Sustainability Initiatives for Human Resources: A Case Study Analysis of Foxconn Technology Group

This case study analysis discusses literature reviews on various initiatives that were undertaken by Foxconn Technology Group to enhance positive form of outcomes from the employees towards their job. The initiatives include increasing wages, reducing working hours, setting up a 24-hour emergency hotline service, and conducting religious ceremonies. The document type is a case study analysis and the subject is human resource management. The course code, course name, and college/university are not mentioned.

RUNNING HEAD: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Case Study Analysis
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CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
Reference List............................................................................................................................9

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Introduction
Foxconn Technology Group is basically a service provider associated with Manufacturing of
Electronic goods usually undertake manufacture of various products in the Company. Global
EMS has been undergoing through various forms of marginal drops by 0.9% rate due to large
percentage of employee turnover as well as large number of suicides committed by the young
workers. This was basically deteriorating the reputation of the Company in the market, and
there had been allegations against the Company authorities for ill-treatment with employees,
therefore the Company adopted certain practises towards sustainable development of human
resources that would help to bring a stable structure within the Company (Schuler and E.
Jackson, 2014). The present assignment discusses literature reviews on various initiatives that
were undertaken by the Company to enhance positive form of outcomes from the employees
towards their job, it also discusses role of these initiatives if they had been undertaken in
public or private sector units.
Discussion
Issue 1: Identification of HR sustainability initiatives
Various sustainability initiatives of human resources were undertaken by Foxconn
Technologies in order to retain employees in the workplace. The Company had been facing
large number of suicide cases of its employees because of extreme work pressure at the
office, low wages as well as incentives, and ill treatment towards them (Sparrow, Brewster
and Chung, 2016). Terry Gou who was the founder of this Company decided that he needs to
stop all these suicide cases from high rise buildings and help the Company to adopt a variety
of remedial strategies. He started collecting signatures from the employees working in the
Company for "no suicide” pledging and in order for security measures, he also find
opportunities in installing 1.5 million number of square nets that would prevent employees to

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
jump from the tops of high rise building offices. The Company also undertook certain
measures like increasing rate of salary at least twice in the month of June from $132 to that of
$176.47 and finally in the month of September the salaries were rose up to $294 that actually
helped in benefitting almost 85% of Shenzhen workers (Foxconn.com, 2019). In addition, the
Company also set up a 24 hour emergency hotline service that usually hired various
psychologists or psychiatrists who would help to treat mental conditions of employees,
understand their pathos as well as anxieties and recommend useful remedies. The plant
authorities at Longhua thought that some kind of misfortunes must have entrapped the
surroundings as well as the atmosphere of the office premises and due to this reason, they
might be losing their employees who are committing suicides. So for the welfare being of
their human resources they started performing rituals by conducting religious ceremonies by
inviting religious monks.
These initiatives were mainly adopted by the Company in order to turn employee satisfaction
towards their job. They were undergoing through mental tumult and were gradually losing
ways in which, they would be able to create a balance between personal as well as work life.
The wages that were paid were quite low and therefore they could not support their livelihood
as a result they had to seek various alternative means to support their lives (Seele, 2017). On
reducing the working hours from 10- 12 to 8 hours, it became possible for young officials to
get back to home, spend quality time with members in the family and also they could engage
themselves in studying for other subjects so that they can earn better job opportunities.
Issue 2: Authenticity of the identified HR sustainability initiatives
The sustainability initiatives that were identified were prove to be authentic since potentials
of sustainable HR nexus usually come from high level professionals who usually rely on
sustainability approaches of the Company who would help the Company as well as

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
representatives of human resources in developing components associated with workplace
atmosphere. These personnel are usually responsible for collecting various forms of data in
order to get a justification whether sustainability initiatives are able to meet most of the
requirements at global standards (Ehnert, Harry and Zink, 2013). Certain approaches adopted
by the Company to incorporate sustainability education facilities and adequate training
approaches to the young employees who were mainly the immigrants from other countries.
Through engagement of employees in the process of communication among themselves as
well as delegating their problems to the higher authority members actually helped the senior
authorities to understand their issues and find appropriate solutions to those. Efforts of case
organization were desirable as well as appropriate within the boundaries of existing regular
beliefs, culture as well as social norms of employees as the Company officials set liberal
market economies in the standards where employees got chances to speak from their own
platforms (Pun et al. 2016).
Employees were taken up as important assets as they were always striving to achieve success
for the Company. The higher authorities started thinking on provision of positive form of
working environment for the employees. The delegated authorities started having a concern
on various form of innovations like cloud computing, networking as well as Big Data that are
integrated together to ensure safety of working environment for employees who are
concerned over health. One of the application sources that were undertaken by the higher
authority officials to offer a platform on cloud computing such as “Health to You” that
usually offer the employees benefits on personal consultation as well as health check-ups.
Medical insurance facilities also rendered support to the employees and their families
(Foxconn.com, 2019).

