Wegman free essay sample

Question 04: What is the primary source of Wegmans’s culture, and what are some ways that it has been able to sustain itself? Answer: The culture of an organization does not immerge automatically at once. It is a consequence of series of activities that had been enforced by the group who influenced to create it, change it and who actually lives together with in transforming the culture to the future. For most of the organizations, it is the founder who begins the culture. Being the founders they have a major impact on deciding the cultural characteristics that would be engraved to the organizations that they form. They decide the vision and have a mind set of what type of culture that will be adopted in achieving the vision at the end. It is also the founders who had become the ultimate source of Wegmans’s culture as well. They were brothers, John and Walter wegman. We will write a custom essay sample on Wegman or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page They had started this company with one grocery store in Rochester, New York in 1930. More importantly distinguishing their culture from the perceived cultures in other organization’s of the same industry. The early culture as well as business strategy they used quickly separated their company from existed groceries and created a unique identity for them. This culture creation occurred in mainly three ways: * They hire the people who think the same way : The pioneers of wegmans had interest on food and they thought the employees should also possessed the same interest. They indoctrinated and socialized these employees in to their way of thinking and feeling. * Their own behavior acted as a role model that encourages employees to internalized the core values, norms and practices of founders to themselves. This is evident by the decisions which had taken by Walter’s Son in 1950. – Implemented a generous number of employee benefits such as profit sharing and medical coverage, completely paid by the company. The same followed by Danny, Robet’s Son, launched an immense college scholarships program for its employees at the expense of company. Once the culture is in place it is organizational practices that encounters its ability to sustain itself and move forward. The Human resource management functional plays a vital role in this context. Some Of them are : * Employee Selection * Employee Performance Evaluations. * Promotional/Reward Systems. * Training and carrer developments. Etc. Apart from the above analysis there three forces which particularly important when developing a sustainable culture. * Selection practices. * The actions of top Management. * Socialization. In Wegman’s company the following forces has been highlighted as the ways of transforming an early culture towards a sustainable one. * Selection Practice. while maintaining the primary objective of the selecting process, hiring a candidate with right knowledge, qualifications, skills and abilities, consider how well that person right fit in to the organization culture. This ensures that a proper match with individual’s values and norms with those of the organization. This theory has been explicitly adopted by Wegamans. They have a cultural value for focusing on serving fine food. This requires that their employees should have a real interest in food. This is achieved by hiring the employees who have a real interest over the foods. They are not selected as merely having the intellectual ability or experience required to perform their job, additionally a main cultural value also matches at the selection. * The actions of top Management. The actions of top management also have a greater impact on organization’s culture. Their statements, their behaviors reflect the culture they are in as well as affect the sustainability of culture. This further filter down through the organization management structure. The president of the company in 1950 had made a statement â€Å"I was no different from them,† referring to the company’s employees. Through this statement he had demonstrated how the top management treats their employees while creating a happy, loyal and well committed, work force. Moreover the statement made by Jeff Burris,a supervisor at the Dullles,Virginia Store has also expressed his conformity towards the main cultural value of selection procedure adopted by company. As denoted above the important welfare plans launched by former presidents also shows us how well the top management recognizes the culture in Wegman, respect and contribute to its sustainability. * Socialization. This is a process that adapts employees to the organization’s culture. When a new employee is hired, he is new to the organization. The organization wants to help the new comer to transform the core elements of its culture and let the person become a member of its culture. This adaptation is called socialization. The socialization consists three stages. * Pre Arrival Stage. * Encounter Stage. * Metamorphosis stage. 03. 01 Pre Arrival Stage. This is one set of socialization process that occurs before a new employee joins the organization. It is apparent that in Wegmans the selection procedure has been designed such a way to match with its core values. So candidate requires to be â€Å"right type†. It can be reasonably assumed that at the selection it takes place a two way communication and ensures the value of culture is preserved. * Encounter Stage. In this stage solicitation is taken place once the new employee is recruited in to the organization. Here the new employee really sees what the organization like and judge how his attitudes, expectations are affected. He might compare his expectations vs reality and probably a divergence may exist. Wegmans has identified this is crucial as same as the pre arrival stage. They very well planned this in their organic growth. The growth is quite slow in order to maintain a sustainable culture. As the culture is so important for their business. They do open only two new stores per year. More importantly the employees from existing stores are brought in to the new store, which enables them to transmit their knowledge and the store’s values to new employees. This is how their culture has been able to sustain itself. * Metamorphosis stage. As a result of the socialization, the new comer changes and adjusts to the job, work group and organization. In this stage the he feels that he is comfortable, satisfied and accepted by their peers as trusted and valued individual. There are two stories which evident that the employees have undergone this socialization process and reached to the this stage. One story is about Sara Goggins ,and another one with Keely Schoeneck. In addition to that there are further more information available in the case study to prove that their promotional system also in built towards who contribute/support the culture will reward well. More than half of their managers had started their carrer in Wegmans when they were teenagers. Due to the ways explained above Wegmans culture is alive culture which has been able to sustain itself which has extensively contributed for its effectiveness and finally to the sucees of the company.