Case Study Chapter 6

The two values I believe Schwartz created that are affecting Bain & Company, Home Depot and Best Buy include: conformity and universalism. In regards to universalism, Bain & Company and Best Buy began to lower the goals for employees’ sales, which resulted in their receiving bonuses still plausible. In addition, Best Buy tried to keep their employees engaged through the hard time by setting up online surveys for them to give the company general ideas for cost cutting. This showed that the companies understood the employees’ situations, appreciated them the best they could and tried to protect them from losing their jobs. The companies showed restraint and tried not to make the employees upset in their conformity values. For example, instead of firing employees, Steve Ellis began to hire people he thought would be successful for after the recession was over. This gave additional talented people an opportunity to work instead of going through lay offs during this time.
During the recession, Ellis used his affective, cognitive and behavioral components of his attitude to show employees that he cared about how they felt, displayed his beliefs and ideas, and how he intended to move forward instead of back. Ellis made it possible to hire more people during the recession. He did not see this as a setback but an opportunity to bring talented workers on board with his company.
Best Buy created online surveys for their employees to give their ideas for cutting costs for the company in the difficult time. About 900 ideas were sent in and made a difference. Home Depot cut jobs and closed 15 locations, however, they lowered the sales and profits targets to make it possible for hourly employees to receive bonuses. Both of these companies came up with ways to boost morale during the