Statement Of Purpose: The Profound Girls Foundation

Today we embarked on a new horizon with the merging of The Profound Girls Foundation. I know we are heading in the right direction and I cannot wait to see what else our company will achieve with this new partnership. Often, morale is affected throughout companies with any form of change. Unfortunately, employees here at Burt’s Boyz and Bunches are demonstrating a “checked out” attitude, complaining, feeling unenthused, and as if the company does not have their best interest. This causes employees to perform poorly, become unhappy about coming to work and to adapt an I do not care attitude. With morale at an all-time low, this is a problem and I would like to incorporate a rewards and recognition program to help welcome the current changes.
Think about what makes an employee an effective team player, rewards and recognition!
Project Plan Consequently, I have created the rewards and recognition program “PRIME” as a solution to uplifting morale, reenergizing and motivating all.
Prime means to produce, redefine, inspire, mentor, and educate. PRIME represents our mission, goals, and value statement. The Profound Girls Foundations ‘mission statement is to educate young women and girls through self-love, health awareness and prevention, academics, spirituality and volunteerism, so we are all going in the same direction. PRIME will raise morale for everyone, nurture relationships, and give everyone a since of importance and belonging. This program will ultimately be the future of the company, as it will be key to our growth going forward. Employee perception is the attitude employees have towards policies concerned with pay, recognition, promotion and quality of working life, and the influence of the group with whom they identify (Armstrong, 2006, Nzuve and Njambi 2015). Look at a few of the categories we will acknowledge in this
program:
• Exemplary Attendance (gift card drawings)
• Superior Performance (1 paid day off after 6 months)
• Mentor of the Week / Month / Quarter (Free Lunch coupons)
• Positive Contagious Attitudes (Free dress days)
• Innovative and Initiative (bonus on next pay period)
• Inspire Me (Free Lunch coupons and Movie passes)
• No I in Team (Assigned Monthly Parking spot)
• On the Spot Recognition ( TBD)
• Annual Awards Ceremony (to highlight annual rewards and recognition achievements)
Background on Reward and Recognition Programs PRIME will benefit every employee and allow the employee detailed expectations to accomplish achievements to be rewarded and recognized. PRIME will give praise contributing to driven employees, ultimately creating a successful, positive and thriving environment for the company. I am sure introducing PRIME at a time when there are many changes in place, can be intimidating, because many companies have gone through the process of change initiatives and have been unsuccessful. Researchers generally agree that employee resistance is one of the leading causes for the failure of change initiatives (Bovey & Hede, 2001b; Waldersee & Griffiths, 1996, Wittig 2012). Wittig states in 2012, change agents focusing on employee reactions including resistance and acceptance during organizational change is of utmost importance to the success of the initiative. Additionally, we must invite our employees to assist in the planning of the change and to be a part of the overall process, for initiatives to be accepted and transitioned smoothly. One specific method of communication that strongly impacts employees’ reactions is employee participation in decision making (PDM) (Wittig 2012). PDM is a process in which influence or decision making is shared between superiors and their subordinates (Bordia, Hobman, Jones, Gallois, & Callan, 2004, Wittig 2012). Joint decisions must be made now, because the change is here already. We have already completed the merge with The Profound Girls Foundation and we now should manage the change together, to keep employees in compliance with the change. Erturk 2008 and Wittig 2012, states that allowing employees to express new ideas, share visions, common directions, mutual respect, and trust is also key in managing change. Ultimately, I expect PRIME to increase the overall success of the company by more than 5% within one month of implementation. Companies that participates in rewards programs for employees says respondents notice gains in employee satisfaction (71 percent), motivation (66 percent), and engagement (64 percent) (Thompson 2014). Attendance can become an issue if the employee morale is down, but employee’s attendance will improve if we put emphasis on it and we reward them. Thompson 2014 states after giving gift cards during drawings for perfect attendance, lateness and tardiness diminished but two problems ensued. When creating rewards and recognition programs we must address every area in which the employee can be recognized and rewarded, if not, other areas will be effected. Similarly, Thompson 2014, quotes Chip Conley, founder of Joir de Vivre, employees who feel honored provide “extraordinary customer service that will guarantee return business, and recommend friends, families, and colleagues,” writes Lieberman in 2009. The expectancy theory suggests that employees are more likely to be motivated to perform when they perceive that there is a strong link between their performance and the reward they receive (Mendonica, 2002, Nzuve and Njambi 2015). It is up to us, management, to make employees feel important, happy and satisfied, if we want our company to continue its success. Effective management teams need to recognize that positive employee attitudes are often vital to achieving organizational goals and this will be achieved when the employees are satisfied (Nzuve and Njambi 2015). While improving the operation of our company, we must realize that our employees are key elements in the operation of the company and we should always show appreciation of their efforts, emotions, and feelings. Now is an awesome time to not only deliver to The Profound Girls Foundation with assurance, but we must also deliver to Burt’s Boyz and Bunches employees. We must seize the moment to show our employees that the merge was just as much about them as it was Burt’s Boyz and Bunches. We need to find continuous ways to motivate our employees, with the coming changes of the merge.
Luthans (1998) asserts that motivation is a process that arouses, energizes, directs, and sustains behavior and performance (Rawat, Khugshal and Chaubey 2015). PRIME will motivate every employee, by giving incentives for superior performance. initiatives and innovation, attitude and being a team player. Ali and Ahmed (2001) have recommended that if more focus is placed on reward and recognition, it may have positive impact on motivation that will enhance high level of performance and retention (Rawat, Khugshal and Chaubey 2015). The rewards and recognition program will also save the company money, as we have lost in the past due to poor attendance, under performance, and imperfect customer service. Remember we will be presenting a rewards and recognition program that will align with our company’s strategies and business objectives. Our goal is to ultimately have everyone within the company excited about the direction we are moving
in. Additionally, we can let employees know their achievements obtained through PRIME can be documented with certificates. This will allow them to show proven achievements, rewards, and recognition as needed for future endeavors. Furthermore, PRIME includes group incentives as well as individual incentives and will contribute to each employee motivating the other to succeed with achieving team goals. The use of group incentive practices signals to employees that the organization values their input and recognizes their contribution to achieving its goals through financial rewards (Park et al., 2010, Park and Kruse 2014).

