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Cases for Wesfarmers with critics

Health and safety

Wesfarmers have faced many difficulties, but they have made their survival possible.
Wesfarmers aims to have a safe workplace for customer, supplier and other people who visit the
workplace. Wesfarmers has set up a safety performance chart in order to monitor the total
number of injuries occurred in the workplace. (Wesfarmers sustainability Report 2016) Through
the safety performance chart, there has been 0.2% improvement. (Wesfarmers sustainability
Report 2016) They also use historical safety performance because they believe that each team
member safety has become their priority. There has been 15.2% improvement which has led to a
reduced to worker compensation (Wesfarmers sustainability Report 2016) .The health and safety
officer has developed a hazard application in order to identify hazard. Wesfarmers is launching
an innovative and dynamic way to control and decrease risk with the help of drone and robot to
conduct and inspect high hazard location. (Wesfarmers sustainability Report 2016) However it
does not guarantee success some times while they set the safety performance chart and historical
safety performance. They have to train our worker in order to make up them more experienced,
multi-talented and multi skilled to use because the safety performance and historical safety
performance cannot do in paper it should be computerized. Therefore this requires huge amount
of information and we must have the entire workers collaboration that cannot be possible
because Wesfarmers has many industries and this consist of different workers. Huge amount of
capital should be invested to implement these strategies because we have to buy equipment and
other accessories regarding the drone and robots. This will increase the cost because of the
accounting scandal the profit of Wesfarmers has declined. Will Wesfarmers be able to bear all
this expense or it is at employees own risk?

Wesfarmers has launched program for worker like See Something do something which put into
effect the worker to operate and address any incident concerning burning. (Wesfarmers
sustainability Report 2016) Another campaign is Mind Your Health has been implemented in
order to ensure that the all the workers are healthy and active. (Wesfarmers sustainability Report
2016). The program that has been set up it is for the welfare of the worker. Wesfarmers has
introduced a new strategy kiss the carton is a safety campaign established in order to reduce
injuries and accidents by focus in manual handling techniques. The team members will award for
the best handling techniques. (Wesfarmers sustainability Report 2016) The program that has
been set up is for the welfare of the worker but you dont know if the worker will understand the
concept. We must take the opinions and ideas of the workers in order to ensure that they are in
favor of the program that will launch for them. However, if Wesfarmers insist that the entire
worker has to stay after office hour .This will be a problem for the worker because they will not
willing to stay after office hour. This will create a conflict among the worker and the manager of
Wesfarmers. Eventually the program that they are launching can include training courses.
Therefore they have to employ experienced people, rent a building and organize tables, chairs
and stationary items. This will be time consuming and money will be at stake again. Workers
will able to adapt with the program

Equality and employment

Wesfarmers creates a safe and good working environment which all the worker of all age, race,
disability, religion and different area of responsibility .Wesfarmers believes that we must satisfy
the need of the customer, improve creativity, innovation, sharing of knowledge and experience.
Wesfarmer workforce of women has increased by 55 per cent and 45 percent of men.
(Wesfarmers sustainability Report 2016) This has illustrated that women are motivated to work
harder and increased their leadership position .They expect to have more women in the senior
management. Wesfarmers want to conduct several forums in order to increase awareness and
practice so that it can increase participation among the workers (Wesfarmers sustainability
Report 2016). They improve the recruitment policy because their objective is to hire the right
person for the right job. They ensure that both female and male are paid equally for the same
jobs they carry out. (Wesfarmers sustainability Report 2016) However, this can create conflict
and jealousy among the men and women in the workforce. Because the men will believe that the
women are in competition with them. Men will believe that the women are dominating them
because of their higher position that Wesfarmer is putting into effect.
Cases against Wesfarmers with critics

Wesfarmers has been involved in accounting scandal in 2016. This has been caused by the
workers at Target which has led to a loss of 900 local jobs (Chris Sheedy, CA Today 2016).
There has been a problem in Wesfarmers in September 2011, Peck is the owner of the company
for 20 years has quit along with many staffs because the culture of working was terrible.
(News.com.au 2016). Many workers have left because there is no motivation and leadership.
Rogers stay in the business just for 18 month however he decided to leave for personal reason.
(News.com.au 2016). This demonstrates that he cant handle his private life and personal life.
Rogers was replaced by Machin who was the director of store development and operation at
Coles. (News.com.au 2016). It was said that Machin has no proven leadership experience and
thus he has quit after the scandal. (News.com.au 2016). The HR manager has not selected the
right person for the right job. Because three directors have quit, this has shown that they cannot
cope with the culture, cannot handle stress, no emotional intelligence and no working experience.

