Aflac Strengths And Weaknesses

How the company uses its own products or services to enhance the total compensation for its employees.
Total compensation is a great incentive to achieve retention and job satisfaction for employees. Gomez-Mejia et al. (2016) describe total compensation as having three components; base compensation, pay incentives, and indirect compensation or benefits. Aflac achieves total compensation by offering the products and services they offer their customer to their employees at little to no cost. This includes “offering employer-paid life insurance, a company-paid cancer policy and company-subsidized accident protection insurance” (Reed, 2009). Aflac has proved to be a leader in the insurance industry so providing their products to their employees at a very low cost has awarded them with a higher rate of job satisfaction on the employee level.
The internal and external strengths and weaknesses identified and how the company responded to these factors from a total rewards perspective.

Overall, the internal and external weaknesses Aflac had before the survey revolved around the retention and recruitment of talent in an industry that has a very low unemployment rate.

The strengths Aflac found revolved around they we able to quickly and effectively apply the total rewards perspective for their employees. By sending out surveys the company was able to pinpoint exactly where the employees felt needed a little extra in terms of their benefits. Luckily, Aflac is no stranger to competition (Reed, 2009). According to Stanley (2015) being competitive with benefits can positively affect the retention and acquisition of existing employees and new talent. This directly helps Aflac with several of its internal issues before the total compensation plan. With the experience Aflac has with competition in the insurance industry, they have molded their products to be the best of the best, so when these are provided for employees it leads to a happy

employee.
Examples of traditional and non-traditional rewards and how they are used to meet organizational objectives.
Aflac has fully immersed themselves in a total rewards program in order to help their employees and their retention rate. It began with the survey in order to truly understand where the employees needed help. Through the quality of communication throughout the process, Aflac has implemented a well thought out and in-depth review of their employee compensation and benefit program (Reed, 2009). Reichel and Blain (2005) reiterate the case of Aflac and their methodology by enforcing the need of an analysis that provides employee input that can aid the company in identifying the best rewards and process towards the best rewards.
Traditional examples of the total rewards system for Aflac is the provided existing products and services. Many companies offer employees a discounted rate on products and services previously provided to customers.
Several non-traditional rewards Aflac has provided their employees is the philanthropic goals. Aflac encourages employees to work to support the community in health, education, youth, and arts by offering a recognition for the volunteer of the month (Reed, 2009). Through this, Aflac supports the community, but also recognizes the employees that go above and beyond for the community.
Another non-traditional reward Aflac offers its employees through the total rewards program is through career advancement opportunities and training. Career development is key to job satisfaction and retention (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, & Cardy, 2016). Aflac provides training courses, corporate training, leadership development programs, and on site courses for entry level management positions (Reed, 2009). These extensive career development opportunities directly influences a positive outlook of the workforce.
How the company aligns its benefits with its corporate values.
Organizational culture is a very important asset to cultivate when understand employee satisfaction and retention. Inabinett and Ballaro (2014) state that “correlating corporate culture to employee retention will enable organizations to improve the firm’s hiring practices to decrease turnover and costs, and improve productivity and profits while focusing on developing the organization to succeed (p. 57). The improvement in productivity found in utilizing corporate culture with employee retention occurs because employees are satisfied and when employees are satisfied, their productivity increases. Aflac’s corporate values include valuing people, “treating employees with care, dignity and fairness” (Reed, 2009), as well as caring for the community. Aflac aligns its benefits with those values by recognizing employees that go the extra mile for their community. As mentioned before, Aflac offers a reward to the volunteer of the month that truly goes above and beyond or the community in regards to health, education, youth, and the arts (Reed, 2009). Offering an incentive to employees for helping their community will encourage more employees to strive to help their community meeting the goal of Aflac’s corporate values.
Recommendations regarding an expansion of the benefits programs offered at the company that would further align HR with the accomplishment of organizational goals and values.
The organizational goals and values of Aflac revolve around basic business ethics. Treat other people the way you would like to be treated, with respect and encouragement. A recommendation for an expansion of the benefits program could be an incentive to encourage the going green innovations. Leverett (2014) expands that the going green movement correlates with many organizations values and ethics, but it also helps the community. If Aflac offered an incentive program, a lot like the volunteer of the month program for charity work, for the going green movement, those acts could become a norm and expand. This will correlated directly with the corporate values present at the company. It will also shed a positive light on Aflac as a whole company and the organizational culture. As previously discussed organizational culture can influence the way an employee feels about coming to work every day. A positive and environmentally positive organizational culture will add to the job satisfaction employees have gained from this total rewards program. After all, increasing the happiness and satisfaction the employees feel is the goal of the total rewards program.