...Discuss how the leadership at Home Depot intended to use its organizational talent to gain a competitive advantage in the Do It Yourself industry. The best way for Home Depot to gain a competitive advantage and to maintain it in today’s business situations is to carry out and transform so fast that they bring forth a cycle of temporary competitive advantages. This can be extremely difficult to accomplish as it requires a grouping of organization policies, practices, and designs. It is specifically because it is not easy to make organizations that change rapidly and effortlessly that being able to do so is an influential and sustainable foundation of competitive advantage. Its one thing to know talent is significant and it’s another to make talent a foundation of competitive advantage. It requires maintaining the right talent and organizing and managing it efficiently (Sears, 2003). Maintaining the right talent is not easy, but Home Depot seems to get it done by dedicating resources to it. Discuss the key channels that Home Depot developed for recruiting talent. The key channels that Home Depot developed for recruiting talent has been built to meet the retail hiring needs and observes some of the leadership development programs that have been formed to meet the leadership talent needs of the organization. Home Depot works hard to attract top talent and then commits to supporting that talent while they prepare for upcoming leadership roles. They include: • Embedding...
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...Strayer University 11 They Can Do It! You Can Help! Home Depot Victoria James-Smith Talent Management-HRM532 Dr. Cecile Massé, PhD They Can Do It! You Can Help! A Look At Talent Practices At The Home Depot Abstract In today's global economy, companies must continually invest in talent management of its personnel. In the role of being a business partner, HR leaders must work closely with management to attract, hire, develop and retain talent. Yet the shortage of skills today presents various issues and challenges both socio-economic and cultural as talent crosses borders and its prospects are fewer. Thus, in view of the workforce changes with issues such as shifting demographics, global supply chains, the aging workforce and increasing global mobility, organization culture must shift to become forward-looking organizations. That is organizations which must rethink their approach to talent management to best attract talent. By doing so, this will result in organizations being positively positioned to succeed in a highly competitive marketplace. In addition, organizational culture, employee engagement and leadership development have a significant impact on talent retention. Taking these factors into consideration, what will develop will be an integrated approach to talent management which offers a pathway toward sustaining achievable, outstanding business results. Competitive Advantage Home Depot realized that in order to have and to maintain a competitive advantage...
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...They Can Do It! You Can Help! Since Home Depot opened their doors in 1979, they set out to lead the market in excellent customer service. Their motto of “ whatever it takes” shows their commitment to differentiate themselves in that field (website, 2011). And it certainly seems to have helped them lead the market and continue to grow their business beyond U.S. borders and be competitive on a global scale. It is a part of what founders Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank deem the “Three Legged Stool” of their overall business strategy (Darrow, 1994, para. 8). The first leg is to provide the best selection and quantity of home building supplies to satisfy as many do-it-yourself customers as possible. The second leg of the stool is to offer their products at the most competitive price compared to the rest of the market so there is no reason to shop anywhere but Home Depot. These first two legs are substantial components of their competitive strategy and have helped them edge out most of the competition. From the start, however, the organization’s founders knew that that having quality, knowledgeable employees interfacing with their customers was one of the most crucial investments in which they should invest. The third leg, therefore, is to provide the best service in the industry (Darrow, 1994, para. 12). All of the legs of Home Depot’s strategic make-up are important and provide stability to their competitive advantage over the rest of the...
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...Strategic Plan; Home Depot Strategic planning is an organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations, and ensure that employees and other participants are working toward common goals. It is a disciplined effort that produces essential decisions and actions that shapes and guides what an organization is, who it serves, what it does, and why it does it. Strategic planning focuses on the future of the company. Strategic planning is building a plan that provides guidance in fulfilling a mission with maximum efficiency and impact for a company. Basically it is the Who, What, When, Where, How and How Much aspect to planning. “A company collectively tries to agree on where it is going (its vision) and how it’s going to get there (its strategy)” (Abraham, 2012). Strategic planning is a very important part of having a successful organization. Without it, the employees will not know what to do or why they are doing it and over time the company will not succeed. In order for the plan to be effective and useful, it should articulate specific goals and describe the action steps and resources needed to accomplish them. In other words, Strategic Planning is a regimented effort to analyze certain things like: the objectives of the organization, why it’s doing that and what is it going to do in the changing environment or future. I have selected Home Depot to analyze and prepare a strategic plan to grow the organization...
