Reward Management Essay Examining Issues Encounter by Coles Supermarket
Question
Task: The reward management essayrequires you to critically assess reward management strategy with reference to an organisation selected by you. Your critical assessment involves both demonstration of your understanding of the literature and debates within the field of reward management and application of a practitioner-based approach to reward management within the selected organisation.
Details
Your essay will include the following key elements:
Context
A brief analysis of the organisation’s context; including the organisation’s main activity, business strategy and environment, number of employees, and basic characteristics of its existing reward management system.
Challenges
Identification of the challenges faced by the organisation with respect to reward management. The challenges to be identified by analysis of the relevant literature and application thereof to the organisation.
Reward Management Strategy
Development of a reward management strategy for the organisation. The recommended reward management strategy must be supported by evidence from the relevant literature and address key considerations for a reward management practitioner in the development, implementation and evaluation of the strategy.
Students should utilize a minimum of 12 references.
Answer
Background of Reward Management Essay
Reward management is the implementation of policies and strategies to reward the people involved in an organization in a consistent and fairway. The biggest advantage of reward management is that it works as a force of motivation for the employees, which can improve the overall success rate of the business as well as increase the productivity of the workers. The employees receive a great opportunity to enhance themselves, which brings about a mutually beneficial path that is enjoyed by both the employer as well as the employee.
It is imperative for a company to use a reward management strategy to create a hospitable working environment. The company chosen for this essay is Coles Supermarket of Australia, which deals with retail, consumer's service chain, and headquarters based in Melbourne. The essay is based on the issue raised in the 4th session, which has been carried forward in the 5th as well as 6th session. The essay focuses on challenges that have been found in Coles supermarket for which strategy has been developed to enhance its companies reward management system.
Body
Cole supermarket is an Australian company based in Melbourne, which is situated in the South-eastern part of mainland Australia. The company was founded in the year 1914 in Collingwood, and its founder was George Coles. As for now, the company operates in almost 807 numbers of supermarkets all over Australia. The company has also included numerous re-branded BI-LO supermarkets in its business processes(Coles, 2020). The current number of employees, including from all its operating sites, is more than 100,000 numbers of people that covers 27% of the overall markets of Australia. The main head office of Cole is in Melbourne, with 4,000 employees. The name of the company Coles Group limited was named after 2006, which used to be Coles Myer Limited before. Again, it became subordinates after Wesfarmers turned off its business in the month of November 2018. Recently in the year 2020, the company has changed its slogan, "Value the Australian way"(Omolawa and Bawalla, 2021). Coles offers a wide range of products and services to its customers. A firm as big as Coles is controlled by a human resource management team needs a few rectifications in its day to day business. Reward management is one of the main problems faced by Coles. With thousands of employees under its realm, the company needs to improve its strategy of reward management, which would be beneficial to the company on a long-term basis.
Reward management comes with the management of strategic design and the implementation of the plan, maintenance, communication and the systematic management of rewards for the employees(Khan, 2021). A proper reward management process in an organization allows them to achieve the pinpointed objects of the company. Reward management comes with core strategies that aim to honour and value the hard work and loyalty of the employees with fair observation. Reward management basically focuses on motivating the employees and encourages them to work consistently to achieve the shared goals of the company. However, reward management is so significant for the organization's success some of the companies are not being able to manage it properly and hence the result is issues and demotivation among the employees. As per the above-identified issues in the 5th session, it is in reward management. The organization facing such issues in reward management is Coles, which is one of the renowned retail markets in Australia and do compete with renowned companies like Woolworths, etc. (Omolawa and Bawalla, 2021).Although the company has been processed towards recognizing the work of its employees because of reward management issues, several complications have been raised within the organization and its employees.
The organizational structure of Coles follows a bureaucratic structure where the power and the company's authority runs from top to bottom, and the pattern of reward system also follows the same structure. Here the top or senior-level employees are rewarded much in comparison to the low-level employees. The salary structure that the company provides to its employees is not enough to reward each individual or the effort of the team. The employees get the automated annual increment which is included with their basic salary. The pay structure in Coles is standardized where the senior director sets on an individual basis; the newly recruited employees are normally placed with a low salary structure(Francis, Oaya and Mambula, 2020). By using the scheme of HAY job evaluation, progression of the grade for the particular identified post has been done. The up-gradation of the post is processed by the acquisition of an employee's annual increment till the maximum grade has not been reached, which as a result, makes employees stuck in a certain position. This ultimately affects the employee's performance as a whole.
