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Express
Dr. Kyle Edgington
OBHR 3310.002
Proposal Project
Group 8:
Abdullah Zidan
Pooja Paresh
Omar Alahmady
Janak Ranchod
Salman Lakhani
Company Overview
Beginning as a small sportswear shop in 1963, The Limited, Inc. went on to become one
of the largest corporate collections of specialty apparel retailers in the United States. The
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company owns thousands of stores across the United States including Express, Victoria’s Secret,
Structure, and Bath & Body Works.
The name The Limited was inspired by the limited merchandise of the initial sportswear
shop. The success of this store soon called for the opening of a second store. By 1972, The
Limited opened up its 100th store, having evolved into a women’s retail clothing store with a full
product line. Rather than just focusing on women’s clothing, The Limited then targeted a more
specific market segment within the existing market segment of women. In 1980 it opened its first
Limited Express store, which focused on young fashion conscious women adding more of the
current trends into its designs rather than their sportswear. In 1982 the business was later simply
renamed Express. By 1996, a majority of the company was sold to a New York based investment
firm. (FundingUniverse, n.d.)
Express is focused on ensuring that they continue to function in the essence of the brand
values that have been the basis of the company for over thirty years. Express’ major concern is
the customer. They begin and end with their customers in mind, for it is understood they would
not be where they are without their customers. They are committed to providing customers with
superior fashion and exceptional service and conducting business in a way that makes the
customer delighted to be associated with the product. They count on the creativity, ingenuity and
diversity of their associates in order to flourish.
The location observed is just a small peek into the operations of Express. Express, located
in the Dallas Galleria, is one of the largest Express stores in Texas as well as the Nation. This
location ranks under the top 100 Express stores in the nation, so there is no shortage of
interaction present. Being that this location is one of the largest, the best possible staff must be
present to ensure that Express’ values are being displayed properly. There is one General
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Manager, five managers, and a staff of combines sales associates and backroom staff. It is of no
doubt the managers are well educated and attain the experience necessary to hold such a role.
Many applications come through the doors of Express and the process to find the right people to
represent the company in a good light is extensive.
During the operation hours there are times of high and low traffic. Depending on the time
and trends of the day, a certain amount of employees are allocated to work at that time. During
the slower times, one will usually find one manager and one associate on the sales floor.
However, in the busier times, it is not uncommon to see a few managers and quite a few sales
associates walking the floor, talking and helping each customer that walks through Express’
doors. In the following sections, we will observe and analyze the organizational structure and
interpersonal relations within Express, and also provide recommendations to improve the job
performance of the employees working at Express.
Job Performance
Tasks vary for the positions held at Express, however, everyone has the common goal of
providing an outstanding customer experience. All sales associates have similar tasks at Express:
sales, operating the cash register and working the back room. Upon entering Express, you are
greeted with energy and the employees are working hard to satisfy every customer that makes
their way through the front doors. You notice the different styles and personalities among the
associates and managers which lead to the question of how effectively and efficiently the
personalities work with each other.
Typically, the associates at Express are taught by the book, and have a routine task
performance. There are a list of procedures and guidelines an associate must follow when
dealing with customers. However, everyone working there knows that not all customers are the
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same, and have to react in adaptive ways in order to deal with the very diverse customer base,
containing a variety of different cultures. Jo, an energetic young woman, recognizes this and has
demonstrated interpersonal and cultural adaptability when handling customers. At Express you
are taught to ask the same questions to every kind of customer that comes in. Jo, on the other
hand, does not see this as being effective and asks questions tailored to the person’s culture and
personality once they are introduced to each other. Abu Bakr, also known as Abu, is a young
man with a family and is very involved at work. He too, adapts a similar method of selling.
Mandy, a manager at Express who was once a sales associate, as well as Abu both believe that a
customer experience must be tailored individually.
