Target Corporation

Strategy/Corporate Social Responsibility

Cravens & Piercy (2003) established that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the self regulatory form of organisations and its integration into the business hemisphere. It is a view of how business activities and decisions affect the immediate environment, which is the society. Business activities are the ethical standards and international norms that businesses embrace in order to impact on the community. Social responsibility is the ethical practice and policies that a business comes up with in order to implement its goals (Cravens & Piercy, 2003). Conventionally, CSR was majorly driven by philanthropy, however, this has shifted to the commitment of protection of the business organisation through; business ethics, worker training, worker hiring and all major activities of human resource management.

Cameron & Quinn (2010) believe that organisations are made up of protocols in management, where corporate executives are surcharged with the mandate of deploying strategies that address the social, economic and environmental ways of doing business while addressing their impact on the resources available. This implies that the social policies that are made in the business world have a great impact on the future of the business. The CRS program helps to define priorities and come up with an integration of social responsibilities for effective value of the business. Basing on the fact that most organisations flourish on profits and dwindle on losses, there should be a clear model for addressing the perspective of the organisation from preceding elements of how it used to perform in the past, how it is performing now and future prospects. This alignment of performance needs strategies to address the pros cons that the organisation faces in order to rationalise the best course of action. This synthesis through which organisations are pegged is what entails the notion of CSR (Cameron & Quinn, 2010).

Target Corporation insists that the intensive program of CSR involves the channels that companies put in place to remain at the helm of success and how such channels have brought the social value into focus. Such channels aid organisations into the insight of practices for improvement. For instance, it imparts knowledge on decision making process, management of risks and general assessment of performance.  These practices are vital in shaping the future of the organisation through alignment of the track for success. It is also vital for investors as it is an analysis of financial performance (Target Corporation, 2012).

Since CSR is the characteristic definition of performance of a company through its own strategies, it has a number of initiatives, which vary from charitable efforts and volunteering to human resource management, risk management, operating licence and differentiation of brands.

Charitable organisations are efforts made by advocates of CSR, basing on the fact that the corporate sector is made up of members bound together on fiduciary terms. This implies that the responsibility of every member in an organisation is dependent on actions inclined to good faith. This has an impact on the environment as it defines the character of the organisation. It is also vital to the society in that the selfless contribution of every member leads to productivity.

Conventionally, volunteering was the major initiative of CSR; however, this has changed to more complex business contexts like human resource management, which is the hierarchical placement of employees into the line of duty. It involves training, hiring, promotion and sacking of employees. The future of every organisation is dependent upon the human resource management, which forms the community of the organization. Human resource management defines the future of the organisation through predetermining the expertise and professional capabilities of the organisation. CSR is vital in human resource management in that it aids in sound decision making process in selecting the staff to work with. It is also essential in building up of teamwork responsible for articulation in production of effective goods and services for profitability. The major work of the human resource management is to design the rules and regulations, which define the goals of the organisation. It is also the duty of the human resource management to oversee implementation of these goals. The process of implementation of the goals is what entails the corporate social responsibility (Cooper & Slagmulder, 1997).

 Consequently, CRS fosters towards risk management. This is categorically the process of evaluation of an event from knowledge of a sample space but whose outcome cannot be foretold from a single try. This implies that the future of an event is predetermined from possible trends, while putting in place measures to curb vulnerability to the worst outcomes. Risk management procedures include strategies for compensation in case of any calamity. The major purpose of CSR in risk management is compliance. It is essential in mitigating the internal risks and operational impacts. The risk management agencies shows correlation with other companies as the organisation has to employ qualified practitioners to deal with assessment (Keifer, 2008). This builds up the relations within and without the company to include corporation with related companies. This has a positive impact on the foundational basis of the company as it is not easily waived by circumstances like calamities. Risk management is also essential to investors as it gives an oversight on the future of the amount put into the uptake of the organisation.

