Employee Motivation Strategies of Top Companies

This assignment requires analyzing various studies and reports on employee motivational strategies employed by leading companies such as Nestlé Bangladesh Ltd and corporate social responsibility (CSR) best practices. The documents include academic papers, research reports, and industry publications that provide insights into effective management of HR for factory maintenance, organizational citizenship behavior in schools, and strategic employee motivation through effective management in HR.

Running head: ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational Behavior
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of Nestle and Unilever..................................................................................................3
Description of both the companies in brief..................................................................................3
Motivation Systems.....................................................................................................................5
Theoretical Background...............................................................................................................5
Theory in practice in the two companies.....................................................................................6
SWOT Analysis...........................................................................................................................8
Feedback and Proposed Action Plans........................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
Motivation is one of the major factors that govern the grounds for engagement in a
distinct by an individual or group of individuals (Barrick et al. 2015). In order to successfully
conduct its business, it is very important for an organization to keep its employees motivated,
as for only the motivated employees will bring in better productivity. Motivation affects each
and every aspect of a business. This paper shall elaborate on the different motivation systems
on Nestle and Unilever. It shall compare and contrast on the motivation system of the two
companies and their performance based on different motivational theories. It shall further
shed light on a brief evaluation and analysis of their incentive systems as a whole.
Apparently, the paper also includes an analysis of the SWOT of both of the companies which
is based on the overall motivation performance of the companies. Finally, as a
recommendation for both the companies to improve their employee motivation system as
well as their performance, an action plan is constructed.
Discussion
Analysis of Nestle and Unilever
Description of both the companies in brief
Nestle is the leading Health, Nutrition and Wellness company in the world (Porter and
Kramer 2018). It is a food processing company and was founded in the year 1867 by Sir
Henri Nestle, a pharmacist in Switzerland. As the most profitable corporation in the world,
the company was listed as number 64th in the fortune global 500, 2017 and 33rd on the Forbes
Global 2000 in the year 2016. Gradually the company, with its wide range of products,
offering millions of people in the world has succeeded in being the world’s leading food
company (Scrinis 2016). It owns several famous brands in their range of products, starting

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from Milo, Nescafe to Maggie and Nestum. Since the brand is trusted, people always chose to
buy its products above all. The company has more than eight thousand brands along with
wide range of products across various markets. Its product includes medical food, baby food,
coffee and tea, bottled water, dairy products, confectionary, snacks, frozen foods, pet foods
and ice cream. The company is also one of the major shareholders of the world famous
cosmetic brand L’Oreal (Williams 2014). Since its emergence, the company has been serving
worldwide, with more than 447 factories, operating in about 194 countries and employing
more than four lakh people.
Unilever on the other hand, is a consumer goods company and is a merger of two well
known companies- Dutch Margarine of Holland and Lever Brothers of UK (Lindblad, 2013).
It was founded in the year 1930 by William Lever. It is headquartered in Rotterdam,
Netherlands. As of 2012, the company is listed as number one in the list of largest consumer
goods company in the world. It is also one of the few largest producers of food spreads. The
company is serving the entire world since its emergence and now has earned its position as
one of the best FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods Industry) in the world (Thain and
Bradley 2014). P&G is the sole competitor of Unilever (Mehrotra 2013). The company is
invariably increasing its range of products in order to provide more intense and extraordinary
development. It has a total of five laboratories around the world that scrutinize new and latest
techniques for making more improvement. The main purpose of the company is setting
highest standard of its organizational behavior along with everyone it works with. It focuses
is on innovation, which is helping the company in bringing out more new products for the
consumers each and every year.

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Motivation Systems
Theoretical Background
Motivation is usually conceptualized as a desire or an urge that arises from within an
individual. As stated by Pezzulo et al. (2014), motivation is an internal processes which
guides, activates and maintains the behavior, particularly the goal directed behavior. Martell,
Dimidjian and Herman-Dunn (2013), further defines motivation as an essential element to
quality and adaptive functioning of life. According to Aunger and Curtis (2013), motivation
is based on a variety of human needs. He believed that there are a total of five basic needs of
the hierarchy of needs theory. The Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is among the most popular
theories, which has been always the centre of interest by most of the management
researchers.
Fig 1: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
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This five step model is further divided into growth needs and deficiency needs. The
top most level is called as the being needs or as the growth needs, while the next four levels is
referred to as the deficiency needs. According to Maslow, the deficiency needs arises because
of deprivation and he said that this need can motivate an individual when he is unmet, while
the growth needs stem from a desire to grow as an individual. Once the growth needs are met,
he might be able to reach to the top-most level of the hierarchy, i.e., the self-actualization.
Apparently, According to the Hygiene theories, which proposed the famous Two-Factor
theory of Human Motivation, also known as the Motivation-Hygiene Theory, the things that
people come across fulfilling in their workplace are not always the reciprocal of the things
that they identify as dissatisfying. DiPaola and Tschannen-Moran (2014) further highlighted
that the employee motivation theory suggests long-term commitment, organizational
citizenship behaviors of loyalty as well as high levels of extra role practices that leads to
maximized level of organizational commitment. This theory is in line with the Expectancy
Theory that suggests that high expectancy is perceived in case when the employee believes
that his extra performance has the potential to lead to increased pay raises, promotions, and
recognition. According to Trevino and Nelson (2016), the success in becoming household
names established strongly in the person’s minds for a company largely relies on its
organizational culture as well as the behavior of its employees because they are solely
responsible for the creation of products that the company offers.
Theory in practice in the two companies
The HR policies and practices in Nestle are dedicated to all its employees and it ensured
that the company has the right people along with right skills and knowledge in the right
places (position). As discussed above, the company is the largest and the one of the most
respected food companies in the world, and its success is surely built on its people it has. Its
years of experiences have taught that employees acquire more importance than its systems

