Contemporary Leadership and People Research 2022

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Contemporary leadership and people
Name
(Affiliation Institution)

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Introduction
Caltex Company is an Australian fuel and convenience brand that was founded in 1900
(Caltex Company, 2020). The company was first listed on the Australian Securities Exchange
(ASX) in 1940 (Caltex Company, 2020). Currently, Caltex Company is listed among top 200
companies in Australia under the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). The company has over
75,000 employees across Australia (Caltex Company, 2020). Since Caltex merged with Ampol
in 1995, the company has experienced rapid growth to become the largest refiner in Australia
(Caltex Company, 2020). The high growth and performances in the market have been fueled
significantly by its workforce performance culture as well as a high degree of commitment and
engagement among its staff. Therefore the paper seeks to determine how Caltex Company is
currently trying to improve its workforce performances, culture as well as levels of employee
engagement.
Performance Related Initiatives
In an organizational context, Performance is defined as an ability of an organization or
workforce to accomplish a designated duty or a task which is measured against the current know
standards of costs, competencies, speed as well as accuracy (Nnaji-Ihedinmah and Egbunike,
2015 p.80). Depending on various factors such as budget, core competencies, nature of products
as well as the size of a business, each company improves its performances though various
strategies and initiatives. Caltex Company is trying to improve its performances through various
strategies such as enhancement of capabilities and core competencies, boosting of employees
morale and motivation of employees as well as effective leadership.
The motivation of employees is one of the main strategies that Caltex is adopting to improve
its performance. Research conducted by Robescu and Iancu (2016 p.49) shows that there is a
strong positive relationship between employee motivation and performance as companies with

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effective motivation initiatives recorded high performances than others. Caltex Company tries to
motivate an employee to perform through adjustments of the reward and compensation. For
example, the company has implemented Variable remuneration and annual performance plan
which are aimed at rewarding employees to be motivated and improve their performances. The
variable remunerations are directly dependent on performances which are delivered through the
Caltex Equity Incentive Plan (CEIP) and annual Performance Incentive Plan (Caltex Company,
2020). The annual Performance Incentive Plan is designed in a manner that the payment of
initiatives is offered to employees based on organizational performance, department as well as an
individual. With incentives opportunities in the company, employees are motivated to perform as
the policy remains “the high the performance, the higher the incentives”.
Caltex Company is trying to improve its performances through enhancement of
employee’s capability and competitiveness. The company has significantly built its talent
management practices to reinforce a culture of innovation as well as performances. The
performance management practices have been in line with the organizational vision and
significantly assisted Caltex to deliver its strategic goals through the creation of skills that have
enhanced growth in the company. For example, Caltex Company has launched “Caltex
Academy” in partnership with an international business school as well as a leading university in
Australia with aim of polishing its employee and workforce at key stages of their careers (Caltex
Company, 2020 p.18). Caltex has also launched “Personal Best initiative” in 2015 which
accelerated relationship between managers and employees through career support and
expectations, better feedback and coaching as well as goal setting (Caltex Company, 2020 p.18).
Through the personal Best fit initiative, the company has been able to revolutionize its
performance management. These performances initiative in relation to core competencies is