Essay_Tma4

TMA4 draft Why P&G is the right company to work for. Introduction. Choosing the company to work for we keep in mind a number of criteria that would apply to it. I would choose Procter & Gamble (P&G) because it is one of the world biggest maker of household products, with at least 300 brands in six main categories: laundry and cleaning, paper goods, beauty care, food and beverages, feminine care, health care. The company has on-the-ground operations in more than 80 countries and employs approx 135,000 people. P&G offers challenging careers in all the functions you would expect of a major multinational company. These include Customer Business Development, Finance, Human Resources, Product Supply and Research and Development. A career in Marketing at P&G is about creating and developing brands that consumers are devoted to. Marketing, known as Brand Management, is one of the functions behind the success of P&G. It involves combining world-class marketing mastery with business leadership to create and build brands that improve consumers' lives. Established in its market and offering job security. P&G is well established in its market. It began as a small, family-operated soap and candle company now provides products and services of superior quality and value to consumers in 180 countries. One of the potential strengths of Procter & Gamble is the wide variety of products, following the six different business segments the company is offering its consumers. The worldwide demand for P&G’s products and services has forced management to focus on global marketing and innovation. This worldwide marketing and innovation success was achieved by making sure that what they produce is of highest quality and most importantly is what customers need. P&G is very adaptable to changing customer demands by carefully and clearly defining its innovative strategies; however, it almost lost its market dominance to competition in the mid 80’s had it not been its aggressive play-to-win strategy. (Davila, Epstein, & Shelton, 2006, p.73) “Senior P&G management admitted that they had not had a breakthrough innovation since 1985, and the company’s continued market dominance in the years ahead was in question” (Davila et al., 2006 p.73). Job security is mostly dependent on economy, prevailing business conditions and the individual's personal skills. The global economic environment has an impact on P&G's business. Fiscal 1999 /00 was a difficult year for P&G and for its many employees around the world. So, in order to re-establish the balance between top-line revenue growth and bottom-line earnings growth the company was planning to cut 15000 jobs all over the world while reconstructing the company, but at the same time the company tried to keep redundancies to a minimum, by using retirements, relocations, voluntary departures and reductions in hiring. The company applied the program which includes severance pay based on years of service, continuation of health care benefits for the severance period, outplacement support services and retraining allowance, provided a bridge for separating employees to retirement or employment elsewhere. Clear organisation vision and objectives The vision of the company is to be recognized as the best consumer products and services company in the world. The company has clear vision and objectives that are leadership, passion for winning, trust, integrity, ownership and P&G people. P&G people-the company attracts the finest people in the world. The company is sure that the people working in a company are an asset to the organisation, constant development of the company depends on the people working there. Leadership. The company has a clear vision where it is going and focuses all its resources to achieve leadership objectives and strategies. Passion for winning. The company has a strong desire to win in the market place. Trust. The company believes that people work best when there is a foundation of trust. Integrity. P&G upholds its values and principles in every action and decision. Company structure and culture The company has the multinational design which is common in global organisations. This structure can be seen as a complex form of the matrix, as it maintains coordination among products, functions and geographic areas. This structure allowed for the creation of global technical centers in different regions, each with a core competency in a specific product category. Together, the global category presidents and R&D VPs developed product-category platform technologies that could be applied to global branding strategies. In 1995 this structure was extended to the rest of the world through the creation of four regions -North America, Latin America, Europe/Middle East/Africa, and Asia -each of which had its own president with responsibility for profit and loss. In September 1998 the company started a six-year restructuring plan, as the previous global matrix structure was not sufficient enough. Nowadays the company structure is based on four pillars that are Global Business Units-define the equity or what the brand stands for. Market Development Organisations- ensures that particular brand excels in its region. Global Business Services utilizes P&G talent and expert partners to provide best-in-class business support services at the lowest possible costs to leverage P&G’s scale for a winning advantage. Lean Corporate Functions ensure ongoing functional innovation and capability improvement.-In 1995 the company eliminated 6 management layers. As to Burns, the company belongs to the organic type of organisations, so that is has constantly adapt to unstable market conditions, has to deal with new problems that continually arise. In order to adjust to these types of changes employees should be flexible, eager to learn all the time. Training, personal development and career progression opportunities The company offers internship programmes, student programmes and seminars, as a “build from within” organization, 95% of hired people start at entry level and then progress and prosper throughout the organization. This creates many opportunities to grow and advance, it creates a special camaraderie among fellow P&Gers, many of whom came up through the ranks together. Hiring process is very selective, the employer is looking for a person who has the potential to grow, to contribute to the company's success with his innovative and creative ideas. Applicants for Brand Management position may have any professional background. Tests and interviews intend to recognize the character of the person, ability to work in a team, communication, leadership skills. Career progression is real. P&G hiring a person, from entry-level plans to move that person and prepares career plans for all new-comers. It's up to the employees' initiative to get promoted. Positive work/life balance philosophy Providing good work/life balance for its employees is important for the company. P&G offers them activities at fitness clubs, the company has special “Work from home” program, it takes into consideration working mothers (recognized as one of 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers) and understands family commitments offering additional days off. After all, happy employees are more productive which translates to success to all. Procter & Gamble started their well-being programme based on results of their annual Employee Satisfaction Survey (2006). The aim of the well-being programme was to improve the personal wellbeing and health of the employees. In this way Procter and Gamble wants to ensure sustainable peak performance of their workforce and employee engagement. The objective was to integrate a well-being mindset in daily activities of employees. Sick leave percentage was already very low so a decrease of sick leave was not a priority. As a result nowadays the company offers several mental activities like yoga, laughing therapy, There is an “employee assistance programme” (offered by an external provider) for employees having personal problems. They can contact this service as often as they need and get psychological assistance. This is handled strictly confidential. P&G only receives information about the amount of intakes and figures about what kind of problems were assisted. Different physical activities are offered as well, like running sessions, a team step (walking) competition and physical stretching exercises during a healthy walk after lunch break etc.Good benefits package In order to draw the best people P&G offers competitive salaries and benefits and if an employee is a high performer the salary increases. In order to create the right workplace the company is constantly looking for the ways to improve the social benefits as well. P&G created a compensation package that offers substantial benefits from entry level through retirements. When it comes to the quality of life the company offers a unique opportunity. From the challenge of working life to the security of life away from work, Procter & Gamble meets needs. P&G offers pension scheme and healthcare to its workers, but there are no bonuses until the employee worked for the company at least for 5 years. Conclusion. P&G is a great place to work for. Starting your career with them as a Brand Manager you will have immediate project responsibility and after having 'training on the job' and having seminars the employee is given a brand to develop. For every area of work there is a clear career path, so while applying for a job one already knows the purpose of the job, and the possibility of promotion. The company meets all the criteria listed above and offers great opportunities for career development. Total word count: 1500 References: EU-OSHA – European Agency for Safety and Health at Work http://www.pg.com/en_US/downloads/sustainability/reports/sustainability_summary_2001.pdf http://knol.google.com/k/how-procter-and-gamble-survived-through-innovation-a-case-study# http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2009/08/strategic-business-analysis-procter-gamble.html http://www.uk.pg.com/company/aboutPG/history.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/the_company_file/364961.stm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_structure http://images.marvindicated.multiply.multiplycontent.com/attachment/0/SWHfrAoKCD8AAAyuF5Y1/PG%20Org%202005%20A.pdf'nmid=161015165 T. Burns , D.S. Pugh (ed.), Organisation Theory, Penguin 2007.