Walgreens employee stock purchase plan

Benchmark - Global HRM Presentation

the Company is Walgreens

Create a PowerPoint (PPT) presentation of 10-15 slides (excluding the introduction and references) that provides a brief overview of global HR concepts.

Be sure to provide the following in the presentation:

A description of your selected organization as well as the country in which the organization is intending to do business internationally.
A discussion of how the four factors that affect HRM in international markets would affect your selected organization's approach to global HRM: (a) cultural dimensions, (b) education-human capital dimensions, (c) economic systems, and (d) political-legal systems.
Selection of expatriate managers.
Training and development of expatriates.
Compensation and employee benefits offered.
Conclusion.
Include a title side, introduction/outline slide, and references slide. Each slide should contain no more than five bullet points.

Incorporate three to five references to support your presentation. These references should provide support/justification for HR actions as it relates to the international culture the organization is entering.

While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and documentation of sources should be presented using APA formatting guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Please refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.

Walgreens Strategic HRM Plan

Founded in 1901 in Chicago by Charles R. Walgreen, Walgreens has managed to grow exponentially over the years, earning it the accolade of the largest drugstore retail chain in the United States. The company has managed to register the exponential growth through embracing innovative strategies including emphasis on quality production and exceptional service care, massive investment in research and development (R&D), strong leadership, and vibrant marketing strategies. Having a strong human resources department has also contributed directly to the success of Walgreens. To this end, the company’s HR goals align with and support the overall organizational goals. These HR goals have included maintaining a diverse workforce, prioritizing ongoing training of employees, and emphasis on employee development. The company also maintains responsive performance appraisal systems and incentive structures. This strategic HRM plan will provide a succinct description of Walgreens, highlight results of a SWOT analysis, identify some HR goals, outline alignment of these goals with the company’s strategic plan, and document an organizational hiring goal to improve the sustainability of the company.

Summary of Organizational Description

Charles R. Walgreen founded the company in 1901 in Chicago. By 1926, the Walgreens had expanded to more than 100 stores throughout Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin (Walgreens.com, 2019). Currently, the company is the largest drugstore retail chain in the United States. At the core of Walgreens’ business is their pharmacy. The company specializes in a variety of consumer goods including beauty care and personal care products, convenience foods, household products, photofinishing, as well as prescription and over-the-counter medication. Bacon (2014) acknowledges that in addition to its well-established pharmacy stores, Walgreens also operates its Health and Wellness division that runs in-store clinics and its Health Services division that offers prescription drugs and medical health plans. As of 2018, the company had over 240,000 employees and 9,560 drugstores across all 50 states, Washington D.C., U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico (Walgreens.com, 2019). The vision of Walgreens is to become “America’s most loved pharmacy-led health, wellbeing and beauty enterprise” (Bacon, 2014, p. 8).

SWOT Analysis

Walgreens has a number of strengths that it can capitalize on in order to enhance its sustainability. Nevertheless, the company also has some internal weaknesses that it needs to address while exploiting available opportunities and mitigating potential threats. A major strength pertains to the strong financial standing of the company. In the 2018 fiscal year, Walgreens registered revenues of $131.5 billion, an operating income of $6.4 billion, and a net income of $5.1 billion (Walgreens.com, 2019). With such a strong financial standing, the company can be able to make massive investments in research and development (R&D) in order to improve the quality of their product and service offerings.

Another major strength that Walgreens enjoys stems from its engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. For example, it has a program for combating childhood poverty through donations that it makes on the Red Nose Day annually (Walgreens.com, 2019). Other initiatives have included liaising with the United Nations Foundation to fight diseases such as HIV and cancer. In addition, the company has shown great commitment to environmental protection through using sustainable production processes. Kotler & Keller (2016) assert that engagement in CSR initiatives can enable companies such as Walgreens to sustain a strong brand image. The other strengths enjoyed by Walgreens include diversity and inclusivity of its workforce as well as strong brand recognition.

In spite of the aforementioned strengths, Walgreens also has some inherent weaknesses. One weakness comes from the organic approach to growth taken by the company. Rather than buying other chains and building from there, Walgreens’ approach emphasizes on building their own drugstores from the ground (Bailey, Mankin, Kelliher, & Garavan, 2014). This has restrained the company from having a larger market share when compared to competitors such as CVS. Another weakness emanates from inconsistent implementation of in-store formats at different locations. Poor social media reach coupled with limited presence in other markets are the other weaknesses that Walgreens faces (Bacon, 2014).