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... HR587, May 2010 Session Table of Contents Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………….…………………… 2 Assessment/Diagnosis………………………………………….……………..………………….. 3 Analysis of the Change Strategy…………………………………………………………………………….…..………… 4 Results/Outcomes………………………………………….……………………,………………. 7 Evaluation of the Effort…………………………………………………………………………………….……….. 9 References………………………………………………………………………...…………….. 13 Appendix A……………………………...…………………………………………………………………. 14 Appendix B……………………………….……………………………………………….……………….. 15 Executive Summary Home Depot was founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank. From the start, associates were able to offer the best customer service in the industry, guiding customers through projects such as laying tile, changing a fill valve or handling a power tool. Not only did store associates undergo rigorous product knowledge training, but they also began offering lessons so customers could learn how to do it themselves. Home Depot is still guided today by those values established by its founders, excellent customer service, taking care of people, entrepreneurial spirit, respect for all people, building strong relationships, doing the right thing, giving back to communities, and creating shareholder value. (Corporate Website, 2003). I will be concentrating on the Human Resource department of the organization. They restructured their HR department by cutting down their HR functions believing that it they could create jobs in other sections of the company. ...
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...and benefit plans are two compensation packages companies are using to invest in its employees. To assist Riordan Manufacturing in changing its sales process, Team D has chose the following companies to use as a benchmark: Liz Claiborne, QUALCOMM, Home Depot, Hertz, Coke Cola, Lafarge, Ford and The Container Store. Team D will then analyze each company by providing key concepts such as designing the elements of an effective employee relations program, create a career development planning model that will incorporate attention to key development success factors, evaluate compensation and motivation practices as they relate to organizational strategy, and discuss the impact of ethics on the determination of compensation and rewards systems. Effective Employee Relations Programs. "Success requires satisfied, loyal employees," as stated by Dreher and Dougherty (2001). Employee performance increases when employees are happy and satisfied not only in what jobs they perform but with the company they are working for, the atmosphere in which the work is done and how they are treated overall. An effective employee relations program needs include answers to the following: A) How do we get good employment prospects to join the company? B) How do...
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...TAVIS COBURN Deep, lasting culture change requires an integrated approach that remodels a company’s social systems. The leadership team of Home Depot employed a remarkable set of tools to do that. by Ram Charan W hen Robert Nardelli arrived at Home Depot in December 2000, the deck seemed stacked against the new CEO. He had no retailing experience and, in fact, had spent an entire career in industrial, not consumer, businesses. His previous job was running General Electric’s power systems division, whose multimilliondollar generating plants for industry and governments were a far cry from $10 light switches for do-it-yourselfers. re tu ul C Change HOME DEPOT’S BLUEPRINT FOR april 2006 61 H o m e D e p o t’s B l u e p r i n t f o r C u l t u re C h a n g e Nardelli also was taking over what seemed to be a wildly successful company, with a 20-year record of growth that had outpaced even Wal-Mart’s – but with latent financial and operational problems that threatened its continued growth, and even its future, if they weren’t quickly addressed. To top it off, Nardelli’s exacting and tough-minded approach, which he learned at General Electric, set him on a collision course with the freewheeling yet famously close-knit culture fostered by his predecessors, Home Depot’s legendary cofounders, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank. It was this culture that Nardelli had to reshape if he hoped to bring some big-company muscle to the cooled from the breakneck pace of the...
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...around the steps taken by managers and corporations in improving the attitudes of employees towards recession. Real life examples are given in the form of consumer services giants like Bain & Co, Home Depot and Best buy. Now let us look at the facts and the answers to the questions asked. Facts Presented in the case: 1. Bain & co.’s CEO Steve Ellis hired people even during the recession. He added consultants in the hot-growth areas such as emerging markets and targeted experienced consultants who were left stranded during the hard financial times. 2. Home Depots chairman and chief executive Frank Blake set realistic goals to boost employee morale in spite of handing pink slips to some of the employees. This resulted in many employees getting high bonuses thus resulting in high employee morale. 3. Companies which took advantage of employees in the downturn were rewarded with many employees leaving the company. 4. Best buy found ways to boost employee morale by getting them involved in the organization. 5. JetBlue has cut back across the board and over the past year –delaying aircraft orders, trimming head count through voluntary unpaid leaves and even shedding the free pillows from its aircraft in order to cut costs. Identifying the Key issues: The key issues that can be observed from the above case are as follows. 1. Corporations all over the world are facing the effects of recession and the major concern for them is cutting of costs. 2. the most ideal way...