The suppliers have committed fraud that was unethical and has increased Targets first half
earnings which were 5.7 per cent from $ 70 m to $74m.(Sydney Morning Herald 2016) .Ten
Target staffs were involved in the accounting scandal because they felt pressure at divisional
level. (Retail Gazette Daily News 2016) .Mr Goyder said that the financial performance of
business was declining because of pressure, workload and stress. This has led to these workers to
take this drastic step. However, severe action has been taken against these workers which have
led to them to unemployment, loss of reputation and the ability of not gaining a decent job in the
market.

Wesfarmers has appointed Ernst&Young the external auditors find out that $18.1 but did not
meet with the accounting policies and they have carried out an internal arrangement for the
supplier. (Australian Business Review 2016) The allegation that 30 offshore suppliers has made
is that after a request if the money flow back to the suppliers via higher prices in the second half.
(Chris Sheedy, CA Today 2016) This will be the purpose of the scheme to boost up their first
half earnings. They have artificially boosted up the earning.
Enron was known one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnership. It was revealed in
November 2001 that the top executive has committed fraud. Enrons earning has inflated.(CNN
library 2016) It was unethical when they found that the people who occupied higher position in
Enron have committed fraud jus for the sake of getting to get additional source of earning to
satisfy them. They have sold their integrity and honesty for the sake of little money can be
earned by hardworking.

Johnson&Johnson was a multinational pharmacy group. The scandal was happened when they
come to know that tampering occurred once the product reached the shelves. Johnson&Johnson
knew that they are not responsible for the tampering of the product. But they have taken the
safety of general public and have removed the entire product on the market. Johnson&Johnson
come up with new campaign prelaunch the product. (THE TYLENOL CRISIS, 1982)

The cases of Enron and Johnson& Johnson have demonstrated that there is no ethics, integrity
and honesty to fulfill their responsibility and duties as the senior of the companie
Conclusion

To conclude, Wesfarmerss reputation has been affected by the accounting scandal as there were
no management and leadership skills among the employers and employees. This has affected the
relationship between suppliers as they have increased the prices in an unethical way.

As mention in the paragraph, a positive aspect of social performance is that Wesfarmers believe
in sustainability .They are promoting the welfare and security of the employees. They are here to
provide more opportunities to employees in order to improve their performance.

However, there are many aspect that has been identified Wesfarmers have many industries. They
are investing a lot of funds to set up a new strategy for the welfare of the employees and
Wesfarmers. They must the advice from the experts to know whether it is worth and applicable.

The recruitment and selection process should be done effectively in panel in order to know if we
are selecting the right person for the right job. Three directors have quit the jobs because they are
unable to adapt because of the working environment.

Recommendation

Wesfarmers is aiming to improve the long term growth. Wesfarmers consist of many industries
around the country. They can go for acquisition or takeover. They can employ someone more
experienced the charge of the business to handle the day to day running activities of Wesfarmers
and the power of decision making. We have to appoint a manager who will motivate the
employees to increase worker participation so that the workers will not feel the pressure of
workload.

We can organize fun activities for the workers and their family as I have mentioned in the
negative aspect of social performance the accounting scandal has been caused by a group of
employees because they feel that they cant cope with stress and overload of work.

A regular meeting should be carried between the director and manager on a weekly basic so that
to get feedback about the running of the business if the workers are all at ease to work and they
are motivated to work harder. The financial statement of Wesfarmers should be checked on a
monthly basic by external auditors in order to know if Wesfarmers is making profit or losses.

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