Reflection on feedback comments:
Writing style: I focused on getting the structure of the essay and including diagrams on every paragraph more than I did on grammar, spelling and punctuation resulting in not doing well on grammar, spelling, or punctuation, furthermore, I did not use proper language, one way I will prevent this is proof read after my assignment is done to make sure I used proper language and everything is flowing smoothly, as for the Harvard referencing, I did not know they must be listed in alphabetical order as it wasn’t a prioritized discussion before this year.
Evidence of reflection: When reflecting on my time with my group I did not touch fully on how I felt when I was in these situations, which was included, but rather focused on what was happening with us as a group and how could it have affected us.
Use of theory/reading to make sense of the experiences: I did not go into depth on how The Gibbs model helped me explain my experiences as it structured my essay, as well as held the main ideas of each paragraph. As for Honey and Mumford I was focused on how it reflected through my group more than discussing what it is as a personality test.
Essay plan:
Question: Choose one organization (either from the module or your own reading/experiences) and discuss how it tries to motivate and retain talented staff, drawing on aspects of the main motivational theories to show why it might be effective.
Company: The Coca cola company
Introduction: Coca cola is the most successful beverage company in the world (Jones,2013) in Today’s world for a company to achieve the level of success coca cola has, they must know how to motivate their staff in order for them to grow and develop with the company, as well as wanting to put in their highest efforts. (Gallo,2011) The Coca cola company was very early in realizing the importance of motivation as well as ways to motivate. Motivation at Coca cola has always been a main priority where large interest has been taken and actions such as creating a rewards system (NA rewards), where employee engagement, creating a great place to work, training and development, and being open and inclusive using and creating multiple motivational theories, two of being Alderfer’s ERG theory, and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and finally the Coca cola company, like Dan pink from the TEDGlobal 2009, realized the key to motivate employees and get high sales results is intrinsic and not extrinsic motivation, These are just some of what help coca cola be one of the world’s best employee motivators. (Disalvo,2017)
Main points:
1. Coca cola have created a website where all things related to employee motivation is and where all rewards are given out, this is called the NA rewards, it consists of many different reward approaches such as manager to associate (recognize), peer to peer (refresh), nomination based(reward) recognition, and more, they are generally earned by reaching milestones or finding a business deal.
2. Other ways of motivating employees at coca cola are employee engagement, creating a great place to work, training and development and being open and inclusive.
3. Coca cola uses many different motivational theories, one recognized motivational theory is Alderfer’s ERG theory which consists of three categories of needs: growth need, relatedness need, and existence need.
4. Another of the motivational theories used by coca cola was Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which consists of four stages: physiological, security and safety, esteem, and the extent of their abilities.
5. Coca cola, was very early to realize that the proper way to motivate employees is by intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic, extrinsic being with a bigger reward or punishment, but rather intrinsic which consists of three parts autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Conclusion: The coca cola companies use of the NA program, which consists of many different platforms consisting of techniques to motivate their employees, other ways to motivate their employees such as employee engagement, having a great work place or training and development, Alderfer’s motivational theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and finally the company’s focus and realization of the importance on intrinsic motivation, are some of what allowed for coca cola to prove themselves as the top employee motivators.
Essay:
Introduction: Coca cola is the most successful beverage company in the world (Jones,2013) in Today’s world for a company to achieve the level of success coca cola has, they must know how to motivate their staff in order for them to grow and develop with the company, as well as wanting to put in their highest efforts. (Gallo,2011) The Coca cola company was very early in realizing the importance of motivation as well as ways to motivate. Motivation at Coca cola has always been a main priority where large interest has been taken and actions such as creating a rewards system (NA rewards), where employee engagement, creating a great place to work, training and development, and being open and inclusive using and creating multiple motivational theories, two of being Alderfer’s ERG theory, and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and finally the Coca cola company, like Dan pink from the TEDGlobal 2009, realized the key to motivate employees and get high sales results is intrinsic and not extrinsic motivation, These are just some of what help coca cola be one of the world’s best employee motivators. (forbes,2015)
A few years back, management at coca cola refreshments felt what they invested on incentives and motivation was not correlating with the results of sales, that’s when Coca cola realized, when you ask people if they want cash or points they would say cash, but when you analyze what changes their behavior, cash does not do it, but rather points do. They then gathered a group of the high positioned people at coca cola got together and each put out their own incentive plan, there was recognition of good ideas but there was no strategy implied, they gave out many currencies and had several other ways of reward, the problem was people where receiving bits of compensation here and there when they did not even know why. (Palmer,2016)
Shortly after Sherri Reynolds, senior director of compensation for Coca cola joined the company. She and her team wanted to make a system allowing for rewards and cash be effective on sales results, they then reached out to nine different inventive vendors sending them RFP’s asking them to think of a platform that would improve “over the top” sales incentive for brand or channel promotions in order to ensure consistency but more importantly to meet coca colas “vision 2020” of planting leadership behavior between their staff members, while increasing sales.