In addition to that, the company provides free company shares annually to its employees as a process of rewards for their hard work and loyalty. This share provides employees with Cole's extra 15% discount in purchasing any items within the company by utilizing their employees care. However, this reward system is applicable only to those employees who have been working for more than six months in the company(Bartram et al., 2015). Coles as counted a successful company; however, they have somewhat failed to manage the system of reward management within their business processes. Thus, the challenges faced by Coles in terms of reward management are the absence of individuals along with the team’s reward, shortage of motivation, the performance-oriented company instead of rewards, employee's low performance, and not being able to handle poor employee performance.
Reward management can be faced by any organization that operates with either fewer or more numbers of employees. It is just that how the company manages and handles its employees in terms of rewarding. In the above case of Coles, although the company is a well-known and established company operating across the world has faced several challenges in terms of managing reward management in its organization, among which few of them are mentioned above(Franco-Santos and Gomez-Mejia, 2015). However, these challenges can be dealt with and developed in their business system by strategizing and implementing them in its management. In the case of Coles, a reward strategy will be appropriate to enhance and strengthen its company's reward management system, which will assist them in covering almost every challenge that has been mentioned above.
Reward strategy acts as a vital step that allows the organization to design its reward system so as to keep high-quality employees along with the motivation of the average working employees. Including that reward strategy also sets the mechanism of Coles while recruiting, engaging, enhancement, and retaining its eligible employees(Woods, 2021). All this process will strengthen Coles to deliver quality performance making the company successful. Such, competitive environment in retail sectors, decent reward system plays a crucial role, company not being able to take the initiative to retain their quality employees there is a possibility of competitors scouting company's quality performing employees. Including that employees too has various choices of selecting the company, thus Coles, not being able to provide its employees what they need for, may go for a better option than it. The other competitor’s better reward strategy can be a reason for those employees to leave Coles.
Reward strategy in Coles will address every challenge that they have ever faced in their management. The strategy will address the complexity that will be encountered in bringing all the factors of rewards such as basic salary, bonuses, and other various company's financial and non-financial benefits of each individual in the organizational level. The concept of reward strategy is helpful mostly because of its acknowledgement of the boundaries of financial rewards and also considering other areas that need to be addressed. The management of reward is not limited to pay and its benefits; however, it considers several aspects of their organization hence to attract and retain quality employees thus to flourish organizational performance.
For the development of reward strategy in Coles, the reward management of the company needs to support the company's business strategy too. There are several approaches to develop a reward strategy; however, it breaks down into numerous smaller methods. Thus key factor in deciding the approaches for the development of reward strategy in Coles depends on the company's integration among its HR system and reward system and the approaches and policies they are utilizing(Francis 2017). Arguably, the alternatives to holding actual competitive advantage only come from blending of different management such as reward, performance, career, as well as performance, management processes into a unified whole, instead of projecting them singly in the organizational system. Thus the initial step for redesigning and developing of reward strategy is to align the strategy with other HR systems of the company. This step provides Coles with an overall framework for its reward system and will mostly be related to its business strategy. In the process of reward strategy development three most principle premises falls in the way of development. Firstly, Coles must exhibit definite characteristics to meet the strategy. The company needs to behave in specific ways, for example, Coles should treat their employees in an honest manner, or the company needs to create a united relationship with its supplies along with the employees. Secondly, every organization is based on the behaviour of the employees, and it reflects on how the organization behave(Philip Shelper, Stacey Lyons and Max Savransky, 2019). Thirdly, unified approaches Coles will take to manage its employees starts with each person's behaviour, their expectation and explore how the company will measure, enhance and rewards accordingly. In the process of development of reward strategy in Coles, a few factors can be considered in its underlying organizational structure. The process of grading structure of Coles could be enhanced as per the company's business needs that comprise single structure, families, careers, etc., which nurtures a regular grade framework that strengthens a guide for consistency(Khan, 2015).
