Mars Inc.: Success Through HR Practices

This assignment examines the effective human resource management (HRM) practices implemented by Mars Inc., a leading global food and confectionery company. It analyzes how Mars' five principles, egalitarian workplace culture, performance-based bonuses, and career development opportunities contribute to employee motivation, engagement, and overall organizational success. The case study explores the relationship between HRM and business outcomes, highlighting best practices that can be applied by other organizations.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human resource management
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Answer 1:
The case study is about Mars, the third largest private company in the United States
operating business segment of food, drinks, chocolate, gum and confections, pet care and
symbioscience. The case gives detail about the success of MARS due to its effective HR
practices. The five principles of Mars along with HR practices like providing an egalitarian
workplace, providing unifying values to all, bonus options and career and development
opportunities is the major reason for the success of the company.
Answer 2:
From the case study, I have learned that providing unified values and principles to all
employee makes everyone clear about their own responsibility and everyone use this values as a
guide to influence their work (Alessandri et al., 2015). For example, Mars started with the five
principle of quality, responsibility, mutuality, efficiency and freedom. All employees were
familiar with these principles and incorporated them effectively in their own work. Another
reason for the success of the company was that it did not differentiated between workplace staffs
and managers and all enjoyed equal perks and chance to speak up or mentor other employees
irrespective of their work. All employees enjoyed equal benefits and the egalitarian work culture
promote equality shared recognition of responsibility and accountability in work (Vischer &
Wifi, 2017). Hence, such workplace design contributed to high motivation and engagement of
employees in work.
Answer 3:
One factor clearly displays HR competencies of Mars are the development of egalitarian
work culture and presence of appropriate bonus option for a team giving good performance. This

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is reflective of HR competency of relationship management in organization. The egalitarian
work culture helped to minimize conflict as all employees irrespective of their position got the
same benefits. This ensured equality in workplace and rewarding employees only by means of
their performance. In addition, the move to provide bonus option to employees and continuous
availability of performance data enhanced the motivation of employees to perform well and earn
their bonuses. Olafsen et al., (2015) has also showed that outcomes associated with amount of
pay and distributive and procedural justice regarding pay act as intrinsic work motivation factors
for employees.
Answer 4:
The HR practices that is critical for Mars Incorporate to maintain the culture includes
striving to maintain the egalitarian culture and promoting professional development of
employees during their employment. Career development opportunities in relation to the context
of work done at Mars will critical for continued employee engagement. After recognition of
performance of employees, career development is regarded the second most crucial HR practice
that enhance performance and engagement of employees in workplace (Patton & McMahon,
2014). The organizational hierarchy of providing a flat structure instead of a pyramid structure is
likely to help Mars to maintain their position for which they are known.
Answer 5:
No, Mars could not be successful without their current HR practices. This is because HR
practice was the main reason that triggered good revenue and desired performance from
employees. The five principles of Mars ensured that all equipment for quality brands and
efficiency is work was known to all. Secondly, the egalitarian workplace and principle of

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responsibility for all employees helps to maintain low turnover rate and high revenue for the
company. In addition, continuous availability of performance data such as sales and factory
efficiency promoted awareness aboit overall team performance and amount of efforts needed in
the future to perform well. Hence, effective HR practice in favor of employee engagement and
career development was the main reason for success of Mars.
Answer 6:
The HR practices and culture will also help bottom line at companies in other industries
too. This is because the HR practices at Mars gave employees the opportunity to speak up and
express their concern in order to provide an inferior service. Secondly, they favored the practice
of including employees in decision making. The advantage of such practice is that it helped build
an exclusive workplace where employee had the option to express challenges in their work and
well as share their knowledge to improve team work. This kind of practice will be highly
beneficial for bottom line employees in any industry.
Answer 7:
The advantage that private and family owned company like Mars gets in
developing effective HR practices is that it has the freedom to take their own decision without
any dependence on short term financial reports. They can get access to their own financial report
anytime and use it to change HR practices. Private companies get the advantage of more
autonomy and less bureaucracy during the development of new HR practices (Bloom, Sadun &
Van Reenen, 2015).
Answer 8:

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I have a very positive opinion about the future of the company because it is moving in the
right direction in terms of its HR approach and efforts to maintain the sustainability of their
brand. The presence of five principles and the focus on career development opportunity is their
biggest strength that will help them overcome future challenges in business.

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Reference
Alessandri, G., Borgogni, L., Schaufeli, W. B., Caprara, G. V., & Consiglio, C. (2015). From
positive orientation to job performance: The role of work engagement and self-efficacy
beliefs. Journal of Happiness Studies, 16(3), 767-788.
Bloom, N., Sadun, R., & Van Reenen, J. (2015). Do private equity owned firms have better
management practices?. The American Economic Review, 105(5), 442-446.
Olafsen, A. H., Halvari, H., Forest, J., & Deci, E. L. (2015). Show them the money? The role of
pay, managerial need support, and justice in a self‐determination theory model of
intrinsic work motivation. Scandinavian journal of psychology, 56(4), 447-457.
Patton, W., & McMahon, M. (2014). Career development and systems theory: Connecting theory
and practice (Vol. 2). Springer.
Vischer, J. C., & Wifi, M. (2017). The Effect of Workplace Design on Quality of Life at Work.
In Handbook of Environmental Psychology and Quality of Life Research (pp. 387-400).
Springer International Publishing.