Radioshacks Woes free essay sample

This paper explores the recent difficulties RadioShack Corp. (RadioShack) has experienced pertaining to organizational culture, job design, job satisfaction, and employee policies. RadioShack’s difficulties were gathered from current and former company employees that were questioned about their experiences. In addition to discussing the trials that RadioShack has experienced, the paper will suggest a solution to get the company’s culture back in line with their mission statement as well as the corporate vision. Topics including employee motivation, supervisory leadership training, and workplace enhancement will be examined. The conclusion will analyze the steps that RadioShack needs to make improvements and ultimately how successful they could be. The analysis will be based on financial reports and independent employee interviews performed by the author on location at several local RadioShack locations. The opinions of the employees varied on many of the different topics but the overall opinion of the company’s culture and practices was very poor. We will write a custom essay sample on Radioshacks Woes or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page RadioShack’s Woes RadioShack is a familiar name in the American electronics retailing industry. They operate nearly 5000 stores across the country and deal in the highly competitive consumer electronics segment. The brick and mortar based retailer has experienced limited success in battling their â€Å"big box† competitors like Best Buy, H. H. Gregg, Target, and Wal-Mart to name a few. The emerging online battlefield has left them reasonably behind as well. Their well documented financial distress is tearing at the foundation that holds this company together and is threatening to destroy it from the inside out. The problem is escalating quickly and changing the behaviors of the people within the organization. Problems within the Organization RadioShack’s admits that the staying power of the company which has been in business for over ninety years is their customer oriented approach (RadioShack Corp. , 2012). The company website harps on the company’s diversity and commitment to sound corporate governance. These are very important factors in any business to say the least, but the biggest problem in the RadioShack equation is their lack of interest in their own employees. The employees are the ones that are task with engaging, educating, and serving the customers that are the key to the staying power motto. Yet these same employees face many challenges that limit their ability to perform this invaluable task. The employees complain about long hours, unfair commission structures, and unattainable rewards standards issued by the company. Organizational Culture The cognitive framework consisting of assumptions and values shared by organization members is the scientific definition of organizational culture (Greenburg, 2010). Having a healthy organizational culture is something that is the mark of a strong company. Companies where the employees do not feel valued are said to have toxic organizational cultures and that is where RadioShack will find themselves if they do not take steps to improve the culture from its current state. Organizational culture shapes, influences, and redefines training programs which in turn shape, influence, and redefine the organizational culture (Kissack, 2010). The function of organizational culture. There are three vital functions that organizational culture serves within an organization. The first is to provide a sense of identity for the members, give them something to relate to as well as a sense of purpose. Secondly, generating commitment to the organization’s mission will make employees rally around the ideals of the company. Lastly, clarifying and reinforcing the standards of behavior or stabilizing the behaviors or the organization’s members. Competing values framework. This tool utilizes two sets of opposite values to analyze the driving forces in an organizations culture. These two sets are flexibility and discretion versus stability and control; then, internal focus versus external focus. Using this framework in tabular form allows for the definition of four different types of cultures. Hierarchy implies companies that have an internal focus and emphasize stability and control. Market cultures are concerned with stability and control but they have an external focus. Clan culture is described by companies that have a strong internal focus while being flexible and discreet. Finally, adhocracy cultures are externally focused while being extremely flexible. RadioShack’s current culture is an attempt at market style; unfortunately it is not being properly maintained, ruining its effectiveness. The method has been unsustainable for the current management and is showing no immediate signs improving. To transmit a fresh an appealing organizational culture RadioShack needs to utilize tools such as symbols, stories, jargon, ceremonies, and principal statements. Utilization of these tools is not currently being pushed to the organization’s members. Job Design For more than two decades, research and practice in the field of  job design  has been dominated by two theoretical frameworks, exhibiting strong convergence in terms of the characteristics of individual  jobs  likely to impact on employee  job  performance and  job  satisfaction and the underlying mechanisms that lead to these relationships (Rehman, 2011). In RadioShack’s case, the job design is mandated by the size of the