Both Jo and Abu display an appreciation for their fellow associates. They both describe
them as helpful and courteous. For one, the relationship she has with her co-workers is what she
enjoys about her job. Mandy also considers that her co-workers are for the most part cooperative
and helpful. However, she does say that a few co-workers have attitudes and are lazy. The
employees all agree that there is a good level of sportsmanship and for the most part good
citizenship behaviors. There would be no need for competition within the associates unless it is
friendly competition on meeting goals. Coworkers help each other and stay motivated, also being
courteous and telling each other important information.
Regarding counterproductive behavior, the only instances would be in time management
and paper use as manager, Leland, would describe. Time management is not a primary issue at
Express for Leland says that most people are getting better at time management. However, with
the issue of paper waste, he believes the company uses too much paper for things that can be
accessed easily on a computer.
Organizational Commitment
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Organizational commitment is defined as the employee’s desire to remain at the company
that they are currently working with. Like many companies, Express has employees who
continue to work there for their own individual reasons. These reasons explain their type of
commitment to the organization, which is important to define for each employee.
Affective commitment is when an employee feels an emotional commitment to the
company, and they accept the goals and values of the firm in question. This type of commitment
generally means that the employee engages in more positive citizenship behavior, like helping
their teammates or having a high level of sportsmanship with their co-workers. It also has a high
positive correlation with job performance.
When the team at Express was interviewed, a few different team members showed this
form of commitment. Abu, a sales associate, stated that he liked working at Express because he
enjoyed the company of his co-workers. According to him, there is a high level of sportsmanship
between the co-workers and there really isn’t any competition between them, and that it was a
positive environment to be working in. He likes his managers a lot, and finds them cheerful,
motivating, and helpful for his needs as an employee. Despite having offers for other jobs that
pay more money, he has chosen to stay at Express because he loves the working environment.
This is a great indicator of affective organizational commitment, because he has actively chosen
to stay at Express over other jobs. Another employee, Jo, who is also a sales associate, has been
working with Express for about the same time as Abu, seven months. She had many of the same
things to say in her interview – that it was a really great environment to work in and that she
loved the people that she worked with. She had a lot of affective commitment to the job and a
clear emotional attachment to her co-workers, even describing her managers as a “second
family”. Like Abu, she has also had other job offers but has chosen to stay here, which is really
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encouraging for the team. Mandy, one of the managers, also feels the same way and enjoys her
working environment. She described some more negative aspects of the job but also stated that
she enjoys the people that she works with and has made friends with other co-workers.
The interviews with the employees showed that at Express there is a high level of
affective commitment because of the bonds that co-workers have formed with each other. This is
positive for the company as a whole. It also relates with the erosion theory, which states that
employees with fewer bonds will tend to leave the organization. These employees have strong
bonds with their co-workers, which has pushed many of them to stay with Express and love their
job.
Another form of organizational commitment is known as continuance commitment. It
isn’t as statistically correlated with job performance and citizenship behavior, and is a more
passive form of loyalty (Colquitt, 2014). This is not necessarily negative, but shows that the
employee would feel a sense of anxiety if they tried to leave because of a possible lack of
alternatives or investment put into the current job. Most employees at Express had a high level of
affective commitment but also showed signs of continuance commitment because they “needed”
the job. For example, Leland stated that he does not plan on making this job his lifelong career,
and said that he considers it a “space filler job”. This is not a very positive view on his career at
Express, but he has still worked with the company for over 6 years. Leland has invested a lot of
time into the company and did not have many negative things to say about working at this
particular location, but still does not see himself working at the company his whole life. He is a
great example of continuance commitment because he is staying there because he “cannot” leave
and he is definitely passively loyal to the company. Another employee showing signs of
continuance commitment is Mandy, a manager. She had a high level of affective commitment as
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discussed earlier but also works at Express because she likes the pay that she is receiving there
and needs the money.
The team at Express has a high level of organizational commitment. There is a lot of
affective commitment and some level of continuance commitment. High organizational
commitment is also negatively correlated with withdrawal behaviors, or negative actions taken in
their jobs. This organizational commitment is a great sign for the organization because it means
that the employees show important citizenship behaviors and have good job performance,
leading to success for the company.
