Businesses thrive off of having a cohesive team of employees with the ability to efficiently and effectively work together to complete tasks and fulfill jobs. When an employee walks into work in the morning and truly enjoys being there, whether it be due to the co-workers they are constantly interacting with or the environment that is created because of the workforce, success becomes more readily achievable. However, problems arise when this picturesque group of workers are faced with barriers that keep them from operating in an entirely functional manner.

Sometimes becoming dysfunctional is inevitable and is something that must consciously be overcome, but there are also circumstances under which it is not. In Jude Arafeh’s blog post “Working on Commission” (2017), she discusses the culture of working at Aritzia and the competitive environment that is partially created due to a sales quota that employees must meet each hour in order to maintain employed at the company. Arafeh mentions how from a financial perspective she understands how this could be beneficial for Aritzia, but from a managerial perspective she is suspicious of the potential problems that could arise (Arafeh 1), and I agree. Aritzia is in a sense pitting their employees against each other, forcing them to be competitive and meet their sales quotas at whatever costs. How is a team of employees expected to work together when they have no choice but to look out for themselves first in order to keep their jobs?

This culture is not an example of something that was out of the control of the company, but it is rather encouraged by them. Clearly they are doing something right as the company is successful and thriving, but could another approach be as effective? Many people may argue that there is in fact not a probably alternative if they believe that money is a main motivator, but as we have learned, this is not always the case. Perhaps Aritzia employees should be rewarded for the number of customers helped, or the number of tasks completed, rather than the dollar amount of merchandise that they helped to sell.

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Bibliography:

Arafeh, Jude. “Working on Commission”. blogs.ubc.ca. Np., 2017. Web. 3 Mar. 2017.