Walgreens can exploit various available opportunities in order to sustain a competitive edge. First, opportunities exist for expansion into other markets, most notably the emerging markets such as China, Brazil, and South Africa (Holbeche, 2012). These countries have economically empowered and huge populations. Walgreens can be able to increase its market share and revenue through opening more drugstores in these regions. Another important opportunity is exploiting social media platforms more for marketing purposes. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace can be able to reach a wider target clientele at relatively low costs (Kotler & Keller, 2016). In addition, the company can be able to get invaluable feedback from the aforementioned platforms that it can use to make product and service improvements.

Noteworthy, a major threat that has the potential of undermining Walgreens’ sustainability is increased competition from other industry players. According to Bacon (2014), the main competitors include CVS Corporation and Rite Aid. These competitors have implemented vibrant strategies including strategic acquisitions to solidify their business operations. Walgreens must similarly come up with innovative strategies in order to keep abreast of the industry competition. The company also faces threats from the surging number of mail order pharmacies and global economic downturns that may undermine the spending and purchasing powers of consumers, thereby affecting company sales (Bacon, 2014).

Human Resource Goals that Fulfill the SMART Criteria

Coming up with realistic human resource goals that fulfill the SMART criteria can enable Walgreens to work towards the attainment of its organizational goals. The following are the best strategic HR goals for Walgreens to implement:

· Increase the percentage of employees from the current 69% who achieve at least 85% of their annual performance targets within the next 2 years

· Provide advanced training to all employees on aspects such as customer service, diversity awareness, and cross-cultural communication within the next 6 months with the aim of increasing customer engagement and satisfaction by 60%

· Open at least 15 foreign subsidiaries with fully functioning HRM departments in emerging economies in the next 1 and half years

Alignment of Human Resources Goals and Strategic Plans

The Human Resources goals of the company are indeed in perfect alignment with the strategic plans of Walgreens. The company’s strategic plan places immense emphasis on employee performance in order to improve service and product delivery. Bailey et al. (2014) affirm that in order to achieve this goal, the company must perform comprehensive performance appraisals to identify employee strengths and areas of weakness that might require further improvement. Walgreens in its strategic plan also emphasizes on its commitment to continue developing a diverse workforce. This certainly aligns with the HR goal of providing ongoing training on areas such as diversity awareness and effective cross-cultural communication. Such training can also place the company in a better position as it embarks on its international expansion endeavors (Holbeche, 2012).

Proposal for an Organizational Hiring Goal

Because Walgreens has ambitions of expanding its operations into other markets, it should come up with a hiring strategy that incorporates selection, recruitment, and retention of employees from the targeted markets in order to achieve its strategic goals and objectives in the international operations. This is especially true when considering hiring for top management positions. Bailey et al. (2014) reiterate that putting local staff on these management positions can endow companies such as Walgreens with numerous advantages and opportunities, most of which come from the vast experience of the local leaders and their strong leadership experience in the local context. In addition, as compared to expatriate managers, local managers in the targeted destinations will be much more in touch with the local culture, market, and trends, thereby helping Walgreens to identify the unique needs that they need to meet in order to remain competitive in the market (Holbeche, 2012). Training and employee development programs should be a major priority for the company as it deliberates on its international expansion and hiring of local employees.

Conclusion

Walgreens has managed to register exponential growth ever since its inception in 1901. Some of the factors that have contributed to this success include strong emphasis on innovation, effective leadership, emphasis on CSR initiatives, a strong brand image, quality of products and services as well as emphasis on inclusivity. The HR goals for the company have also been in perfect alignment with the strategic goals/plans of the company. Nevertheless, Walgreens has some inherent weaknesses and threats that may undermine its sustainability. Addressing these potential threats and weaknesses can go a long way in increasing the competitiveness of the firm. The main opportunity that the company can exploit to improve its performance is international expansion. Coming up with ingenious hiring strategies, for example hiring talented, local management staff will be critical in the success of the company as it pursues this goal.

References

Bacon, J. (2014). America's corner store : Walgreens' prescription for success (3 ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.

Bailey, C., Mankin, D., Kelliher, C., & Garavan, T. (2014). Strategic human resource management (3 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Holbeche, L. (2012). Aligning human resources and business strategy (1 ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2016). Marketing management (3 ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.

Walgreens.com. (2019). About Walgreens. Retrieved from https://news.walgreens.com/fact-sheets/about-walgreens/