Walgreen Company has grown from a dedicated historical foundation that is not only committed to retail pharmacy in the United States, but has become one of the most trusted pharmacy stores in America. This is because the company has enjoyed centuries of unique innovations, industrial leadership and industrial growth. The organization’s management has set a precedent in their leadership attributes that have contributed to the growth of the company. This paper seeks to discuss these attributes and look into other prospects of the same.
History of Walgreens
Walgreens is one of the biggest drugs retailing company in the United States. The second Walgreen store in the United States was opened in the year 1916. The Walgreens Company has over 8300 branches in different locations. It not only provides access to pharmacy services to Americans, but it also provides access to other goods and services, as well in order to ensure the wellness and health of the society in the United States of America. One of credits that this company claims is the popularization of the malted milkshake (Bacon 255) Walgreens has also become more popular, due to its management policies, such as allowing or giving disabled persons equal opportunities to work together with other workers without discrimination. The company claims that it has removed all harmful refreshers from all its stores and is environmentally friendly.
Walgreens Mission Statement
The organization vision is to provide access to the goods and services to all persons in America, and to provide Americans with a good daily living and living healthy in a well strategic territory. The company’s mission is to become trusted, convenient providers, innovative advisers on pharmacy, offer wellness and health solutions, provide access to consumer services and goods throughout the America and help people live well, stay well and get well quickly when they are ill. The company’s values are based on the principals which were founded many years ago. These principals include; integrity, trust and honesty within the organization, extended to the suppliers, shareholders, customers and communities, as well (Bob 256). The other value includes quality which helps to provide reliable services, consistence services, products and advice on the same. The company is also driven to deliver in a caring and compassionate way. The company also intends to build a strong commitment on personal engagements expertise, in order to build a positive presence in the community.
Walgreens Management Structure
The company’s management structure is located in Illinois. The management structure is made up of 10 different divisions which have many different career opportunities in the divisions. The marketing division is tasked with ensuring that the brand and products are positively advertised and marketed. On the other hand, other divisions, such as the engineering and the IT divisions are responsible for the development of the new processes and technology advances. It is necessary to note that all the divisions focus on the development of the organization. The pharmacy stores are the heart of the corporation.
The organization’s local locations report to the management at the local level. This simply means that the managers from the local levels return to the headquarters. However, the local managers have the power to hire their own team members, in order to ensure the smooth running of the corporation at the local level (Daft 61). It is necessary to note that the organizations distribution comprises or five main departments. These departments have distribution centers that distribute the products to many different locations and positions in the store level operations.
Walgreens Decision-Making Process
Most of the activities at the company are made through a decision-making process. The decision-making process is an extremely influential attribute in every business. The decision-making process is a logical selection of choice. This simply means that, in order to come up with a pleasant and helpful decision, the decision-making process needs negative, as well as positive options. The process should also consider all the alternative ways to choose. In this case, the decision should forecast the possible outcomes, based on each option and determine the best option to take (Kell 13).
Walgreens decision-making process is made from active research and from many other perspectives. The decisions try to examine the different contexts, such as the set of needs. However, the decision-making process is a continuous process which is integrated in the company’s interactive environment. The decision-making process is extremely valuable, since it not only affects the outcome of the company, but also the running of the company. The company is devoted to the decision-making process. This is because the decision-making process is creating solutions to many different problems.
Human Resource Practices
The human resource management at the company tries to understand and support the vital aspects of human resource management. The human resource management works and applies the theory that the human resource practices significantly affect and impact the employee behavior and the financial performance of the company. These practices employ a strategic approach that target relationship outcomes with the employees and the consumers, as well. This has, however, been criticized by many critics who find no significant relationship between the performance and the human resources management.
The Walgreens employees get to enjoy substantial discounts from many of the brand products and merchants. The employees also get to enjoy the insurance perks, bonuses and receive 15 % discount on all products from the company. In perk seasons, the employees enjoy 75% off on hotels, 10% from the neighboring stores and many other employee discounts (Walsh 214). The human resource management develops an incentive program to award the employees as compensations, in order to; encourage employees to work together, focus on profitability, implement the company’s plan on revenue and encourage the commitment, in order to achieve the goals of the organization. However, the incentives are only given on an individual basis, focus on goals and on quality, may result to the serious and drastic swings in the management of the employee finances and may attract many limitations.
Hiring Procedures
Walgreen offers many employment opportunities to thousands of people in the United States. The interested persons can either chose from the full-time jobs to part-time jobs, which are available at the company. The job titles from the company range from the professional career jobs, managerial jobs, and clerical jobs and other job titles. The jobs that are available at the firm do not only have competitive salary bases, but also allow salary options in relation to the type of job. In addition, the company offers training programs, which have been paid in advance to ensure that the employees advance their career professions.
Walgreens hiring procedure is an extremely straightforward process. The interested applicant only has to fill in a job application form that only takes a short time to complete. The applicant also uses the application form to find the position they are interested to apply for. The new employees and other employees benefit from a competitive base salary, complimentary name tags, salary options, generous discounts, flexible spending accounts, paid training opportunities, employee stock purchase programs, medical insurance, disability coverage and life insurance amongst many other benefits (Walsh 214).
Walgreens Social Responsibilities
Every single corporation has social responsibilities towards its customers, stock holders and the community at large. Walgreen operates from values that they earn from the beginning. These values not only reflect the vision of the company, but also help the professional to carry and put the business in a fair manner, and benefit the community and persons around them. Walgreens supports the community in many different ways. Some of these ways include; outreach, resource and other services. The company is aware of that, in order to offer excellent services, they have to value the differences in a diverse America. The company has also included the disabled into the running of its affairs and some of its stores. Some of the employees are disabled, but not discriminated against. In this way, the company is able to approach the technology in an efficient way and offer different opportunities to the community at large. Walgreen has put efforts in place, in order to ensure the environmental sustainability. The company does not only support an active lifestyle in the community, but also encourages the same in the community.
Walgreen tries to build their goodwill and their career at the same time. This has had some setbacks, but has also enabled the company to enjoy the considerable success and a convenient place in the corporate market. In this view, the company is committed to satisfying the needs of the community by offering high quality products. In this case, Walgreen has consolidated environmental, diversity, social and corporate responsibilities into the company’s system and daily running (Hogan 200).
Conclusion
There are extremely many drug stores and pharmacy stores in the United States, but Walgreen stands out as one of the most trusted pharmacy stores in America. This is because the company offers significant incentives in the medical regiments to the customers. The company also offers a specialty pharmacy that is an effective and complete source to the customers. In other words, it offers solutions and personalized support to patients and consumers.