Introduction
The Lowe’s Home Improvement Company is a home improvement retailer and offers products and services to be utilized in carrying out home decoration as well as maintaining, repairing, and modifying commercial buildings. It is the second-largest in the world among the companies offering such services and products. This company has its headquarters in Mooresville, North Carolina. Basing on the statistics obtained regarding the company as of January 2009, the company has 229,000 employees, and among these 65000 are part-time workers. In the financial year ended January 2009, the company was able to record total revenues of $48,230 and this was a 0.1 percent drop in comparison to the year 2008. There was also a decrease in the operating profits in 2009 in comparison to 2008 by 19.5 percent. There was also a 21.9 percent decrease in net profit in 2009 as compared to 2008 (Anonymous: Lowe’s Companies Inc, 2009).
Goal-Setting Theory
This is a theory that is concerned with the organizations coming up with goals. This is a very powerful way of motivating people. The usefulness of setting goals is in such a way that it is recognized that the whole management systems have the fundamentals of goal setting built-in in them. There is general acceptance of this theory regarding its viability and significance as a motivation theory in the organizations’ contact, organizational psychology as well as human resource management.
Many lessons have been learned about setting SMART goals. SMART here is the short form for (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound). If the goals set have all these qualities, then this leads to the accomplishment of the set goals
Regarding the theory of goal setting the Lowes Company can improve on employee motivation through employing this theory. By the company setting up clear goals, will play the main role in motivating the workers to carry out their tasks towards achieving these goals. In the absence of setting goals, there can be no motivation among the employees since there will be no clear direction towards which they have to move.
According to Anonymous (Locke’s Goal Setting Theory, 2010), telling a person to carry out a task in the best way he can without being clear about the number of tasks you expect from him can not be effective. By doing this it can be deemed to be having set an easy goal for the individual since this provides flexibility and the person can carry out the amount of work he or she thinks is enough for him or her. Specific and relatively hard goals should be set for the employees towards which they have to carry out their tasks to achieve. This brings in motivation among the employees since this serves as motivation because after achieving these hard goals, the employees will take it as a great accomplishment.
Therefore, the Lowes Company should come to get involved in setting up hard and specific goals to instill motivation among its employees. This move will have to improve the performance and improve on the company’s revenues.
Herzberg’s two-factor theory
This is a theory developed by Frederick Herzberg who discovered that there is an independent working between job dissatisfaction and job dissatisfaction. This theory state that certain factors do exist in the workplaces that bring about job satisfaction and at the same time another set of factors exist that bring about job dissatisfaction.
Putting this into consideration, for Lowe’s to realize motivation among the employees, it should consider the principles of this theory; determine what factors lead to employee satisfaction and which factors contribute to employee dissatisfaction. Through making this analysis, the company management will be able to capitalize on improving the satisfaction among the employees and try to avoid situations or activities that will bring in dissatisfaction.
The company should realize, for instance, that satisfaction is achieved where the employees gratify needs like personal worth, self-realization, competency, status, and achievement and these make these people happy. However, dissatisfaction does not necessarily stem from the absence of these gratifying characteristics. The company should realize that dissatisfaction stems from unfavorable evaluations of the factors that are related to the job. Such factors include the policies set up by the company, technical problems, issues of salaries, interpersonal relationships, and working conditions among other factors.
The management of the Lowes company should, therefore, put its concern on the nature of the work itself to motivate the employees for them to realize satisfaction. It can do this by concerning itself with the opportunities it makes available to the employees for them to gain status, taking responsibility, and the opportunities for acquiring self-realization.
More so, for this company to bring down the level of dissatisfaction among the employees, it should put its focus on the environment of the job. This environment comprises the policies of the company, its procedures, the way it carries out supervision, and the conditions under which the employees carry out their work. The company should ensure it effectively handles the two sets of factors (satisfaction and dissatisfaction) to have employees who are motivated and this will boost the company’s overall performance.
Total Compensation Strategy
Total compensation refers to the overall tools that are at the disposal of the employer that he or she might utilize to attract, motivate as well as retain the employees. They include everything that can be perceived by the employee as being valuable coming out from the employment relationship (WorldatWork, 2006).
The Lowes Company should develop a total compensation strategy as a portion of a general strategy for motivating and rewarding the employees to achieve specific goals. The constituents of the total compensation strategy to be implemented by the Lowes Company are:
- The Base salary.
- Annual incentive plans: These plans characteristically provide compensation based on a formula, on the performance objectives attainment, on an open decision, or a total of all these. The bonus plans are in this category but they are usually open and not related to a total compensation strategy.
- Long-term incentive plans: These plans include cash plans which provide cash rewards linked to the attainment of objectives and plans that are based on the stock that provides stock alternatives regarding stock performance. These plans reward performance in the course in the course of a period of between two years to five years.
- Perquisites: These are benefits associated with car use, and supplemental executive retirement plans, among others.
- Benefits: These characteristically include a tax-sheltered annuity compensation plan and a defined retirement benefit plan.
Conclusion
As it has been considered, there is a potential for the Lowes Home improvement company to improve its performance by providing incentives to its employees through such activities such as setting goals, dealing with the issues of employee satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction in a most effective way possible and also effectively employing the total compensation strategy most effectively. This might play a great role in enabling the company to become the market leader in its field of operation as well as realizing a reduction in its revenues. Just like any other business organization that is committed to achieving great success in its operations, it should realize that the organization having employees who are motivated plays a major role in achieving its objectives.
Reference
Anonymous. (2010). Locke’s goal setting theory. Web.
Anonymous. (2009). Lowe’s Companies Inc. Web.
WorldatWork. (2006). What is total rewards? Web.