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This article describes the HR Management System in place at Sears. Key emphases of Sears' HR management infrastructure include: (1) formulating and communicating a corporate mission, vision, and goals, (2) employee education and development through the Sears University, (3) performance management and incentive compensation systems linked closely to the firm's strategy, (4) validated employee selection systems, and (5) delivering the "HR Basics" very competently. Key challenges for the future include: (1) maintaining momentum in the performance improvement process, (2) identifying barriers to success, and (3) clearly articulating HR's role in the change management process. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Introduction
We'll know we have been successful as HR leaders when there is no perceived need for HR anymore-when we are transparent.
-Senior HR Professional, Sears
Sears, Roebuck, & Company incorporated in 1886 and is currently a retailing giant with a market capitalization over $41 billion. Arthur Martinez, CEO of Sears, is effecting a significant transformation of this retailing institution by broadening its scope to include an expanded array of home repair services and thousands of small stores, most of which will be closer to consumers and farther from shopping malls. Martinez took the helm in 1992, when Sears was losing $3.4 billion annually, and has since rejuvenated the company through eliminating the Sears Catalog; downsizing 50,000 jobs; closing 113 unprofitable stores; selling the famous Sears Tower; and divesting Allstate, Coldwell Banker, the Discover Card, and Dean Witter brokerage in order to focus on Sears' core businesses. Sears is now in the midst of a five-year-old transformation that includes a $4 billion store refurbishing program. The makeover also included a focus on a target customer-the middle class American mom (25-54, homeowner with a household income between $25,000 and $60,000)-and implementing a complementary marketing campaign of focusing on "the softer side of Sears". These efforts have been rewarded by an increase in market share and profits, and by Sears being named by Fortune this year as the most innovative general-merchandise retailer.
The firm's recent reorganization (in early 1996) left it with five distinct business units: (1) full-line stores (approximately 250,000 employees), (2) home or "off the mall" stores that include hardware, Homelife furniture, dealer stores, and a variety of new concept specialty stores under...