Surf Up at Patagonia Essay Example

Surf Up at Patagonia Essay Example Surf Up at Patagonia Essay Surf Up at Patagonia Essay Surf’s Up at Patagonia. Question 1) Patagonia stresses the importance of hiring employees with passion- a passion for anything, not just sports. Why do they place such importance on passion? Why would they think that someone with a passion for something unrelated to sports (i. e. cooking) might be an excellent employee for their company? Answer. HRM department of any firm would desire the best employees while recruiting. It is because money and most importantly time is used up in training them. So the main objectives would be to hire very efficient and loyal employees. Efficient and motivated workers would also mean Labor Turnover at its minimum. Through these techniques a firm can save up huge chunk of money which can be invested elsewhere. Patagonia uses a very modern technique for recruiting its employees. A passion for anything would mean that employees would also have passion to do their job. Patagonia sells sports equipments and obviously sports resemble passion. As Patagonia is ‘a firm with passion,’ they also want their employees to be passionate towards anything. So that they can understand the importance of passion on work. This passion will lead to higher efficiency and well motivated workforce. Sincerity towards work will automatically increase and there will be lower labor turnover and absenteeism rate. Highly motivated workforce would also mean greater customer relationship and production of high quality goods. From these it can e derived that Patagonia is the ultimate gainer. Question 2) What effect do Patagonia’s practices of providing child-care and donating to environmental groups have upon employee productivity and retention? Why? Answer . Patagonia has this amazing child care facility which is ‘onsite daycare. Single parent employee’s children can stay at their sight. This will make the employees more secured about their children while at work. Thus, this will create a homely atmosphere for the working parents and will help them to concentrate more on work rather than worrying about their children. More concentration would mean more efficient workforce and high dedication t owards work. If the firm is more ethically responsible then the employees will feel proud to work at the firm. Patagonia shares a vast corporate social responsibility. Moreover, the employees can also choose where to donate money and where not. Sense of achievement will work upon the employees while selecting donating groups. The employees will also feel ethically responsible. This proudness for the firm will lead them to be more devoted towards their managers and Patagonia. And this devotion will obviously be reflected on their work, they will me more efficient and careful. By both ways the employees at Patagonia will become more efficient and thus there will be minimum wastage of resources and maximized profit for Patagonia. Question 3) Can you see possible abuses of a flextime program? What does a company do to prevent such abuses before they occur? Answer. Flextime is a facility a firm provides to its employees. Employees can choose their desired holidays and also working hours. It’s a key to help employees with the fixed universal working hours. Flextime is designed, especially in Patagonia, so that an employee can proactively maintain work-life balance. Now, there are also some fallbacks of flextime hours which can stated as follows: Efficiency of work may decrease due to reluctance to work during business hours. Employees may take the job too easily and might later face a haphazard situation, for example, time management. And this is how quality of work may decrease. The situation mentioned earlier may also spoil the business environment. Employees may work whenever they want to and code of conduct can be disobeyed. Employees may lie to the managers to enjoy facilities. By seeing an employee taking a time off may also tempt other employees also to take a break. In this way key employees might not be near hand when required urgently. t may also result in an decreased concentration towards work and spirit of teamwork as employees and working hours het divided. To prevent these types of lags a company may take the following measures: Hiring strong management group can stop mismanagement amongst workers. Check and survey back ground and other information on employees to see who actually needs flextime and to avoid miss use of facility. Measured flextime should be permitted to each employee and t here should be a rule that how many workers can take some time off at a particular period. Providing facilities like onsite child care may reduce the usage of flextime.