Keifer (2008) believes that the other initiative of CSR is value creation, which is a field that aims at innovations and elevation of a sustainable business model. The survival of any organisation depends on production of quality for global competition. Value creation is a concept that assists in maintaining the needs of customers even in times of crisis like the global financial crisis. This aims at eliminating all barriers like possibilities of counterfeits or use of substandard raw materials to compensate for possible foreseen losses.  It is in this element that organisations make up long lived customers for its prosperity. Value creation is also vital in integration of business into the community and promoting competitiveness. For instance, companies that focus on value are likely to win customer confidence.

Brand differentiation is closely related to value creation, although it involves innovations into state of the art goods for competitiveness. Brand differentiation is essential in meeting customer requirement through production of unique options for organisations to compete effectively with their minds of consumers. Since every organisation is well set to come up with unique features in goods that they produce, it acts as a competitive advantage to customers. It is therefore the role of each organisation to structure the CRS system to launch new brands in order to compete effectively with the market.

CRS is also a corporate philanthropy, where it acts as source of funding and skill. In this case, corporate social responsibility is essential in sponsorships, although this has a negative impact on the organisational operations and strategies. For instance there are limited funds for running organisations due to donations to charity. Consequently, participation in charitable organisations detriments its role as a business organisation and shifts its focus to social affairs. This greatly affects the normal operations of the organisation due to shift of resources thus impacting negatively on productivity.

Although assumption of corporate social responsibility does not guarantee prosperity of an organisation, there are target policies that clarify its impact on the business environment. For instance, the conventional way of approach of corporate social responsibility as a charitable organisation is a reason for shift into social affair. For transformation into the business world, CSR has target policies, which include governance, compliance and sustainability.

These policies work in correlation to define the life cycle of the CRS. Firstly, they help identify suitable opportunities that address the areas of focus. Secondly, they give the best course of action and the framework for implementation. The policies are also essential in replicating similar implementation programs for situations that seem alike. For instance, in estimating the cost of risks, where a similar approach might be used in case of a similar risk. This creates awareness and perfection, thus shaping the skill. Consequently, the policies are vital towards the self sustainability of the organisation through the initiative programs in place. This might help forge ahead to find other interesting new opportunities.

The policy of governance is a legislative, which is influenced by other external factors like the legislation system.  For instance, some countries select evaluations of performance of specific companies in terms of the CSR to assess the set values and their impact on the future of the organisation, which gives a form of central legislation, while in developing countries, governance in corporate social responsibility lies in the hands of the organisation where the executives formulate the policies that affect the organisation. On the other hand, compliance is the ability of an organisation to reach out to its goals. This involves the increased prediction into the needs of the market without increased production costs. On the other hand, self sustainability is the art of acquiring independence from external factors that underpin growth. Sustainability is viewed in terms of social sustainability and environmental sustainability, where the social sustainability is the way the actions of the organisation affects the well being of the society, while the environmental sustainability is the way the actions of organisations affects the environment. A sustainable environment is the one free from harm.

In conclusion, the corporate social responsibility is the commitment of organisations to social and economic development of the society where they operate. This coordination is vital in the creation of business relations within an organisation and the environment surrounding it. The concept incorporates a symbiotic factor between the social relations it engages in the society and the economic benefits it gains. For instance, the society is a source of labour, while corporate social responsibility ventures like charity aids in the healthy living of the society. Consequently, the society is the long term market for the goods and services that organisations produce. The target sales strategies are directly influenced by the corporate social responsibility, where the long term policies of the organisation influences the process of decision making, where competitive advantage supersedes the demand of goods. This implies that without legislations to match the needs of the market with available resources, most organisations would be doomed. The initiatives of corporate social responsibility are contributory factors towards the sustainability of the organisation.

However, some initiatives like the charitable organisation and volunteering do not depict the business structure since it leads to consummation of funds meant for expanding the organisation. The target policies impact on the corporate social responsibility through defining the footpath that the organisation might use in case of a similar calamity. all these is geared towards the self sustainability of the organisation, where the social sustainability is the power of an organisation to maintain desirable terms with the society, while environmental sustainability is the power to maintain the environment without harm. Therefore, corporate social responsibility is the path for analysis of performance of the organisation form the past record, to the current performance record and the future prospects of the organisation. It seeks to give a foresight into the generations of the organisation and the alterations that might help improve performance.

