Apple human resource management

Apple Human Resources and Knowledge management Strategies Essay

Managers have the role of synchronizing and combining human, financial, and physical resources within their organization; effective managers ensure the above resources are utilized to their optimal level.

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When synchronizing and combining resources within their reach, managers start by understanding the potential their organization has in particular areas then take such strategic management measure to maximize and improve their organizations use of resources as they minimize the effects of their industry threats and internal weaknesses.

Apple Incorporation is an American multinational company in the electronic industry; the company manufactures computer software, phones, Ipones, consumer electronics, and personal computers.

The company was founded on April 1, 1976 in Cuperino, California, since then it has been a major competitor with companies in the same industry like IBM, HP, and DELL; according to fortune 500 report of 2011, Apple is the largest publically traded company in the world by revenue and profit.

The success of the company can be attributed to its effective human resources management and strategic knowledge management style in the company. This paper discusses the human resources and knowledge management styles as adopted at Apple Incorporation.

Apple Human Resources Management

The human resources management department at Apple has the role of ensuring that the company has the right number of people with appropriate knowledge to drive the organisation to the next higher level. Well-managed human resources results into an orchestrate team. Apple’s human resources department is responsible for looking at its staff’s welfare.

The department is responsible for planning, deploying, employing, training, retaining, and dismissal of employees. To manage their personnel’s effectively, the company undertake the following management approaches to its personnel:

Personnel need Planning

Apple human resources department is mandated with the task of analysing the labour market, and its internal needs of employees so that they can come up with the right decision on when they should seek more talents, expertise or manpower. Through its planning role, the department ensures that the company has an orchestrate team and makes sound prediction of any future changes in human resources markets.

Hiring

When a particular department establishes area/areas that require more employees, Apple’s human resources department starts the hiring process starts timely enough that at no point will the organization suffer a deficit.

Hiring may be from internal staffs or can involve seeking for talents and people of certain cabers in the external labour market; whichever the method the company decides to use, the main objective is to get people with talent, experiences, expertise, and energy to do the job.

After an advert, whether internal or external, applications are expected to have been received at a certain period, they are sorted, and short listed candidate are contacted for interviews; it is the policy of the company that unsuccessful applicants papers are kept in its database for future consideration (Smith & Mazin, 2004).

Orientation

After completing of the hiring process, successful candidates need to be oriented to their new environment by the human resources management team; they need to learn the organizational culture and code of conduct of their new company.

Organizations code of ethics defines how an organization responds to internal or external stimulus; Apple has freelance organisational culture thus new entrants have to be oriented to the company’s unique way of operation.

In most organizations, they are in blue prints and an internal policy. They form part of organizational training needs. Organizations that uphold high respects for their code of ethics maintain good internal and external relations with their stakeholders

Training, appraisal and motivation

To enable employees perform their duties effectively, continuous training system and employee’s appraisal is done by the human resources management will the help of supervisors and line managers. It helps management establish areas that needs improvement and acknowledge those employees whose talents have not been fully exploited.

The organization has its employees train as a continuous process to ensure that employees are up-to-date with the changes in the industry. Motivational measures should be put in place to ensure that employees are loyal to the organization and they work efficiently (Renckly & Renckly, 2003).

Knowledge management

Apple has adopted the policy of knowledge management; the company’s style cannot be given a single definition but it entails a combination of issues and processes that offer room to use internally and externally generated information to make inventions and innovations in the company. Knowledge is an intangible asset which is unique to different business and can be improved with experience and information interpolation.

The most important factors that are considered are human assets that a company have. Human beings have different talents and capabilities; however tapping this asset requires strategic operation and management. Other than utilising the knowledge and experience that the employees have, there is the need to use available information to grow and develop knowledge and expertise in employees.

Information can be internal and external information and how well the information is utilized can result to growth of knowledge; effectiveness, and efficiency in doing business; Apple research and development supported by other departments collect internal and external data that is then analysed to give room for innovation and invention (Chong, Keng-Boon, Binshan & Pei-Lee, 2010).

It is from knowledge gathered from internal and external sources that the company has been able to innovate and invent new consumer focused commodities.

