Workplace Management: The Case of Coca-Cola

Introduction

Technological changes, changes in customers’ satisfaction levels, emerging management systems, and new innovations, have significantly shifted many organization's structures, processes, and outcomes. The changes have created dynamics in business models.

Cooperate Ethics and Social Responsibility

Coca Cola identifies the government, unions, investors, distributors, supplies, customers and employees as their key stakeholders.  The company’s approach toward corporate sector are founded on accountability, integrity, and transparently (The Coca Cola Içecek, CCI). To achieve these, strong organizational values and communication system should be in place. Employees for example, should be accessible to the CCI objectives, operations, and accomplishments with a lot of transparently. Consequently, CCI should ensure a system that allows the key stakeholders to contribute in the organization decision making (Murray, 2008). This will not only motivate them, but also make them feel part of the organization.

CCI should adopt a comprehension corporate reporting strategy. A comprehension corporate reporting strategy should provide information beyond the annual financial performance as speared by Global Reporting Initiative (GRL). The report, apart from financials, should cover the organization’s management and operations developments. Feedbacks system is necessary among employees and other stakeholders to illustrate the level of accountability and transparency in the organization. As part of employee management Coca Cola will adopt labour approaches such as the unitary and jointism approach to ensure the company is free from unions’ frictions (The Coca Cola Içecek, CCI). Coca Cola should promote employee focused principles across all its branches.

Work Place Management

Coca Cola strive to provide fare, safe, and enabling work environment. The Coca Colacontinuous workplace management and improvement remains its core values. Despite the diverse cultural setting where Coca Cola operates, its strategy has enable it successfully achieve workforce satisfactions. Currently, the organization’s employees’ satisfaction and loyalty averages 87%, based on 2010 surveys. The company can boost the satisfaction level by focusing on: (The Coca Cola Içecek (CCI), 2010).

• Ensure equal and equitable employment in all plants.
• Creating more open door meetings and reduce communication barriers between the   management and the employees
• Improving employees’ participation and involvement in organization to ensure there is no gap between Coca Cola and the employees
• Ethical consideration in company’s recruitment, discipline and training system
• Encourage employees to develop representative to help them raise issues
• Developing Health and Safety work policies.

Coca Cola boast of being a leading company which has successfully integrated neo-liberal unitarism workplace management success (King, 2009). Employees in Coca Cola not only boast of good working environment but also of long term employment opportunities.  Consequently, it is quickly embracing diversity among its workgroup. However, there is need to improve on gender employment ratio, which slightly skewed against women. The company as well needs to create some employment opportunities to the elderly and physically challenged group (Y?lmaz, 2011).

Coca Cola should enhance the policy of respect, fairness, and tolerance towards employees. It can achieve this by such models as work policy rights. The policy provides complete guidelines to employees’ management (King, 2009). Employees have open communication system to enable them raise their issues to be addressed. Communication hierarchies should be flattened to encourage dialogue and problem solution.

Development of training academies should be promoted. Coca Cola, already has training academy for diffent groups.  On job training programs are very effective in Coca Cola. At the same time, the academy trains the employees  in different field such as change management, workplace stress management, and numerous other proffessional management  fields (The Coca Cola Içecek (CCI), 2010). The training  progrmans not only equip the employees with required skills but also prepair them for further employment opportunities (Y?lmaz, 2011). Coca cola should ensure that its training programs, apart from meeting the organization needs remain consistent with the required national and international standarts. On the other hand, should reduced home and workplce gap by organizing family days, fun camps ands sports to facily members (Y?lmaz, 2011).

Customer Satisfaction

According to Y?lmaz (2011), satisfaction is a response to fulfillment. It involves meeting the demands of known aspects such as being thirsty, security, or hunger. Owing to the dynamic nature of needs and wants, consumer behavior researchers have ascribed different meanings to satisfaction. Satisfaction can also be defined as the fulfillment of wants, which brings out pleasurable outcome to people (Oxford Business Group, 2010). In the service industry, the satisfaction of customers is determined mainly through their interaction with employees and the organization structures and processes (Oxford Business Group, 2010). As a result, organizations strive to create a culture, which ensure customers are satisfied. Various indicators have been developed to measure customers’ level of satisfaction, among which are questionnaire and customers feedback (Srinivas, 2004) Satisfaction is inclusive in nature. It is determined by service quality perception, price, product quality, personal, and situation factors.

The figure below is a summary of satisfaction concept (Srinivas, (2004).)

The key challenge facing Coca Cola is establishing the link between service quality and customer satisfaction.     According to (Srinivas R., (2004).), customer satisfaction is strongly tethered to service quality. Service quality is antecedent to customer satisfaction. However, the exact relationship between customer satisfaction and service quality has remained a subject of debate. Coca Cola should tether its services to meet the end user satisfaction. Currently, the supply chain mainly focuses on the retailers, rather than the consumers. Coca Cola should roll out programs that allow it be in touch with its consumers.  

