Employee Retention Strategies
Employees play a crucial role in the development of the company as a whole. It is thus understandable why most companies invest on the improvement of the employees while some make an effort in getting their employees involved in the decision-making process of the company by consulting and consolidating their grievances. This really helps in the improvement and progress of the company since the employees would me more motivated to work. Empowering employees is basically under product development. Product development is actually considered as a cross-functional teamwork that has been very significant in the fast-paced, globally competitive environment (Hong, 2004). The most important factor for a company’s success is the effort to empower its employees in order to develop their skills and contribution to the company’s overall growth. Despite this fact, however, there are still many labor-related issues that emerge even among successful companies like Wal-Mart, Kmart and Target. Each imposes certain labor relations rule as each also faces different labor issues thrown by some of their employees.
The first case would be the employment retention strategies of Wal-Mart. It is definitely undeniable that Wal-Mart is a very successful venture. And part of the success of the company could be attributed to the employees. It is important to look into the policies imposed among employees and the issue on exempt versus non exempt employees, included among its employee handling and retention schemes. The Fair Standards Act (FLSA) has a rule that employers should classify the jobs in their companies to either exempt or non exempt. Basically, the non exempt employees are under the FLSA rules and regulations while the exempt employees are not.
The employees under the exempt positions are not included in the minimum wage, overtime regulations, and other rights and protections that are usually experienced by non exempt employees. For exempt employees, the employer should pay an hourly wage. Usually, those who are under the exempt positions are those in the supervisory, executive, professional positions. Meanwhile, the nonexempt employees, apparently, are not exempted from the FLSA requirements. Employees falling under this category must be paid at least the imposed minimum wage. Generally, the non exempt employees usually have more protection under the federal than the exempt employees. However, too often, the exempt and non exempt employees are treated in a similar manner. Despite the undeniable success of Wal-Mart as a business, there have been a lot of criticisms thrown to them in line with their employee and workforce relations, inadequate heath care, poor working conditions, and low wages.