Communication in Business

Name: XXX

Student ID: XXX

Student Email: XXX

Class Day and Time: XXX

Company: Woolworths Group

Trimester and Campus: XXX

Title: A Review of Woolworths Group’s Social Performance

regarding the Environment

Word Count: 1558

 WOOLWORTHS GROUP

Introduction to Woolworths Group

Introduced first time in 1924 by the group of 5 founders, including Percy Christmas, Stanley
Chatterton, Cecil Scoot Waine, George Creed, and Ernest Williams, Woolworths Group has been
continuously competing in the challenging market of grocery stores, supermarkets, and discount
department stores in Australia. In 2021, after nearly a century of functioning, Woolworths even
became the giant in the niches of the supermarket, accounting for 37.4 percent of the market
share (Statista, 2021). According to Woolworths Group itself, from the very beginning, it always
strives to “deliver the best in convenience, value, and quality for customers.” With this clearly-
defined mission, Woolworths’ business has flourished considerably and opened a total of 3.357
stores in Australia and New Zealand, providing products and services related to food, drinks, and
hotels. Following its vast network of locations, Woolworths group has employed approximately
215000 members and served up to 29.1 million per week.

In this essay, both positive and negative aspects related to Woolworths Group’s social contract
and practices will be analyzed to reflect how well this business interacts with customers,
employees, and society.

Woolworths Group social performance with regards to

accomplishing society's expectations

Positive Employment Impacts of Woolworths Group

Woolworths Group, as a leading chain of supermarkets in Australia, has utilized its power to
create more and more job opportunities for residents of Australia. Woolworths is notable not
only for the number of 215.000 employees it recruits but also for the diversity of its workforce.

Firstly, Woolworths Group has made great efforts to reduce the unbalance between job positions
provided for men and women. Looking back a century ago, hardly could a woman be dedicated
in the working context. However, after the 1960s women's revolution, they started to enter the
workforce with rapid movement and a desire to be provided with an appropriate job. Moving to
the 21st century, more and more companies have shown their care to eliminate the considerable
gap existing between male and female labor, and Woolworths Group could be a significant
model in this area. According to its report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency in 2020,
there are 84,373 female employees at the level of non-manager, which accounts for
approximately 54% of the workforce. The manager level witnessed a slight decrease in the
women's presentation of about 42 percent. Nevertheless, publicly, Woolworths has promised to
seriously increase the presence of women in leadership roles by developing a pipeline of great
female talent across all sectors of our organization, which will result in enhancing Woolworths'
overall equality between the sexes in the company. This giant not only took the number of
employees under its wing into consideration but also the gap in salary. Woolworths implemented
a remarkable technique in 2016, reviewing the salaries of up to 18,000 workers and adjusting 29
percent of this number to reduce the inconsistency between males and females performing
similar tasks by an average of 0.5 percent. Many Woolworths employees appreciate this program
as it increases their income suitably.

Secondly, Woolworths Group also considered providing people of various ages with job
opportunities. Unlike other companies that prefer to recruit those with relative experience or are
hesitant to hire the elderly, Woolworths strives to find ways to distribute an appropriate
proportion of labor between the two mentioned groups. According to its corporate responsibility
report in 2015, Woolworths created jobs for more than 74,000 individuals aged 14 to 25 in both
Australia and New Zealand with the hope that they could acquire a good starting point in their
lifetime careers. Besides, this giant retailer also welcomes older workers over 55 since they
appreciate their experience. As a result, there were 18,000 laborers functioning under
Woolworth’s wings.

Last but not least, Woolworths has aimed at encouraging and supporting the disabled throughout
Australia and has seriously taken actions to achieve it. By collaborating with the Australian
Network on Disability, which continuously remains in the position of gold member, Woolworths
promised to eliminate any obstacles that may arise with their potential workers. Woolworths is
always open to direct contact from employees or through the Disability Employment Service to
discuss employment goals and suitable vacant positions that may be available in the future.
Besides, Woolworths makes great efforts to ensure their formal recruitment system is friendly
enough for the disabled. With the already recruited workers, Woolworths Group decided to
provide them with lessons related to Auslan (the official language used by Australia’s deaf
community) so that the whole system could understand each other clearly and generate a
welcoming atmosphere.

