Apple Inc's Talent Management - Case Study Example

Apple Inc’s Talent Management Student name Course name Instructor’s name Institution of affiliation Date of submission Management Introduction Currently, the work environment is changing or is under pressure to change in order to effectively and efficiently meet the business’ mission, vision, and goals competitively. One of the most affected management areas is managing people especially given diversification like outsourcing, international mobility, and shortages in talent, new labour laws, and shifting demographics among others. As result, company structures and cultures are increasingly being transformed and in particular, the HR leaders are under more pressure to demonstrate efficient workforce policies and practices. Workplace practices and procedures are essential given the ever demanded link between people and business performance within the organization. Towards this link, it is apparent that Hr managers are under great pressure to implement people strategies that increase people reporting and management’s accountability and transparency, and that support the business objectives. The result of people management functions is HRs need to closely work with finance, operations, and other organizational department in order to drive business strategy. The discussion in this paper focuses on attracting, motivating, and retaining employees. In this regard, the observed behaviour will be based on knowledge of the behaviour of the Human Resources Manager at Apple Inc., Denise Young Smith who was promoted to owing to her insider experience with retail-store division of Apple. The paper uses thee ASA or Attraction-selection-Attrition theory the fit of employees’ values to the organizational values predicts individual commitment, performance, job satisfaction, and turnover. The growing pressure to attract, motivate and retain top talent at Apple Inc is promoted by ever growing competition of top talent by close competitors like a Google Inc., and Facebook Inc among other technology companies. According to Burrows [Bur14], the promotion of Smith to run as HR at Apple Inc. Came at a time when every start up wanted to poach the best talent out of Apple while top competitors seek to attract the same top talent engineers. As a result, Apple Inc lost top talent to companies like Samsung Electronics Co., Flipboard Inc., Nest Labs Inc., Facebook, and Google[Bur14]. The impact of managers moving on to new positions with other technology companies was decline from 10th place in 2012 based on GlassDoor Inc. Survey, to 35 in 2013[Bur14]. Attraction-selection-retention at Apple Inc For Apple Inc., talent management has been dependent on a culture that being a company at the top of competition, top performers are desperate to work for them. As a result, attracting top talent had been guided by the company’s ability to draw to itself the best talent. The move to hire Denise Young Smith came at a time when Apple has dropped to the 35th place down from the 10th position in 2012 and a workforce of 80,300 employees and this role proves even more difficult[Sch13]. Like in the promotion of Smith to manage global Apple Inc. HR, Smith’s role includes hiring the top talent into the organization and work towards retaining them. In order to have the right talent, Smith looks for agility in talent given that employees are expected to immediately move to the next big thing after completing their task. This is because area agility allows for innovation, and innovation is key to defining Apple and Apple products[Sch13]. Additionally, Smith ensures that talent retention at Apple Inc., is not just for the task one was hired for but for the sake of enabling employees to shift into and dominate completely new industries every few years. According to Sullivan [Sul11], Apple’s innovation has been characterized by complete shift from a computer company to dominance in music industry through iTunes and iPod distribution channel, to a leader in the Smartphone industry through its iPhone and App Store. Additionally, smith’s role involves linking business strategy to talent attraction, selection and retention. According to Caplan [Cap10], failure to link business strategy to talent implies that employees are left to make leap themselves and think translating to ad hoc uncoordinated talent management approach. At Apple Smith ensures that any talent being sought revolves around shaping technology to the needs of customers and not having the user adapting technology forcefully. David et al [Dav13] identify this strategy as one that views talent as the organization’s core asset needed to succeed in the new global economy. In order to sustain top talent, Smith’s role extends to talent management at the Apple University especially since top talent competition is stiff and attrition has seen the company increasingly lose top talent. To assist Smith in her role will be the company’s culture of performance and innovation. Performance is emphasized given that the technology field served by Apple is dynamic with high expectations of disruptive performance. Further, Smith emphasizes that innovation has to be leading with WOW results such that they are extraordinary. With culture of innovation and performance, Smith conquers that Apple Inc.’s success in future is guaranteed. John Holland’s management theory This career choice theory implies that an employee