Strategic Human Resources Management at Target

Target’s business environment revolves around human resource management, which is the practice of recruiting, selection, assessment and rewarding of employees. This process happens in compliance with consideration from the organisational leadership and with compliance with the culture of the labour laws. Conventionally, human resource management was focused on employee payroll and benefits. However, this has shifted due to technological advancement. It now includes specific aspects of the employee, which includes talent management, acquisition and succession planning. Target’s human resource management revolves around management of employees on acculturation to the working environment. This implies that the process is pegged on cultivating a person with talent into heights of profession to become the source of information about the culture of the organisation. The process of training is also essential in imparting new ideas and knowledge to keep the employees relevant to the ever changing global world (Target Corporation, 2000).

Based on the company’s employment policy, the process of hiring is based on the talent, and professional skills, while rewards are given to the employees through incentives based on performance. This is critical in boosting the morale of the individual, while building confidence in the workforce to retain the vital talent into the organisation. Target’s human resource management of companies that have been started without employees depends on the untrained professionals, who are put on apprenticeship business terms (Target Corporation, 2012).

Although, it is the duty of trained and professionals to deal with hiring and management of employees, newly started companies fall short of this procedure. Therefore, they depend on expatriation process where one with little or no skill is cultivated into fully acquainted professionals through the existing norms. Once the expatriation process is implemented, the expatriates act as the professionals of the organisation, where they aid in legislation process and implementation of the set goals of the organisation. They are also eligible to perform all the human resource management including hiring, training, firing and promotion of the new staff. The overall destiny of the company lies in their hands while the destiny of the employees lies in their competence. The individual talent that flourishes for the benefit of the organisation is termed as the target team member, which is essentially made up of employees with knowledge in their areas of specialisation (Balmer, 2003).

 The target team members fall in hierarchical codes of duty with protocol from the headquarters generalisation team, which is the highest in rank to the team member services, which assists the team members in the general benefits of the organisation. The other subsidiary teams making up the target’s team are the distribution generalised team, which starts with self actualisation steps of training talented members and then developing tools that aid in maximisation of their contribution, where they are acculturated to the existing norms of the organisation. This team forms the future of the organisation through retaining the culture under which the organisation thrives. The store generalised team deals with recruiting the store management team that helps in driving the culture in an organisation. The talent acquisition team has the responsibility of delivering a target experience brand to recruits, where they develop projects for talent acquisition and innovations to contribute towards new discoveries (Target Corporation, 2012).

On the other hand, the organisational effectiveness team is charged with the responsibility of imparting administration skills to the targets, where individual administration records are closely monitored for effecting judgements. Consequently, the pay and benefits team contributes in the strategising and formulation of the best compensation model. This model is based on individual performance and track record, where high performers are rewarded to boost their morale towards the contribution to the organisation. This implies that the operational framework of human resource management of targets lies within different career choices that revolve around expatriation process (Berner, 1996).

The target human resource management is made up several platforms of representation of employees, made up of hierarchical development. This is set on the basis of protocols, where every employee forms some form of management rank. These ranks are defined from the upper level management to the lower level management. The process of hiring of personnel into firms takes place depending of professional knowhow. The first batch of employees to launch the firm is technically professional. These are followed by a group of untutored although talented batch, which goes through the expatriation process through apprenticeship. They are taught how to work with the resources within the organisational framework to gain expertise from the job. Once this group is articulated to work, it would guide as the training batch for other groups to come. This helps in reservation of culture of the firm as skill is passed over from old to new generations.

The second aspect of target’s firms on employees is the motivational and compensation aspect. It is regrettable that some employees are subject to different compensation despite doing the same kind of work. This practice has a challenge of discriminatory settings within the firm. However, compensation is on grounds of the rank that one holds and the volume of contribution to work. This comes from the fact that despite doing the same work, the level of competencies differs in a wide range. The target firms evaluate performance contracts to ensure the highest level of performers are rewarded more in relation to other lower performers. It is also the jurisdiction of human resource management to fire non performers.