Job Satisfaction
There are many factors that affect job performance. One of the biggest factors is job
satisfaction, which is the emotional pleasure gained from how one feels in their job environment
and experience. Interviewing some of the sales associates and managers at Express demonstrated
some of the factors that affect the job satisfaction of the employees in that store. Some of the
main values, or things that people seek to attain, that affected the satisfaction of sales associates
and managers were pay, promotion, co-workers, and the work itself.
Speaking with Abu Bakr, a sales associate, he seemed to be satisfied working with his coworkers. He finds them pleasant while he enjoys his work environment which consists of fun and
energetic people. He respects his managers and is satisfied with the way they manage their team.
Abu’s main values were centered around his job environment and his co-workers. Money and
pay was not a big motivator or factor that affected his job satisfaction, although, he demonstrated
the want for an increase in his pay, as he is currently working near a minimum wage without
commissions. Abu did mention that there were more promotion opportunities available that were
easy to gain, which did make up for no commissions.
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Having more promotion opportunities available has lead to a high promotion satisfaction
which are the “feelings employees have towards the companies promotion policies” (Colquitt
2014). Abu also has a high co-worker satisfaction as he enjoys his co-workers and finds them
pleasant. He does demonstrate a low pay satisfaction as he showed that he is not being paid
enough for the work he carries out, even though money is not his main motivator.
Another sales associate, Jo, enjoys her work and finds it fun. She is satisfied with how
much money she earns as well as with the promotion opportunities made available to her. Her
only drawback from the job is her manager. Jo’s manager is constantly moving her to different
tasks without allowing her to complete her current task, and expects her to take responsibility for
her previous task. Although, she is happy with the way her boss recognizes her hard work. Jo
demonstrates high promotion and co-worker satisfaction as she is happy that she is recognized
for her hard work and is very close to her co-workers. Jo is especially satisfied with the work
itself that she carries out. She derives satisfaction from helping customers find their clothing
needs and making sure they leave the store happy. This ties into showing the value of the
meaningfulness of her work, as she sees her job as something to try and help others which is
something she personally values overall.
Leland is one of the managers at the Express store and has been working for Express for
six years. He is satisfied with the company as a whole and the business structure they use, which
is why he has continued working there for so long. Leland demonstrated the overall satisfaction
with the company and his co-workers. Leland was not fully satisfied with his heads
micromanaging him and feel he would pleased if he had more freedom to do his work. Leland
was also not satisfied with the way they are given recognition for their hard work as there are no
commissions and he does a lot of overtime work but believes that the promotion opportunities
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made available make up for it. Leland demonstrates a low pay satisfaction and low supervision
satisfaction but demonstrates a high promotion satisfaction with many promotion opportunities
being made available.
Mandy is the other store manager. She demonstrates a bigger emphasis on money. She
believes that she should be paid and more and see more rewards as she has more stress on her job
and takes on many difficult tasks. Mandy was not satisfied with the way her upper management
rewards her on completing difficult tasks, as there are no pay rewards and instead is only given
compliments for her hard work, which she is not satisfied with. She prefers more recognition for
her accomplishments and work. Despite this, she is satisfied with the promotion opportunities
available for demonstrating hard work which she has previously taken advantage of. Mandy is
also not satisfied with the amount of time she is given for her personal duties as she is a student
and is also getting married and trying to organize a wedding and spending time with her fiance.
She wishes there was more time allowance for her. Mandy does however enjoy the work itself
that she carries out and enjoys her actual tasks as she intends to pursue a career in a similar field.
She does feel that some of her co-workers are slightly lazy and have a bad attitude at times but
overall enjoys spending time with her co-workers.
