Top priorities for developing human resource in the company
GE company has about 315, 000 employees who are distributed in more than 100 countries where it operates. As a human resource department, our top priority is to align HR with the company’s business strategies. We understand our core role in the company to provide the necessary human capital required at attain goals and objectives of the company. As the human resource manager, I make sure that all the HR actions, priorities and initiatives are aligned to the strategic plan of the company. HR department is involved in each and every stage of decision making in the company since we play the major role when it comes to implementing all its plans. The impact of HR in the success of the company is ensured by fully incorporating it in the management systems of the whole company. The HR and the company’s management teams sit down at the beginning of the financial year to evaluate the functions of the HR department in the company which are then adopted as the drivers of HR department to meet the goals and objectives of the whole organizations. HR department ensure that its goals are aligned to the needs of their customers with a core objective of serving them better.
Translating priorities into programs or actions
The company has come up with training and development programs that help it to align the ability of the employees with the human capital needs of the company. The company set aside approximately $ 1 billion each year for comprehensive employees’ learning programs. The training may take place in the corporate classrooms, assembly lines or even in the boardrooms for management training. As HR department, we know the importance of individual development especially in ensuring that each employee gives his or her best to the company. We first identify the performance of each employee through regular assessment and then know where there is a skill-gap and what need to be done to fill this gap. From this analysis we are able to know which learning and development programs are needed for individual employees based on their performances. About training model, the company does not use one training model for long time, rather the models are changed depending with the changing human capital requirements. For instance, the company has adopted IT in most of its operations which means that it has to keep changing its training programs as the technology changes.
Assessment of HR development needs and training
Creating a model for measuring employees performance is one of the main challenge many HR managers face since it is difficult to imitate what other companies are using (Ruta ,2009, p. 564). HR department in our company has a tool for measuring the abilities of the employees to measure KPIs against their personal performance. We refer this assessment tool as the ‘9 Block’ since it has nine squares that can used to classify the performance of each employee. ‘9 Block’ is inform of a chart and it measures the performance of individual employee using his or her position in the chart as well as their count at the end of each year. High performing employees will record high counts and position in the chart while low performing employees will record the vice versa. From this rating, we as the human resource department are able to assess the performance of all employees and to identify the training needs of the company.
Developing leadership
The company is committed to strong leadership and in line with this it has come up with a training program to develop new leaders who takes positions in different management levels. The company also has a good succession plan that is used to pass leadership from one generation to the next (Waters, 2009, p. 43). The management team meets regularly with its top talented employees to ensure that they are given all what they require for sharpening their talents and for effective mentorship. From this pool, those employees with leadership skills are identified and assigned to individual managers who are given responsibility to refine their skills.
Challenges in HR development
Just like other global companies, our company faces a number challenges in developing human resource capital. First, there is a challenge of diversity since the company works with people who are diverse in terms of gender, race, age, ethnicity, abilities and other differences. Thus it is difficult for HR department to come up with training programs that will fit all these differences. Secondly, the large size of the company also makes it difficult to assess abilities of all employees effectively. Finally, technology is rapidly changing forcing the company to keep re-training its employees which is expensive.
Individual development plans
One of the main goals of the HR department is to maximize the potential of all employees. We therefore encourage individual employees also to have their own development plans that will enable them to rise in their career ladder as well as helping them to increase their productivity.
References
Ruta, C. (2009). HR portal alignment for the creation and development of intellectual capital. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 20(3), 562-577.
Waters, R. (2009).Evolution of Leadership Development at General Electric. Engineering Management Journal, 21(1), 42-46.