is happy in a job whose tasks align with their personality. The theory explores job satisfaction and success in terms of informed career choices. Through a strong brand name and public image, Apple Inc has managed to attract top talent through people whose career choices are informed by any of the six personality types in Holland’s theory. The six personality types where most people fall within include realistic, investigative, social, artistic, social, conventional, and enterprising. At Apple, different types of personality apply at different stages of developing a new product through innovation. For Smith, talent management therefore implies that the best personality is selected for each of level of the company’s processes and procedures. According to McCool [McC08], the current consumer needs on technology requires strong staffing capabilities by recruiting teams of talented individuals. In order to attain the best teams, the Smith has to spend more of her time recruiting best teams since the past years when the company has had the best teams has always won and attracted competitors trying to poach these talents. McCool [McC08] argues that under the current pressure to exploit emerging and new markets and development of stronger footholds in key locations is a driver in ensuring that organizations produce difference in quality of their teams and the capacity to differentiate. Through John Holland’s law, efficient exploitation of emerging and new markets requires making informed decisions. Informed decisions require thinkers or persons with investigative personality types. These people are inquisitive, logical, scholarly, curious, introspective and observant. Such people do research, think abstractly, perform lab experiments and work independently. John, et al [Pat05] reveals that successful innovation is dependent on having result-driven approach that works best for the organization. In this case, the do-ers, the creators, and organizers are needed to achieve this end. The do-ers or realistic people are hands-on type of people who are needed to bring into being, the proposed products using the results of investigative people. The creators or artistic people at Apple Inc are required to play the role of sketching and expressing themselves creatively in the form of graphic designer who are valued for bringing out innovative products in an appealing design that customers want to associate with[Loc05]. Despite achieving high-end innovation in products, the inclusion of product design innovation has greatly differentiated Apple products for years like in iPhone 5, 6 and others. Smith understands this concept will best work through reintroducing innovative Apple products into the market hence retaining top talent who want to be associated with such products[ICM09]. Other important personalities in Apple Inc employees’ team are helpers or social personality and the enterprising or persuaders. The persuaders work efficiently in positions such as sales people, and sales managers who persuade others to buying Apple products while the social or helpers mediate disputes and plan and supervise activities like managers[Loc05]. Schwartz [Sch13] reveals that besides innovation, top talent is also retained through identification of employees and skills that they are best at. This is crucial for Apple Inc especially in aligning executives’ expectations with employees’ desires. Through classifying employees’ skills, retention initiatives will be possible through alignment the executives will easily identify the method that works best in their retention. For instance, for employees aged 31 years and below, the best retention means is through promotions and job advancements and Apple has shown its value for talent through its cultivated culture of value in performance[Sch13]. For the employees aged between 32 and 47 years, promotions and job advancements, and leadership development programs with flexible working hours are an important retention method to help balance work and life. Smith’s efficiency in attracting, selecting and retaining top talent Having Smith at the global HR position at Apple Inc. Implies that although the company is experiencing slow growth, competition for top talent is still on from company’ competitors like Samsung, Google and Facebook. Being an Apple Inc insider with experience in HR in the retail store division, Smith understands that highly talented persons have significant importance to the company’s mission and culture. Smith has continued working with categorized employees roles where job experience plays a critical role. Smith’s HR functions revolve around ensuring that corporate, retail stores and students and college graduates have their position in the company’s website where each group has access to relevant information. Through the identification of job categories, HR processes of attracting, selecting and retaining new employees makes it easy to identify the specific positions within a given category which might be helpful for applicants especially during their job search. Through employees’ categorization, Smith identifies the job seekers and types of positions and during employees’ attraction and selection, each category of employees are given the most suitable selection process and unique recruitment messaging. Additionally, Smith focuses on attaining higher sales and lower turnover. Given the strong image of Apple Inc. on