Observing the overall satisfaction of employees at Express, one can see that most
employees demonstrate high promotion satisfaction as they all tend to see many opportunities for
promotion in the store. All of the employees demonstrated high co-worker satisfaction as they
enjoyed working with their co-workers and and found that it made it a more fun environment to
work in with them. Most of the employees highly valued the work they were actually doing as
they enjoyed it mainly because some of them had plans to follow a career which involves similar
tasks to the ones they were already carrying out. Most of the co-workers seemed to be satisfied
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with their current pay, but felt they should be paid more for the amount of work they had to carry
out. Others felt they deserved more recognition for the amount of work they are carrying out and
they should have commission based salaries, but still felt that the great promotion opportunities
made it better.
Stress
Stress plays a major role in almost every individual’s life; it is a natural form of
emotional strain that people deal with everyday. Stress directly ties into other several factors of
organizational behavior, such as job performance, job commitment, job satisfaction, and
motivation. It is understandable that during certain period of strenuous work, it is inevitable , but
it is of extreme importance for organizations to monitor and control the levels of stress they put
on their employees.
Upon interviewing Abu Bakr, a sales associate, it was made note that he is not currently
under a significant amount of stress. The tolerable amount of stress that he is having in his dayto-day life is not work related. He feels that the job demands are benign, and enjoys working at
Express and the environment it provides. Jo, the second sales associate whom we interviewed, is
a bit more stressed than Abu Bakr. Jo says she is not being stressed out through non-work
hindrance, such as home related matters. Jo focused on stressors that originate from within the
work she does. Time pressure is definitely a factor in what causes her to stress, but it is not too
much where it would be overwhelming for her. However, she copes with this stress in a healthy
way.
Not to our surprise, the managers at Express were under a heavier load of stress than the
associates. Leland, a manager who has been loyal to Express for over six years, suggested that
the stress is present but manageable. Daily hassles, such as getting tasking done, is one of his
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stressors.Another stressor for Leland is the duty of executing floor sets on time, perfectly.
Managing payrolls also increases his work responsibility and adds in stress. Speaking to Leland,
it was evident that role overload may have been resting on his shoulders. He copes with stress by
trying to relax through his workday. His strategy for coping was to make it a point to try and
keep his work at work and not take it home with him.
Mandy, the last manager who was interviewed, believes that the job is indeed stressful.
Her and Leland share a similar stressor: payrolls. Like Leland, Mandy says that managing
payroll is stressful. Also, creating the schedules with everyone’s shifts and allocating hours
efficiently throughout all co-workers is very difficult. As the manager, Mandy has to deal with a
more complex workload and a higher level of responsibility. It is her duty to make sure goals are
met and everyone is on task, but when those goals are not met, she’s the one to get the call from
the district manager asking what the issue is.Work overload is definitely a strong factor for her
due to non-work hindrances such as school. Her school life and job collide a lot; school has kept
her from working as efficiently as to what she has to offer. Furthermore, Mandy is challenged
with a work-family conflict. Work-family conflict is when the demands of work get in the way
of family, relationship related matters (Colquitt, 2015). Mandy found that planning for her
wedding was extra stressful with the work she was already responsible for.
The team at Express, like at most organizations, all admitted to feeling some level of
stress about work and non work related stressors, which could be impacting their physical and
mental health. Despite having to deal with these stressors, however, based on the interviews the
employees seem to handle their stress in relatively healthy and positive ways.
Motivation
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Motivation is a key concept when it comes to determining the direction, intensity and
persistence of a person’s work related effort. Employees first begin a job with the intent to work
hard and do a good job for a possible reward. Although this is human nature, the level of
motivation can significantly decrease in the workforce if the corporation does not implement
new and creative techniques to raise and maintain the motivational level in their employees.
To begin with, let us examine the expectancy theory of motivation and analyze how that
theory comes into play with the Express team. The expectancy theory suggests that motivation is
based on how much someone wants something and how likely they think they are to get it. In
other words, motivation combined with effort will lead to performance, which in turn will lead to
better outcomes. All of the employees interviewed, including Abu Bakr, Jo, Leland and Mandy,
at one point stated that large promotions are available to those who are willing to put in the hard
work for them. This is a great motivational technique.
