C23-11-107-4.edited

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1 Recommendation Plan for Mars Petcare Zhizhen Xie Institutional Affiliation Course Professor Name Date

2 Recommendation Plan and Implementation Being among the leading pet care companies in the world, Mars Petcare should ensure that it adheres to the best strategy that would help it keep its brand positioning and attract more customers to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals. In this case, the company needs to analyze all possible alternatives that could benefit it and ensure that the right one is selected. For instance, the selected approach needs to be SMART, that is; specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based. Therefore, defining these parameters based on how they pertain to Mars Petcare's goals is essential as it ensures that company objectives stay attainable within a specified time frame. As such, the following are the suggested recommendations that Mars Petcare is expected to select the best (SMART) alternative from, as it aims at staying competitive and being sustainable. The first recommendation is that Mars should conduct regular diversity audits to assess the effectiveness of the diversity management and inclusion policy. Mars should engage in strategic and continuous enhancements of its diversity and inclusion initiatives, ensuring they align with evolving organizational goals. The second recommendation suggests that Mars should implement diverse recruiting strategies to minimize implicit bias in the hiring process to ensure fresh blood in the business continues to bring diversity to the organization. While the third recommendation states that Mars should prioritize diversity across all organizational levels, ensuring equal leadership opportunities for employees from all backgrounds. Additionally, targeted training programs should be implemented to empower underrepresented groups, enhancing their skills and career prospects, thereby fostering a holistic diverse team. After conducting a thorough analysis, the best alternative that Mars Petcare should consider is option three, prioritizing diversity across all organizational levels and ensuring equal leadership opportunities for all employees irrespective of their backgrounds. The company should consider this strategy because it will help it attain its diversity goals, ensure that its employees and teams are well-trained to meet company and consumer demand, and effectively engage in the everchanging global market. For example, this strategy can be achieved at Mars Petcare through the implementation of targeted training programs (making it mandatory would be more beneficial) on workplace diversity and respecting other employees. Through such programs, the company will bring awareness to the workforce, which will enable more employees to work together and decrease the negative effects of surface-level diversity. Moreover, the training programs will also enable workers to build trust with each other, thereby

3 promoting a better understanding of deep-level diversity. This aspect is supported by an understanding that recognizing, breaking down or eliminating workplace stereotypes starts with having dialogues. Therefore, the training programs will aid employees into having meaningful conversations that reduce bias and preconceptions as people are likely to educate each other on misinformation. Furthermore, prioritizing diversity would be essential to Mars Petcare because it will help the company improve team creativity and ensure that better decisions are made in complex situations. Such outcomes will be possible because having diverse teams will encourage individuals to freely raise their concerns or suggest possible ways of solving different problems. On the other hand, a diverse team will ensure that all members stay on board and be more willing to participate in meaningful discussions as they have shared goals. Diversity, in this case, will play a crucial role in promoting quality outcomes because it will prevent stereotypical behavior among employees as it enables everyone to understand each other better. Additionally, diversity will help the company develop a culture of respect whereby individuals will freely interact with each other and respect decisions or comments made by others. Having respect for one another is also important in organizations because it helps reduce conflict development and helps build team spirit. How to Achieve the Selected Strategy 1. Promoting Corporate Culture The company needs to start by promoting corporate culture through valuing fairness and employee morale. Significantly, Mars Petcare can achieve this through adhering to organizational culture that embraces internal collaboration and ensuring that its employees maintain a growth- oriented mindset that is based on the ‘learn-it-all’ framework. An excellent example of a company that Mars Petcare could get inspiration from while observing this organizational culture is Microsoft as it has effectively observed the strategy and helped it gain competitive advantage over rivals and improve employee morale. By creating a culture of collaboration, Mars Petcare should encourage its employees to stay generous with praise and recognize the efforts made by others. Ideally, this strategy is helpful because having a feeling of being part of a collaborative and supportive team aids to promote high employee morale than being in a cutthroat environment. Similarly, the observe an organizational culture where leaders, management and employees regularly engage in providing positive feedback to various achievements met. This is

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4 because providing positive feedback within an organization is essential in improving employee morale, as individuals will feel motivated for the work they do. In addition, Mars Petcare should consider using artifacts like stories and legends to improve employee morale. The goal of using artifacts, in this case, is to empower employees by providing autonomy. For example, if Mars Petcare has employees that always produce high- quality work, the management team should consider encouraging them take challenging risks or spearhead challenging projects. Through such measures, the organization will encourage its workers to take ownership of their work. An excellent example of stories and legends that could be used to empower employees is the story of Forest, son of Frank Mars (founder of the company), who took risky measures by going to an unknown land, the United Kingdom, to open a candy and food enterprise. Through his actions, the company managed to penetrate the international market to becoming one of the largest candy makers in the world. Therefore, the use of such stories and legends in this case would be effective because it describes real people and it will be known throughout the organization. The company could also promote an organizational culture that is based on building employee morale through improve or effective communication. For instance, this could be achieved through artifacts like language, which is based on how employees address each other, describe stakeholders or express their emotions. One of the ways in which Mars Petcare could achieve this is by observing effective communication whereby employees are kept in the loop on everything that takes place within the organization, including minor aspects that might occur. Given that employees hate being surprised by changes that other people appear to be aware of, observing this strategy will be beneficial for the company as it will avoid having teams that experience feelings of negativity and isolation. Effective communication could also be used by the company to explain decisions made. For example, explaining to employees why certain products have been discontinued or introduced and why the company aims to expand in a certain region. Through this strategy, the organizational culture of inclusivity will be promoted as everyone will be made to feel that they are part of the company as their responses are considered. Furthermore, organizational socialization is another aspect that could play an essential role in helping build employee morale and promote organizational culture. Employing organizational socialization will help Mars Petcare help employees learn its values, social knowledge relevant for assuming their roles and their expected behaviors. As a result of this,

