Woolworths Project: Financial, Management, and Public Relations Issues

This project delves into the professional accounting, management, and public relations issues faced by Woolworths. It identifies problems such as underpayment of wages, lack of employee morale, and a declining public image. The project explores the implications of these issues, including increased employee turnover, reduced productivity, and a negative corporate image. To address these challenges, the project proposes strategies such as determining industry-based wage standards, implementing employee engagement activities, fostering creative thinking, empowering employees, and utilizing integrated marketing communication strategies. The analysis emphasizes the importance of overcoming these issues to enhance employee morale, improve efficiency, and ultimately contribute to the organization's success. The project uses a case study approach to examine real-world business problems and potential solutions.

Running head: MANAGEMENT ISSUES
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Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Identified financial, management and public relation issues...........................................................2
Implication of the identified financial, management and public relation issues.............................3
Strategies that need to be adopted by the organization in order to overcome the
financial,management and public relation issues............................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Professional accounting refers to carrying out various professional functions such as
analysis of financial statement and audits. Some of the major professional accounting issue
includes- violation of various legal rules and regulation related to professional accounting.
Management issues on the other hand refer to all those organizational issues that are related to
the management of the employees and other organizational activities that are necessary to meet
the organizational objectives. These issues include- lack of proper communication in the
organization, lack of employee morale and similar others (Breevaart and Bakker 2018). And
public relations issues include all those organizational issues faced by the organization that has a
negative impact on the organizations image or goodwill. The company chosen for the purpose of
this study is Woolworths. The main aim of the paper is to identify the professional accounting,
management and the public relations issues being faced by the organization under study. The
paper will therefore discuss about the problems that is presently being faced by the organization,
the implications of the identified problems and also strategies that can help the organization in
overcoming the issues that are presently being faced by it.
Discussion
Identified financial, management and public relation issues
The main problem that is presently being faced by Woolworths includes three main
issues- the professional accounting issue, the management issues and also the public relations
issue. Professional accounting issue include issues of non-compliance with various legal rules
and regulations, unethical issues and all issues related to accounting function (Kumar and Pansari
2016). One such accounting issue is being faced by Woolworths. The professional accounting

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problem that is being faced by Woolworth includes underpayment of wages to the employees
and workers and the same was identified by fair work ombudsperson. Therefore the company
failed to comply with the legal regulations related to payment of wages of employees and
workers and moreover the company is also engaged in removing employees in order to save its
costs and for the purpose of gaining competitive advantage of its biggest market competitors.
A management issue refers to an issue that is related to the employees or staff, technical
issues being faced by the organization and also includes the issue of shortage of material.
Woolworths is presently being faced with management issue as well- that is there is lack of
employee morale in the organization. The main reason behind the same is that of disengagement
of the employees, lack of proper opportunities and therefore there are chances of price war. Price
war refers to a scenario where two companies enter into war with each other for reducing the
prices of the goods and services offered by the company (Tian and Robertson 2019) Moreover
another major issue that is being faced by the organization is that of poor public relations of the
company. The main reason behind the poor public relations includes the professional accounting
and management issues. Since the company is unable to fulfil its responsibility towards the
employees therefore the company’s image is continuously decreasing in front of the society and
its goodwill is being negatively affected.
Implication of the identified financial, management and public relation issues
Some of the major implication or negative impacts of the professional accounting
problem includes- increased rate of employees turnover, increased cost of recruitment, selection
and training, reduced productivity of the employees and reduced employees efficiency.
Employees turnover refers to the number of employees leaving the organization and also being
replaced by newer employees. In case the organization continuously makes underpayment to the

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employees of the organization they will become demotivated and ultimately will leave the
organization (Ishaque 2017). This will further lead to other problems because the cost of training
and recruitment of the organization will increase if their employees continuously leave the
organisation. Underpayment of employees will also lead to reduced employees productivity and
efficiency. On the other hand there may also be some negative impacts of the management issues
if it is not overcome such as reduced employees morale or employees engagement into the
organization (Paul, Parthasarathy and Gupta 2017). All employees want some form of monetary
recognition in order to work effectively and these activities are presently not being carried out by
Woolworths and as a result the employees are getting disengaged and also it is leading to poor
employee’s productivity. As a result of the management issues, the work environment of the
organization becomes negative and moreover it also contributes to negative attitude on part of
the employees of the organization.
The culture of the organization also may have to suffer due to the management issues as
it has a major impact on the collective behaviours of the employees of the organization. On the
other hand, if the Public relations of the company is not improved, the corporate image of
Woolworths company may decline, further there will be lack of employees branding and
moreover poor public image also has got some major impact on the purchase intentions of the
customers. This is so because if a company fails to create a good public image, the customers
will not like to buy goods and services from those companies (Anderson, Fontinha and Robson
2019). Employer branding refers to the process of carrying out promotional activities for the
company and moreover it can help in attracting, recruiting and retaining talented employees.

