“We’d all heard Nordstrom was the place to work” (Weston, Simons, 1999 p.1) said Patty Bemis, who had worked as a Nordstrom sales clerk for 8 years. Throughout 1980’s, Nordstrom sales clerks, or “Nordies” as they called themselves, were leading the industry in quality and productivity. Nordies earned a competitive annual pay of $20,000 to $24,000 compared to the national average of $12,000. Despite offering high salaries to its employees, Nordstrom became target to a storm of employee complaints, union allegations, lawsuits, and regulatory orders in 1989 (Weston, Simons, 1999 p.8). As a result, Nordstrom’s reputation and financial performance suffered tremendously. Where exactly did Nordstrom go wrong? The core of the problem stemmed from the …show more content…
This shows the substantial disconnect between the top management’s goal and the front-line employees’ experience. Moreover, factors such as a decentralized corporate structure, extrinsic motivation system, and lack of employee relations all played into Nordstrom’s decline. Top management believed that the 20-year-old incentive system still worked and claimed that employees earned one of the highest base pay rates in the industry. This claim of success was based on the underlying assumption that money was the single-dominant motivation source for employees. Therefore, the system was entirely focused on extrinsic motivation. Furthermore, the decentralized control system allowed abuse of the incentive system and promoted hyper-competitive environment that actually demotivated employees. Without fully understanding the cultural problem associated with the performance standard, top management reluctantly issued a back pay for all employees for the unreported hours. However, it seems that the issue will inevitably bleed over this temporary band-aid solution. Management should have moved away from depending solely on employee’s extrinsic motivation since monetary reward has a temporary affect and the pleasure diminishes over
The retail stores of JC Penney and Sears have face headlines of “Which is Worst: JCP or Sears?” The end maybe near for both companies (Andersen2014). The customers look at the employees like their idiots. The public believes that poor management is the reason for the down fall of these companies. Eddie Lambert and Ron Johnson are the CEO’s of being credited to running these companies with wrong management strategies (Andersen 2014). Ron Johnson who is now the former CEO was highly qualified with his retail instincts tried to run the store like a retail boutique. He never took the time to consult a survey on what the consumer’s thought were and after two years he jeopardized the company (Andersen 2014). Whereas the CEO Eddie Lambert of Sears
“Macy’s operating margin in 3Q15 fell to 4.4% from 6.8% in 3Q14, mainly due to asset impairment charges of $111 million related to the plans to close 35 to 40 stores in early 2016 (Bailey).” This decline was a result from not only lower sales but the company’s investments in digital growth in its Bluemercury expansion, as well as cost of entry into the China market and additional investment in the Backstage stores (Bailey). These factors could have appeared more detrimental if it had not been for the lower marketing expenses, restructuring initiatives, and a reduction in bonus accrual that were intended to counteract weak sales performance (Bailey). Higher digital growth helped to offset the decrease in earnings ("Macy 's Earnings Fall for
With over a century of experience in the retail industry, is it essential to understand the history behind Nordstrom and how they have built their strong presence and bond with their consumers. Originally established as an independent shoe retailer, Nordstrom Inc. was founded in 1901 by John W. Nordstrom in Seattle, Washington. The company’s primary objective was “to provide exceptional service, selection, quality and value” (Nordstrom). This core belief established one of the strongest building blocks for the company. Their keen focus on delivering quality products and exceptional customer service has made Nordstrom stand out amongst its competitors. After gaining popularity, they decided to offer women’s, men’s, and children’s clothing. By
Due to the sudden cut-off of bonuses, the termination of employees, ignoring employees, lack of trust, and managements reaction, the overall work culture at Engstrom has been eliminated. It is imperative to upkeep workplace culture because it is a direct correlation to job satisfaction, innovation, and employee pride; these are determinants of whether employees choose to leave the job, or stay. It is in Engstrom’s best interest to keep good employees on board; incentives must be in place to assure such. Workplace culture is the most difficult to repair; and the most important to address. To successfully repair workplace culture, management must assure the following: employees are satisfied with their tasks, employees must enjoy working together, must understand and believe in the company values, employers must reward good work, both management and employees must be aware of the mission statement, and that all management leaders are all in sync (Saltzman, 2015). If these tasks are completed, the workplace culture, in theory, will slowly rise in a positive
Nordstrom utilizes experiential retailing to create a unique and sophisticated store experience. Upon entering a Nordstrom’s department store, consumers are presented with wide open walking aisles, lightly perfumed scents, and shades of black, gray, white, and creams. All of these components appeal to Nordstrom’s target market: opulent consumers who deserve these luxurious expenses. Furthermore, the color choice of Nordstrom’s logo and store designs suggest luxury. The company logo incorporates black, which suggests sophistication, and white, which signifies simplicity and purity. Every Nordstrom store is decorated with sophisticated shades of ivory and cream which symbolizes the store’s refinement. The stores also include warm colors of brown through wood furniture to give customers a warm and inviting environment to shop in. In addition to the physical environment, Nordstrom is extremely particular in only hiring “nice, capable people” according to Forbes. With this strict-hiring technique, the company maintains a high level of customer service and stays close to its mission statement of providing “outstanding service every day, one customer at a time.” The company positions the company around creating value for the customers, which allows for its
There are two main types of motivation when people work for an organization: intrinsic and extrinsic. From those two, various types of motivation can be derived ranging from achievement and competence motivation to fear motivation. Costco utilizes various motivational techniques and we can analyze them from the traditional, human relations, and human resource approach to determine how Costco is different from most retail store of similar size. From the Human Relations approach, Costco has a low turn-over rate even with the use of part-time workers, the insurance enrollment period is lower than that of other retail stores, and the portion of health care premium paid by the company is over 92% From the traditional view, Costco has a higher wage on average, well above that of minimum wage by at least 40%. From the human resources perspective, Costco chooses most of its management position from its internal workforce.