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and processes. Nestle works a lot on the development of its employees in order to make them
productive. It follows the theory of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs within its organization. In
order to meet the physiological needs of all of its employees, the company provides them
with sufficient food and water supply, pure air to breathe and it also provide residence for its
employees. It has its own NSMS (Nestle Occupational Health and Safety Management
System) for its employees (Sroufe and Joseph 2017). It also conducts behavior based safety
programs and safety at work award for its employees in order to promote safety culture
within the workplace. It focuses a lot on preventing accidents. It also has Operational safety,
health and risk management system in its organization. Furthermore, the company has
launched Nescare program for its employees. This program helps in joining the employees
emotionally to the organization. It provides several benefits to its workers such as financial
security assistance to its employees for their retirement, competitive pay, opportunities for
their learning and development, high quality benefit programs and health care, work and life
benefits, financial assistance to its employees for illness, death or disability. Apparently, in
order to meet their esteem needs, Nestle supports the two guiding principles of the United
Nations Global Compact, based on the human rights. Hence, this shows that Nestle respects
as well as supports protection of global human rights in its globule of influence. It is also
against child labor. The company also sticks to the ICC or International Chamber of
Commerce Business Charter for the sustainable development (Chantraine 2017). The
Business Charter requires establishment of the policies, practices and programs for managing
operations in the environmentally sound way. Lastly, it must be noted that Nestle takes five
approaches to motivate its employees and they are-
 It says its employees thank you by giving them meaningful gifts
 It supports a healthy lifestyle
 It uses foodservice rewards as an incentive for the workers

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 It give all its employees career development opportunities
 It respects all its employees
Like Nestle, Unilever too aims for establishing a long term and strong organizational
commitment from its employees. Unilever believes that there is a very strong connection in
between motivation and reward. Therefore, in order to ensure continuous growth within its
organization and among its employees, Unilever offers financial motivations and reward to
all of its employees. It offers them a wide range of non-financial incentives (Gassenheimer,
Siguaw and Hunter 2013). With the same, it also offers a high competitive salary packages to
the employees in addition to its pension scheme, dental benefits, free health, stiffen spending
accounts, life insurance, as well as tuition reimbursements. The company motivates all of its
workers for taking minor everyday engagements, which helps in adding up to a great
transformation for the whole world. Apart from these, the unique benefits that the company is
providing to its large array of employees include rewarding them with rewards and perks like
gym facilities, onsite wellness, pet friendly environment, laundry rooms, massage, first-class
dining, carwashes etc.
SWOT Analysis
According to (), SWOT analysis is a very useful technique in order to understand the
possessed Strengths and the weaknesses as well as to identify the Opportunities present and
threats that an organization might face in the near future. SWOT is an acronym, which stands
for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The Strengths and Weaknesses belong
to the internal of an organization, whereas Opportunities and Threats are external to the same.
This is a framework that helps in analyzing these internal and external factors which are both
constructive and adverse in order to achieve the organization’s objective and in regards of
motivation the SWOT analysis present below can be identified to Nestle and Unilever.

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Strengths Weaknesses
1. Loyal employees
2. Unique motivation system
3. competitive financial motivation
system
4. Brand name
5. Strong financial position
6. Largest market share
1. Problem in finding and retaining a
top-notch workforce
Opportunities Threats
1. Adapted new technologies
2. Effective research and development
department
3. Can provide incentives to the retailers
in order to increase its sales volume.
1. Increased global competition in the
food and retail industry
2. Turnover rates
3. Increase in the price of raw materials
4. Highly competitive market
Table 1: SWOT analysis of Nestle
In the SWOT analysis of Nestle’s motivational system, it has been identified that the
biggest strength of the company is its efficient and loyal workers that have played a major
role in making the company rank number one in the world’s best food processing company
(Chowdhury 2015). The key strength of the company is that it follows a unique motivation
system in order to keep all its employees motivated. It offers an efficient and competitive
financial motivation system along with a wide range of non-financial motivation system as
well. Its other strengths include its brand name, which attracts more people to seek for
employment under it and the powerful financial position it has in the market. However, the
weakness of the company is the same like that of any other company- its high turnover rates
and facing issues in finding and retaining the desired workforce. As for opportunities, the