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...Cover Story Renovating Home Depot; Skip the touchy-feely stuff. The big-box store is thriving under CEO Bob Nardelli's military-style rule By Brian Grow, with Diane Brady in New York and Michael Arndt in Chicago 6 March 2006 BusinessWeek 50 Volume 3974. Don D. Ray is one tough hombre. The 39-year-old Kentucky native spent three years with the 82nd Airborne Div., one of the U.S. Army's elite units, serving at the head of a maintenance crew during the first Gulf War and an additional seven years on active duty. Then, after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Ray suited up for service again, this time as the commander of a special forces A-team that followed the U.S.-led invasion into Afghanistan. His 12-man squad of snipers, demolition experts, and communications specialists hunted renegade al-Qaeda and Taliban. Combing mountain villages, he grew a thick beard, wore traditional Afghan garb, and rode on horseback to blend in with local Muslims. Ray and his men never killed anyone, he says, but they arrested dozens of suspected militants. Nowadays, Ray commands a different kind of operation. He has replaced crack-of-dawn physical training and green Army fatigues with sunrise store openings and an orange Home Depot apron. A store manager in Clarksville, Tenn., Ray runs a 110,000-square-foot box with 35,000 products and a 100-member staff, 30 of them former military. Many days start at 4 a.m. That's when he wakes, eats breakfast, catches some CNBC news, then heads to the store, where...
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...Redesigning retail: Operating model imperatives for international retailers Deploying the right operating model can help international retailers drive profitable growth by balancing customer relevance and operational efficiency across diverse and dynamic markets. Today’s consumers are a formidable bunch. Armed with more information than ever thanks to technology, they shop anytime, anywhere and with anyone they choose. Moreover, choice, convenience and service mean just as much to them as price. Evolving customer demands are driving retailers to tailor their offerings, expand into new business segments and enhance customer touch points. At the same time, competition— always fierce in retail—is intensifying. Only the fittest or luckiest retailers have survived the global downturn, and investors are demanding ever better performance from them. Already-lean retailers are searching for new ways to achieve structural and operational efficiencies in a bid to outpace competitors. Furthermore, new players from other retail segments and industries are ramping up their retail presence. For example, big-name manufacturers including Apple, P&G and Nike are now bypassing traditional retailers and reaching consumers directly through multiple channels. Growing numbers of retailers are going international—and small wonder. Home markets are saturated, but markets near and far, particularly in emerging economies, still offer white space (see Figure 1). The world’s largest retailers are entering...
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...Introduction Jack Welch once said that “before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” The purpose of this course is designed as a manual – instructions on how to be an effective leader. The concept of leadership prompts us to further investigate the traits and personalities that are required to be a good manager. There were many discussions throughout the course that were aimed at this development. As I reflect on them, a few have stuck out and I feel have influenced me the most: shaping organizational structure, leading teams, challenges and imperatives of organizational leaders, and motivational and performance management. There were several cases presented throughout the semester that allow us to refine and sharpen our analytical skills. The cases produce quantitative and qualitative evidence that supports and challenges arguments and recommendations. According to the article, Learning by the Case Method, cases “provide you with an exposure far greater than you are likely to experience in your day-to-day routine” (page 1). Furthermore they “permit you to build knowledge in your various management subjects by dealing selectively and intensively with problems in each field” (page 1). Because the challenge of organizational mastery is so difficult and can never be solved, there are many books offering popular advice on leadership and management. They are often insightful because they are based...
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...studying this chapter, you should be able to: • Describe what management is, why management is important, what managers do, and how managers utilize organizational resources efficiently and effectively to achieve organizational goals. • Distinguish among planning, organizing, leading, and controlling (the four principal managerial functions), and explain how managers’ ability to handle each one can affect organizational performance. • Differentiate among three levels of management, and understand the responsibilities of managers at different levels in the organizational hierarchy. • Identify the roles managers perform, the skills they need to execute those roles effectively, and the way new information technology is affecting these roles and skills. • Discuss the principal challenges managers face in today’s increasingly competitive global environment. Management Snapshot Different Approaches to Management at The Home Depot and Lowe’s: What Is High-Performance Management? Home Depot shot to fame when its founders, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, developed a new concept for a home improvement store. Their vision was to fill a warehouse-type store from floor to ceiling with a wide range of lowpriced products and to provide excellent customer service. Home Depot’s well-informed salespeople offered customers knowledgeable advice and they even conducted classes showing do-it-yourselfers how to install bathrooms or tile floors, for example. According to Home Depot’s founders,...
