Title
v What motivates the employees in the Zamels Chain of Retail Jewellery Store?
Purpose
v The purpose of this research is to explore the motivation used by Zamels Chain of Jewellery Store to its employees and be able to recommend new motivational programs to the management that will improve the current motivational practices of the employees.
Background
v Zamels is one of the most recognized jewelry stores in Australia. It has nearly 70 stores nationally and is still looking to expand more in the country. It offers both products and services related to jewelry. It sells in-demand jewelry brands such as The Love and Passion Collection, Master Cut Diamonds, Certina, Delma, Pulsar, and many more. On the other hand, it also offers services such as jewellery repairs, watch repairs, battery replacements, and valuations.
The History of the Zamel Group
Lily and Phillip Zamel opened their first store in Cooma, NSW during the year 1954, when construction of spectacular and vital dams was in full swing as part of the historic Snowy Mountains River Scheme. These were exciting years, as many of the workers on the scheme were brought in from all over the World, giving Lily and Phillip an early opportunity to establish their own jewelry store. Both Lily and Phillip, along with their first son Adrian, arrived in Cooma, and during the years of living there, their second son Stephen was born. It was then that Lily and Phillip felt that city life would be more beneficial for their two young sons, and after hearing about the growing opportunities in South Australia, they made their move. In 1960, with the assistance of the South Australian Housing Trust, they opened a jewelry store in the new "satellite" city of Elizabeth, located just north of Adelaide. They also operated a coffee lounge in this area, which necessitated a 20-hour working day. They survived this pace for 12 months, selling the Celebrity Coffee lounge and opening the Elizabeth Gallery Gift Store instead. Four years later, they decided to spread their wings, taking the opportunity to open new jewelry stores in the growing areas of Tea Tree Plaza at Modbury, and Parabanks at Salisbury. This is when the real growth of the company began.
After selling their Gift Store in Elizabeth, Lily and Phillip decided to concentrate on selling only fine jewelry, and the company grew as a truly genuine jewelry business selling diamonds, gold, silver, precious stones and watches.
Phillip who is a qualified Watchmaker, started to travel the world looking for and finding new and exciting jewelry ideas and products. Meanwhile, Adrian had become a qualified manufacturing Jeweller and Stephen had joined the business as a retail apprentice. By this time, their third son Mark had been born in
Elizabeth. During these years of growth, Zamel's opened a store in Grenfell Street in the City, and not long after moved to the heart of the central business district in Rundle Mall. It was at this time that Joe Kertesz joined the company as Secretary/Administrator.
With the company operating very successfully in Adelaide, the Zamel Family decided to look for other areas in which to expand, the first being Perth in 1988.
There are now 24 very successful stores in Western Australia, and following their move into Victoria in 1990, this State now has a total of 23 well established stores. It was on September '98 when the Zamel Group expands yet again into another Australia State… this time Tasmania… with 3 stores in Hobart, at Eastland, Northgate and Centre Point Shopping Center. In March 1999, the company opened its first store in Canberra A.C.T. located at Woden Plaza. There are now 5 Zamel's stores in Canberra. This means that now, Zamel's has nearly 70 stores nationally, with more on the drawing board…and they are constantly looking not only for the growth of their business, but to further improve their product range, superior customer service and their image as a reliable, trustworthy family organization.
Mission Statement
1. To be the leading retail jeweler in Australia.
2. To provide quality merchandise at an affordable price.
3. To give superior service to our customers.
4. To provide a challenging, rewarding and stable working environment for our staff.
Culture
The culture of the company has developed by:
"Implementing strategies that focus on the optimum use of human resources and staff development, within a fair and ethical workplace, in order to ensure success for both the individual and organization”.
Source: www.zamels.com.au
v The research focuses on the branch in Albany, specifically on Albany Plaza Shopping Centre in Albany Highway.
v This research will explore the motivational levels of employees of Zamels in Albany. Through this investigation, conclusion will be made from the factors that motivate the employees and factors that do not motivate them. Recommendations will be provided.
Issue
v The key issue that will be addressed in this study is, if the current compensation and management of Zamels in Albany motivate its employees. Working for a retail jewellery store can be risky because of the high risk to robbery and theft. However, it could also be rewarding because it is not physically exhausting. It is interesting to know which of the current experiences, the current policies and the current environment of the stores motivate employees. This will also determine which of the present factors do not motivate them.
