EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Macy’s Department Stores, Inc. is a large organization with many stores, departments, and employees. They have a quick employee turnover rate and high goal setting. They expect their employees to reach sales goals in set periods of time which causes stress amongst the ranks. Each department in a store is accountable to one or more managers, those managers have a floor manager and so on. Although it is tough to work for Macy’s, the goals they set have allowed them to thrive in the competitive department store world. There are three levels to the makeup of a company. Each level has many independent variables; we will be focusing on one for each level. The first level is the individuals with their skills and abilities. By using a questionnaire and sales results, we found how employees use their skills and abilities to meet their day-to-day goals. The next level is group processes. At Macy’s, departments are expected to meet goals from all their employees together. The independent variable that we chose to analyze is group characteristics. This also uses the questionnaire and sales results used for the individuals. The last independent variable that will be discussed is the organizational goals. When employees meet their goals, this allows the group to perform well and the whole store is better off. Each store competes to help Macy’s be a great organization. In our analyses we found that workers at Macy’s are stressed to meet their goals. This stress factor causes the employees to push themselves to reach their goals, but is also a large factor for why some quit. We also found that there needs to be more training in the workplace because some employees feel that although they have plenty of ability, they spend too much time figuring out how to do basic tasks like working the register. The managers at Macy’s are very impersonal and very task based. To the employees, it causes unneeded stress when their boss introduces his or herself more than once since they don’t even recognize their subordinates. All of these independent variables are related to performance, stress, behaviors, service, and relations. They are the direct factors which impact our dependent variable, productivity. The absenteeism and turnover show the individual productivity, but the overall organizational productivity is measured through profitability. It is important to Macy’s to have profit so that they can open more stores, have a good reputation among consumers, and attract good employees to be hard working and meet their goals.

COMPANY BACKGROUND
Macy’s is a department store chain which currently sells clothing and accessories, housewares, home furnishings and furniture. In the past they have sold other products such as home electronics, books, pharmaceuticals, sporting goods, appliances and toys. Many of these were eliminated in the 1970s and 80s due to competition from other retailers, leaving the stores with the merchandise it still carries now. Macy’s has its own store credit card, which was introduced in the 1950s. Prior to that, they accepted customer payments in cash at the time of sale only, even when other stores were selling merchandise on credit. According to their 2012 Fact Book, Net Sales for 2011 were $26.405 billion.
Macy’s Incorporated has corporate offices in Cincinnati and New York. Their website indicates their total number of employees is approximately 171,000. There are “about” 800 Macy’s department stores within the United States (including Guam and Puerto Rico). The company also owns the 37 Bloomingdale’s stores.
Macy’s was established in 1858 as a “dry goods” store in New York City, founded by Rowland Hussey Macy. A larger variety of products were added as the business grew. Rowland Macy died in 1877 but the company stayed in the hands of his family until 1895 when it was sold to brothers Isidor and Nathan Straus, who until that point had been leasing Macy’s store space to sell chinaware.
Macy’s flagship store at Herald Square in New York City, which still operates today, opened in 1902 and for many years was the largest store in the world. In 1918, after the end of World War I, Macy’s began to open stores in other cities, starting with buying other stores in Toledo and Atlanta. In the 1940s Macy’s opened new stores in San Francisco and Kansas City, making it the country’s largest department store chain.
By the 1980s the Straus family’s ownership in Macy’s was down to 2%, and company president Edward Finkelstein led a leveraged buyout of the company, the first of any major retail chain. Macy’s filed for bankruptcy in 1992 after taking on too much long-term debt, merging with Federated Department Stores in 1994 where it returned to profitability. Federated formally changed its company’s name to Macy’s Department Stores, Inc. in 1996, and stores it owned under other names were converted to Macy’s.
Our paper concentrates on the Macy’s store location at Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento, CA where our group member Jazmina is employed. Jazmina provided information about her personal experience as well as that of several co-workers.
DESCRIPTION
Our group observed Macy’s company work environment and many things came to mind of issues that arose within the company. We started by identifying the various positions held by store employees. First is Recovery, which keeps store merchandise organized. Flex-team are mostly “on-call” and are assigned a different position every shift depending on where they are needed. Sales Representatives are full or part-time with a set number of hours per week- store customers interact with those mostly in this position, whose duty is to assist customers with locating merchandise, give fashion advice and general suggestions on other items they may like (known as upselling) and acting as cashier. Specialists usually concentrate on one brand, making sure their merchandise is attractively displayed and that inventory levels are sufficient. They also communicate product information to the Sales Representatives and other employees. Finally there are Floor Managers, who observe all departments of the store, supervising the employees’ work and handling any customer disputes outside the authority of the Sales Representatives.