Qualifications and Experience As the Director of Employee Relations, it is my honor to introduce and execute PRIME. I have the qualifications, experience, knowledge, and passion to lead this program. It is with morals and integrity that I have as an employee to Burt’s Boyz and Bunches and The Profound Girls Foundation, that I will ensure our company’s success with uplifting our employees demonstrating gratitude. I will present the following services:
• Give all administrators and managers a one week training on PRIME…what it is, how to implement it and our expectations. We will schedule training after survey completions.
• Complete surveys on things employees want to be recognized for allowing them maximum involvement
• Work with the Director of Finance to ensure monthly budget for this introductory year is approved for prizes
• Appoint a Rewards and Recognition Team
• Introduce PRIME with the assistance of management
• Provide surveys for a 6-month review of PRIME

Estimated Budget
Training Administrators and Managers 5 Administrators
5 Managers 10,000
Employee Surveys Part 1 and Part 2 Pre-PRIME
Post PRIME 500
Marketing Web, Email, Newsletter Employee Bulletin board 1000
Prizes Gift cards, certificates, paid day off, lunch coupons, movie passes, bonuses 21,000
Annual Ceremony Dinner party and Awards 60,000 Total 92,500

Conclusion Burt’s Boyz and Bunches goal is providing great services to the community. We must start with providing great services within the organization. Our success has always been the results of happy hard working employees. We must continue that with new innovative ways of showing our employees gratitude for their efforts in the success of our company. PRIME is the answer!

References
Nzuve, S. M., & Njambi, M. P. (2015). FACTORS PERCEIVED TO INFLUENCE EMPLOYEES' PERFORMANCE: A CASE OF THE INDEPENDENT ELECTORAL AND BOUNDARIES COMMISSION. Problems Of Management In The 21St Century, 10(2), 88-99.
Park, R., & Kruse, D. (2014). Group incentives and financial performance: the moderating role of innovation. Human Resource Management Journal, 24(1), 77-94. doi:10.1111/1748-8583.12022