Justification that Apple Inc. has utilized its resources effectively

Initially, the founders of the company engaged in designing, developing, marketing technical products, single board monitor and keyboard-free personal computer; currently the company concentrates on computers, laptops, portable media players (ipods and Iphones), mobile phones, tablets, computer software, computer hardware, and accessories.

It does not focus on local markets only however, it is one of the world’s most successful international business companies; change within the company is triggered by the need to improve its efficiency and to be better than its current state remains the impetus of very organization towards change; this will make the organization competitive and stand out among other players in the industry.

The main changes that the company has undergone through are as follows:

• In 1996, the company reinstated Steve Jobs as in the company’s management team where he assumed the position of acting chief executive officer
• In 1996, the company acquired NeXT Software Company, which provided the company with software compatible with Window 95, named Copland and
• In 2006, the company introduced Intel-based Mac computers, MacBook Pro and iMac one year later the company changed its name to Apple Inc. it dropped the name computers as computer; in line with the changed name, the company launched ipads in January 9, 2007
• In January 2010, the company launched the much awaited ipads technology
• In November 2011, the company was named as the most profitable publically traded company in the world by a research conducted by Fortune 500

The above change are among the numerous that the company has undergone through; they are indicators that the company manages its human capital and knowledge effectively (Chong, Keng-Boon, Binshan & Pei-Lee, 2010).

Conclusion

The success of an organisation depends on the effectiveness of managerial decisions; Apple’s responsive strategic management styles have enabled the company to remain competitive in the fiercely competitive electronic industry.

The management has ensured it mains an orchestrate team that is highly motivated to undertake their duties diligently; its knowledge management strategy has enabled the company innovate and invent new products as well as differentiate its products.

References

Chong, A., Keng-Boon, O., Binshan, L., & Pei-Lee, T. (2010). TQM, knowledge management and collaborative commerce adoption: A literature review and research framework. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 21(5), 457-473.

Renckly, B. R & Renckly, G. R. (2003). Human Resources. New York: Barron’s Educational Series.

Smith, A. S. & Mazin, A. R. (2004). The HR answer book: an indispensable guide for managers and human resources professionals. New York: Amacom Div American Mgmt Assn.

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apple company human resource management

Apple is a multinational organization that is famous for the designs and innovation of the product in world. Apple is the technology company head quartered in California. The company develops and sells the comuter software, consumer electronics and other online services. the products in hardware of Apple includes the iPhone smartphone and the iPad tablet computer, portable media player, Apple watch, Mac personal computer, iOS operating systems, iTunes media player, OS X, Safari web browser and iCloud. Apple is a symbol status and a well known brand in international market. In addition, Apple is a cost leader in market (apple, 2014).

Apple was founded in 1976 by Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne. It was incorporated as the Apple Computer, Inc. and renamed as Apple Inc. in 1977. From the year 2007, it reflects and focuses on the consumer electronics. On the basis of the revenues, the Apple is the largest information technology company in world (Court, 2011). In addition, it is the third largest mobile phone manufacturer. Moreover, it is the first company of the US that to be valued over the $700 billion. The company employees about 115,000 permanent and full-time workers and also maintains 453 retail stores in different sixteen countries all over the world.

Apple is employ a large amount or pool of the workforce in different country. This means the HR department of the organization is very effective and efficient. Normally, the functions of HR include recruitment and selection, hiring, compensation, training and development, time management, conflict management and many others. This is important to have a look and study on the HR department of Apple Company especially on the hiring process, compensation system and training and development of employees (Guest, Paauwe, & Wright, 2012). The reason to choose these is that they have more important as compare to others. The skilled labor or experienced workforce is a human capital that cannot be replaced or copied.

Recruitment and Placement

The purpose of the recruitment and placement is to find the right person to the right job in the organization. The success of the organization also includes effective and efficient workforce that participates in execution of the action plans. The hiring process of Apple is simple and there is not complexity in the process of recruitment and placement (Gusdorf, 2008). The reason to keep the process simple is to save the time. However, there are some important steps that taken by the management and HR departments in order to make the hiring process transparent and efficient.