Besides the miscommunication amongst co-workers, we decided to look into further issues amongst the company. We looked at the turnover rate of employees and found it to be quite high. Although Macy’s has a high turnover rate of their employees, they are still a successful business during these tough economic times.

Through our group observations and with our group member Jazmina working as a Sales Representative for the Macy’s location at Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento, we got to see its other side. What we mean by “other side” is how Macy’s treats its employees and how stressful the role of being a Macy’s Sales Representative is. From our group observations we got the experience of receiving customer service from Macy’s associates in various departments throughout the store, and we compared the roles of a customer to that of an associate.

From a customer’s perspective, we felt the associates provided excellent service, doing the most to satisfy the customer’s needs. If the associate could not find something that the customer wanted from the department store, then they were more than happy to locate our item at another store or have it be ordered and sent to any address desired. As happy as some Macy’s associates seemed to be working together, this was not the case overall. Some of our observations included lack of teamwork and communication amongst some employees. For example, when an associate needed help from another one of their co-workers, the co-worker would not help them if they were busy with their own customer. Lack of communication between the company’s advertisement and sales associate was observed when the customer had asked the associate about when would be the next Macy’s sale and the associate was not able to answer to the customer.

Because our group member Jazmina works for Macy’s as a Sales Representative, our group then decided to focus on the overall productivity of the Macy’s employees. Productivity is what makes Macy’s a successful ongoing business, however they cannot be successful without the help of their employees. With our group’s observations and information about the Macy’s employees’ job role and responsibilities we decided to focus our research project on some factors that contributed to the stress of productivity of the Macy’s company. The specific factors we decided to focus on are skills and abilities from the individual, stress on productivity, group cohesiveness, and the organizational goal.

The job responsibilities that a Sales Representative must achieve, while giving excellent customer service to customers, can then lead to an overwhelming amount of responsibilities for the sales associates. Overwhelming amount of job duties most of the time leads to the employee desiring to leave the job or have a high amount of stress. Most of the employees we observed and informally interviewed had mentioned to us that being a sales associate was a very stressful job and that the higher job position one holds, then the higher stress one develops. With that being said we decided to ask employees why they thought the job was stressful.

Some had mentioned that the job was stressful because of lack of training. They said “register training” was not enough to be ready to work on the floor as a Macy’s Sales Representative. Each department had specific rules about how they were run, and if the employee did not ask their managers about those rules then that employee will be working there without knowing what to do with the exception of knowing how to use the register. This lack of communication was a factor that stood out to us when one of our group members shopped at the Macy’s store and asked an employee about the next “Macy’s big sale” and the employee’s response was “honestly, I do not know when the next ‘big sale’ is but that we are having sales all the time… mostly every weekend, but I will go and ask my co-worker when the next big sale is.” The sales associate then was not able to get an answer from her fellow co-worker and then responded to the customer that to “check online when the next big sale was”.

Aside from the miscommunication amongst co-workers, another dilemma mentioned by the employees was the fact that not everyone is meant to be a Sales Representative- not everyone has the skills and abilities because it is such a stressful job. One should be able to have patience, be a good listener, and be a good businessperson in order to make a sale. Basically a Sales Associate must be able to make the customer feel as though they “care” for them, but in reality they only bother to care and listen because they want to reach their quota for the day.

Another factor our group decided to do further observations on was organizational goals. We found out that the reason why the employee is so concerned with making the “Macy’s Point of Sale” is because each sales associate has a “sales goal”. This sales goal is important to the individual because it will determine if the employee should receive a salary increase when it comes down to the managers reviewing their annual point of sales employee meeting. Also these sales help reach Macy’s store total sales goal, which leads to more employees retaining their jobs and keeping Macy’s a successful business. This is a good way to keep Macy’s employees motivated to reach sales goals, however the drawback to this is it can sometimes create a competitive environment amongst co-workers. During the informal interview with one of the sales associates, one thing mentioned was that sometimes it is tough to reach your sales goals when other associates are competing for the register the whole time they are working. Overall the productivity of Macy’s is up and rising but the issues and responsibilities amongst the employees that makes this company successful is quite ironic.

According to the Organizational Behavior concepts there are valid reasons as to why these issues exist in the Macy’s work environment. Productivity is the most important factor for Macy’s when it comes to reaching their organizations goal. Macy’s cannot be a successful company if their productivity is not being successful. With the theory of Job Satisfaction and Productivity it is proven that “studies show that job satisfaction is not strongly related to job performance. Workers cannot change job performance to meet their satisfaction level because rules and procedures dictate performance levels and punish workers who fail to comply. When workers are fairly rewarded for job performance, satisfaction increases….Job satisfaction shows a weakly to moderate negative relationship to turnover—this is, high job satisfaction is associated with low turnover.” (values chp 3 lecture notes) In other words this theory states that the productivity of a company has no major effect with an individual’s satisfying needs. This theory supports and illustrates how the productivity of the Macy’s company is successful, regardless of how stressful the job position of a Sales Representative is.