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Strategies that need to be adopted by the organization in order to overcome the
financial, management and public relation issues
In order to overcome the professional accounting issues being faced by Woolworths
Company presently it is necessary for them to carry out and determine industry based standards
of wage characteristics (Morden 2016). This will help in ensuring that the employees will not be
underpaid and moreover an effective reward plan needs to be formed. By forming an effective
reward plan, the organisation will be able to retain talented employees. Moreover the
organization can also form provision for the purpose of providing value added services to the
customers and thereby increasing the overall profitability and productivity of the organization
(Keating and Heslin 2015). In order to overcome the management issue of low employees
morale of the employees being faced by Woolworths, it is necessary to carry out employees
engagement activities within the organization. Employees engagement refers to the ability of a
company to retain the employees of the organization by motivating them and creating a sense of
commitment among them.
Some of the major employee’s engagement activities includes- by creation of a system
where knowledge sharing can be done, by providing proper learning opportunities to the
employees of the organisation, by empowering them such that they will be able to take major
decisions and other similar activities (Islam 2017). Further Woolworths Company can carry out
creative thinking activities in order to motivate and encourage the employees of the organization.
Creative thinking activities refers to the ability of to look at problems from new perspectives. It
can be carried out through both structured and unstructured methods such as brain storming
activities and also activities lateral thinking. Some of the major activities which can help in
improving the creative thinking of the employees includes repositioning activities, asking

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questions such as what else can be done can help in generating alternatives and various other
activities. Moreover the issues of poor employees morale at Woolworths can be improved by
empowering the employees such that they can carry out their operations effectively thereby
avoiding any delays in the same. Moreover the employees will feel motivated when they will be
empowered to take decisions by themselves and they will also feel that the organization trust
them. Moreover in order to overcome the issues of poor public image, IMC or the integrated
marketing communication strategy can be used. IMC strategy refers to the process of evaluating
the strategic roles of various communication discipline and therefore can help in providing,
clarity, consistency and it also has the maximum impacts of communication. Further efficient
employee branding activities can be carried out in order to over the organizational issues of
public relation and the company can also carry out customer relationship activities. Customer
relationship activities refer to the strategies that are used by the organization for managing their
interaction with their potential and current customers (Ansoff et al. 2018). Some of these
includes- official website of the company, email, social media and marketing materials.
Conclusion
Therefore from the above discussion, it can be concluded that it is necessary to overcome
the professional accounting, management issue and also the public relation issues in order to help
organization in becoming successful. From the paper the various implications or impacts of not
financial issues, public relation issues and also the management issues have been understood.
Further by overcoming these issues an organization will be able to improve the employee’s
morale, improve the employees efficiency and productivity, organization will be able to engage
them in the organization. Therefore from the paper the various strategies that will be undertaken
by the company in order to overcome the issues have been understood. For instance: strategy of

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improving employees engagement, formation of a reward plan for the employees, empowering
the employees and also IMC strategies in order to overcome the public relations issues presently
being faced by the organization.

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References
Anderson, V., Fontinha, R. and Robson, F., 2019. Research methods in human resource
management: investigating a business issue. Kogan Page Publishers.
Ansoff, H.I., Kipley, D., Lewis, A.O., Helm-Stevens, R. and Ansoff, R., 2018. Implanting
strategic management. Springer.
Breevaart, K. and Bakker, A.B., 2018. Daily job demands and employee work engagement: The
role of daily transformational leadership behavior. Journal of occupational health
psychology, 23(3), p.338.
Ishaque, M., 2017. Managing Conflict of Interests in Professional Accounting Firms (Doctoral
dissertation, Anglia Ruskin University).
Islam, M.A., 2017. Future of Accounting Profession: Three Major Changes and Implications for
Teaching and Research. Business Reporting, International Federation of Accountants (IFAC).
Keating, L.A. and Heslin, P.A., 2015. The potential role of mindsets in unleashing employee
engagement. Human Resource Management Review, 25(4), pp.329-341.
Kumar, V. and Pansari, A., 2016. Competitive advantage through engagement. Journal of
marketing research, 53(4), pp.497-514.
Morden, T., 2016. Principles of strategic management. Routledge.
Paul, J., Parthasarathy, S. and Gupta, P., 2017. Exporting challenges of SMEs: A review and
future research agenda. Journal of world business, 52(3), pp.327-342.

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Tian, Q. and Robertson, J.L., 2019. How and when does perceived CSR affect employees’
engagement in voluntary pro-environmental behavior?. Journal of Business Ethics, 155(2),
pp.399-412.