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Performance and Employee Satisfaction at Wegman Food Market Incorporation

Employee’s job satisfaction is critical to any organization that desires to attain its goals effectively. Much care should be accorded to workers because they play a critical role in ensuring that organizations attain their goals. Reports have indicated that employee satisfaction is influenced by several factors such as non-financial, financial and demographic factors (Ezzedeen, Hyde, & Laurin, 2006). The management of the organizations should strive to create a positive environment, ensure that workers have high morale, as well as sufficient resources to allow workers to perform the duties assigned to them effectively. Numerous programs have been integrated by corporations such as Wegman Food Market to ensure that their workers are satisfied. As such, this paper describes these programs, how their effectiveness can be measured, as well as the metrics that can be used to compile the top 100 ranking. Lastly, the paper also describes ways in which performance management can result in positive outcomes.

Background Information

Wegman Food Market Incorporation is a local supermarket located in the US that offers better and healthier living for families through food. The organization is privately owned and has 92 stores across the US (Ezzedeen, Hyde, & Laurin, 2006). The company’s success is attributed to its programs that are majorly tailored towards improving the wellbeing of its employees. Precisely, Wegman Food Market Incorporation provides workers with the necessary support and offers them the perks they need. In return, the workers extend these services to customers by offering them exemplary experience (Ezzedeen, Hyde, & Laurin, 2006). Wegman Food Market has been in 100 Best Companies to work for 21 years now. As a fact, the company continues to climb to the top and this success has been attributed to its employee programs that motivate workers to perform to their best.

Employee Programs

             At Wegman Food Market Incorporation, the employees’ welfare is the major concern of the employer. The organization listens to, respects, and acts on every opinion raised by the employees. The workforce is inspired to decide on the well-being of the company. In addition to the core values that pay attention to the welfare of the employees, the company has introduced myriad of benefits that have contributed to its present position (Ezzedeen, Hyde, & Laurin, 2006). Some of these programs include leadership courses, mentoring, as well as, staff resource groups. Some other programs include the management training that assists in polishing and sharpening the leadership skills.

            Hong and Yang (2011) contend that training aims at instant improvements while development focusses on long term goals and objectives. According to these researchers, investing in training has the potential of increasing the company’s profit margin by 24% or even more since it makes the workers better and competent for their jobs (Hong & Yang, 2011). Training equally assists improve retention and minimize turnover. The workers at the company are offered training that exposes them to various operations of the business, as well as, opportunities.

            The next program is the health screening aimed at promoting wellness.  The mission of the company is to enable healthier and better living by offering quality food. In its core value, the employee’s welfare comes before anything else. To attain this, it incorporates different employee wellness programs that encompass subsidized weight watchers, health screening, as well as tobacco cessation. The company also includes numerous nutritional programs, as well as, various collaborative activities including Zumba, yoga kickball and couch to 5k. on the same note, pharmacists offer blood pressure testing for free as the local nutritionists advises the workers on various ways of preparing healthy meals within a short time. More importantly, the company has in place cardiovascular wellness program that collaborate with other stakeholders to ensure that employees are often on track with regards to their health goals and objectives.

Wegman Food Market Incorporation offers scholarship programs to its workers. Intuitively, the organization believes in the power of education and therefore creates opportunities for workers to grow professionally. The company is famous for its scholarship opportunities for its part time and full time workers. Essentially, it offers both flexibility and financial help to its workers to progress in their education. For instance, employees working part time are entitled to a yearly scholarship award of about four years of about $2000 annually (Ezzedeen, Hyde, & Laurin, 2006). Besides scholarship programs, Wegman Food Market Incorporation has internal promotions programs. Reports have indicated the organization has used the internal job posting programs to foster employee morale. In addition to bringing on board new workers to the team, the existing workers are given new promotions where possible. In fact, when any promotion chance arises, the existing workers are considered first.  Similarly, new jobs that arise in the organization provide opportunities for workers to grow laterally or vertically.