On the other, when it's about the basic pay structure in Coles, decision that needs to be addressed such as alignment of the market, number and form of pay scales and utilization of market data that determines rules of market value and its specific needs. In addition to that, for reward strategy development Coles, can align its HR management strategy to reward strategy. Effective HR strategy will support the company to allocate proper work within an individual and motivate the employees accordingly(Woods, 2021). The HR strategy has a direct connection with reward strategy in an organization, and the motivation of employees densely relies on the overall reward strategy of the company. The strategy for Coles needs to be made by the company's senior executives and senior managers, those who have a direct connection in taking other organizational strategic decisions. This approach will allow Coles to implement and develop and review reward strategy consistently. As per the analysis, HR strategy is highly appreciated and valued in an organization. This is all because even if the organization comes with the finest infrastructure for their organization, they are influenced by humans, and the strength of people can't replace by any other means of the system so far. Hence the right employees for the right position depending on the whole reward strategy enhancement map, are more significant than any of the other aspects to sustain a successful long-term organization(RadhikaKapur, 2020). However, the company has developed its determinants to enhance the effectiveness of its system of performance management. With such approaches, most of its employees get motivated to do well through their performance, where the management comes with a reward in their system.
Conclusion
This essay concluded that reward management had been one of the serious factors that determine the performance of the management since it acts as a tool of motivation for the employees and keeps them loyal towards the company. Reward management is one of the most important aspects that a company can undertake to improve its relationship with its employees as well as strengthen their relationship.Since employees are the vital resources for the company thus needs to be valued and encouraged accordingly. As far as Coles is concerned, the company has started working towards its reward management to make them feel valued and to appreciate their hard work. However, certain changes need to be done in its approaches so that it be a more employee-centric company. The suitable strategy for Coles will be to align its reward management with its HR strategy hence enhancing its reward management system within the business.
References
Bartram, T., Boyle, B., Stanton, P. and Sablok, G. (2015). Performance and reward practices of multinational corporations operating in Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273500968_Performance_and_reward_practices_of_multinational_
corporations_operating_in_Australia [Accessed 19 Nov. 2021].
Coles (2020). Annual Report. [online] Available at: https://www.colesgroup.com.au/DownloadFile.axdfile=/Report/ComNews/20200924/02284766.pdf [Accessed 19 Nov. 2021].
Francis, 2017, Developing a Reward Strategy for Your Organization, MBA Knowledge Base, MBA Knowledge Base, viewed 19 November 2021,
Francis, F., Oaya, Z.C.T. and Mambula, C.J. (2020). Reward System as a Strategy to Enhance Employees Performance in an Organization. [online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342765071_Reward_System_as_a_Strategy_to_Enhance_Employees_ Performance_in_an_Organization [Accessed 19 Nov. 2021].
Franco-Santos, M. and Gomez-Mejia, L.R. (2015). Reward Systems. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304570009_Reward_Systems [Accessed 19 Nov. 2021].
Khan, J. (2015). Reward Management System.Reward management essayInternational Journal Of Core Engineering & Management (IJCEM), [online] 2(2). Available at: http://ijcem.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Reward_Management_System.pdf [Accessed 19 Nov. 2021].
Khan, S., 2021. REWARD AND COMPENSATION STRATEGY: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES. [online] Academia.edu. Available at:
Omolawa, S. and Bawalla, O., 2021. PERFORMANCE AND REWARD SYSTEMS IN ORGANIZATIONS. [online] Available at:
Omolawa, S. and Bawalla, O., 2021. PERFORMANCE AND REWARD SYSTEMS IN ORGANIZATIONS. [online] Available at:
RadhikaKapur (2020). The Significance of Reward Management in Organizations. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339311337_The_Significance_of_Reward_Management_in_Organizations. Woods, A.C. and A. (2021). Rethinking total reward strategies. [online] strategy+business. Available at: https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Rethinking-total-reward-strategies [Accessed 19 Nov. 2021].
