Hershey Case Study
The Hershey Company is the leading North American manufacturer of quality chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery and chocolate-related grocery products. The company also is a leader in the gum and mint category. Hershey recognizes that diversity management skills are vital to the success of the organization.
Performance Management
The current performance management system at Hershey is a bottom-up approach focusing on employee empowerment. Employees throughout the company are given responsibility to set goals and track progress on their projects. This system measures both business results and whether the results are obtained using Hershey’s four core values. Teamwork is emphasized especially because the company believes in celebrating their successes as a whole. The bottom-up approach specifically appeals to the younger generation and their eagerness for challenge, autonomy, and results. This approach allows the high motivation of the younger employees to work its way back up to the older employees who may be nearing retirement age. (Noe, 55)
One way that Hershey could redesign their performance management system to appeal to the diverse age groups of employees is to focus on a developmental purpose. This method would serve as a basis for developing employees’ knowledge and skills, which would be especially helpful with the younger generation of new employees. Having a developmental purpose for performance management would mean each employee would have the opportunity to discuss their strengths and weaknesses and identify steps for improvement. Since Hershey has already implemented a partner system of pairing up one experienced employee from the baby boomer generation with one new and younger worker from the millennium generation, the personal relationships are already in place. Hershey could also use the paired-comparison method to compare each employee with each other employee to establish rankings. A contest could be established between the
Performance Management
The current performance management system at Hershey is a bottom-up approach focusing on employee empowerment. Employees throughout the company are given responsibility to set goals and track progress on their projects. This system measures both business results and whether the results are obtained using Hershey’s four core values. Teamwork is emphasized especially because the company believes in celebrating their successes as a whole. The bottom-up approach specifically appeals to the younger generation and their eagerness for challenge, autonomy, and results. This approach allows the high motivation of the younger employees to work its way back up to the older employees who may be nearing retirement age. (Noe, 55)
One way that Hershey could redesign their performance management system to appeal to the diverse age groups of employees is to focus on a developmental purpose. This method would serve as a basis for developing employees’ knowledge and skills, which would be especially helpful with the younger generation of new employees. Having a developmental purpose for performance management would mean each employee would have the opportunity to discuss their strengths and weaknesses and identify steps for improvement. Since Hershey has already implemented a partner system of pairing up one experienced employee from the baby boomer generation with one new and younger worker from the millennium generation, the personal relationships are already in place. Hershey could also use the paired-comparison method to compare each employee with each other employee to establish rankings. A contest could be established between the
References: Gordon, M. (2011, June 7) The Hershey Company continues their charitable legacy through CocoaLink program. Retrieved from http://www.ana.net/blogs/show/id/21547 Hershey Company Website. Retrieved from http://www.thehersheycompany.com/careers/values.aspx Noe, Hollenbeck, Gearhart, Wright. (2011) Fundamentals of Human Resource Management. United States: McGraw Hill.