Target’s Change Management in Canada

Culture fails Target Canada

At the time Brian Cornell, the chairman and CEO of Target Corporation announced, Target Canada’s fair and orderly exit by seeking the court’s approval in a move to begin the liquidation process under CCAA, the Company had grown to the following capacity: the Company had 133 stores across the country with an employment capacity of 17600 people. For a fair treatment, the court’s approval to make cash contributions of about $59 million would provide the employees with a minimum of 16 weeks compensation in wages and benefits in the case of employees who were not to be required for full wind- down.

            Some of the things that led to the failure of target Canada includes the poor operational model in the sections of process, customer service practice, strategy and more importantly the culture of the company. Some employees complained that their experience with the company was not what they expected. Target Canada had failed to achieve success through its people. The human capital wasn’t behind Target’s mission, they were not fully engaged and were therefore not delivering the required excellent service to the customers. Some employees argued that the largest failure the Target Canada’s culture (Harris and Austen, 2014). Their argument was that they took the culture from U.S. and tried to make it work in Canada, a move which was wrong.

Some employees argued that Target should have spent its time and efforts to understand as well as appreciate how Canada conducts business because getting into a different culture when one does not understand it provides no success. Target Canada required to take its time to understand its customers, their wants and needs and the means that was preferred in conducting business. The company needed to give thoughts to the problem that the company was solving for the people in Canada, learn the way to adapt to their processes and strategy to the new culture of doing business (Canada, 2014).

            Target Canada’s culture should have been in tandem with its missions and goals. According to Target’s site, the Company celebrates success and looks forward to new opportunities. Teamwork is also important to meet the challenges at all times (Hr.wa.gov, 2015). Various sources point out that Target Canada did not engage its employees in the discussions that helped them come up with ideas on how to increase their sales and customer satisfactions. The employees were also neither involved in the final decisions regarding Target Canada’s future. Employees were not involved in most of the decisions that they should have been. Some employees pointed out that during its closure earlier on, they were also not aware. Most of them learnt of the closure from the media.

Target’s Culture change management

            In the previous year, Target Canada sought to change the culture of the Corporation by changing the chief executive officer, Gregg Steinhafel and bringing in an individual who had never worked in any of the Target’s stores before (Harris and Austen, 2014). The move was to enable the company break many years’ culture at Minneapolis- based Target. During that time, the former CEO had stepped down owing to the hacker attack that led to millions of cash being lost after the Canadian expansion. The board’s move to hire a CEO from outside the company was to change the hiring culture and try to restore the confidence of the consumers. The employees and consumers required and individual with integrity that would boost the confidence of the shareholders also.

            Target Canada’s recent problems would also have been solved by creating a different culture that would have engaged the employees in some of their decisions. The declining sales and customer retention problems may be solved by employee engagement (Canada, 2014). It is important that the people in the organization create a culture that favors the company in its endeavors including sustained innovation. It is the management’s responsibility to change or create the favorable culture. A successful change management requires that each interaction, work project, every communication, each strategy or tactic be taken into account, Target Canada’s change management of change would be accomplished (Hr.wa.gov, 2015).

            In the culture change management of Target Canada, the management’s involvement of all shareholders in the companies’ strategy is important for the success of the corporate. Most importantly, the empowerment and engagement of the employees is crucial for the culture of the company. To manage employee engagement, the negative culture developed may be controlled through the powers of the management to align the employees to the desired culture (Hr.wa.gov, 2015). Still, Target may track the cultural change by assessing whether the culture is misaligned depending on the cultural practices of the different sub- groups which includes the employees in the different departments of the Corporate. Training is also important because it would instill the values that are required from the employees. General management training may involve carrying out seminars, or allowing the employees to learn from their leaders. However, with the recent problems with Target Canada, holding conferences and seminars that train the employees on the required culture would be important.

References

Canada, N. (2014, May 20). Target Announces U.S. and Canada Leadership Changes to Drive Company’s Transformation. Canada Newswire.

Canada, N. (2014, August 13). Target Canada Outlines Key Initiatives to Improve Guest Experience. Canada Newswire.

Harris, E. A., & Austen, I. (2014, May 21). Target Fires Chief of Unit In Canada, Which Lags. New York Times. p. B1

Hr.wa.gov,. (2015). Managing Cultural Change. Retrieved 7 December 2015, from http://hr.wa.gov/WorkforceDataAndPlanning/EmployeePerformanceManagement/Pages/ManagingCulturalChange.aspx