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Currently, there are a considerable number of businesses, corporations and companies specializing in selling goods and services. The Home Depot is one of the fastest growing retail companies in the whole history of the USA (The Home Depot, n.d.). Nowadays this company is rather successful. According to the statistics, companys revenue in 2013 reached $74,754,000 (Yahoo Finance, 2013). However, the companys path to success was rather complicated and changeable.
Robert Nadelli became a CEO of The Home Depots in 2000. He implemented numerous changes and policies in the company. Nadelli changed the whole company by bringing the other vision on cultural values as well as a new system of accountability and leadership to employees and management.
The first and probably the most relevant step made by the current CEO was the appointment of a new human resources chief Dennis Donovan. He was a trusted and experienced person that could provide reasonable solutions while holding the position of the head of human resources department.
Robert Nardelli together with Dennis Donovan developed the systemic approach of cultural transformation from the managerial autonomy in separate department stores to a grounded, accountable and collaborative management. These two individuals changed the manner of employee collaboration at all levels, their beliefs and nature of decision-making. It was made by introducing a new system of decision-making. The autonomy of shops was replaced by decision-making process based on strict directions. Employees of all levels started to pay much attention to paper work and accountability of the entire purchasing process.
CEO Managers increased the interaction between head management, managers and employees as well as common employees by introducing joint weekly reporting and video casts. Moreover, employees at all levels became accustomed to total accountability and responsibility. Common employees saw that even head management makes reports concerning their work every week. Furthermore, Robert Nardelli and Dennis Donovan created different links between working processes of each store and business activities of the whole company. These steps also brought clearness and understanding of the activities in the company.
The background of purchasing, decisions and evaluation of employees was also changed as well. These operations were grounded on strict instructions and managerial directions. Such steps also brought clearness in the processes of The Home Depot, honest evaluation of workers and a significant decrease in any mistake. At the same time, the management paid much attention to the development of employees, improvement of their knowledge and leadership skills. The company showed that it values each employee with his or her opinions. Moreover, the authorities created new departments. What is more, only after the discussion with all concerned personnel, Robert Nardelli and Dennis Donovan made considerable decisions. Thus, opinions of common employees and head managers became valuable to the company.
It is notable that each employee understood the necessity and value of the above-mentioned changes. Apparently, employees developed this understanding by concrete descriptions of reasons and necessities of changes supported by concrete figures.
The whole change concerned changing employees behavior and the way of conducting their responsibilities at all levels. Thus, all workers from managers to common sellers received direct instructions from top management and became accountable for their performance. Employees started to base their decisions and actions on strict instructions and directions as well as closely collaborate and interact with each other. As a result, common workers understood values and directions of the company
Robert Nardelli and Dennis Donovan brought control, unification and accountability of all the processes and activities in the company. Consequently, this made The Home Depot more flexible to changeable market conditions and allowed to make immediate decisions and transformations as well as change the companys course and processes inside it.
At the same time, management showed new opportunities to workers. The Home Depot started offering new production and services to new customers on new territories. The company became more varied and received a new base for the future growth and development.
The above-mentioned managerial changes leaded to considerable improvement of profitability of the whole company, provision of related services (like home installation and tool retail). Moreover, the changes triggered the expansion of the market of The Home Depot by opening stores in new areas and providing production and services to big construction companies. Nowadays the company is the biggest retailer in the country (Weissman, 2012).
The Home Depot used several tools for its reorganization, namely metrics, processes, programs and structures. All of them are rather important. However, in my opinion, the most relevant tools are metrics and programs.
Metric tools are based on the establishment of new and uncommon to The Home Depot culture priorities. Robert Nardelli and Dennis Donovan replaced old culture based on employees behavioral decision-making by grounded actions and steps that rested on clear instructions and concrete data. Thus, all purchasing processes became linked, controlled and directed from top management. Regional and store managers started to interact and closely collaborate with each other in order to provide concrete figures and increase the amount of sold production. Moreover, employees of all levels simultaneously received information and directions concerning past, present and future steps of the whole company.
Management paid much attention to employees training, improvement of their knowledge and leadership skills. Talking about sellers, they based their decisions and actions on instructions rather than solely on their intuition. At the same time, each employee became responsible and accountable for the performance of the assigned tasks. It was obtained by increasing the role of paper work and accountability of all processes. Moreover, managers had a clear vision concerning the situation in common stores and demonstrated the ability to evaluate all processes inside the company and bring reasonable and effective changes. Furthermore, each employee was able to discuss their vision concerning companys decisions and take part in the companys life.
One more important tool that company used was programs. Thus, management created new approaches of workers commitment and involvement in the organizational processes. Each person had the ability to self-reflect and self-develop inside the company, progressing up the carrier ladder and improving personal leadership skills. The Home Depot involved various leadership programs like the Store Leadership Program, the Future Leaders Program and the Merchandizing Leadership Program for this purposes. Consequently, these programs created opportunities for career development of employees and improvement of the whole company.