Employee Motivation - the Home Depot

Jones International University

The Home Depot

Forum Discussion on Employee Motivation

Prof. Dr. Caroline Howard Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for BBA101

Introduction to Business

Assignment 6.1

Walter William Harlow

07/10/2011

The purpose of this paper is to look at and discuss employee motivation strategies. I have chosen The Home Depot as the premise of this week's assignment. I will look at a few different strategies that The Home Depot has implemented to help motivate its employees. I will talk about why I think these strategies either succeeded or failed. The strategies that I will look are; The Homer Awards, Department Employee of the Month, Tuition Reimbursement and The Trade Specialist Compensation Program.

Forum Discussion on Employee Motivation- The Home Depot

Over the years The Home Depot has faced many challenges from an HR standpoint. One of the toughest challenges has been; how to motivate employees? The Home Depot has always considered themselves a leader in their industry, not only in the products and services they market, but also in the way they treat their employees. Changes in the economy and employee moral have led to many changes on the corporate level. I will present 4 of those changes here. Most have been very successful however I will point out one that wasn't as successful. I will talk about the Homer Award program, Department Employee of the Month program, Tuition Reimbursement and the Trade Specialist program.

The Homer Award Program:

The Homer Award Program is a program that awards associates for things such as, great customer service, strong work ethic and completing special projects on time just to name a few. This is a program that was started to get a better view of how things are working out on the floor. Customers will fill out surveys on the phone or online and the results will be forwarded back to the store manager. Customers are encouraged to refer to the associate that worked with them by name. Based on this information, the store manager will then issue a Homer Badge to that employee recognizing them for their good work. Once an associate accumulated 12 Homer Badges they would receive 50 dollars in their pay check.

This strategy has been successful because it rewards the associate for good work and encourages them to continue providing excellent customer service. This strategy also encourages the associate to work even harder, if for no other reason, the knowledge that there is a monetary reward for every 12 badges earned.

Department Employee of the Month program:

The department employee of the month program was set up by The Home Depot as a way to honor its exemplary