The way Nordstrom Rack was set up for consumers to come in and buy was very simple but yet strategic. They had big signs where for women and men to know where to go. For example, when you first walk in you
Nordstrom’s has a mission statement, which is as follows, “We strive to responsibly make meaningful product that not only exemplifies our lifestyle, but enhances the ability to live it.” (Mission Statements, 2016). As a customer who has shopped at Nordstrom before, I can state from my experience
Nordstrom’s company is a modern day success story. The U.S. economy has been in recession and a deep economic downtown the last five years. Yet, the Nordstrom company had tremendous success. Increasing their sales from $ US 8 billion in 2009 to $US 13 billion in 2014. The company shares have gained 120% the last 5 years, according to Deutsche Bank. Nordstrom is doing this by using these five concepts: outstanding customer relationship management, high quality, excellent marketing strategy, strong diversity and core target market. These concepts have driven Nordstrom’s to become one of the most successful retailers.
The Filene’s case talks about Norma, a loyal customer getting fired in a brutal way. We believe that there should be a series of practices that the managers must consider before making such strong decisions. It should be a two-way street in which the management describes to the customer why they are unhappy with her buying behavior and then give the customer a chance to defend herself. Norma, in this case, was kept in the dark throughout until she got her first clue – which was not being invited to join the Insiders Club for the Newton store. This made her very upset as her strong relationship with the company was not recognized. She was treated with respect by the previous management and additional discounts were given to her because of her loyalty.
The case study analysis of Engstrom shows that they are currently experiencing organizational issues with employee’s dissatisfaction (lack of motivation), failed incentive plans (Scanlon Plan), and major issues with production and quality issues. When a corporation is experiencing these types of organizational issues such as Engstrom, the root causes of these issues need to be analyzed. A Root Cause Analysis is a five step process to answer the question of why the problem occurred in the first place. (Mind Tools)
Nordstrom is recognized as a company who values people and recognizes their performance. Nordstrom and its employees support many community organizations through special events and volunteering programs. While Nordstrom has a deep care for their community well-being, they also treat their employees with the same respect. While offering great service to every customer, they make sure every employee is courteous to the consumer and even their own co-workers. For 20 consecutive years now, Nordstrom has made Fortune’s 100 best companies to work for. “At a 2014 Great Place to Work conference, Blake Nordstrom, co-president and director, focused his presentation on the retailer’s “culture empowerment,”where “each individual at the company feels like its their name on the door” (Zacklewicz, 20). In 5 years, Nordstrom has gained 110% of their companies shares. “The company is well-positioned to continue that success in the future, according to a recent report by Deutsche Bank” (Lutz,
In the case of Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (Dukes), the court found that there was a lack of significant proof that Wal-Mart had a general policy of discrimination (Schipani, 2013). The plaintiffs needed commonality to establish uniformed disparity within the Wal-Mart organization, and statistical evidence was deemed unworthy of proving this commonality (Schipani, 2013). The numbers were astounding; seventy-two percent of the hourly workforce of Wal-Mart are women, yet only 10% are store managers, and a mere 4% of female Wal-Mart employees are district managers (Bernardin & Russell, 2013). The numbers seem to reflect a painfully obvious presence of discrimination, and with Wal-Mart’s market power within its industry, it can be frightening to evaluate the impact their practices have on the American employment culture.
Target’s core employee development strategy is to embrace, teach, and model concrete behaviors that will lead to higher levels of individual and system performance and excellence. Some of these objectives include teaching employees to perform at the highest level in a current position, manage internal and external environmental changes, increase promotability, and contribute directly through all outputs towards to common company goal. Each position in the company has a set list of guidelines for core behaviors and expectations. This set of guidelines are used to measure each individual employee and the achievement of these goals can help these employees progress their careers at Target. Linkage to performance plans also help in the development of employees. In these performance management training sessions, HR staff help employees develop a sense of understanding about the core values associated with striving for excellence, obtaining results, and other characteristics of high-performing organizations. Employees learn to communicate these core behaviors, and this gives all employees a clear understanding to what it takes to be a high performer. Another very important aspect for Target leadership is to identify and develop future positions. This creates back-ups for each position in the store to ensure seamless transitions if a current employee leaves or is terminated. Performance management is measured not only on individual employee basis, but also by the company as a whole. We will observe the company’s performance compared to its biggest rival Walmart. Based on recent stats we were able to compare the two companies in several aspects as
Whether or not employees feel valued in their contribution to the workplace is one of the most important factors in their overall perception of their company as a great place to work. In fact, among the “100 Best Companies to Work For” recognized by Fortune (2014), an employee’s sense of their value through strategies such as recognition programs and performance incentives, is more closely associated with their experience of a great workplace than factors such as competent leadership, unique benefits, and even fair pay. However, while programs designed to promote employees sense of value can drive an organization towards success and promote a strong company culture, the performance-based culture of the modern business world can push leadership personnel to inadvertently fall into a pattern of behavior, or “Pittfalls of Leadership”, that leaves their employees feeling as if they don’t matter.