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...mincil moloria ndaestrunt. Minctas mi, tesciis delesti stiorrorest modipic iusdaniata nobit et lamet eum fuga. At rerspid itempor as quunt ationet omniendipis vendios con nulluptur, si deles pos magnam incid quos delique essequam nes dendis sae poremqui dit occabora in est, nimuscitiore di omnimodit quatum voluptas acerupit invenim inienimet volorecabo. Nam, ni omnis min res experio. Et omnimil lestruptate in est, ium volupis delest lique lab illoritatus. Henihit atiorestia dolor sit perspel endignis quo mod mincit quist fugit inci qui rehenis repero mo voles management in practice Riassi dentiumquam, officiis aligenihita nossimint. For Certificate IV BSB41013 and Diploma BSB50613 ly volorrum rehent officabo. Corio maiore ni ullore quis et quaecepremo et on Lisimaxi magnihicit esciendit que eratem. Non eos ipsam quo to maximagnam human resource management in practice e ese ped eveliquis il mi, ommolup tatinis etur sequiscienis autaque earibus. pl alitior estrund emquodiatur, occab ium volent ulpa dit landeliquia dolum Sa m doluptur? Qui ut rem voloruptatet quis et mo moloressiti utate ditam facestia human resource Tur? Ebit aut ipsa cus. Volest abor modi quidias simolla boritatur? Qui Noe Hollenbeck Gerhart Wright Steel McGill Dein website Noe / Hollenbeck / Gerhart / Wright / Steel / McGill / Dein Brief Contents PA RT 1 The...
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...centralization or hybrid? Why? Evaluate the different options (pros and cons). * the secretary of Homeland Security, tell reporters that he “ had no reports ” of things viewers had seen with their own eyes. It seemed he might have been better informed if he had relied on CNN Homeland * Security, Enron, and Home Depot represent only a few examples of an endemic challenge: how to know if you ’ re getting the right picture or tuning in to the wrong channel. Managers often fail this test. Cluelessness is a fact of life, even for very smart people. Sometimes, the information they need is fuzzy or hard to get. Other times, they ignore or misinterpret information at hand. Decision makers too often lock themselves into fl awed ways of making sense of their circumstances.rather than his own agency. * Reframing requires an ability to think about situations in more than one way. We then introduce four distinct frames — structural, human resource, political, and symbolic — each logical and powerful in its own right. Together, they help us decipher the full array of signifi cant clues, capturing a more comprehensive picture of what ’ s going on and what to do * They argue that smart people act stupid because of personality fl aws — things like pride, arrogance, and unconscious desires to fail. * But if we don ’ t realize our image is incorrect, we won ’ t understand why we don ’ t get what we hoped for. So, like Bob Nardelli, we insist we ’ re right...
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...Becoming a High Performance Organization: A study of Alpha Newspaper Group. Introduction The subject of my course project is Alpha Newspaper Group. Alpha is a print media company that I worked for in 2009. They own regional newspapers throughout the country that are published on a weekly basis. Alpha operates two main headquarters; one in the north of the country, where the business was established and where the owners reside, and one in the midlands where I worked. Our office oversaw the publication of 5 newspapers in the local area with a staff of 30 or so journalists, editors, production designers, HR personnel and management. The print media industry is going through tough times. Technological advances and access to free information have had a negative effect on sales and revenue raised through advertising. It’s led to serious questions being posed about the future of the industry. The need to adapt like any other industry in today’s climate is present. Added to this the economic recession has not helped. Newspapers are a staple in people’s expenditure however value for money is still sought. There is plenty of competition and the product needs to maintain high standards. Whilst I was working for the company Alpha were looking down every avenue in order to reduce costs. Alpha had an organizational structure that placed a lot of power in the northern headquarters. The owners worked predominantly from there and had far less direct contact with the midland office. They...
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