Workplace Culture Assessment - Term Paper Example

Workplace Culture Assessment Target Corp. is an American company based out of Minneapolis. It is one of the largest American retailers competing with the likes of Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Kroger. It is a Fortune 500 company as well as a part of the S&P 500 index which makes it a respected and well known organization in global terms (Target, 2008). The work culture of the company seems to be divided into two different areas as the store culture and the corporate culture both of which seem comparable to other enterprises which have front and back offices.

The most important values which I would identify with an organization I would like to work with are diversity and teamwork. I selected these values not only for personal reasons, but also business reason as I believe that diversity and teamwork will certainly help a company improve sales and get more out of the market (Brown, 2005). From the information given by Target Corp, they seem to highlight both the ideas of diversity and teamwork as being important for them since their focus, with regard to human resources, is defined by their commitment to, “The strength of many.

The Power of One (Target, 2008, Pg. 1)”. Further, the company gives empirical data which shows that diversity is important to the organization since a significant percentage of individuals working for the company belong to minority groups. These facts lead me to believe that I would have a strong personal fit with the organization since the objectives we have with regard to the work environment are clearly inline. Working within teams and ensuring that diversity results in business benefits is a goal which I have and a goal which Target Corp. supports. In this manner, it is unlikely that I would have a conflict with the workplace particularly with regard to values or culture.

For the recruiter or hiring manager at Target Corp., there are three important questions which need to be asked regarding the culture of the organization. The first and most important question would be to ask how far the company goes in showing that it is indeed committed to what it says with regard to diversity and teamwork. The second question would be to ask about career growth opportunities and career paths within the organization which allow a person to branch out from say logistics to planning or from finance to procurement.

Finally, I would like to ask the recruiting officer questions about Target’s expansion into foreign countries and how that is likely to affect the human resource management at home. Simply put, when personal values come in conflict with the values of the organization which hires an individual, a cultural conflict is created which may lead to the individual having to leave the organization. The culture of a company defines its direction and the manner in which HR issues are handled, a company which has a cultural mismatch with one or more of its employees should seek to terminate the employment relationship and employees who continue to work in a situation where they are not a good cultural match may be quite unhappy and lose their productivity.

A separation of paths is perhaps the best alternative in situations where a cultural mismatch is severe and irreconcilable. Word Count: 568 Works Cited Brown, R. 2005, The ROI of Diversity, Mortgage Banking, vol. 65, no. 12, pp. 111-113. Target. 2008, ‘Target Corporation’, [Online] Available at: http://sites.target.com/site/en/corporate/page.jsp?contentId=PRD03-000491