state-of-art innovations, competitors in the industry want to poach top talent from Apple resulting to high turnover[Cap10]. However, using targeted recruitment and messaging in Apple has been the best recruitment source which is facilitated by employees’ categorizations. One of the best recruitment source and employees motivation strategies has been internal promotions and transfers. At Apple, great talent evident in its employees is appreciated through internal promotions. Despite being easier to find, Smith recommends that internal promotions is easier and increases the chances of retaining employees[Cap10]. Attainment of talent at Apple Inc also involves using targeted employed non-lookers. This process involves identifying and successfully hiring highly talented employees who are employed elsewhere. The identification process comes after identifying a specific position within one of Apple’s employee’s categories and convincing this person to leave competitor for Apple. Since Apple Inc has no problem hiring top talent, the target employee is provided with the sustainable benefits, allowances and salaries while the employee has to deliver the expected results. Although the use of different forms of employee’s recruitment is expensive, Smith reasons that the outcome is worth more unlike using the one-size-fits-all recruitment approach. Additionally, using targeted or internal promotion recruitment of top talent is linked to best results in attracting and engaging the best talent which based on John Holland’s theory implies that best talented employees easily attain employee-environment congruence resulting to high job satisfaction and stability. During a time when Apple Company is getting into terms with the death of Jobs and high turnover rates, Smith reveals that emphasizing more on top and best talent internally or externally will revive its innovation[Col01]. Evaluation of the usefulness of Holland’s theory at Apple The current situation at Apple Inc reveals a growing concern about employees’ retention and turnover rates which are almost getting unbearable. Turnover contributing factors include retirement, resignation and attrition. The impact of top talent turnover from the company is evident in the company’s declining position in research conducted by Glassdoor Inc where the company recently held the 35th position. According to [Lub99] the high departure rates of top management executives in companies like Apple could be linked to loss of confidence in the company after the death of its CEO Steve Jobs especially during the past few years. At Apple Inc, Holland’s theory has been partially implemented given that the company had fostered a culture of secrecy and insistence on control[ICM09]. This culture is highly linked to the company’s current disaster, no new innovations over the last few years and high management turnover rates. Although the company values the creative and top talented people, secrecy culture led to dysfunctional management style largely influenced by Steve Jobs. The reality of a hurt company and brand has been felt after Jobs death and the company’s performance without him has been a great challenge. Smith has to work to ensure that talent needed for state-of-art innovations is distributed well within the innovation process[Dav13]. From Holland’s theory, Apple has to differentiate skills and match them with the right talent. Additionally, both financial and non-financial retention techniques have to be used to retain the top talent such that competition will not have their way poaching such talent. Through Holland’s theory, it is evident that the Smith has to pay more attention to personality-environment congruence analysis to deal with attraction and retention of top talent and reduction of turnover rates. Holland’s theory offers assistance on management decisions by classifying employees into six personality types and indicating that having people with the same talent working together leads to better results and reward behaviour that supports that type of personality[Pat05]. Conclusion The discussion in this paper involves knowledge of the behaviour of Denise Young Smith, the currently promoted global Human Resource manager at Apple Inc. Smith’s major task is to attract and retain top talent in the company following the increased rates of turnover. In order to evaluate and streamline the current human resource attraction, selection, and retention for higher retention and lower attrition rates. Evaluating the company has revealed that Smith’s presence in the company’s HR position is aimed at reviving a company that has recently suffered from its culture of secrecy that was largely propagated by Steve Jobs while heading the company. After passing away, the company has experienced top talent turnover and this lowered the company’s position to 35th. Although top talent is highly regarded at Apple Inc, there is much to be done in aligning the company’s talent to innovation and employees retention. References List Bur14: , (2014), Bur14: , (Burrows, 2014), Sch13: , (Schwartz, 2013), Sul11: , (2011), Cap10: , (2010), Dav13: , (2013), McC08: , (2008), Pat05: , (2005), Loc05: , (Lock, 2005), ICM09: , (ICMRINDIA, 2009), Loc05: , (Lock, 2005; Sullivan, 2011), Sch13: , (2013), Cap10: , (Caplan, 2010), Col01: , (Cole, 2001), Lub99: , (Lubatkin, et al., 1999), Dav13: , (David, et al., 2013), Pat05: , (John, et al., 2005), Read More