The other aspect of target’s human resource management is maintaining of employees. This is the aspect of retention of qualified employees to work for the firm with favourable payment without overriding the costs of management. This is tricky since the expectations of employees to firms change with time. However, the process of management of resources vested to employees is defined in the set goals within the organisation. The compensation scheme is aligned with performance of the employees (Target Corporation, 2012).

These procedures are vital in impacting the productivity in that motivated employees tend to perform more. Human resource management aligns performance of employees with the set goals, whose probability of achievement is high. The fact that the expertise workers are used to train the employees without expertise knowledge ensures pass over of the culture of the firm, which implies that the set goals are achievable. This also aids in higher probability of finding solutions to challenges because the retained personnel has a more experienced approach to problem solution.

Human resource management in target’s firms also assists in control of quality production. This comes from the efforts vested in hiring expertise employees. Consequently, the fact that non performing employees are terminated from duty is a move towards streamlining the manpower for the best service delivery.

It is also essential in cost management, since resources vested in employee compensation are achievable from the services they offer to the firm. By consideration, using trained personnel to impart knowledge to non expertise but talented personnel saves the firm costs of hiring already trained personnel. This is also vital in retention of the culture of the organisation, which is essential in fulfilling the goals set by the organisation. Above all, disqualification of nonperforming staff seals loopholes of possible payments to non credited labour, which saves the firm the extra cost. It is also cheaper to train talented employees into the field of administration than to hire already experienced staff. This is vital for retention of the culture in which the firm is pegged as it ensures pass over of information from generation to generation (Daniels & Daniels, 1993).

Conclusively, the target corporation is obligated to human resource management made up of hierarchy that is wholly dependent on the professional qualifications. The work of human resource management involves hiring of new staff that is made up of expatriate staff, which is vital for training the new talented but non expertise staff. This is an alignment that is vital for retention of the corporation’s culture. The benefit of human resource management to target corporations is increased productivity due to availability of performing staff. It also impacts on the cost of running the corporation through elimination of possible payments made to undeserving staff. Consequently, it impacts on the quality of production since all the staff assigned to various forms of duty has the technical knowhow on the expectations, which are achievable (Daniels & Daniels, 1993).

However, there are setbacks in compensation of employees working on the same job but with different compensation plans. This comes as a result of the rank that one operates. While it is advisable to pay more for one in a higher rank, it is discriminatory on the part of the others, who work in the same field. This is dealt with through alignment of a competitive channel for reward of higher performers to boost their morale, while those with poor performance records are given an opportunity for further training to impart more skills. If this does not work out, then the firm’s management is obliged to impose a dismissal to alleviate costs due for underperformance. Consequently, the employees with good performing records are elevated in rank to work in training the less skilled.

Summary and Conclusion

According to Balmer (2003), corporate social responsibility is alignment of resources, rules and regulations within an organisation to impact positively both to the environment and the community. It provides a platform, which shows correlation between the well being of the organisation and the environment surrounding it. The major initiatives of corporate social responsibility are value creation, protection of direct harm to the environment and risk management. Conventionally, programs of corporate social responsibility involved charitable organisations, which was a positive impact to the society. However, this has changed due to shift to business mindedness. The charitable organisations were ways of siphoning through the organisational resources at the expense of economic upsurge (Balmer, 2003).

On the other hand, target corporations are charged with the mandate of human resource management through hiring of employees base on professional qualifications, maintaining of employees through compensation schemes, and motivation of employees through incentives and promotions. These duties are geared towards the attainment of the set goals of the organisation. The human resource management functions within target firms are defined on a hierarchical procedure from the lower management to the higher management. There are a number of teams, where employees are performing duties depending on the professional qualifications. Argumentatively, I would prefer working in the management level where one has the capacity of administration. This is because the set constitution within the organisation acts as a guideline to the activities expected of the administrator. Consequently, the management level beholds favours of higher pay, despite working under the same conditions. In management, most of the duties involve prescription of work to be done, which is easier than working in a store, where one is accountable to the management. Therefore, while working for a targets corporation, I would put emphasis on the management since the profession bestowed within myself is of competence and helpful to the management.

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