When interviewing one of the employees, Mandy, she discussed with us how her and a
lot of her co-workers, wish there were more rewards for hard workers. One of the things she
pointed out in particular was the fact that there were not any options to earn commission. This
may point to lower motivation in the future than would be possible if the employees were
earning commission.
The equity theory of motivation suggests that once the employee has chosen what action
will satisfy his or her needs, the employee will go on to measure the fairness and the equity of
the outcomes he or she is getting compared to what the rest of the employees are getting. After
interviewing Express’s staff, we concluded that the equity of the rewards offered by Express is
fair. All employees have the same chance at promotion and the only thing standing between them
is the hard work. The harder someone works, the better their chances are of getting a promotion.
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One of the most effective, yet hardest to accomplish, types of motivation is psychological
empowerment. Psychological empowerment is an intrinsic form of motivation derived from the
belief that one’s work tasks are contributing to an overall larger purpose. This level of motivation
is very hard to establish in an employee, but once established, it is the most effective form of
motivation. When interviewing one of the employees, Leland, he spoke about how he believes in
the product and the company’s overall goal. Leland is intrinsically motivated because he has a
personal connection with the brand. This type of motivation cannot be instilled in an employee
through things such as offering commissions or promotions. Rather, it is built overtime. When
the employees feel they are working for a truly good company, they will be much more
motivated to work harder and support that company.
Recommendations for Future Improvement
The team at Express has been successful so far in maintaining a healthy job performance
at this particular location. There are three different suggestions that our group has come up with
that if implemented and maintained would lead to a higher level of growth and an even higher
level of job performance that is already in place. These suggestions are related to the low pay
satisfaction, dealing with stress among employees and (waiting on someone else’s part).
The main area that could use some improvement under job satisfaction was the amount of
pay that they were receiving. This is something that needs to be taken into consideration because
the level of satisfaction that employees have with the job correlates strongly with job
performance and organizational commitment. Something that the employees are unsatisfied with
could also lead to counterproductive or withdrawal behaviors, such as social loafing or gossiping
about management. While employees were not necessarily unhappy with their pay, many of
them stated that they felt as if they deserved more for the duties that they were performing as
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sales associates and managers. This is typical for employees to assess the value of their work and
to compare it with the pay that they are receiving. For example, Abu stated that he did not
necessarily find the work hard and enjoyed working at Express, even turning down offers with
more pay. However, he did not feel rewarded for this behavior and felt as if he should have been
paid more at Express for doing well at his work. Leland and Mandy, the two managers showed
displeasure with the amount they were being paid as well, especially considering the immense
workload that they were dealing with. To engage these employees and show that the organization
is trying its best to compensate them adequately for their needs, the best way for Express to react
to these feelings amongst the employees is to conduct a Job Descriptive Index test. This test
would show the true level of satisfaction in all the facets of job satisfaction. The results should
then be shown to the employees so that they feel involved in the process, which in turn provides
more job satisfaction. According to Colquitt, in order for this whole method to be fruitful, the
company should be prepared to take steps and actions that react to the results of the survey. This
will cause actual improvement and the actual change in the company and provide the employees
a lot of satisfaction with the job – not only relating to their pay satisfaction, but also with the
organization’s values as a whole.
Another area that could see improvement in this organization is in dealing with the stress
that the employees feel on a regular, day to day basis. There are two different types of stress that
can affect employees; hindrance stressors and challenge stressors. The stressors, or stressful
demands, that the employees are dealing with in Express seem to mainly be hindrance stressors.