Aims
v To conduct research and examine the current factors that motivates the employees in Zamels Albany.
Objectives
v To identify the motivational factors that motivates Zamel employees in Albany.
v To build a questionnaire and to conduct surveys on the employees.
v To analyze the data and results.
v To draw conclusions of the study and provide recommendations for practice and future research.
The Study aims to find out the motivational factors affecting the employees in Zamels Albany. More specifically it aims to answer the following questions:
Literature Review
v Robbins (1998) stated: Motivation – “The willingness to exert high levels of effort toward organizational goals, conditioned by the effort’s ability to satisfy some individual need”. On the other hand, Greenberg and Baron (1997) define the motivation as “the set of processes that arouse, direct and maintain human behaviour toward attaining some goal” (Greenberg and Baron, 1997).
v Theories of motivation can be divided into two: the content theories; and the process theories (Mullins, 1999). Content theories emphasize the factors that motivate individuals. Examples of content theories are Maslow’s theory, Alfelder’s theory, McClelland’s theory, and Herzberg’s theory (Mullins, 1999). On the other hand, the emphasis on process theories is on the actual process of motivation. Examples of process theories are Expectancy theories, equity theory, goal theory, and social learning theory.
Content Theories of Work Motivation
Content theories propose that within individuals, there exist certain psychological characteristics, usually termed needs, which predispose the person to initiate, direct, and maintain effort. Earlier, theorists assumed that these were universal, inborn, human characteristics but later models introduced the notion of "learned needs" (McClelland, 1961, 1962, 1965a, 1965b, 1971).
v The most basic theory of motivation is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The theory consists of five sets of goals, which are physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization. The theory explains that people, including employees at organizations, are motivated by the desire to achieve or maintain the various conditions upon which these basic satisfactions rest and by certain more intellectual desires (Maslow, 1943).
One of the earliest and still very influential theories was Maslow's needs hierarchy (Maslow, 1954, 1968). This was a general theory of what energizes people to action but it was quickly applied to the work situation. According to Maslow, the most basic needs are physiological-those that sustain physical life, such as the need for food. Next in the hierarchy are security needs-the need for physiological safety and shelter. Also in this group Maslow’s term of social deprivation needs; is the need for affiliation-to feel that you belong, are loved, and so forth. If this latter need is not met, the person cannot achieve a healthy personality. Next are the growth needs, which are forward looking, driven, incentive motivators.
The first of these is the need for self-esteem-to achieve self-respect, to feel that one is worthwhile and successful. Finally, there is the need for self-actualization-for self-fulfilment and to achieve all that one is potentially capable of. These two growths need to drive the person to want recognition from others, development, challenge, and the freedom to be creative and innovative. According to Maslow, these needs are activated in a dynamic cycle of deprivation. If a lower level need is not met, the person is energized to remedy the deficiency and does not attend to higher level needs until it has been satisfied. Self-actualization is an attempt to self-actualize for satisfaction. In other words, we are looking for the possible solutions on how we can achieve our needs even if it’s risky. (Doyle, 2002, pp.93-94).
v The expectancy theory represents an attempt to explain workers’ motivation in terms of anticipated rewards. The model assumes that people make rational decisions based on economic realities (Kreitner and Kinicki, 1998). Although slightly different versions of expectance theory have been proposed – including popular ones by Vroom and by Porter and Lawler – expectancy theorist agree that motivation is the result of three different types of beliefs that people have. They are as follows:
o Expectance – the belief that one’s effort will result in performance
o Instrumentality – the belief that one’s performance will be rewarded
o Valence – the perceived value of the rewards to the recipient.
