Costco is among the most successful retail companies in the United States of America. The company is only second after Wal-Mart, but it has enjoyed an attractive reputation than all the other retail companies in the United States. Unlike most other retail companies that strain to pay their employees the set average wage of $7 an hour, Costco comfortably pays its employees up to $20 for every hour that they work. Unlike most of the other retail companies that are straining to attain profitability and maintain shareholder confidence, Costco is on a different level, an aspect that points out to a successful business in the American market. The current paper will focus on the employee management strategies that the company is using to manage its workforce.
First above anything else, Costco has a commitment of ensuring that its employees are always happy and satisfied. The managers at the company believe that maintaining a happy workforce is an ingredient to attaining a successful company. In fact, research has revealed that companies that focus on the employees, their welfare and comfort in their work positions, stand a high chance of attaining the high levels of productivity that the modern market demands (Stea, Foss, & Christensen, 2015). Costco ensures that it addresses all the issues regarding the affecting its workforce and by so doing, the company has been able to avoid the upheavals that other retail companies have been facing in recent years. Unlike most retail companies that have had their workers stage demonstrations and strikes demanding better pay and improved working conditions, Costco has been able to sort out its employee issues thus encouraging its workforce to focus on delivering the best in their workplace duties.
The company has an ambition in which it aims to create value through the treatment of employees and customers well, respecting vendors and rewarding shareholders. Costco trains it employees to focus on customer service issues to ensure that they maintain their current customers while also attracting more other clients into its fold. The company enhances the training of its employees with aim of encouraging better quality services, an aspect that has made it stand better chances of success than most of its competitors. The company encourages the better treatment of vendors because it knows that without their services, the company will fail in its market; one which can be defined as full of competition and difficult to operate in, especially in the United States of America.
Costco has well-planned, evidence-based techniques of deciding who to hire and the way to treat its employees to ensure that they are committed to attaining the objectives of the company. The company does not hire business school graduates but it hires the common people that exhibit the levels of talent, persistence and inspiration to get the work done at their job positions. With the promise of meeting the highest standards of employee care that an employee can get anywhere, the employees are required to portray extraordinary levels of commitment to meeting the set goals of the company. In fact, it is within the culture of the company to maintain a satisfied workforce who will work with dedication and without distraction to attain the expectations of their job duties.
It is important that a company develop all-rounded employees who can work on any assigned task (Korzynski, 2013). Effectively, Costco focuses on employing all-rounded employees who will not be choosy on the duties they will be assigned to complete. For instance, the company will hire employees who will scrap the floors, mop them clean on a specific day, and work in another department the next day. The company does not over-emphasize on college degrees as the main requirement for employment. The company will hire that untrained individual with exceptional skills and then sponsor them through graduate school. The practice is aimed at ensuring all employees view themselves as equals, an aspect that enhances unity and cooperation in the company.
The company also focuses on retaining its employees for several years, an aspect that differentiates it from most of its competitors. Costco is able to establish long-term plans with its employees, a step taken to enhance the levels of motivation among employees. Apparently, the modern world of business, especially in the retail store niche, it is not possible for many companies to keep their employees for long (Sterling & Boxall, 2012). It has been documented that retail stores in the United States pay their employees some of the lowest wages. However, as mentioned earlier on, Costco pays its employees almost triple what is the average amount of wages that other retail stores pay their employees. Additionally, the long-time plans that the company initiates with its employees ensures that the employees themselves set personal ambitions of developing within the company. The result of this is a 5% turnover rate among employees, one of the lowest in the United States.
The fact that Costco is a successful company is indisputable given the description it has in the case being analyzed herein. The company’s success can be attributed to three main aspects of its culture. First, the company focuses on maintain a happy, motivated and comfortable workforce, an aspect that enhances the success of all its undertakings. The second is the delivery of high quality services, which in a large part is influenced by the good cooperation between the vendors, the company and its employees. The third aspect is its commitment to rewarding the shareholders who have invested in the company. The commitment to ensuring that the company meets all the three parts of its culture makes it even more attractive and different from the rest of companies it competes with in the American retail market. In conclusion, it is clear that companies that focus on employees the same way they focus on customers stand to be more success than that do not.
References
Korzynski, P. (2013). Employee motivation in new working environment. International Journal of Academic Research, 5(5), 184-188. http://dx.doi.org/10.7813/2075-4124.2013/5-5/b.28
Stea, D., Foss, N., & Christensen, P. (2015). Physical separation in the workplace: Separation cues, separation awareness, and employee motivation. European Management Journal, 33(6), 462-471. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2015.08.003
Sterling, A. & Boxall, P. (2012). Lean production, employee learning and workplace outcomes: a case analysis through the ability-motivation-opportunity framework. Human Resource Management Journal, 23(3), 227-240. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12010