Talent Management

Talent management remain an area Coca Cola is struggling with. The challenge is enhanced by the stiff competition in the industry. To acquire the best talents, the company should capture them during their graduations. Provide them with the best work condition and minimize their work turnover.

Coca Cola can enhance its workforce productivity by promoting diversity at workplace. Diverse workforce often a team of talented people who outdo each other for the benefit of their organization (Auguste, & Gutzatz, 2013). Properly integrated diverse workforce reduces organization conflicts and promotes the best values. At the managerial level, retained diverse managerial team brings the best work practices and ensure efficient and effective work processes. Diverse management team come with new skills and ideas, which are valuable for organization performance (Caruth, Caruth, & Pane, 2009). Well retained diverse workforce increases creativity in an organization. Heterogeneous groups come with different ideas, which they share and implement for the benefit of the organization.

Coca Cola should undertake an elaborate recruitment process. Recruitment that ensure good skills are acquired. Recruitment and selection are vital processes in any growing organization. The processes, however, are influenced by very many factors. More funds should be allocated for recruitment process. Selection and hiring processes are not revenue generating activities (Caruth, Caruth, &Pane, 2009). Many scholars have categorized them as among the costly management practices. Once the company enhances its recruitment budget, the process of advertising vacancies, sending recruitment agents to various places, and collection information necessary for the process (Caruth, Caruth, &Pane, 2009). Budget determines whether an applicants can be tracked through digital systems or by the traditional paper examinations.

Coca Cola should strengthen its induction programs. Proper induction establishes clear foundation of expectations and foundation to an employee. Such expectations include organization values, etiquette, ethics, and decorum (Caruth, Caruth, &Pane, 2009). Employees are taken through what is expected of them in terms of daily or weekly output. Employees use induction to determine training requirement for the new employees (Caruth, Caruth, &Pane, 2009). Well-conducted induction ensure high retentions. First impressions are vital; employees who show satisfaction during their first times of employment tend to stay longer than those are unsatisfied during their first time in the organization. Induction facilitates employees’ growth since they spend less time in the learning times. In a competitive environment, the best talents are hard to find, and comes at a costs. Coca Cola induction programs have raised concerns, especially in its smaller offices.

Ethnocentric to Geocentric Transitioning

A critical factor of an international company is its ability to be accepted in all the cultural backgrounds it operate. Coca Cola has adopted ethnocentric approach in most of its subsidiaries; however, the advent of globalization is pushing the organization towards a geocentric operation approach (Sparrow, Brewster, & Harris, 2004). To achieve these Coca Cola strategies should focus on developing more flexible management approaches, create mobility in employment, train employees with focus on international operations, and develop enabling cultural background (Sparrow, Brewster, & Harris, 2004). The company shown trends of employing expatriates, shifting employees on regional and international basis, and offering training workshops for employees across the world at central points. Coca Cola should cultural change which will allow its stakeholders operate without cultural and geographic boundaries.

Conclusion

Coca Cola’s operation environment present a strong organization. The company has managed to grow even when others has faced management crisis. Despite its success, Coca Cola still has a room for development in many areas. Among the areas the company can strategically develop include its ethical and corporate governance, customers’ satisfaction, workplace management, and employees’ talent management. Based on the research, these are areas the company has underperformed or simply present growth opportunity.

References

Auguste, G. & Gutzatz, M. (2013). Luxury Talent Management: Leading and Managing a Luxury Brand. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Caruth, D., Caruth, G., & Pane, S. (2009). Staffing the Contemporary Organization: A Guide to Planning, Recruiting, and Selecting for Human resource Professionals. Westport:       Greenwood Publishing Group.

King, K., (2009). Workplace Performance-PLUS:Empowerment and Voice through Professional Development and Democratic Processes in Health Care Training, Performance Improvement Quarterly, 21(4), 55-74.

Murray, E. (2008). The Emperors of Coca Cola,Lulu.com:London

Oxford Business Group. (2010). The Report: Turkey 2008, Oxford Business Group: Oxford

Srinivas R., (2004). Human Resource Management in Practice: With 300 Models, Techniques and Tools, PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd., New York.

Sparrow, P., Brewster, C. & Harris, H. (2004). Globalizing Human Resource Management. London: Routledge.

The Coca Cola Içecek (CCI), 2010, Corporate social responsibility Report, Retrieved on 8th August, 2012, from Coca-colaIcecekSR.pdf

Y?lmaz, Argüden, 2011, Keys to Governance: Strategic Leadership for Quality of Life, Palgrave Macmilla: New York.