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company can adapt new technologies and effective research and development department
with latest equipments for conducting researches. It can also provide incentives to the
retailers in order to increase its sales volume. As far as the threats present for the company is
concerned, it is to be noted that there is an increase in competition in the market as the
competitors of Nestle are also continuously thriving and developing and this in turn is
welcoming a risk that they too might implement the motivation system adapted by Nestle in
order to attract the employees present here.
Strengths Weaknesses
1. Strong leadership
2. Supports the retirement schemes
3. Equitable worker compensation
4. Life assurance
5. Private medical insurance
6. Access to sport facilities
7. Pay for performance
1. Problem in finding and retaining a
top-notch workforce
Opportunities Threats
1. Health and wellness space
2. Bolster its product ranges
1. Turnover rates
2. Strong competition in the consumer
goods industry
Table 2: SWOT analysis of Unilever
From the above SWOT table of Unilever, it can be seen that the company has a wide
array of strengths based on its motivational system, which is attracting numerous employees
towards its workforce. Right from its leadership style to the benefits it is providing to each of
its workers are highly competitive and effective (Epstein and Buhovac 2014). However, just
like Nestle, Unilever too faces problems in finding and retaining a top-notch workforce

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manytimes. Moreover, the opportunities present for unilever are many in the present days. It
has a great opportunity in making its position in the health and wellness space and to bolster
its product ranges. Lastly, there are few threats present for the company in today’s market
and that include risk of increasing employee turnover rates if its competitor companies starts
to adapt similar motivation strategy in order to motivate their employee, along with extra
benefits. This shall attract the employees present in the Unilever towards those companies,
resulting in rise in the employee turnover rates. With the same, there is also a strong
competition in the consumer goods industry.
Feedback and Proposed Action Plans
For every company, retention and motivation of the key talents (employees) is very
important. The only way to keep the employees engaged and involved within their work is by
motivating them to do so. In order to achieve this, below is a set of action plans are proposed
for both Nestle and Unilever:
 Motivate the employees from inside out; enthusiasm needs to come from within each
of the employees. However, it is also true that what can inspire one person, may or
may not work for the other. Hence, the companies must create an all-inclusive
winning work environment for the employees and they must make sure to encourage
the employees to believe in it.
 Give them what they want. If an employee asks for more feedback on his work and
more responsibility, give that to him. A person who is actively participating and is
trying to become more engaged and involved in the organizational success must be
encouraged to do the same. When they feel that their skills and talents are been
valued, the contributions are recognized, they are likely to remain motivated.
 Invest in employee recognition and rewarding programs. Additional incentives for the
employees make them strive for success. These give the employees opportunities to

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shine in their respective area. Acknowledging the contributions of the employees
publicly will inherit a sense of importance within them. However, it is to be kept in
mind that the parameters that are set and decided for a contest should be equally valid
for the people who work in such an area where their results or outcomes could not
easily quantified, for example- in a non-sales positions where there is no target to
calculate the ultimate production of the employee. Most of the times these people do
have a significant contribution on the overall business but they go long time without
being recognized and getting any special rewards for their work.
 The lines of communication must be kept open. Regular meetings and forums should
be conducted where the employees can get ample of space to provide their ideas and
input. Through offering them the opportunities to the employees to voice their
comment and concerns on the issues related to the organization they work under, an
organization keeps the line of communications open for them, providing them an
insight of the big picture. With the same, through this, the employees also feel that
their inputs and ideas really matters to both the present and future of the company.
 Put a positive spin on the performance reviews. While conducting a performance
review, make sure to measure the growth of each employee and discuss about their
positive contributions which they have made all through the year.
 Ask open-minded questions. Ask the employees to write self-assessing that details
their impression about their work that they have done in the last year. Ask open
minded questions. This will provide the employees with opportunities to discuss their
parts of the job which are most and least rewarding.

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Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that both Nestle and Unilever are
among the leading food companies in the world and they are intended to remain the same in
the coming future as well. It is to be noted that both the companies offer highly effective and
competitive motivation system within its organization from both the financial as well as the
non-financial systems. Along with that, both the companies follow motivational strategies
that are similar in many ways. This individual assignment has provided a critical analysis and
comparison on the motivation systems and performance of Nestle and Unilever, two of the
best known and leading companies in the global market. From the overall analysis it is to be
concluded that in both the companies, there is a strong link and mutual interdependence in
between the motivation environment and organizational performance, as this is only because
of their employee motivational strategies that these companies has become two of the world’s
leading companies in the current era.

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