Aldi is a German discount supermarket chain which was founded by Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946. Originally, the German brothers inherited their mother’s small grocery store which was opened in 1913 in Essen, a city in western Germany and expanded it into a chain of more than 12 stores. In 1961, they changed the name to “Albrecht’s Discount” or “Aldi” for short. Today, Aldi is one of the world’s largest and most valuable grocery store chain with more than $80 billion in annual revenue and 10,000 locations around the world including Australia and China. It sells a variety of items at discount prices ranging from fresh food to household appliances. In addition to its discount items, Aldi has weekly special offers including toys, clothing, flowers, and gifts. It is indeed Aldi’s cheap prices and diverse range of items that have attracted millions of customers to its stores worldwide and earned the organisation a strong reputation that is incomparable with its competitors such as Coles or Woolworths in Australia as one example. Unlike other major supermarkets, the Aldi Group aims to give consumers significant cost reductions on their groceries. In their effort to keep prices low, Aldi hires fewer employees. For example, it avoids hiring employees to retrieve shopping trolleys by only releasing them with a coin deposit. In addition, Aldi employees do not pack bags for consumers. Goods are already stacked in the boxes they arrive in. Therefore, employees do not waste time shelving or placing promotional displays. Aldi’s overall goals can be summarised into one sentence which is “To enable shoppers to live richer lives for less and to become one of the largest chains of retailers in the world with a reputation that rests on quality”. This shows how important excellent customer service is to this organisation. Since its foundation in 1946, Aldi has remained true to its aim of offering nothing short of quality services to its clients. One factor behind the Aldi Group’s success is its exceptional organisational design and culture. Aldi values the needs of its personnel; thus competitive pay packages offered by the organisation are the best in the industry. Aldi also provides unique opportunities for career advancement in various fields within the organisation ranging from financial planning to store management. The Aldi group monitors its employees closely. For example, store assistants are monitored individually to evaluate their attitude towards customers and colleagues, their ability in Aldi Case Study solving everyday problems at work, and their willingness to go an extra mile just to make sure that a customer is pleased with Aldi’s services. Cashiers are also monitored for their speed and accuracy by the number of items they are able to check per hour on a busy day. In addition, the Aldi Group organises self-directed work teams in which the members know their pre-defined rules and responsibilities and thus work together as a team to fulfil their obligations set by senior management. This not only gives senior management the chance to save time as they do not need to directly check their employees’ performance in each department but also to delegate authority to junior managers to ultimately create a sense of empowerment among employees. To motivate its staff, Aldi gives rewards in the form of salary increases and promotion opportunities based on staff efforts towards the organisation’s overall performance within a specific time frame. Employees are thus motivated to work harder in order to earn higher rewards. Aldi employs people who are compliant (obey rules) and agile (able to think and understand quickly). Overseas, staff are required to memorise prices which means much less time is spent in queues by customers. Unions (Organisations protecting employees’ rights) in Australia, however, have forced Aldi to declare that all their stores should have scanners installed so that staff will not have to memorise prices. Upon employment, successful candidates are required to join uniquely-formed groups where the new and inexperienced employees are paired with experienced ones to watch and learn while on the job. These work groups as hubs (centres) of knowledge-sharing, not only widen the pool of expertise within the organisation but also reduce the company’s costs with regards to training new employees. Aldi is proud of its diverse workforce composition (structure). In fact, the Aldi Group always tries to hire people from various cultural backgrounds. In their efforts to do so, Aldi Australia, for example, has applied for visas so that they can bring experienced staff from overseas such as Germany and the Middle East Question: Aldi is considerate of its employees’ needs. Use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to identify two of the employees’ needs being satisfied in Aldi and justify the relationship between these met needs and types of employees at Aldi. Use McGregor’s motivational theory to help you with your justification.