How L.L. Bean Uses Its Own Products and Services to Enhance Total Compensation for Its Employees
L.L. Bean has been in operation since 1910 and as per its founder philosophy, the company has over the years continued using its products and services to improve total compensation for its staffs. L.L. Bean has over the years adopted this strategy since it is a significant factor that has enabled it to remain competitive, profitable and sustainable for over 80 years of its existence. However, unlike other companies, L.L. Bean uses its products and services in an interesting way to improve the total compensation of its staffs. First, L.L. Bean encourages it's over 11,000 staffs to purchase their products and services at a discounted rate or even for free, thus, being able to earn the trust of its own staffs (Kulik, 2014). In turn, the employees are able to recommend their family members, friends and other members of the society to also try L.L. Bean products and services. Additionally, L.L. Bean provides its employees with other products and services to utilize for free such as company fitness centres, company-owned outdoor gears especially canoes and tents as well as organizing for outdoor adventure days which are fully paid for by the company.
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Identified Internal and External Strengths and Weaknesses and How L.L. Bean Responded to Them from A Total Rewards Perspective
The internal strength that L.L. Bean exhibited is that it had a very strong and developed workforce which had developed over the years. L.L. Bean staffs were well catered for as the company made sure that their employee's development was their ultimate priority, thus they offered strong benefits packages to their staffs. However, the major weakness with the workforce at L.L. Bean is that almost every employee was just developed to grow their traditional catalog business without focusing on retail expansion or internet sales a factor that made their sales to stagnated in the first few years of 1990’s. On the other hand, the external strength L.L. Bean had was that it had strongly established its presence in the market through its catalog business strategy even prior to the e-business boom, hence, it was able to maintain strong market position (Giancola, 2014). However, a major weakness with this was that it proved very difficult for L.L. Bean to shift and adapt to rapidly changing external market environment mostly in the technology and communication matters.
Nevertheless, to counter the internal and external challenges above, L.L. Bean performed a complete overhaul of its operations by capitalizing on its major strength its employees (Beadle, 2015). The company significantly improved its total employee’s compensation which made it possible for the company to recapture and even improve its market position than even before.
Traditional and Non-Traditional Rewards and How They Are Used to Meet L.L. Bean Objectives
L.L. Bean engaged in various traditional and non-traditional rewards to boost its employees a strategy that enabled the company to reclaim its market position it had lost especially in 1996. Some examples of traditional benefits that L.L. Bean offered to its employees include awarding bonuses based on employee’s performance as well as providing cafeteria-style health care for all its employees (Gupta, & Shaw, 2014). On the other hand, the non-traditional benefits L.L. Bean offered to its staffs include offering discounted prices to their staffs purchasing their products, providing company-owned outdoor gears especially canoes and tents and offering free on-site fitness programs to their employees. Offering traditional rewards helped to lower the rate of employee’s turnover as many experienced staffs extended their stay at L.L. Bean which enabled it to meet its objectives. Further, non-traditional rewards system played a great role in boosting employees confidence that the company really cared for them which in turn helped enhance employee’s loyalty, hence, enabling the company to re-establish its market position very easily.
How L.L. Bean Aligns Its Benefits with Its Corporate Values
L.L. Bean aligns its benefits with its corporate values in various ways. The company does this by offering a certain percentage of their profits to their staffs and stakeholders; participating in environmental preservation programs; putting in place sustainable measures to management of natural resources; being the advocate of labor rights in which case the company has a standard code of conduct for all its vendors advocating for safety working conditions, fair compensation and non-discriminatory practices as well as donating towards charitable institutions.
Recommendation on An Expansion of The Benefits Programs Offered at L.L. Bean
As Bengtsson, & Hand, (2013) suggests, an ideal benefit program is one that focuses entirely on the employee welfare despite it being in alignment with the organizational goals. Thus, in this case of L.L. Bean, I would recommend that the company incorporate formal healthcare benefits to its employees as opposed to the traditional one they are currently offering. Additionally, the company should adopt an organization-wide benefit awarding system so that even those personnel not directly involved in sales of the company products and services can feel motivated instead of only awarding employees based on their individual sales performance as this would cause others feel rejected, hence, the benefit system will ultimately lose the principle of inclusivity (Bryant, & Allen, 2013).
Biblical Integration
Various books in the bible have clear relevancy to the concept of enhancement of overall employees pay. For example, in the book of Mark 6:37 which states that But He answered them, "You give them something to eat!" And they said to Him, "Shall we go and spend two hundred denarii on bread and give them something to eat?". Going by this biblical teaching, it is clear that employers should consider awarding their employees other employment benefits in addition to their normal pay.
References
Beadle, C. E. (2015). Revitalizing employee benefits programs. Compensation Review
Bengtsson, O., & Hand, J. R. (2013). Employee compensation in entrepreneurial companies.
Bryant, P. C., & Allen, D. G. (2013). Compensation, benefits and employee turnover: HR strategies for retaining top talent. Compensation & Benefits Review , 45 (3), 171-175.
Giancola, F. (2014). Are Employee Benefit Programs Being Given Enough Credit for Their Effect on Employee Attitudes? Compensation & Benefits Review
Gupta, N., & Shaw, J. D. (2014). Employee compensation: The neglected area of HRM research. Human Resource Management Review , 24 (1), 1-4.
Kulik, C. (2014). Human resources for the non-HR manager . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
