Managing Motivation in a Difficult Economy -Organizational Behavior

Sales Commissions – totaled $134,550.00 for year 6, and from years 6 to 7 grew +33% or $44,850.00.

This proves that the marketing strategy increased mid-week sales from 20% to 30%. This sales mix caused variances in the actual operating income and the budgeted operating income. The flexible budget, flexible-budget variances and sales volume variances provide further analysis into the profitability of the operations.

Many employers view the old employers especially the baby boomers as too rigid, failing health, lack of enthusiasm, afraid of new technologies, do not want to learn new training (stuck in old ways), and expensive to keep. Many aged people are viewing job advertisements with pictures of younger employees. In addition, the aged are facing high cost of medical insurance and healthcare. With the obstacles in the job market, the aged could possibly experience social isolationism, low self-esteem, and financial hardship.

With longer life spans and a decrease in birth rates, older generations are working longer (age diversity). Age diversity is the acceptance of all age groups and their differences within an organization. Besides providing years of experience to younger generations, older employees can also increase organizational value (age diversity). In regards to Target, there are many older employees working, some due to the recessions and lost their higher paying jobs and could only get minimum wage jobs, since they were the only job openings. Bringing their experiences to the corporate culture allow for the ability to avoid certain

Trader Joe’s is a leading firm that is taking over the supermarket industry. The company completely altered the idea of a traditional supermarket and turned it into a whole new experience for consumers. Through Trader Joe’s strategic planning, they’ve paved a way for consumers to have high-quality products while paying low prices. Trader Joe’s provides fewer products that are health-conscious, unique and privately labeled. Trader Joe’s has utilized this, secrecy, employee job satisfaction, culture and starting trends to its advantage. Within its industry companies are divided into different strategic groups. Aldi, similar Trader Joe’s strategic planning, is apart of the cultured-discount neighborhood market. This firm continues the low-stock, less-waste, small store, and low price method. A Walmart express used a hybrid strategy that made it a cross between a grocery, pharmacy, and convenience store. Tesco is the third that falls with small neighborhood markets strategy and focused on organic products, similar to Trader Joe’s. As the company grows and expands, there is caution in change of Trader Joe’s processes. With growth, there comes new management and employees which can alter the way a specific store is ran and there is worry of change in the stores normal procedures. Change that doesn’t follow the process could ultimately result in a downfall, so this can be considered a key challenge to watch in the future. Increased bureaucracy is additionally a

Trader Joe 's sells gourmet foods to its customers with a low cost business model, which may seem very difficult to maintain, due to the rising costs in the international markets and the United States. However, with Trader Joe 's long term experience in operations and limited variety of products, this enables the company to reduce costs and transfer those savings to their customers. Furthermore, Trader Joe’s has a very efficient management process that allows keeping the product costs down to keep their customers satisfied. The management process is very significant for Trader Joe 's in which they have planned marvelously to carry certain products which is obtained at a discounted price from their suppliers. Additionally, Trader Joe’s keep costs down to a minimum by choosing non-prime store locations. For

The next issue I’d like to talk about is the positive and negative perception of older workers. Executives and managers have both positive and negative outlooks on older employees depending mostly on the job being performed. Studies done by AARP said that elderly workers (those age 50 and older), and were valued for their experience, knowledge, work habits, attitudes, commitment to quality, loyalty, punctuality, ability to keep cool in crisis, and respect to authority. (AARP 1989) They are valued

Based on the Excel Problem of chapter one, if the total capacity for this business is 725 will you stay in it? If you want to stay in it what price you need to obtain a break even point of 725?

435% being the overhead rate calculated for the whole pool, at budget time for the model year.

By evaluating the data below, we can rank the operators by overall production and by revenue loss. We have gathered that Sid is the most proficient in his overall cuts, followed by Jim, and then by April. Further, Sid has the lowest average loss of revenue per cut by a considerable margin over Jim and April. The most common error among operators is off-center cant. See Appendixes A-B for further charts pertaining to individual operator production. Also, see Appendix D for a chart with categorized error types by operator.

4. Differentiation is under loose results control. Managers are given freedom for decision-making at their department, they can decide on design of the products, marketing methods, raw materials, etc. as long as they provide high quality environmental friendly products and quality customer services. However, they have the 3-5% growth limitations that prevent them from behaving “too well”. They are rewarded for the same percentage as employees if the company makes profits.

Return on assets has declined from 19 % to 14 % in six years. The decreasing efficiency is mainly attributed to international operations. High employee satisfaction scores, both domestically and internationally, indicates a highly motivated work force. Turnover rate of 25 % is pointing in a different direction. Training and internal recruitment provides good environment for learning, innovation and growth.

Aging population can be used as an advantage to increase economic rates growth by keeping them employed as long as possible (Nankervis et al. 2006, p.55). People who are working in a knowledge fields may increase their performance with age, however for more physical positions there is an opposite possibility of low performance with increasing age (Patrickson & Ranzijn, 2006). Consequently, specific jobs may have lack of professional employees. For example by separating workers and using older workers as experience type that can teach and train young employees, as well as use their knowledge will benefit organization in different departments. Also by using younger workers as routine workers or in more physical positions that are hard to perform for older employees will give them opportunity to earn more experience and will keep older employees working as well (Patrickson & Ranzijn, 2006). It is necessary for human resources to distribute their workforce accordingly and to provide required training for their young and old employees.

Senior employee is preferable than fresh employee in the stereotype of age. They have more job competency because of experiences,

They should also carefully evaluate categories and brands and stock only the best performing products. This would allow them to reduce store size, while at the same time retain its experience and presence in multiple categories.