MBA401 Report: People, Culture, Leadership at Scentre Group

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the people, culture, and contemporary leadership practices within the Scentre Group Limited. The report examines the company's culture-related initiatives, performance-related strategies, and employee engagement programs. It highlights the importance of diversity and inclusion, including the 'Diversity and Inclusion Council' and the 'Westfield Local Heroes' program. The report also explores performance initiatives such as employee appraisal and training programs, as well as strategies to maintain high employee engagement through surveys and feedback. The study concludes that the company's focus on diversity, employee engagement, and performance recognition are key to its human resource function and overall success. The report references key academic sources to support its findings.

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People, Culture and Contemporary Leadership
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Culture Related Initiatives...............................................................................................................2
Performance Related Initiatives.......................................................................................................4
Employee Engagement....................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Employees of an organisation are undoubtedly the most important assets as the success of
all the business processes and functions is dependent on the skills, productivity and the
engagement of the employees. With the increment in the complexities of the business functions,
the overall culture of an enterprise together with the leadership play the chief role in the
development of the individuals to render the best towards the achievement of the individual as
well as the organisational goals (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2017).
The following work is aimed at evaluating the corporate culture of the entity in terms of
one of the performance related initiative, culture based initiative and the overall employee
engagement in one of the most popular organisations namely the Scentre Group Limited. The
company is a shopping centre company with the major area of operations at Australia and New
Zealand. The work would conclude on the effectiveness of the above initiatives in terms of the
organisational performance.
Culture Related Initiatives
It is imperative to note that one of the keys to success in the dynamic business
environment is the establishment of a sound culture within the entity based on the shared set of
beliefs as sustained by the structure and the strategy (Barak, 2016). The three outcomes of a
sound organisational culture are the awareness of the expectations of the management, and the
apt conduct by the employees in response to the same, and the demonstration of the overall
organization's values and thereby getting rewarded.
The analysis of the culture at the Scentre Group Limited is as follows. The culture of the
entity is flexible and inclusive for various communities. The corporate culture is a mix of skills,
knowledge, experience and diversity, including gender based diversity. One of the significant
achievements of the entity is that the same has been recognised as Employer of Choice for
Gender Equality Corporate Governance Statement by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency
(WGEA) (Scentre Group, 2018). The gender diversity in the culture can be demonstrated with
the fact that the company had hired 43% of the female employees and the overall promotions
reflected 65% of that of the females. The sound corporate culture of the company can also be

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demonstrated in the fact that the company had established a “Diversity and Inclusion Council”
which is comprised of the various working groups for extending recommendations on the interest
of various groups and committees in the organisation as described with the help of the following
picture.
(Source: Scentre Group, 2018)
The above working groups have different functions ranging from the advancement of the
interests of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, representation of the females,
awareness of the mental health related issues, supporting the LGBTI community, and maintain
the overall healthy working environment.
The entity further launched the ‘Westfield Local Heroes’, program for celebrating the
community members for the work in the areas of youth opportunity family, and inclusion. The
program garnered 1000 nominations in the first year of launch itself across Australia and
New Zealand (Scentre Group, 2018). One of the yet another significant initiatives of the entity
was the launch of the Inclusive Management Program (IMP). The program enables the managers
of the enterprise to engage into the inclusive conversations with the people. The said initiative is

