Evidence of strategic IHRM in Apple Company
Strategic human resource management is the process of planning of the best ways of managing personnel in an organization. This involves the practice of developing and implementing practices and policies best fitted for the organization’s workforce. Strategic human resource management deals with the issues of necessary to implement international operations aimed at managing human resource as a strategy to obtain financial advantage over other businesses (Luo 2001). Multinational companies are common in full development and implementation of IHRM as an objective to acquire economic managerial advantage over competitors.
It is evident from Apple’s generic competitive strategy that the company pursues a wider differentiated production, marketing and personnel strategy which is aimed at deliverance of personalized, and exclusively designed products and services. Apple company employees IHRM process in recruitment of its employees. The hiring process of Apple’s human resource is selective in its hiring and recruitment practices which help in hiring talented staff (O'Grady 2009).
Generous employee benefit program is employee attraction program that Apple as put into place to ensure that its employees acquire various financial benefits in addition to normal wages. This is evident in the company’s success in the industry as it tops in retaining highly talented human resource who work at the benefit of Apple. An example of talented human resource is the Apple Genius who offers special services to clients who might be having special and specific problems with their Apple devices. This is personalized service and it serves to be a strategic human resource management practices where by employees are selectively hire for specific tasks.
Apple has exhibited a unique and successful strategic human resource since its early days. The Company during the times of Jay Elliot who ran the human resource of Apple Inc. is known his development of what is up to now is known as Apple culture. In an interview about he had does with Apple human resource Elliot said “I'd done a lot of work building the basic culture of the company. I built a culture at Apple -- we called it Apple Values -- that was designed for innovation and creativity.” (Shea 2013).
Apple operates under five principles for his employees in addition to laid practices of employee benefits and strict and selective hiring practices.
- Know your roles; every employee in Apple has her or his roles defined and made clear to her or him. This is usually exhibited by the T-shirts that Apple staff put on. The T-shirts identify the workers in respect to their duties.
- Free leadership; Apple human resource is usually at its duty to deliver services of high quality. The management beliefs in corporate leadership in addition to coaching and training staff. This serves to avoid the confusion of who is to undertake what as part of his or her daily duties.
- Making work meaningful; The Company’s employees are engaged with each other and their management in pursuance of their duties. For instance the employees at the operational level of management structure can directly contact their top manager.
- Retaining staff with growth opportunities; Apple has been retaining its expert and genius teams of staff for long time. Other companies have been in the struggle for this of which Apple has been managing due to its human resource management structure which gives the employees the best an IT company can offer (O'Grady 2009).
The Apple Company restricts its personnel working hours to 60 hours a week not unless under unusual conditions. Apple rules and regulations present overtime to be voluntary under unusual working hours (Shea 2013). Apple IHRM in addressing underage labor has laid restrictions on juvenile labor. Apple is clear is on teenage labor as intolerable and the human resource management have laid strategies to eradicate such as uncouth practices that are rampant in the job market today. The apple company uses this as one of its milestone step to have an easy manageable team that is functional and devoid of unnecessary weaknesses (Luo 2001). Audits are usually conducted because of ensuring legality in hiring and maintenance of staff. The Company controls underage labor using their underage labor remediation program.
Additionally, setting standards for hiring internship programs will help deliver quality work service to the company as the company gives recommendations basing on students performance. For example, in china, students are expected to complete a six-month internship program that allows them to evaluate in school basing on the performance card of the employees. Students are supposed to comply with the policies of Apply Inc. adding to this, the company has put measure to reduce the excessive recruitment fee required before hiring of new employee. The company has set a minimum amount that complies with the economy of each country where they have operations. For example, in china job seekers are required to contribute less that $10 refundable fee that is used to facilitate ongoing recruitment and hiring of new employees.
Who should evaluate the local workers in a subsidiary of Apple Company?
Evaluation of local workers by apple differs from different countries where apple has its operations. However, there are international partner companies where apple is closely related to Apple Operations International AOI that closely monitors apple international operation on behalf of Apple Inc. in this section we are going to discussion whose role is it to evaluate local workers in Apple Inc, and what criteria should be applied in evaluating local workers.
How should the performance of the local workers be evaluated?
Evaluation of workers should be conducted in a transparent manner. This means that it should be open to the public for scrutiny. The first step should be conducted after hiring of new employees. Human resource management should inform all employees about performance review and the due date conduced (Shea 2013). Adding to this, all employees should be given a clue of what they should expect in the evaluation process. This gives works the space to eliminate the issue of surprise evaluation by allowing works to put in their best effort in their work. By conducting this step, it makes the outcomes of the evaluation effective for both the company’s’ management and the worker. All employees should be allowed to view the performance evaluation form and given a brief explanation of what it means. The human resource manager should point out key issues that will be considered in the evaluation process. After reading the key point out to each employee, you should put together the performance record for each employee separately (O'Grady 2009). In the saved record, you should list all the positive issues identified about the particular employee. Finally show appreciation to the worker by congratulating him or her for the work done.
As the HRM board team, you should note each employee’s strong points and weak point. For example, you should note leadership skills, presentation skills, personalities and breaking of companies’ rules and regulations for all the employees. Allowing workers to give a feedback of the whole process for future consideration should also be considered. All feedbacks should be kept private and confidential without exposing the origin of the source. After the evaluation process, you should summarize and a give a feedback to every employee on his performance card (O'Grady 2009). Ensure employees get in return their rewards according to their performance and promises by company.
The importance of conducting performance of evaluation is important in improving the effectiveness of employee. It is a form of motivation to the employee. Employees’ motivation is a very important factor that can determine organization success or failure. Motivated workers are willing to put all their input at work just to ensure that there is quality output. Most employees feel free to interact and share their issues if the working allows them to do so. It creates good environment that is based on appreciating everyone’s contribution and does not despise anyone whether he or she is ha subordinate or a senior employee (Shea 2013). Such an environment ensures that there is always a free vertical as well as horizontal communication. Evaluation of workers helps Apple Inc minimize on extra spending while trying to hire competitive worker by motivating current workers to put more effect in their work. In my own opinion, evaluation of workers should be carried out every financial year to allow promotion of hard working employees and firing of employees whose are not competitive.
References
Apple - Supplier Responsibility - Labor and Human Rights. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/labor-and-human-rights.html
Luo, Y. (2001). Strategy, structure, and performance of MNCs in China. Westport, Conn: Quorum Books.
O'Grady, J. D. (2009). Apple Inc. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.
Shea, T. (2013). Steve Jobs and Apple. New York: Rosen Pub.
