Sears Social Responsibility

To resolve the disparate impact and to alleviate any discrimination all hiring managers must complete training in Equal Opportunity and diversity, this will emulate the best staffing practices by eliminating general barriers and bias, and reduce chances of unintentionally or intentionally discrimination in staffing. A recommendation to establish

This paper is about Lowe’s Corporate Social Responsibility into today’s society. To be discussed is what is a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, why should a company implement a CSR program, Lowe’s stance on Corporate Social Responsibility, connection between Lowe’s CSR and the Home Centers Industry, and who is Lowe’s responsible too.

CSR is defined as a corporation’s internal policy that directs how it will regulate itself and “fulfill [its] legal, ethical, and social obligations” (Mayer, Warner, Seidel, & Lieberman, 2012, p 1003). Accordingly, Target’s policy and practices related to ethics, social responsibility, and environmental sustainability provides an opportunity to get an indication of how it determines and fulfills such obligations. Subsequently, Target’s voluntary self-reporting and corporate communications include a substantial amount of material that can be evaluated.

Estlund first criticizes the codes and regulations in currently in place by stating that the voluntary CSR acts taken by Walmart and other large brands are simply self-serving and are adopted in response to pressure from civil society. In essence, she believes that corporate America is attempting to fool civil society into believing that appropriate actions have been taken to make a positive

The equal employment commission charged Walmart with turning down female applicants to fill orders in its distribution center in London, Kentucky, even though they were as least as well qualified as the male applicants who were hired. The basic for the conclusion was that there was a statistically significant pattern of hiring males and turning down females. In a case Walmart interviewed a woman and said can she lift a 150 pound potato bag over her head and the applicant said she can’t. After that interview the women find the same kind of job in a deferent warehouse .But in this case Walmart have to pay $11.7 million to settle the case. After the enforcement of law Walmart have to change their culture and have to bringing more diversity to its management ranks. Walmart appointed more women in the management rank after all those controversies. So far Walmart have one fourth of the women manager .And after a statistics of female customer of Walmart shown that 80% of the customers are female.

While working at Wal-Mart for six years, Betty Dukes realized that she was never presented with the opportunities that other male employees did. In 2001, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, had a lawsuit filed against them by 1.5 million female employees for sex discrimination. All of these employees claimed that Wal-Mart was discriminating through the use of salary and promotion which in result was violating Title VII and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964.

The retailer will continue to see aggressive competition from Target, Wal-Mart, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Home Depot and Lowes. These companies are some of the national retailers that Sears will have to contend with in order to survive. According to Sears Holding 2011, annual 10K Report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Home Depot and Lowes are the company’s most fierce rivals of the major appliance category in which Sears accounts for nearly “16% of its entire revenue” (p.5). This fierce market positioning battle between its competitors will be a major obstacle for Sears to overcome. Sears continues to try to move forward as the company’s efficiencies in fixed assets continued

Betty Dukes was a cashier at a Wal-Mart in Pittsburg California in 2001 that experienced discrimination when she was passed up for a promotion in favor of male co-workers. When she questioned the promotion process she was demoted. Ms. Dukes and five of her female co-workers launched a federal lawsuit. There were more than 100 separate instances of discrimination brought up in the lawsuit (Olson, 2011).

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is something that affects all companies and should be an active factor in the company’s decision making. It is something all corporations need to care about. CSR is when business’ or corporations take part in an initiative or campaign for a cause that will benefit society and/or in some way make the world a better place (Taylor, 2015). Initially, Corporate Social Responsibility started to take shape around the 1950’s, but some say that it dates all the way back to the 1800s, the idea of CSR was seen (Carroll, 2007). One may think that because it is dated so long ago, it doesn’t have an important impact today nevertheless, it is proven that Corporate Social Responsibility is a pathway for entities to self benefit as they are in the process of benefitting society.

Discrimination continues to run rampant throughout organizations in both the United States and worldwide. The Supreme Court case, Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., dealt with 1.5 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees that claim that they had been a victim of gender discrimination. The ensuing pages will discuss the specific issues that the plaintiffs encountered, followed by suggestions from a human resource manager’s stand point in rectifying adverse impact within the Wal-Mart organization.

At one time, Sears prided itself as “Where America Shops” by staying in touch with consumers and upholding high product, employer, and customer standards. Today, Sears is struggling to remain a prominent American retailer. The company’s present business model reflects a sub-par grasp of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Riddled with lawsuits, workplace issues, and a poor reputation with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Sears consumers know today is undesirable.

According to the BBC News, on 9 March 2011, it was reported that the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, was claimed to be the defendant in a case alleging that it discriminated against its women employees. This contexts rose in the USA when six women staff were concerned that they and other women staff were paid less and had few opportunities to gain promotion as a consequence of their gender, while Walmart claimed that they treated all employees equally. Chris Kwapnowski, a 47-year-old Walmart employee had been working for Walmart for most of her working life. She had tried to get promotion several times but always missed out because fellow male workers with less experience were promoted ahead of her. She also noticed that she was ignored when it came to pay rises, unlike her male colleagues. Once, when she had occasion to query this, she was told that her male colleague had a family to look after, but she did not. She complained that it was unfair as she had put a lot of effort into her duties but got paid less than a young man who had worked less than her. There was another case of a Walmart female employee suffering discrimination. Betty Dukes, a customer-service worker, claimed that she was excluded from promotions, and pay rises as well. She also said that she was treated with ridicule by her manager, although her fellow male workers were not. Therefore, the case of female Walmart employees claiming discrimination was brought

Betty Dukes along with five other women filled a law suit against Wal-Mart Inc. in 2001 for discrimination against women, denying them their raises and also their promotions. Betty Dukes and the other women hope that they can stand for hundreds of thousands of other women who might have been similarly affected by this type of behavior when they were there also. Years later the ladies got the go ahead to represent 1.6 other women in the case seeking back wages and maybe even punitive damages from Wal-Mart.

Employees, as members of an organization, contribute a lot to the enterprise’s manufacture, management and profitability. Corporations’ CSR activities definitely have an enormous influence on the qualities of employees’ behaviors. (Nan, X. & Heo, K. 2007, p.65) Employees may react negatively when they perceive a corporate injustice because that implies a mismatching with their values and threatens their psychological demands. CSR activities on employees are consisted of many aspects, such as skill training, working condition, payment as well as health and safety. Every corporation has its own human and labor policies.

As we can see Sears owns different companies/products within its business. Another strength is that this company has many employees because it has so many different locations around the U.S. By having lots of locations you are going to have many employees, which is great. In one article I read I was able to see some of the weaknesses. As stated, “Sears Holdings spent $5.8 billion buying back shares from 2005 to 2010, draining the company 's capital. Now, it has a major cash flow problem” (Rittenhouse, 2017). This shows that this company has to buy back it shares because if it does not they will lose more money than they are even producing. Another weakness that I read was, “From allegedly rude employees to poor customer service, even loyal customers have lost trust in the company” (Rittenhouse, 2017).