JC Penney Research Papers Examples

Introduction

JC Penney was founded by James Cash Penney in 1902. James had worked for Golden Rule stores in Colorado before establishing his company. The company was incorporated into its new name J.C Penney Company in 1913 with the presence of a co-founder named William Henry Mc Manus. After the incorporation, the company moved its headquarters to New York in 1914. The main reasons why the company moved its headquarters is to simplify the buying, transportation of goods and financing. JC Penney entered into the discount merchandising when it acquired General Merchandise Company that gave them The Treasury store in 1962. The merchandising was unsuccessful, and JC Penney decided to concentrate on its full-line shopping center. Today, despite the various challenges they encounter, JC Penney is one of the largest retailers that deals with apparel and home vanishing products. The store is dedicated to providing unparalleled style, value and quality to the American people.
JC Penney customers range come from all works of life and are never selective on whom to offer its services and products to. The lower class to high class, ladies to gents and boys and girls all can get products at JC Penney Company. JC Penney has been on the list of 500 Fortune has had various business interest including Insurance and the banking industry. The JC Penney National Bank and the direct insurance marketing unit enabled the company to acquire more customers for their products in these industries. The retail store has more interest in the shopping center since it sold its direct marketing insurance to concentrate on the retail business. Currently, the company has over 1,100 stores that aim at providing all class of fashion products to all its customers. The company has an online platform that enables the customers to buy goods from the store without physically going to the store. Free deliveries are done for customers who buy goods online. The company has a national wide customer base that is served by the variety of shopping malls they have. Various shopping malls are located in the suburbs, but they can meet the customers' needs. JC Penney has a working staff of 117,000 in all its stores. The firm sells various brands that include Royal Velvet, Disney, Sephora, StyleWatch and Liz Claiborne. The store ensures that the customers get quality products from any brand they desire. The customers have a chance to discover the various national, private and exclusive brands to fit all sizes, shapes, colors and wallet.

Mission statement and Human Resource role

The mission statement of JC Penney is formed on the basis of its slogan that states that ‘Every Day Matter’. The slogan guide all it employees in achieving the objective of the company. The guiding principle that encouraged the formation of JC Penney by James Cash was the mission of ‘Doing unto others as you wanted them do unto you'. This mission still guides the company and the employees in the provision of quality services, integrity, performance, and teamwork. The mission statement of JC Penney Company is Winning Together Principles for superior service. The role of human resource manager in JC Penney is to ensure that the customers get quality service by recruiting the most qualified employees to help clients in accessing the product they would like to purchase. Other roles of the HRM in JC Penney are:
Compensation: The staffs of the company need to be compensated for the service they offer to the company. The determination of the best compensation policy that the employees will get is done by the human resource manager. The manager determine the compensation for each employees depending on the number of hours worked for the company.
Performance appraisal is done by the human resource manager, and it is his responsibility to ensure that each employee get benefits for any extra or exceptional work done by the employee. Performance appraisals are not taken well by most employees since they expose the real character and abilities of the employee.
Training and development are a crucial function done by the Human Resource manager since it helps in synchronizing the employees to the workforce needs and culture of the firm.
Employee discipline: the human resource manager set the policies that should be followed by any employee in the firm and determines the discipline action to be taken if the rules are broken.
Rewards, incentive and recognition: for any exceptional work done, the Human resource manager determine the type of motivation that the employee is accorded. Motivation aims at encouraging a staff to work even harder and challenges the rest of his colleagues in doing the same. When this is achieved, then the organization can achieve its set goals within the short period.

Human resource challenges and recommendation

The challenges that face the human resource department in JC Penney are:
Employee Poaching is one of the main challenges that face JC Penney Company. The upcoming employers entice the most diligent and qualified employees but offering compensation that will encourage them to leave the firm.
Lack of skilled manpower force the department to train them fully, and this is costly for the firm. The firm employees a lot of people in its store national wide and this means that the human resource department has to recruit a lot of people for the various positions. The people who come to the selection exercise are mostly not qualified since many do not consider retail industry a professional industry.
Working culture: retail industry is characterized by many working hours, flexible shifts, less job security and low benefits. This reduces the morale of employees and hence do not fully work to achieve the company goals and objective due to fatigue.
Work attrition that has been a challenge for the human resource manager since he has to find new employees to replace those who resign. Work attrition in the retail industry has increased, and a recent study shows a figure of 40% on work attrition.
Meeting the personnel requirement of all the JC Penney’s store is a challenge for the human resource management since he has to ensure that all the stores are operating as required.
Employee motivation is a challenge for the human resource manager since every employee has a different need that will encourage him to work hard. The diverse needs of the employees offer a challenge to the department since he finds it hard to get a common ground to motivate all the employees.

The recommendation that the Human Resource department should adopt are:

Increase the benefits or rewards given to the employees as well as ensure job security. This will ensure that they feel certified and eliminate the issue of poaching by other firms. The job security aspect will encourage the employees to work hard in achieving the goals of the firm.
Establishing programs that will ensure that all the employees are trained for a different position that they occupy. The programs will bring into the limelight the chances of growth of the retail firm.
Introduction of different shifts that will ensure that employees’ capabilities are utilized fully will help JC Penney achieve the goals actually. The shifts will help the employees since it will reduce the cases of fatigue associated with the long working hours.
The department should have various lines of operation to ensure that the employees are monitored effectively. Keeping employees on toes will help JC Penney Company to achieve the set goals since the most crucial determinant of achieving the goals of an organization management of the personnel.
The effectiveness of the recommendation to make JC Penney competitive is the management of the employees. Management of employees provides a competitive advantage to a firm since employees are the most critical assets of a company. If the employees are given the first chance to grow, then the firm will grow significantly. The majority of employees require motivation, job security and good working conditions. If these factors are met by the human resource department, JC Penney will be very competitive, and no other retail firm will be able to meet its standards. Resource-based strategy of competitive advantage can be adopted by JC Penney Company since the company has the resources necessary to achieve it.

Conclusion

JC Penney has faced numerous challenges in offering products to its clients. The downfall of the company to its raise again, has offered the firm with experience on how to operate in the retail industry. The company came from it down fall to be rank in the Fortune 500 magazine is an effort that shows that will be able to achieve more if it utilizes its resources efficiently. JC Penney deal with general merchandise and home furnishes operating in different stores in the America. Personnel management is important in all it endeavors since it will ensure that the firm provides the best services to all customers who shop in various shopping malls and also online. Effectiveness provision of services ensures increased customer base as well as loyalty to the firm.

References

Hellriegel, D., & Slocum, J. W. (2009). Organizational behavior. Mason, Ohio: Thomson/South-Western.
Krafft, M., & Mantrala, M. K. (2010). Retail in the 21st Century: Current and future trends. Heidelberg: Springer.
Plunkett, J. W. (2009). The Almanac of American Employers 2009: The only guide to America's hottest, fastest growing major corporations. Houston, Tex: Plunkett Research Ltd.