stores, products available for sale, and hours of operation. These are the boundaries that are set for retailers of all sorts. The main problem is the immense level of responsibility bestowed upon the store associates with the limited compensation that they receive. It is the equivalent of having the responsibilities of a sole proprietor with the compensation of an hourly worker. This job design instills a level of resentment in the employees from the start. This resentment caused job performance to suffer which yields lower productivity and sales for the organization as a whole. This poor job design also significantly inflates the turnover of the store level positions. Job Satisfaction Job satisfaction cannot be directly linked to the quality of service an employee provides (Makiko, 2008). However, the correlation is something that yields interesting results in practical applications. A hard day’s work, for fair day’s pay in the principal that goes hand and hand with job satisfaction. Even before getting into the issue of employee growth and retention, RadioShack has a problem with the compensation structure for the employees and it has made it very difficult for them to secure and retain key personnel in many levels of the organization. Without prematurely going into the detail of the policies and procedures that are in place for the employees the overall sentiment of current employees from a brief interview conducted at a few of my local RadioShack retail locations revealed three significant findings. First, 4 out of 5 of the group would take a new position at another retailer if it were available. Second, 5 out of 5 felt that they were under compensated for their current position. Third, 1 out of 5 felt that the organization truly cares about the store level associates. This study though limited in scope allowed me to get an idea of what the basic RadioShack employee thinks about their company and their job. Employee Policies The policies and procedures that govern a workforce are the most important tools when looking at the reason for particular employee behaviors. This is the biggest problem facing RadioShack currently. The policies regarding scheduling, compensation, training, and engagement are far below levels sufficient to build and maintain a dependable, reliable, and efficient workforce. Scheduling. A major concern for many employees is the long and unusual shifts that are scheduled weekly. The lack of consistency is frowned upon and leads to many conflicts with personal scheduling for the store employees. Compensation. A very low base pay is offered with a commission bases supplement. However, a large number of employees are not able to reach the sales goals required to benefit from the commission structure. The fact that the rates for the commission recently was downgraded also is problematic for employees since future achievements are not harder to obtain and worth less at the same time. Training. As in many retail based jobs the average employee requires training prior to being able to perform on the sales floor. At RadioShack, associates are trained superficially and then told what products to push to the customers. This lack of product knowledge limits the amount of value that the associates can impart to the customers. Engagement. Organizations with a health culture have many different ways to communicate, inform, and engage with their employees. In the case of RadioShack, employee feel that the only communication that comes from superiors is sell more cellular telephones. This unidirectional communication path does not allow the free flow of ideas that is so important in many of the world’s most successful operations. RadioShack has to fix the segmentation that exists in their organization that prevents the company from making a unified effort to achieve corporate goals. Solving the Dilemma In order to fix RadioShack’s organizational culture, an understanding of its effects and capacity to change is needed. The importance cannot be understated; however the strength of corporate culture shapes the organizations performance. That organization performance in turn aids the financial performance of the firm. Finance is something that each and every company is concerned about. RadioShack needs to change perceptions across the board. They need to make sure the mission and philosophy is clear. Spend more time communicating values and beliefs and be sure to hire people based on those beliefs. Start celebrating company traditions and milestone accomplishments. Form a standard set of values and tendencies that are shared by all members of the organization. Once the company has fixed the foundation, they can look to change the culture for the better. The tools of change for an organization of this size are few, but in this case the limited number of tools only makes the solution easier for RadioShack to select. To change the culture they need to make a significant change to the composition of the workforce. Changing the people that make up the working environment is a surefire way to enhance the culture of the overall organization. Bringing the skill level and education of the employees to a higher level will infuse new confidence into the culture. Becoming a leader in the marketplace and not just another face in the crowd will build loyalty and commitment in the organization and the mission of the company. This method can be supported by planned organizational change. My recommendation would be to implement both of the methods simultaneously. This would require bringing in a new CEO and