Wegman Food Market Incorporation offers CARE program for its workers. CARE implies caring, appreciating and recognizing everyone in the organization. The company uses this program to celebrate everyone in the organization by recognizing, caring and appreciating them. More importantly, the firm recognizes and appreciates achievements that call for celebration among families.

Measuring the Effectiveness of These Programs

             The purpose of employee programs is to create a favorable working environment for employees. These programs are geared towards enhancing the performance of employees and their overall achievement of the organizational goals and objectives. The reasoning is that the workers are essential in establishing the overall performance of the organization. Principally, the effectiveness of the employee programs introduced by the Wegman Food Market Incorporation can be measured through;

Staff Retention

             Employee satisfaction can be determined by the rate of workforce turnover. Higher rate of turnover indicates that there is increased degree of dissatisfaction amongst workers and thus the workers move to pursue greener pastures (Shields et al., 2015). In Wegman Food Market Incorporation, the situation has been different because of the high rate of retention of the workers. The above discussed employee programs foster the employee wellness, holistic growth and create favorable working environment thereby reducing the rate of turnover.

Absenteeism

              Employee absenteeism is a critical factor that helps determine the effectiveness of the employee program. Shields et al., (2015) posited that workers tend to absent themselves from work due to myriad of factors such as sickness stress leading to psychological problems, as well as, deliberate avoidance of work. In Wegman Food Market Incorporation, because of the promotion of health, wellness and CARE programs, the workers are motivated to perform their duties effectively. Moreover, because of regular health checkups, the workers do not have the chances of falling sick and therefore hardly absent themselves from work.

Staff Morale 

             In their study, Shields et al., (2015) recommended that human resource experts in any organization should formulate metrics to assist them assess the effects of the program initiatives they introduce in the company. Intuitively, human resource professionals are able to monitor various aspects of activities including employee turnover (Shields et al., 2015). Moreover, these professionals are able to assess the effectiveness of these activities and programs. For instance, it is easy to determine the number of workers who enrolled and successfully completed a managerial training course. Given that this is just a dimension metric, the human resource professionals should establish whether the participants indeed gained skills when they manage other employees at various places of work.

Measures Used in Compiling the Top 100 Rankings

              While compiling a list for the best 100 companies to work for, a survey is carried to a group of employees selected randomly from every company. The survey entails reviewing the attitudes of employees towards the overall job satisfaction, management credibility, as well as, camaraderie (Pagell, 1997). Further, it encompasses establishing the organizational culture concerning pay, as well as, employee benefit programs. More importantly, the survey entails reviewing hiring systems, training, diversity appreciation, as well as, communication among the team members. The scores and rating obtained from the workers are reviewed and them a list is created using the results to rank the organizations.

How Performance Management System Leads to Positive Organizational Outcomes

            An effective performance management system incorporates its objectives towards improving the overall achievement of the organization by fostering individual and team performance. Hong and Yang (2011) contended that a well-crafted performance management system can assist the organization to achieve a positive outcome. The positive outcomes are attained in case the system outlines the duties and expectations and every worker understands what he or she should do. Moreover, the system will formulate a direction that workers will adhere to and have clear indicators to how the performance of employees and align the actions with the strategic goals of the company. Shields et al. (2015) suggested that an effective performance management system should include a motivation for the workers to perform. Therefore, it must create a room for appreciating and rewarding desirable employee performance thereby inspiring worker to perform leading to positive organizational results (Shields et al. 2015).

REFERENCES

• Ezzedeen, S. R., Hyde, C. M., & Laurin, K. R. (2006). Is Strategic Human Resource Management Socially Responsible? The Case of Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 18(4), 295-307.

  Hong, S. Y., & Yang, S. U. (2011). Public engagement in supportive communication behaviors toward an organization: Effects of relational satisfaction and organizational reputation in public relations management. Journal of Public Relations Research, 23(2), 191-217.

  Pagell, R. A. (1997). Rankings and comparisons: the top lists. Business Information Review, 14(2), 71-79.

  Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P., … & Robinson, J. (2015). Managing employee performance & reward: Concepts, practices, strategies. Cambridge University Press.