5 employees will understand the importance of asking for feedback within the organization. For example, the company could observe a culture where employees are encouraged to ask for feedback and vise versa. This strategy follows the idea that communication is a two-way process and effective communication for quality outcomes could only be achieved through allowing employees to communicate to the company and the company replicating the same. As such, allowing employees to regularly share feedback and the organization acting on it accordingly will make them feel part of the team. As a result, this will help build employee morale, hence enabling Mars Petcare to attain set objectives and stay competitive. Another strategy that Mars could use to ensure that it observes a corporate culture that values employee morale and fairness is prioritizing employee wellness and mental health. One way that the company could achieve this is creating a culture that influences how employees perceive themselves or others within the work environment. In this case, the company could promote positive self-concept whereby employees will be encouraged to adhere to ethical values as they interact with others. As a result, self-concept elements like self-enhancement will encourage promotion of better physical and mental health within the company. Significantly, when employees understand that their organization values them in terms of mental health and wellbeing, they will become more comfortable to work. As a result, this might help Mars to keep its employee retention rate high, thereby improving chances of attracting quality employees in the future. One way that Mars could use to promote quality mental health and wellness is offering them with tools that aid in work-life integration. Another strategy that is essential in protecting the mental well-being within a company is formulation of meeting-free days. 2. Creating an Environment that Promotes Equal Opportunities Mars can promote diversity through creating an environment that is based on promotion of equal opportunities to every individual. This strategy will be essential in developing a diversified workforce whereby the company will focus more on employing individuals based on their qualification. For example, through job postings, the company will now employ people from diverse backgrounds in all its branches. Through this strategy, new employees can then be introduced to the organizational culture of embracing diversity through organizational socialization. For instance, the strategy will involve a learning process whereby new employees are expected to form social relationships and learn about the power dynamics, expectations and culture of the company. Successful implementation of this strategy will ensure that both current

6 and new employees at Mars are aware of the organizational culture and understand what they are expected to do in terms of behavior and activities. Moreover, strategy implementation will also involve the adjustment process where new employees are expected to adapt to various aspects including team norms, work settings, and work roles. Similarly, the procedure will also help Mars observe diversity in management and leadership positions, hence helping it attain SDGs (standard development goals) on equal opportunities. 3. Engaging in Training Programs Effective training programs are essential for promoting diversity within a corporation because they encourage all employees to enroll in activities that would help them improve different skills, hence helping them acquire better job positions or increase their pay. The education process should start with company leadership, whereby they will be trained on the need for diversity. Starting with the key figures within an organization is essential because it enables them to guide their teams as they understand the importance of diversity, thereby enhancing effective and long-lasting change. After training leaders, Mars Petcare should engage in developing diverse teams at all levels of the corporation to help individuals analyze or observe the humanistic qualities in people from different backgrounds. As a result, this will help in building trust and respect, hence establishing a quality work environment. After successful training on diversity, the company should encourage dialogue all year to ensure the lessons taught do not wear off. Moreover, employees from underrepresented groups can also engage in training to improve their skills and chances of acquiring better positions at the company. Such training programs will also be essential in promoting creativity within the company. For example, this could be achieved through cross pollination, where employees can work in groups to exchange ideas on different elements. This strategy will not only help to increase productivity or promote improved performance but also help the company achieve its goals of enhancing diversity. A good example for this is when employees engage in creative activities and freely interact with each other to understand both the surface-level and deep-level diversity. Implications Successful implementation of option three, prioritizing diversity across all organizational levels and ensuring equal leadership opportunities for all employees irrespective of their backgrounds, will be beneficial to Mars as it will help the company attract customers and

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7 employees, promote better relationships between teams and diversify its product base. Product base diversity, in this case, will be observed following the increased training programs that will help employees improve their skills and observe creative measures as they achieve different targets. Through this, the company will have more creative minds at its disposal ready to undertake any challenge presented to them. Additionally, training programs will also shape the company’s diversity goals whereby more employees will understand its significance and avoid stereotypes that are often associated with lack of diversity. Therefore, adhering to this recommendation will help Mars Petcare deliver a less biased and inclusive organization, as all employees and its leaders will be ready to embrace diversity at all times.

C23-11-107-4.edited

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