One of the many factors that support this theory is the impact stress had on the job performance of a Macy’s Sales Representative. Our group produced a survey to measure the amount of stress their job holds, using a scale of 1 through 5 with 1 being a low amount of stress and 5 being a high amount of stress. We also asked if workers felt as if they had the skills required to do the job at work. Amongst seven sales associates from different departments, two of which were managers, the average amount of stress that they had circled was a 4. These seven sales associates also felt that they currently had the abilities to get the job done, but mentioned that when they first began working for Macy’s this job was highly stressful than it is now because of insufficient training. They mentioned that Macy’s only provided training for registers but not the specific rules and procedures for each department. The most beneficial sort of training was when they actually got to work on the sales floor and had to “learn as you go” from observing other co-workers about the skills and tricks needed in their department on how to be a Sales Representative.

Another factor our group observed as to why Macy’s employees had a high stress level is lack of group cohesiveness. In other words, lack of teamwork makes Macy’s employees feel stressed. From the informal interviews with employees they said that as much as Macy’s tries to make their employees work in a “team environment,” most of the individuals work by themselves. According to the theory of group cohesiveness, it is stated that groups who are more cohesive in getting the job done are more productive and could provide greater productivity. On the contrary groups that are not in cohesiveness could affect the productivity of a group and could result in a competitive atmosphere. With that being said, the Macy’s employees we had informally interviewed stated that the atmosphere can become competitive.

When sales goals are not being met by the individual then some employees decide to take over the register and sometimes even “steal” customers in order to reach their sales goal. Employees feel stressed and think it is unfair when they work with others that are being competitive. Some Macy’s employees prefer to work in a team environment because if one does not reach their sales goal then a fellow employee at the register can give them their turn on using the register. This situation exists because of the lack of group cohesiveness amongst co-workers.

Another factor our group observed as to why Macy’s has a stressful competitive environment but is a successful business is because of the organizational goals. According to the Goal Setting Theory: “A theory that focuses on identifying the types of goals that are most effective in producing high levels of motivation and performance and why goals have these effects. Goal setting can operate to enhance both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Specific, difficult goals affect motivation and performance. They direct workers’ attention and behaviors towards goal-relevant activities, such as increasing productivity or reducing expenses.” (Week 6 lecture notes) In other words, Macy’s emphasizes to its employees the importance of reaching their goals because they want high productivity.

Our group member Jazmina says that the company has various types of goals. The first goal starts with the individual- each Sales Representative has a specific amount of sales that they must reach every time they work. From here there is the manager’s goal which is to get the employees of their department to open up credit cards. From the managers’ goal there is the stores’ goal which is to reach a certain amount of overall sales. Lastly, from the stores’ goal is the corporation’s goal which is to reach a certain amount of revenue for the company from all the Macy’s department stores by the end of the year. All these goals have a specific level to achieve so that Macy’s can continue staying America’s number one department store for fashion.

In our survey with the Macy’s associates we had asked them if they often reach their sales goals and if they feel pressured about this. Most of them said that they do often reach their sales goals, but that it depends how the day is going. If they work a day during the middle of the week and it is the morning shift then business is slow and sometimes the goal that has been given to them is not reachable.

Associates also felt that their sales goal sometimes made them feel pressured. For example a specialist for Coach handbags has a different set of goals. Since she is a Coach specialist she not only has to reach Macy’s desired sales goals but in addition she has to reach Coach’s desired goals as well in order to maintain her job position as a Coach specialist. This employee explained that sometimes she is stressed and has too much pressure put on her for achieving these goals and that sometimes the goals from both companies are overwhelming and unreachable. Overall Macy’s sets higher specific goals in order to have their employees to be producing the highest performance of productivity for their company to be successful. Although Macy’s can have a high impact of stress factors on their employees, their company is still meeting their goals and it is the productivity of the employees’ performance that keep their business going.