Recruitment is the process of attracting individuals on timely basis with appropriate qualifications and sufficient numbers to apply for a vacant post in the organization. The recruitment of the candidates starts with offering of the job. The advertisement of job is post on the official website of the organization. Planning of HR indicates the need and requirements of the additional labor for the organization (HRM, 2014). Moreover, the HODs of different departments or the managers can ask the HR department to hire a person. Job description and Job specifications is provided by the departmental manager to HR. the HR then put the requirements in the advertisement and starts the process of selection and recruitments. This is the first step in the full-scale recruitment and selection process at Apple (SUBRAMONY, 2009).

The need and time also determines the type of process or recruitment method. Apple uses different types of the process for the hiring process. When the hiring of the employees are more for some special project then this will be done by HR department of Apple (apple, 2014). On the other hand, if additional labor or employees are required then management of Apple or HR department uses the alternatives to recruiting. These alternatives to recruit include:

Outsourcing
Contingent Labor
Internal Recruitment
Nepotism (Positive)
In addition, if the need is only for the temporary basis on the temporary fluctuation in work volume, the simplest way adopted by HR is to hire part time labor.

Promotion of employees

The promotion policy of Apple also effects on the recruitment process. If there is open position above any entry level, then the company prefers to promote someone already working for the organization. This method is appropriate for the organization because:

Company has to avoid the long process
Saves time
Reduce the cost of new hiring
Experienced employee
No need of the verification from other resources
Employee already has Knowledge about the functions and culture of Apple
This also helps the employee to aware from their growth opportunities and increased income by moving up within their own organization. Indirectly the placement under promotion also helps the employees to motivate and committed for their work in organization.

The hiring of the relatives to any job or post is called nepotism. This can be said as the discrimination and violation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. However, there is little difference in nepotism. The negative and positive nepotism affects the hiring process. Apple somehow use positive nepotism just for the sake of fulfill requirement of instant need for the employee (apple.com, 2015). The positive nepotism means if there is a person and it fulfills the criteria of Job description and Job specification then he can appoint. Moreover, this also gives the surety of the already employee of the organization. However, this is mandatory to explain that this process or methods is rarely use. It only depends on the situation management has face.

Internal Recruitment and Placement

The process of the internal recruitment and placement of Apple is as under.

Job Posting
Employee Referrals
Job Posting

This is the traditional method used by the management or HR department of the Apple. The job is posted simply on the website of the organization. This is the most common method to find qualified applicants from inside the organization. The job opening is to post notice of the job on the bulletin board of HR. in addition, the HR department of Apple post jobs electronically through the internal communication of the organization (novriansyah, 2009). This includes:

Sending of E-mails
Use of intranets to all employees about the vacant job position
The newspaper also uses for most important jobs and or position in the Apple. Moreover, the medium of job posting may variant according to the host country.

This is responsibility of the HR department to make the adequate job posting that also ensure the quota of minority workers. On the other hand, this is also helpful for the organization to make aware other disadvantaged groups about available opportunities within the organization. In addition, the downside to job posting is employee cynicism that happens when jobs are posted as open (Court, 2011). Sometimes, the organization can already selected and place a strong candidate for the vacant post.

The site is exceptionally easy to understand with an awesome web crawler and one can apply for the employment through the genuine site by transferring their resume and introductory letter. The ability obtaining delegate is in charge of transferring and keeping up the positions on this site. Apple is using different outside techniques for selecting (Guest, Paauwe, & Wright, 2012).

Most of the managers prefer to hire the people from referred by existing employees. This will the organization to hire the most appropriate and the top performer for the organization. In addition, this also reduces the time and cost for the organization. Current employees plays important role for finding of the new employees for the organization (apple.com, 2015). In addition, management of Apple also gives bonuses to employees for the successful referrals. The purpose of bonuses is to make them realized that they are important for the organization. In addition, this also creates the competition among employees for finding of the best employees for the organization.

Apple is not using this method at its full pace. The ratio is minimum and time bard recruitment. In addition, the extensive use of this method is against the law and company can face some legal issues in this regard (HRM, 2014). This method is used at very low level. Most of times, the new project requires some posts on temporary basis therefore, the organization go for employee referrals to fulfill its need and requirement. In addition, the talent acquisition team made by HR department also helps to find out the skilled, capable and qualified workforce for the technology company.

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