Loblaw

Performance Management

Loblaw creates a “pay for performance” culture to motivate employees to do their best in order to get better paid. The company rewards good performance to differentiate the top performers who met the standards from the poor performers. So the company recognizes and retains its top performers and avoids losing money on overpaying the poor performers.

Performance evaluation and feedback

Managers of each department provide feedback for the employees according to the standards introduced in the employees’ handbook. Employees at Loblaw are informed of the company’s progress and get their own timely performance feedback. And the managers and their employees hold meetings in person regularly. The company believes that in this way the employees would feel more engaged. Employees’ salaries and bonus of the year are closely related to their performance, so the environment of “pay for performance” is reinforced.

Having supervisors and managers looking when employees are at work seems to be a good idea to improve the employees’ performance. However, actually, the supervisors and managers always see the best performance, since that is what their employees want to show, especially when they know that somebody is watching. In this case, manager and supervisor appraisal can sometimes be inaccurate and unfair. Customer appraisal and team appraisal would be great additions to Loblaw’s current source of appraisal. Managers and supervisors cannot see everything their employees do during work time, but team members and customers are always around and have enough time to observe. Putting employees into groups and let team members evaluate their teammates’ performance or asking customers for feedback of a specific employee would be helpful, since the company would get more meaningful and comprehensive information about their employees’ daily performance.

Management of occupational health and safety

Loblaw takes employees’ health and safety into serious...