Negative aspect on customers payment

A negative aspect of the retail supermarket chain Woolworths was when they changed to test the
payment method when shopping in June 2020. Woolworths announced that they do not accept
cash payments at some stores in major shopping centers in Sydney and Melbourne. In particular,
the rollout takes place at eleven Woolworth Metro stores, including those on York and George
Streets in Sydney's city center, not only at Manly on North Beach but also in Caulfield North,
Yarraville and Rosebery in Sydney's south, and stores on Bourke Street and Elizabeth Street in
Melbourne. The Woolworth supermarket chain does not accept cash payment accounts for 0.6%
of the total 1,050 stores across Australia. Woolworth's cashless implementation uses EFTPOS
machines to become the only payment method when shopping at this supermarket chain.

The pilot implementation has raised concerns from customers when they have not yet given up
the habit of using cash and coins. Habits are ingrained among people, especially the elderly
because their accessibility and updating capacity have weakened. Therefore, the elderly's access
to cards or online payment methods will be slower than the younger generation. In addition, it is
not only the elderly but also other groups of people who will be affected as it becomes more
challenging to buy essential goods without cash, including the homeless, those with low income
or precarious, and prostitution. Woolworths' ban on the use of money created age discrimination
and discrimination between customers' income disparities.

Woolworths saying no to cash has created a fierce controversy when there are mixed opinions.
For example, to support and promote the above experience, when they think about hygiene
issues, they think about bacteria and germs that will be transmitted. At the same time, the Covid
epidemic situation is more complicated. However, many people still feel that it is an excuse to
make people change their payment methods. Because many customer groups still have the habit
of using cash, Woolworths cannot ignore these customer groups. So there have been a lot of
customers complaining about this change. This is also the reason for creating a boycott against
this supermarket chain when they refuse to accept cash, and they are ready to refuse to shop at
the store if it only accepts cards. In addition, worrying about customers' data and shopping
information will be disclosed or sold to advertisers or law enforcement without the customers'
consent.

Based on customer feedback, Woolworths may find that the cash ban experience has far
exceeded current community expectations for cash and will end the experiment. A Woolworths
spokesperson said that they still understand that cash payment is still the first choice of many
customers when shopping at the supermarket. Therefore, cash payment is still applied at almost
all Woolworths stores across Australia. The cashless payment test only takes place at a few
Metro stores with a meager volume of cash transactions, as most people tend to pay with credit
cards or other digital payment methods. In addition, recognizing the payment method is an
important part. It is also the Woolworths Wpay management that is launched as a fully integrated
payment solution. Although switching to other payment methods is not bad, it is not right to ban
cash payments. It can create gaps and distinctions in society, such as between the rich and poor
people or the young and old generations.

According to The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) 's 2019 Consumer Payments Survey shows
that the proportion of consumers paying in cash has fallen from 69% in 2007 to 27% in 2019.
due to the increasing trend of online shopping accompanied by card and smartphone payments.
However, some Australians still hold onto their cash due to concerns about rising prices, and
they want to keep some extra money at home. Because of the inability to exclude some money
from government regulations, Woolworths' ban on the use of cash when paying in stores sparked
a wave of boycotts.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Woolworths Group is the leading retail chain in the Australian market and New
Zealand. Always based on clear missions, Woolworths Group's social activism positively affects
their employees, although they also receive boycott trends from customers. With regard to
employment, it is clear that the retailing chain creates many career opportunities for many
people, not only Australians but also laborers worldwide. However, when it comes to the
customer's aspect, Woolworths has not functioned as well as expected as the boycott trend is
occurring significantly. This undesirable trend will decrease if they implement diversification of
payment methods at each store, including cash, card, and other digital payments on smartphones.
The variety of charges will create more convenience for customers' choices. On the other hand,
the Australian government has to make policies that are called cashless. If the Australian
population has an enthusiastic response to the cashless policies from the government, they are
willing to respond with the cashless experience of Woolworths.
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