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based on the principles of the psychological safety, diversity of thought, unconscious bias, and
embedding inclusion in the overall working of the enterprise.
Performance Related Initiatives
Managing employee performance is important for an organization and for that policy,
strategies and practices with respect to performance expectation for its employees are established
and along with that their performance are monitored and measured. The organization
performance depends on how their employees perform and for that the effectiveness through
which organization develops, stimulate and manage their employees is taken into consideration
(Shields, Brown, Kaine, & Plimmer, 2015). Importance of improving employee performance is
well understood with the help of a practical scenario in Scentre Group in Australia. The
company adopted various strategies or initiatives to improve the performance of their employees
as this help in achieving the organizational goals. The main aim of the company is to increase
their employee’s performance while keeping employee turnover low and maintaining employee
morale high. Initiatives that are taken by Scentre Group includes communicating clear
expectation from the employees during a tenure, policies for fair treatment at the workplace and
focusing on managing the cultural diversity by providing equal opportunities to all employees.
Scentre Group maintained employee retention at 90 percent that is because of polices that
the company frame in order to improve the performance of the organization as well as
performance of their employees. Further initiatives includes on time employee appraisal so that
deviation in actual performance and expected performance can be communicated to employees
and some steps can be taken to boost up the motivation level of employees (Steers & Lee, 2017).
Scentre Group believes that effective training and development programs help in to improve the
performance of employees and for that employee development programs are conducted on
regular basis by the human resource committee. Scentre Group uses various tools to measure the
performance of their employees on timely basis such as 360 degree feedback mechanism and
rating scale method. Through that company measure performance of their employees by taking
feedback about each employee from the person whom they interacted as in retail segment
employees interact with customers, suppliers and stakeholders very frequently so the company

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adopted 360 degree appraisal method. Scentre Group also use rating scale method and rate their
employees on scale of 1 to 5 and the least scaled employee is considered as the poor performer
and for that some training sessions are conducted (ScentreGroup, 2019).
Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is related to the level of involvement of the employees in
organizational activities or it can be defined as the commitment and loyalty of the employees
towards their job. Organizations that have greater degree of employee engagement mainly
perform extraordinary in this competitive environment. Performance of the company depends on
the engagement level of the employees as it affects the bottom line (Mone & London, 2018).
Performance = Engagement × Competency × Alignment
Further, employee engagement and its importance can be understood with the help of its
practical implication on Scentre Group, a shopping center that operates in retail segment in
Australia. The important factor in success of company is its higher level of employee
engagement as human resources are the assets of an organization if managed in an appropriate
manner. Initiatives that are taken by the company to increase the level of employee engagement
is started from the time they select their employees and the company include induction program,
on the job training sessions, and the company from the starting focus on building their employees
capabilities by involving employees in decision making process, by creating knowledge sharing
system for them so that they can give their best. The techniques that are used by Scentre group to
measure the degree in which employees are engaged or disengaged in the organization include
surveys and feedback forms.
In 2018 and 2017, engagement of employees in the organization was 85 percent and 88
percent respectively that indicates that company initiatives to boost up the contribution of
employees in the organization are successful to the greater extent (ScentreGroup, 2019). Scentre
Group believes that providing good experience to employees makes it easy for people to do their
work efficiently. The company aims to increase the degree of engagement by having right people
at the right place with doing right things. Scentre Group use technique such as surveys and use

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these feedbacks to further improve the employee engagement in the organization. All the
programs to enhance employee engagement are managed by the human resources committee.

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Conclusion
The discussions in the previous parts aid to conclude that the inclusion of the diversity in
the corporate culture, maintenance of the employee engagement and the recognition and
rewarding of the exemplary performance are significant pillars of the human resource function of
an entity. The work studied the various aspects of the human resources in the company Scentre
Group Limited. As stated in the previous parts of the work, the company follows a yearly
performance appraisal process which keeps the employees of the entity motivated. Further it has
been identified that the various means of employee engagement such as obtaining feedbacks and
collaborative practices are employed. The company corporate culture is found to be inclusive
with shared beliefs and interests as represented in the constitution of the workforce across
Australia and New Zealand.

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References
Barak, M. E. M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. UK: Sage
Publications.
Mone, E. M., & London, M. (2018). Employee engagement through effective performance
management: A practical guide for managers. New York: Routledge.
Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2017). Human resource
management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
ScentreGroup. (2019, August 12). Sustainability Report 2018. Retrieved from
https://www.scentregroup.com/Westfield/files/04/04991e77-4800-4b87-80d9-
33849d502dbd.pdf
Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., & Plimmer, G. (2015). Managing employee performance &
reward: Concepts, practices, strategies. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Steers, R. M., & Lee, T. W. (2017). Facilitating effective performance appraisals: The role of
employee commitment and organizational climate. In Performance measurement and
theory. New York: Routledge.