Awards
There are a number of key takeaways that the prudent researcher of L.L. Bean and its company can discern from studying the way this particular organization approaches rewards and benefits. Foremost of these is the intrinsic value that it adds to an organization to have employees get rewards and benefits based on their participation and engagement with the company's goals. At L.L. Bean, those goals are a customer-oriented environment in which the values of the company are those which are valuable to the customers as well. Thus, employees must demonstrate that they are directly helping to meet those goals of L.L. Bean in order to qualify for the accordant rewards.
It also seems to be extremely beneficial (for both parties involved) to issue bonuses to employees based on their annual salaries. Although L.L. Bean literally spent millions of dollars in issuing such bonuses during 2006, it is critical to note that this practice galvanizes employees to not only perform the sort of work that gets them bonuses,...
Bean is one of the few organizations which, after globalizing and outsourcing some of its operations, appears to be taking pains to ensure that there is a similar reward system issued to its overseas laborers. Such a practice is rare and seemingly defeats the entire purpose of outsourcing -- which is typically to get products and materials for cheaper than one can domestically. Even though L.L. Bean is still reaping this benefit, its track record indicates that it is possible to do so and still issue rewards and decent wages to overseas employees. Again, the true value in this custom of the company's is that employees can help achieve organizational objectives when their performance is tied into the company's reward system.
The first recommendation that I have regarding the expansion of the benefits programs at L.L. Bean would be to afford…