After Reynolds and her team looked at the proposals given they found their preferred deal with BI Worldwide (BIW), an engagement agency which had the global connect the Coca cola was after, what pushed for this agency was their business director’s argument on non-cash rewards.
After nearly a year of working together with Cronin on executing the proposal for coca cola, they came up with a solution that would get many different segments and brands throughout coca cola onto the same page, they called this the North American Rewards (NA rewards). (Palmer,2016)
The NA rewards was created as a place for all things related to rewards and recognition at coca cola to be taken care of, with the ability to adjust with growth, the final product was a user-friendly platform that went perfectly with the company’s large engagement efforts, eased communication, tracked ROI, and that would be easily comprehended.
NA rewards enabled stakeholders and managers to access tools allowing them to create their own business based incentives with very narrow outcomes and goals easily, on
the same platform.
When explained about the value of rewards and the tax compliance problems to managers through a careful communication strategy, the shift from rewarding in cash to points went greatly in the sales department. (Palmer,2016)
In 2010, the NA rewards introduced a years of service aspect, if you reach a specific milestone you receive an email logging you into your customized page with special videos messages and photos.
When the success of NA rewards became clear in 2013, Reynolds and the BIW team took a huge step forward, introducing the R3 associate recognition program which introduced manager to associate (recognize), peer to peer (refresh), and nomination based(reward) recognition.
As the program becomes more natural to the employees they start looking for extra opportunities to earn points, this allows the program to gain associate mindshare which could be used as a very powerful tool. (Palmer,2016)
Points could be earned in different ways such as being successful on a project or having a strong performance during a quarter, employees could then redeem points for such things as a family vacation or a choice of merchandise from over a million brand names.
The newest addition to the NA program is a sales lead program which allows for all employees to report a sales opportunity and get points.
Coca cola also focuses on other ways of motivating its employees outside the realm of rewards and cash, they include:
There are several motivational theories used by businesses around the world such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, acquired needs theory, Alderfer’s ERG theory and more, the coca cola company does not only use one motivational theory but rather creates multiple of its own, two I identified coca cola with are Alderfer’s ERG theory which evolves around three categories of needs: growth, relatedness, and existence needs, (Armstrong,2009) and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which consisted of four: physiological, security and safety, esteem, and the extent of their abilities.
For Alderfer’s ERG theory, the growth need, also known as having the desire to grow and develop personally, this alone could motivate every single employee (review,2010) to do better within themselves as well as their job. Knowing that something you do at work could help you progress, keeps re assuring the employees that advancement in the company and within themselves is completely up to them.
Coca cola tries to create an environment where they let people know promotions are encouraged from the core of the company, also the company applied training programs allowing employees to get ready for a promotion if and when the opportunity exits.
For the Coca cola company to continue its constant growth, it is necessary to apply Alderfer’s ERG theory to the workplace productivity, as it opens up a more flexible approach to understanding what individuals in the company need. Once coca cola Understood what an employee’s needs are they had high moral and once they maintained high moral in the company, the employees became more productive in the long run. (review,2010)
The relatedness needs is also known as the desire to satisfy interpersonal relationship, the coca cola company looks up to itself for establishing relationships between both employer and employee, Coca cola is able to connect both and create relationships that could benefit both as well, for example, The coca cola company uses the one-on-one approach which allows for employees to meet up with managers once a month to speak on any problems they have personally or in the work place, this creates a trusted environment, allowing for improved productivity due to the expression of personal needs that could have effected their performance, another reason why coca cola uses the relatedness need is to build personal and meaningful relationships between employees due to the fact that is an individual likes who they are working with, they become more motivated (review,2010) and continue to come to work the their personal relationship, and for networking.
The existence needs are the final needs in Alderfer’s ERG theory, it could be defined as needs that have a desired physiological effect on employees, also, it could be the materiel state of the company, Since the coca cola company knew that to create peace amongst the company, employees must have a sense of stability in their current position as well as having the potential for growth, to create satisfaction amongst its employees, for example the coca cola company has many different programs to help such as cultural awareness programs, a program where employees who share similar interests and backgrounds go and get professional advice as well as personal advice regarding personal growth, furthermore the coca cola company motivates their employees on a daily basis by giving out incentives and occupational opportunities.
Another motivational theory used by the coca cola company is Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the theory has been around for many years and is used to describe how a person acts and their needs, the theory is on how people have well stated needs which they desire to fulfil according to the level of emergency.
Physiological need is the first stage which includes clothing, shelter, food, sex and air. These factors are a necessity to humans; therefore, they are set by high standards and must be met. (Lee,2011).
The next step is the need for security and safety, this is when a person feels the need to be safe and around people, where someone wants to interact and connect with other people.