HRM552 Assessment: Woolworths' Organizational Justice and Wellbeing

This essay critically evaluates the effectiveness of Woolworths' policies regarding organizational justice and employee wellbeing, drawing from the author's internship experience. It defines organizational justice, including distributive, procedural, and interpersonal justice, and argues that while Woolworths has fair employee schemes on paper, their practical implementation is lacking. The author recounts instances of unequal treatment and ineffective management, leading to employee dissatisfaction and turnover. The essay also discusses employee wellbeing as a crucial factor for organizational success, emphasizing the role of HR managers and line managers in fostering a positive work environment. Despite Woolworths having employee benefit plans, the author observed disrespectful treatment by line managers, negatively impacting employee morale and performance. The essay concludes that Woolworths needs to improve its practical application of justice and wellbeing policies to ensure a positive and productive work environment, with Desklib offering additional resources for students studying similar topics.

Running head: HRM
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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Are Woolworth’s policies with respect to Organizational justice and employee wellbeing
effective?
Organizational Justice can be defined as the perception of the employees and their
determination of the fact whether there exists fairness in the workplace or not. According to
Bratton and Gold (2017), there exists two kinds of justices, distributive justice and procedural
justice. In distributive justice, the outcomes are judged and it is decided whether they are fair or
not whereas in the procedural justice the procedures used to arrive at a conclusion are decided
upon effectively (Alfes et al., 2013). There is another kind of justice, called interpersonal justice
where the manner in which interpersonal interactions and treatments are done is discussed.
When I was interning at Woolworths, my experience was not encouraging. According to
me the organization is divided into several groups and each of these groups possessed a power
based on which the other employees in the organization were treated. Even the management of
the store where I had an experience was faulty and they did not adhere to the policies regarding
employee welfare. When I was placed, a certain group of employees had complaint to him, but
no fair conclusion could be arrived at. Hence, these employees left soon as per their perception,
Woolworth`s managements had not been able to provide them with justice with respect to the ill
treatment done by others.
Although Woolworths has a fair employee scheme, in actual practice I believe it is not
very effective. According to me, this is not correct as the company is one of the leading
organizations and they need to ensure that all their practices with respect to justice are not denied
in actual scenarios. The company needs to act as an example in front of other organizations in

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Australia so that makes them socially responsible. Ensuring justice is crucial because the
wellbeing of an employee plays a critical role in the success of the firm.
Employee wellbeing can be defined as a responsibility of the organization which can be
shared by all the stakeholders. According to Brewster (2017), when the employees are treated
well in an organization they perform better and thus it is the duty of the firm to ensure that in
order to adopt wellbeing measures, the companies need to communicate the responsibility to all
the members who are include. In such a scenario, it lies the role of the HR Manager to ensure
welfare of the employees. (Purce, 2014). Their role lies in acting as a partner to the senior
management and ensuring that the manager is encouraged to manage their employees in a better
manner and inculcate the welfare of employees and related policies. Brewster, Chung and
Sparrow (2016), state that it lies the major role of the different line managers to ensure that the
wellbeing of employees is ensured effectively. They need to provide a positive environment and
only then they can benefit.
As I interned at Woolworths, I believe that they have a very strong setoff employee
benefit plans and policies at place, however, in actual practice the aspect is missing. The line
managers who are believed to have a crucial role to play, tend to treat the employees with utmost
disrespect. As I was working under one, I observed that the employees who performed poorly or
committed a mistake were ill-treated and they were punished by salary deduction method. This
used to have a negative impact on the employees and they started performing poorly. At one
incident, even I was mistreated and the manager threatened me to fire me immediately. Although
occasional feedback system is fine, the rude behavior of the managers towards the employees
tends to act as a hindrance for the wellbeing and then according to me, employees cannot be
retained for long.

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References
Alfes, K., Truss, C., Soane, E. C., Rees, C., & Gatenby, M. (2013). The relationship between line
manager behavior, perceived HRM practices, and individual performance: Examining the
mediating role of engagement. Human resource management, 52(6), 839-859.
Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2017). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Brewster, C. (2017). The integration of human resource management and corporate strategy. In
Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 22-35). Routledge.
Brewster, C., Chung, C., & Sparrow, P. (2016). Globalizing human resource management.
Routledge.
Purce, J. (2014). The impact of corporate strategy on human resource management. New
Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals), 67.