PROPOSED RECOMMENDATIONS
We found the main complaints from Macy's employees to be centered mainly around lack of communication, training, and teamwork. These factors, along with the store’s highly stressful working environment, have given rise to de-motivation of employees. This negative motivation could be solved by carefully looking at each individual problem group and making assertions as to how the offset balance can be reset in a way that is favorable to Macy's and its goals. Each department at the store has different goals, different ways of approaching situations, and different tasks that employees must complete. New employees are constantly transferred from one department to the next. Employees are trained for only three days when they first start working at Macy's, and since there is such a high turnover rate a large percentage of their employees are “new employees” as defined by having worked there for six months or less. This three-day training period has proven to be not sufficient enough to give employees all the skills they need to be prepared for all the possible variables that could occur while on the job. Employees inevitably start working in departments they have no experience in. They know what generally must be accomplished from what they learned in the training period and from working in previous departments, but they don't know any of the specifics about that particular department. When a mistake is made, supervisors get frustrated and time is wasted. For example, the clothing department at the time of closing might require employees to pick up all the left behind clothes from the dressing rooms, whereas the shoe department might require an employee to close out the register at the end of the day. A new employee might not know exactly what to do at the time of closing for every single department that they get transferred to. Employees could ask supervisors what needs to be done when they transfer over to a new department, but time is wasted when there are too many questions. After careful analysis, we have come up with a possible solution for how to train employees for the specifics of each department that saves time while improving communication. There could be a general easy to read guideline or checklist posted in each department behind the counter listing all general responsibilities that need to be completed by employees. New employees unfamiliar with the department they are working in could glance at the general guidelines and get a feel for what they need to be doing. This would save time because employees would not have to ask supervisors too many unnecessary questions. It would also improve communication because employees would always know what to do at any given time by just looking at the list, leading to higher confidence and productivity within the workplace. This is one step that would improve an employee's general store knowledge and would hopefully alleviate some of the communication problems Macy's employees have been facing. Another communication problem reported by Macy's employees was the disconnection from managers to supervisors to regular store department employees. Each department has its own sales goals that employees are expected to reach. New information pertaining to these goals are passed along from manager to supervisor and then to Sales Associate. It was reported that this information is usually kept in a binder "out of the way" and hard to gain access to without a lot of prodding and questioning. Most of the sales goals are therefore transferred to employees by word of mouth from up above and then down the line. This chain has proven to be an inefficient means of communication because vital information can be lost in this verbal process. In a previously mentioned example, it was found that a customer was unable to get accurate information from any employees on upcoming sales. The customer was ultimately told to "check online" to find out this information. So how can this lack of knowledge be quelled? How can sales goals be effectively transmitted from the higher-ups down to store employees in a manner that is not only clear and concise, but also motivating to employees as well? A possible solution to this problem could be to communicate sales goals and tidbits of vital supporting information through a daily report sent to the computer at the register at each department via email. These messages could not only provide sales goals information, but they could also contain information about upcoming store sales and events. Employees could then themselves be more aware of what's going on and what is expected, and in turn they could use their knowledge to inform customers about important dates and sales that are coming up. A monthly calendar could also be posted in every department that lists when important dates are coming up, so that employees know exactly when major events are happening and can prepare accordingly. These messages would not only be informative but they could also be highly motivating to employees as well because the messages could include (as corny as it sounds) phrases such as "Keep up the good work", and "We have the best team right now, I am confident and I know for a fact that you guys can go out there and open fifteen credit card accounts today!" Although it seems like an easy solution, it is one that can be very useful since employees who feel appreciated often work harder and are more motivated.

CONCLUSION
Macy’s is one of the most successful businesses in our country. Although they usually provide excellent customer service, there are some internal problems. After conducting our own in-store research and gathering information from employees we learned the three main obstacles causing stress for the sales associates at Macy’s: lack of communication between employees and managers, lack of cohesiveness between sales associates, and improper training.
The first problem that needs to be dealt with is training. The Sales Associate position begins with a three-day training, which as stated earlier is not long enough to cover all necessary procedures. If the employees do not know how to do their job correctly it will automatically cause things like high stress level and bad communication between peers. Some workers may also take advantage of new hires who are not clear on the proper procedures. One way to deal with this is by posting general guidelines around where the employees work, near the cash register. This would help immensely with added training. Three days is enough time to teach new hires basic tasks such as folding clothes and fixing displays, but posting guidelines could help with simpler tasks that a new hire could easily forget. One area this could help in is reminding associates how to solicit customers to open charge card accounts. The posted information would be something employees could refer back to instead of forgetting details on the job or wasting their superiors’ time asking somewhat simple questions.
Along with helping with the training this would help with communication. Managers are often frustrated by a lot of questions but using these postings would not only alleviate the need for questions but can make employees look good since they have now taken their own initiative to learn something. With better communication comes better cohesiveness. If managers are less frustrated and have time to answer more complex questions it is better for the whole group of sales associates. Since all employees will be on the same level, any problem that does come up will be more of a group problem than a “new hire problem”. This is helpful because as we earlier stated, people who start their job and know less are sometimes taken advantage of. The group will be more cohesive because they will be on the same level learning the same things and having the same problems so they will be more willing to help each other and less frustrated.