It is important to address the stress that the employees are suffering because stress is shown to
have an actual effect on the health of people. The physical and mental health of the employees
should be the first and foremost concern of the organization. In addition, hindrance stressors are
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also negatively correlated with job performance (Colquitt, 2014). For example, Jo stated that she
has difficulties maintaining a good job performance when her manager gets involved and
switches her over to another task while she has not finished the first one. She is then reprimanded
for not finishing the first task. This type of work hindrance stressor is something that puts strain
on Jo, and may eventually trigger changes in her levels of anxiety or anger towards the
organization. This is a clear example of role overload that she is dealing with, and something
needs to be done to change this before it affects her performance. Another example of stress in
the Express workplace is Leland, who deals with daily hassles which are starting to take a toll on
him. He also displayed some level of role overload because he was expected to do more work
than he was able to do at one time. A good way for the organization to deal with this problem is
to address the situation by performing a “stress audit”. This shows the amount of stress that the
employees are dealing with and allows the managers to take appropriate action with each
employee. To deal with the immense amount of role overload, our group suggests that the
organization takes action with the stress audit to find out who exactly is dealing with the most
overload and engage in “job sharing”. This would also help with the various time pressures that
Jo mentioned that she was dealing with as well.This means that two employees would assist each
other in completing tasks that one employee would normally do in this company. By
participating in job sharing, the company can reduce the amount of stress that employees are
feeling and in turn possibly increase the level of job performance. Since the employees are
shown themselves to have a high level of co-worker satisfaction, one would expect them to work
well in teams, which would also be a good tool to help them finish tasks without as much stress.
Mandy also indicated in her interview that she was dealing with some work-family conflict, as
she was in the process of trying to plan her wedding and also trying to maintain her job as well.
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In order to help her manage the stress, it is suggested that the company allows her to take a work
sabbatical in order to get her affairs in order. This time off could help her feel better physically
and mentally and allow her to deal with her family conflict so that she has a clear mind in place
when she comes back to work, leading to a higher job satisfaction and better performance.
The last recommendation that our group would like to provide to the team at Express is
related to motivation. Motivation is incredibly important for the employees in a company
because “effective job performance often requires high levels of both ability and motivation”
(Colquitt, 2014). The employees at Express have clearly proven that they have the ability to do
well at their job. With higher levels of motivation, job performance can improve greatly for this
team. As discussed earlier in the Motivation section of the report, the expectancy theory suggests
that motivation increases as successful performance is linked to more and more attractive
outcomes. The employees stated that promotions are available to those that are hard workers.
These job advancement opportunities are definitely attractive to these employees, but may be too
much of a long-term goal for some of them. Rather, most of these employees love the job but
consider it a short term “filler”, as Leland said. In this situation, commission might be a good
choice to bridge the gap between short-term and long-term rewards. Commission is one of the
most commonly used motivational techniques in that the employee is sure of the outcome that
their hard work will produce. When this practice of rewarding employees with promotions
becomes common, all workers will develop instrumentality, a belief that successful performance
leads to better outcomes. The higher the level of instrumentality, the harder the team will work.
Commission is a great example of this because team members will work hard to sell as much as
they can in order to gain more revenue and do better as an employee. It also relates to the equity
theory of motivation, which says that employees try to look for fairness in the decisions made by
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management. Commission is a fair choice and will satisfy the employees for that reason. Another
important thing to improve is the amount of psychological empowerment that the employees
feel. Currently, employees seem to have strong bonds with each other, but other than Leland do
not necessarily have the same bond with Express as a brand and organization. One thing
employers can do to improve this is to instill more pride in the company and stress the fact that
satisfying customers is the number one priority. Overtime, the employees will begin to share the
same vision as the company and they will be much more motivated to work harder and will be
much more satisfied with their job.
If the team at Express implemented and maintained the strategies provided in these three
different facets, they would see a measured improvement in job performance and organizational
commitment for the company.
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Reference List & Work Cited
Colquitt, J., LePine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J. (2014). Organizational behavior: Improving
performance and commitment in the workplace. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Colquitt, J., LePine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J. (2015). Organizational behavior: Improving
performance and commitment in the workplace. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
FundingUniverse - History of The Limited, Inc. (n.d.).
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/the-limited-inc-history/