employees before appraising their performance. This will keep the manager on track and appreciate the employees’ strengths and weaknesses (Aamodt, 2012). The manager will ultimately establish performance standards for all employees and match ensuing performances against these benchmarks. Recommendations for Walmart’s Manager Reward System One of the greatest inadequacies of Walmart’s present reward system is non-unionization. Unlike most of its competitors, Walmart is still non-unionized, opting for an open door policy that allows employees to make complaints beyond management (Soderquist, 2005). Consequently, Walmart managers receive lower salaries than unionized organizations. Presently, Walmart appears to focus more on sustaining low prices than increasing its employees’ wages and salaries. The reward system can be improved by unionizing the company and ultimately increasing the salaries of all managers. Additionally, the reward program should also include fully-paid holidays for managers who meet their quotas. This will motivate managers to push for increased productivity and performance (Aamodt, 2012). Walmart’s Goal System Walmart’s goal system should aim at enhancing managers’ interpersonal skills, for instance, dependability, hard work, loyalty, having a desire to work and understanding the implications of various behaviors on the organization. In essence, the goal system should emphasize individual tasks, traits and behaviors since they determine managers’ strengths and weaknesses. These elements can also determine the progress of a manager and the need for additional training. According to Aamodt, (2012) the primary purpose of an evaluation is to increase productivity and performance. Although evaluations mostly meet this purpose, it is evident that goals are sometimes ineffective in enhancing performance and job satisfaction. Therefore, rather than merely establishing goals, the organization should ensure that it targets goals specifically to the position in question, and ensure that these goals are sufficiently difficult to motivate performance and increase job satisfaction (Reeve, 2001). Implementation Plan In order to integrate the redesigned position into the organization, Walmart needs to reflect on and analyze its strategies constantly. This will ensure that it identifies opportunities to bring the redesigned position into the organization. Firstly, Walmart should enhance its information system since the amount of information passed to and from the manager may increase. The speed at which the manager receives information and his capacity to use it to enhance results should also be increased. Secondly, Walmart needs to integrate the redesigned position into its robust training system. This can be achieved by introducing new skills training for the holder of the redesigned position to enable him appreciate how to perform the new functions effectively (Thomas, (2009). The next step in the plan is to integrate the newly introduced responsibilities and duties into Walmart’s organizational structure to deter artificial barriers from getting in the way of effective implementation of the program. Additionally, the organization will have to transform its decision-making system to ensure that the holder of the redesigned position appreciates the new authority to make valuable business decisions. Lastly, the organization will need to improve its technologies and tasks to ensure the redesigned position effectively meets the company’s overall business objectives. References Aamodt, M. G. (2012). Industrial/organizational psychology: An applied approach (7th ed.). Boston: Cengage Learning. Jex, S. M. (2002). Organizational psychology: A scientist-practitioner approach. New Jersey: Wiley. Reeve, J. (2001). Understanding motivation and emotion. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Incorporated. Soderquist, D. (2005). The Wal-Mart way: The inside story of the success of the world's largest company hardcover. Tennessee: Thomas Nelson. Thomas, K. W. (2009). Intrinsic motivation at work: What really drives employee engagement paperback (2nd ed.). California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Read More