MBA401 Report: Caltex Company's Leadership, Performance, and Culture

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Caltex Company's initiatives related to leadership, performance, organizational culture, and employee engagement. It begins with an introduction to the company, its market position, and its workforce. The report then delves into Caltex's strategies for improving workforce performance, including employee motivation through reward and compensation, and enhancement of capabilities and core competencies. It explores the company's clan corporate culture and initiatives to improve it through ethics, corporate social responsibility, inclusivity, diversity, and a safe working environment. Finally, the report examines Caltex's employee engagement strategies, such as employee wellbeing programs, recognition programs, and career development initiatives. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and highlighting the impact of these initiatives on Caltex's overall performance and success, referencing the company's annual reports and other relevant sources.

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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

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measured by degree at which employees are being innovative, accurate and creative in their
roles.
Culture Related Initiatives
In an organizational context, Culture is defined as a set of collective attitudes, values and
beliefs in an organization. Currently, Caltex exercises a clan corporate culture. According to
Sugita and Takahashi (2015 p.182), clan culture is a type of corporate culture that is heavily
rooted in strong relationships as well as collaborations in an organization. Caltex Company is
trying to improve its culture by engaging in various practices such as ethics and Corporate Social
Responsibility.
The core values of Caltex Company includes confidentiality, safety, integrity,
responsibility as well as inclusion and diversity. All employees in the company are guided by the
code of practices that the company has set. The code of conducts directs the employees to be
responsible and accountable for their behaviour which might risk the organizational reputation.
The company has developed a “whistleblower initiative” which enabled the employees to report
anonymously unethical practices that might occur in the organization (Caltex Company, 2018
p.18). The ability of employees to exercise their professional core values as well as code of
practices provides an effective measure for this initiative.
Caltex tries to improve its corporate culture by supporting inclusivity and diversity in the
company. In the context of diversity and inclusivity, Caltex has significantly improved the
number of female representation in the senior positions with the company achieving its target of
33% women in senior leadership roles in 2016 (Caltex Company, 2020 p.18). The company has
also started offering “Our Baby Care package” which assists in the provision of support to
parents returning from Caltex workforce in 2016 (Caltex Company, 2020 p.18). Through the

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Baby Care Package, the company granted 24 mothers maternal leave as well as one father a
paternal leave (Caltex Company, 2020 p.18).
The ability of the company to have employees from diverse races, gender, religion and
ethnic measures the degree of how the culture is reinforced.
Caltex Company has also tried to improve its culture by maintaining a safe environment
for the workforce. The company has launched “Incident and Injury Free (IIF) initiative which is
implemented through coaching for senior managers, supervisory skills, training workshop as
well as orientations sections to improve occupational safety of its employees. Furthermore, IIF
has enabled the company to establish “a culture of care” (Caltex Company, 2020 p.18).
Furthermore, in 2007, Caltex also launched another initiative which enabled employees to stop
work card if they feel the organizations is not safe for them. The degree at which the
organization is compliant to Work, Health Acts (WHS) as well as Occupational Health Safety
(OHS) measures how the culture is reinforced in Caltex.
Engagement Related Initiatives
In an organizational context, engagement is defined as a degree in which employees are
committed to the values and goals of their organization and are highly motivated to achieve
organizational success. Caltex Company tries to improve engagement of employees through a
various strategy such as maintaining employees’ wellbeing, employee recognition, fostering of a
positive working environment as well as supporting career development.
In terms of Employee Wellbeing, Caltex has highly invested in the health and wellbeing of
its employees to increase their effectiveness as well as engagement. Caltex Company engages
employees by offering emotional support through its main initiative called “Caltex Employee
Assistance Program (Caltex Company, 2020 p.22). The initiative assists employees to handle
personal and workplace issues and also provides medical care to them and their families. The

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measurement for the effective adoption of the initiative is low levels of employees turnover as a
result of sick offs as well as occupational stress.
Recognition is also another way that Caltex Company engages employees. The company has
developed an initiative called “Recognizing Results Program” which is aimed at motivating
employees to engage more and commit themselves in the organization for a long time. The
company has so far recognized over 740 employees for their contributions rewarding them a
variety of non-cash and cash awards (Caltex Company, 2020 p.19). Furthermore, every year,
Caltex Company conducts “annual Stella Awards” which is specifically designed basically to
celebrate the values of the organization (Caltex Company, 2020 p.19). Ever since Caltex
Company launched the two initiatives; “Recognizing Results Program” and “annual Stella
Awards”, the level of engagement in the company has significantly increased. The effectiveness
of initiatives can be measured by the organization having low workforce conflicts and minimized
absenteeism due to sick off.
Career development is also another strategy that Caltex tries to engage its employees. The
company introduced an initiative called “performance managed systems” in 2016 to identify
learning needs of employees for the company to have effective training, mentorship as well as
coaching development for developing the employees' careers (Caltex Company, 2020). The
company also runs developed Employment value proposition that is “You Take Us Further” and
runs the engagement survey in an effort of encouraging employees to be more committed (Caltex
Company, 2020). The e level of the employee engagement initiative success is very high.
Conclusion
Caltex has experienced a high performance due to various initiatives that the company
has implemented over the past decades. The company has used reward and compensations
strategy, enhancement of competency and motivation of the workforce to improve its

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performance. Caltex Equity Incentive Plan (CEIP), Caltex academy, best fit employee, annual
Performance Incentive Plan and Variable remuneration and annual performance plans have been
used by Caltex to also stimulate performances. Engaging in various practices such as ethics and
Corporate Social Responsibility has helped Caltex to improve its culture. The cultural related
initiatives like whistleblower initiative, our baby care and “Incident and Injury Free (IIF)
initiative have significantly supported in the reinforcement of culture. Maintaining employees’
wellbeing, recognition as well as supporting career development are strategies that Caltex has
used to improve employee engagement. Caltex Employee Assistance Program, annual Stella
Awards “and Recognizing Results Program” are initiatives supporting the company to improve
engagement.

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References
Caltex Company, 2018.Perfromance initiative. [Online] Available at: https://www.caltex.
CALTEX%20AR2018%2006%20Sustainability%20B%20(1).pdf [Accessed 16 April 202
Caltex Company, 2020. About us; proudly fueling Australia since 1900. [Online]
Available at: https://www.caltex.com.au/our-company
[Accessed 16 April 2020].
Caltex Company, 2020.people and values; Sustainable operations. [Online]
Available at: https:// https://microsites.caltex.com.au/annualreports/2016/files/SUSTAINABLE-
OPERATIONS.pdf [Accessed 16 April 2020].
Nnaji-Ihedinmah, N.C. and Egbunike, F.C., 2015. Effect of Rewards on Employee Performance
in Organizations: A Study of Selected Commercial Banks in Awka Metropolis. European
Journal of Business and Management, 7(4), pp.80-88.
Robescu, O. and Iancu, A.G., 2016. The effects of motivation on employees performance in
organizations. Valahian Journal of Economic Studies, 7(2), pp.49-56.
Sugita, M. and Takahashi, T., 2015. Influence of corporate culture on environmental
management performance: An empirical study of Japanese firms. Corporate Social
Responsibility and Environmental Management, 22(3), pp.182-192.