Human Resources Management of E-Commerce

In contrast to Borders Group, Barnes & Noble which is a leading bookstore in the US recorded an 11% increase in their share value in the past year with the introduction of their e-book reader “Nook”. It is clear that Barnes & Noble were not “Myopic” in their approach and were able to retain and even grow their customers as well as profits by embracing a new product.

The digital books business eliminated the physical books in the store. Barnes & Noble offered a wide range digital platforms to its customers. The digital system was comparable with Window 8 personal computer and tablets. It also worked well with Apple’s product such as iPad, iPhone and other products like Android smartphones and tablets. The firm continued to stay in a competitive advantage position in the marketplace, even though it had to compete with many powerhouses in the same industry such as Waldenbooks and Crown Books. And yet, Barnes & Noble remains on the top of the leading U.S bookstore chains.

3. Total Rewards Strategy – This structure is very complex, yet comes with a lot of flexibility to allow for growth and internal satisfaction. The pitfalls with this structure come with the implementation, which could be treacherous and difficult to convey to our employees.

What are performance appraisals? Simply put, they are the evaluation of goals that are pre-determined and set by both the employee and organization (Harvard Business Press, 2009). They are used to measure an employee’s performance and team performance.

A well-articulated compensation philosophy drives organizational success by aligning pay and other rewards with business strategy. It provides the foundation for plan design and administration and anchors current and future plans to the company's culture and values (Kaplan, 2006, p.32). Recognizing and rewarding achievement is the cornerstone of the company A’s compensation philosophy. The mission of the company is to attract, select, place and promote all individuals based on their qualifications. The company believes that performance-based compensation helps attract, develop and retain talented professionals. In addition to base pay which based upon local market conditions and targeted to be above market, the company provides the following types of potential compensation to reward performance:

The performance appraisal process allows the Firm to discuss your overall performance with you and to summarize the formal and informal performance discussions held throughout the review period. The performance evaluation will review your strengths and also identify ways to improve your performance.

The key components to developing effective Reward Strategy is to ensure that there are clearly defined goals to meet business objectives, that the reward programme meets the needs of both the organisation and its employees, and to ensure that this is then supported by effective HR policies. In order to ensure these criteria are met there are a number of factors which influence how reward strategy is developed which include both internal factors within the organisation itself, as well as external factors outside the organisation.

Barnes and Noble is the market leader in the bookstore industry. They have grown their business during tough economic times and have adapted well to the changing consumer demands as technology has advanced. By continuing to enhance their competitive strategy to align themselves with market demands, Barnes and Noble, with its multi-channel distribution platform, will continue to have success in the coming years as competition will feel the pressures of increasing digital mediums and decreasing hard copy book demand. This internal analysis of Barnes and Noble will examine their competitive position with regards to their value chain and strategic issues, as well as examine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and

Barnes and Nobles is one of the biggest bookstores that has a brick-and-mortal store concept. In the past they were know as a “big bully” that drove small book stores to close down because of their aggressive tactics to have competetetive advantage over them. Nonetheless, with the evolving circle of technology they have had a hard time in keeping up with the E-book era. In 2014 E-books increased its reader subscription by 28% compared to 23% in 2013. This number will continue increasing because 50% off American’s have access to devices that are either an e-reader or a tablet. B&N changed its business model to adjust to this new setting before it suffered a

Pay for performance systems have further been proven to have two advantages for organizations: attracting more high-quality employees and motivating employees to exert more effort at their jobs. (Gordon, Kaswin) This paper will show the positive benefits of performance pay as

Reward Management (RM) has been defined as the distribution of monetary and non-monetary rewards to employees in an effort to align the interests of the employees, the organisation, and its shareholders (O’Neil, 1998). In addition O’Neil (1998) also suggests that a RM system can serve the purpose of attracting prospective job applicants, retaining valuable employees, motivating employees, ensuring legal requirements relating to direct and indirect rewards are not violated, assisting the company in achieving human resource and business objectives, and ultimately assisting the organisation in obtaining a competitive advantage.

Although research generally confirms that pay-for-performance plans can influence greater outcomes, it is unclear how effective different pay plans are relative to each other (Park, 2012). Like most things in business, compensation is something that requires evaluation, study, assessment, strategy, modeling and integration.  Achieving a pay for performance culture does not happen without paying attention to the behaviors, activities, rewards and motivations that have to be linked and reinforced through a well engineered and successfully executed process.  Actually if that process does not tie rewards to shareholder financial objectives, employ the proper mix of compensation elements, result in meaningful dollars, embrace performance that employees can impact and are effectively communicated and reinforced, then the results it produces will likely fall short (Vision Link Advisory Group, 2013).

Recognize & Reward Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

An incentive pay program can reward employees who continue to produce superior work or encourage employees who already produce good work to best. Sometimes, use an incentive system when employees are lack of enthusiasm of getting down to work and improving things. If everyone in the same job classification gets the same pay, there is no real incentive to do an outstanding job (French, 1990). Various incentive plans used to motivate all employees such as production staff, sales staff, administrative staff and managerial and professional staff on an individual basis. To be improved employee work performance, the incentive pay programs need to be fairly matched with the employees’ expectation. Properly designed and maintained incentive pay program has the potential to increase employees’ productivity and work performance.

In today’s knowledge-based economy, innovation has become the principal source of competitive advantages in global business; the success of firms now depends more on their intelligence capability – such as employee creativity – than traditional material assets (Amabile et al., as cited in Zhou, Zhang & Montoro-Sa ́nchez, 2011). The creative capability of individual and collective knowledge workers is the fuel that powers innovation in firms. While creativity leads to the production of new and useful ideas in any domain, innovation is the successful implementation of those creative ideas within an organisation (McLean, as cited in Zhou, Zhang & Montoro-Sa ́nchez 2011). In highly dynamic business environments innovation and creativity have become crucial for creating competitive advantages for the