working from the top down as well as the bottom up the completely overhaul the organizational culture using and interior focus to further elevate member loyalty and commitment. Employee Motivation To motivate the employees, the management will first need to revise the policies and procedures that govern them. It is imperative to address the negative feedback on the compensation structure, the high turnover rate, the unconventional hours, and the lack of training and education available. Compensation. The low base and unrealistic bonus schedule is hindering the efforts currently at the store level. Switching to a plan where the base is elevated and the bonus is based on the overall store performance would be more of an incentive for better teamwork, more concerned management, and enhanced training and communication between associates. This would allow stores, and not individuals to win or lose as a team instead of creating an environment for commission theft and pushy tactics. Employee turnover. This problem needs to be quickly and abruptly halted. Investing more in your employees means that you want them to be with the company longer to reap the benefits of their growing skillsets. Offering benefits that suit the composition of the workforce will make the job more than just a paycheck. Scholarships, internships, and advanced training will make the workplace somewhere that employees treasure and long to be a part of. Recognition of associates that have gone above and beyond with their service will also encourage higher retention rates. Scheduling. Creating a format for scheduling that better suits the store hours an allocated payroll budgets will create a better work-life balance (Colley, 2010). Stringing together a series of shifts that no one wants to work is not a good way to maintain a workforce. This is the current practice exercise my RadioShack management. Proper scheduling with adequate coverage for seasonal and temporary requirements will cover the complaint very easily. Education and training. In the retail setting, knowledge is king to the customer. An associate that can explain the use, benefits, construction, and features of products is good; but one that is intelligent, knowledgeable, and confident is far better. When the customer can be educated about a product by the employee this builds loyalty and commitment with the customer. That will make that person frequent RadioShack instead of the other retailers due to the product knowledge and security available. Not only will this differentiate RadioShack from other retailers in the marketplace, it will take advantage of the investment in the human resources of the company. Supervisory Leadership Training I would also recommend special training for the store level leaders. This advanced training would prepare the supervisors to instill the mission and objectives into each and every new hire. Training would include how to hire people that fit the organizational culture, how to lead by example, how to train others to deal with customers and ultimately schedule and manage their associates. Workplace Enhancement This suggestion would require significant capital expenditure but I feel that it is needed to complete the over organization culture change. The layout and finishes of the stores need to be reworked. The ambiance and engagement within a RadioShack location is not well suited to today’s hands on consumer. With so many display cases and products that are inaccessible to customers hinders the sell through rates at the company which in turn hurts the associates and management. Creating an environment where the associates and customers can get acquainted with the products via display models and working units will make the job more enjoyable and the shopping experience better at the same time. RadioShack Today In conclusion, RadioShack has tried to create a spark with new marketing and more targeting product offerings. This approach cannot fully work until the core of the organization is changed. The recommendations within this paper are internally focus on making the foundation of the company more stable and transparent. To turn their focus from external perception and reflect on the element of their business that has the biggest impact on their bottom line. Taking my advice and ushering in a more employee bases operation will return RadioShack back to its place and one of the premiere consumer electronics retailers in the country. Motivating not only the hourly associates but the managers all the way up he line will build new loyalty and make organizational member want to be with the company for extended periods of time (Meyer, 2004). The recommendations will completely change the job design and transform the positions into more than just a paycheck. This will make working with RadioShack a journey into the world of consumer electronic retailing; a gateway where associates can ascend to well-payi ng salaried positions that demand more education and more training. This means that the overall job satisfaction will be significantly higher. Promoting a more comfortable and efficient work environment will simply become part of the strategic plan. In closing, RadioShack is at a crossroads where they can continue their current path which leads to an imminent merger or bankruptcy; or they can invest in building a better organization starting with the core corporate culture. This will be a sustainable, well planned change that will increase the intrinsic value of the firm and provide the organization with a responsive market for years to come.