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Issue 3: Contribution of initiatives to enhancing positive social as well as human outcomes
for the study of human resources of the organization
Increasing wages of employees as it had been identified in Issue 1 contributed towards
enhancing positive human as well as social outcomes for development of human resources in
the organization. Since employees were made to take part in active form of discussions with
respect to various services towards local communities through social as well as philanthropic
initiatives. The initiatives that were undertaken by the Companies helped the employees to
achieve equal as well as fairly form of treatment and they were gradually developing
satisfaction due to proper wages, remunerations as well as appreciations they have been
receiving from workplace. This helped in spreading workplace diversity as well as culture
through conducting religious ceremonies and people started feeling the true essence and
spirits of workplace and there were less number of suicide incidents since then (Bal and de
Jong, 2017). The Company authorities put forward requirements of sustainable procurements
to create a stable supply chain of consumer electronic goods, their adoption of safety
measures restriction of carbon emissions actually helped to create safety work environment
for workers and they started working here with peaceful mind. To ease the extra pressure of
additional working hours the Company started organizing various form of entertainment
programs for the purpose of amusement of employees. A report of 2017, talks about various
sustainability programmes on human resources that are around 77 approximately that ensures
safety, risk accidents of employees and introduction of various advanced technologies that
prevented potential hazards of various employees in the workplace (Ehnert, Harry and Zink,
2013). The Company was also able to increase the margin rates of profits by an amount of
18.60% in the year 2015 and it was gradually able to capture a large share of the market that
increased level of satisfaction among employees of Foxconn Technology Group
(Foxconn.com, 2019).

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Issue 4: Ways in which outcomes might differ for taking similar initiatives in the context of
different business
If these perspectives or initiatives undertaken by Foxconn would have been in the case of
different form of business context like SME or Public and Private Organizations and it
already had policies associated to corporation volunteering, then they would help in
providing the employees various community services. In that case these initiatives would
have been feasible in raising profits for the organizations as development of sustainability
usually refer towards building sound economic infrastructure within the organization and the
employees must also feel that they are able to maintain their social standards by working in
this Company (Ehnert, Harry and Zink, 2013). It is necessary on their part as well as the
Company to adopt innovative approaches that would help in successful growth of the
Company in the industry and market.
The concept that has been adopted by GHRM origin said that adoption of green technologies
in management of human resources as well as the environment would have a significant
impact on organization standards (Sutherland et al. 2016). The theories associated with
motivation as well as their management towards their work will also improve their
productivity and this would contribute towards achievement of community standards in the
organization. Enhancement of levels of talent in the organization help to improve behaviour
of employees towards growth of the organization, encourage behaviour as well as learning of
employees, increasing feasibility of employee performance as well as growth.
Conclusion
Therefore from the above discussion, it can be concluded that employees need to develop
increasing satisfaction towards their job opportunities so that they do not adopt levels of
frustration that would lead them to commit suicides. The Company is required to adopt

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
necessary initiative that would inculcate positive form of atmosphere within the working
environment and this would help to bring sustainability methods in the Company.
Transferability of various initiatives help to bring positive aspects in the Company.
Sustainable development of human resources can bring positive on the organization
standards.

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Reference List
Schuler, R. and E. Jackson, S., 2014. Human resource management and organizational
effectiveness: yesterday and today. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People
and Performance, 1(1), pp.35-55.
Sparrow, P., Brewster, C. and Chung, C., 2016. Globalizing human resource management.
Routledge.
Foxconn.com (2019). Hon Hai/Foxconn Technology Group. [online] Foxconn.com.
Available at: https://www.foxconn.com/ [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019].
Sutherland, J.W., Richter, J.S., Hutchins, M.J., Dornfeld, D., Dzombak, R., Mangold, J.,
Robinson, S., Hauschild, M.Z., Bonou, A., Schönsleben, P. and Friemann, F., 2016.
The role of manufacturing in affecting the social dimension of sustainability. CIRP
Annals, 65(2), pp.689-712.
Bal, P.M. and de Jong, S.B., 2017. From human resource management to human dignity
development: A dignity perspective on HRM and the role of workplace democracy. In
Dignity and the Organization (pp. 173-195). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Pun, N., Shen, Y., Guo, Y., Lu, H., Chan, J. and Selden, M., 2016. Apple, Foxconn, and
Chinese workers’ struggles from a global labor perspective. Inter-Asia Cultural
Studies, 17(2), pp.166-185.
Seele, P., 2017. Predictive Sustainability Control: A review assessing the potential to transfer
big data driven ‘predictive policing’to corporate sustainability management. Journal
of cleaner production, 153, pp.673-686.
Ehnert, I., Harry, W. and Zink, K.J., 2013. Sustainability and Human Resource Management-
Developing Sustainable Business Organizations.