Expectancy Theory
V. H. Vroom (1964) suggested that people consciously choose particular courses of action, based upon perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs, as a consequence of their desires to enhance pleasure and avoid pain. Porter and Lawler later developed Vroom’s concept and came up with a theoretical model that suggests that the expenditure of effort by an individual can be determined by an individual’s perceived value and expectations of the outcome (Pinder, 1984). This model is generally known as expectancy theory but is sometimes referred to as VIE theory, where the letters stand for valence, instrumentality, and expectancy, respectively (Mitchell and Mickel, 1999). Expectancy theory is classified as a process theory of motivation (Fudge and Schlacter, 1999) because it emphasizes individual perceptions of the environment and subsequent interactions arising as a consequence of personal expectations. Content theories on the other hand are motivation theories that focus on the internal attributes of the individual.
v Basically, the leadership style of the managers should contribute greatly to the effective implementation of the motivation programs. Quantitative studies conducted in the past showed positive relationship between leadership behavior and job satisfaction (Euske et al, 1982; Savery, 1994).
Leadership and Motivation
Successful leaders share four important insights and beliefs about the nature of their relationships with followers. A successful leader has a different view in the chain of command. He recognizes the importance of influencing the follower gently towards a desired goal (Miller, 1996). He does not force or pushed the followers to accomplish the goal of the organization (Maccoby, 1996). The leader needs to establish a relationship of mutual interest and draw the followers along a pathway that will satisfy both their goals (Kouzes and Posner, 1993). When the leader pushes or forces the follower to a certain goal, it can lead to undesirable results and frustration. In order to strengthen the chain of command, the leader needs to know his followers and find out what motivates them, and take part in their overall development (Miller, 1999). A successful leader endeavours to understand the needs, goals and personal motivations of each follower. The leader faces and finds solutions to the challenge of satisfying the individual needs of the followers and fulfilling the goals of the organization or company. McConnell (1998) suggests that it will be advantageous both to the leader and followers if the leader spends time to get to know his followers better. This advice applies to leaders as well. Leaders need to pay attention to details regarding their followers. Effective leaders enter into meaningful discussions with followers to mutually establish training needs, work assignments, developmental pathways, valued outcomes for performance, and other issues of importance for the latter. The leader must display sensitivity, ingenuity, and judgement in marrying corporate and personal follower objectives throughout the process of communication. Special attention must be paid to those areas in which the follower lacks self-confidence or the capability (Daly and Kleiner, 1995) to achieve results. These constitute weak links in the chain and they must be strengthened through appropriate reinforcement and training. The successful leader also realizes that he cannot directly motivate his followers. His success lies in his ability to create favourable environment and conditions that will encourage the followers (McConnell, 1998). Perhaps, the most important consideration relates to the significance of organizational rewards from the follower's point of view. When a follower highly values a reward, the probability of triggering self-motivational processes grows considerably. An effective leader can differentiate between extrinsic and intrinsic rewards and knows how to use these rewards in order to motivate the followers more effectively. The leader should not only give rewards such as money, praise and recognition, he must also know how to make the followers feel fulfilled whenever a job gets done. Satisfaction results when the effort expended (Brown and Peterson, 1994) has proven personally worthwhile and fulfilling. In order to motivate the followers more, the leader should always keep them satisfied. For the person in search of leadership qualities, the fourth and final attitude relates to the importance of honesty (Earle, 1996) and consistency of behaviour displayed to followers (Daly and Kleiner, 1995). An effective leader values credibility and avoids inconsistency. The leaders needs to be honest, fair and must posses a credible code of conduct. Consistency makes the followers feel more secured and they trust their leader more. Inconsistency has a potential to breed discontent and distrust.
Methodology
v The following subheadings describe the various parameters the research will follow:
Population
v The total population of employees in Zamels Albany are not identified yet. Further research will be conducted to identify the population. However, the target population for survey is 100% employees on that branch.
Sampling
v Employees will be sampled through convenience sampling
v Employees who do not want to participate in the study will be subtracted from the 100% original samples.
Instruments
v A structured questionnaire will be designed for the purpose of this research. The questionnaire will approximately contain 20 to 30 items that would help identify the motivating factors of employees in Zamels in Albany. The questionnaire will be submitted for approval.
v Once approved, a pilot test among colleagues will be conducted.
v The participation of the employees in filling up the questionnaire will be confidential. Each will be treated with anonymity.
Limitations
v Possibility that some responses of the respondents are inaccurate or are irrelevant.
v Possibility that respondents may decline to answer in the process or may give false answers.
Recommendations
v Recommendations will be addressed to the management, to give them ideas for possible improvements in their operational management approach.
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