General Motors: People, Culture and Contemporary Leadership

This report discusses how General Motors has implemented changes in its performance management systems, organizational culture, and employee engagement policies. It explores the success of these changes and suggests areas for improvement.

General Motors
PEOPLE, CULTURE AND
CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP –
950288
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General Motors
Table of Contents
Introduction.......................................................................................................................3
Performance Management Systems...................................................................................3
Improving Organisational Culture At General Motors........................................................4
Employee Engagement Strategies......................................................................................5
Scope for Improvement......................................................................................................6
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................6
Bibliography......................................................................................................................7
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General Motors
Introduction
General Motors, commonly known as GM, is an American multinational company that
designs, manufactures, markets and distributes vehicle and vehicle parts. The company has its
headquarters in Detroit’s Renaissance Centre. The company is the largest American
automobile manufacturer and was able to occupy the 10th position in the Fortune 500 rankings
of the largest United States corporations by total revenue in 2018. GM had an estimated
workforce of 173,000 employees as of December 2018. In this report, we will discuss how
General Motors has been bringing about changes in its performance management systems,
organisational culture and employee engagement policies (Marr, 2009).
Performance Management Systems
Contemporary business world is highly competitive and is forcing business organizations to
eliminate any kind of inefficiency that can have an adverse impact on the overall performance
level of a company. There are a number of success stories in the business world, which
describe the way in which business organizations have outperformed their competitors
thorough their performance management systems.
General Motors is one company that implemented a number of changes in its workplaces
around the world. The company started by implementing employee engagement surveys,
which helped it in discovering that the individual contributors and first line leaders were
struggling because they were not given adequate tools and strategies by the human resources
to talk about career paths and performance feedbacks in a meaningful way (Zenger, 2017).
The company implemented certain changes in its performance management systems by
involving goal setting strategies in the beginning of the year. Along with that, the company
also implemented a mid-year discussion plan, which involved talks about career paths of the
employees, assessing the progress on goals, interests and passions, development
opportunities, etc. Finally, the last step in the new system was a year-end discussion where
the employees were required to provide feedback on their own performance levels throughout
the year.
The new performance management system was one of its kind as it was planned according to
the needs of the employees and to foster a positive feeling amongst the workforce. The
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company tried to give up on the rating system altogether and laid a greater stress on
conversations about performance with the employees, groups and departments. The new
performance management system also involved gathering feedback from the employees and
asking them about the ways in which they could improve their performance. The success of
the new performance management system could be based on the fact that the system made
feedback and discussions a regular process in the day-to-day work of the company (Zenger &
Folkman, 2017). The system was made very real and the feedback process was honest. The
success of the system could be measured by assessing the difference in performance levels of
the employees before and after the new system had been implemented.
Improving Organisational Culture At General Motors
According to Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, culture is not just what a company gets
done. It is also about how a company get its things done, which forms an important part of an
organisation’s culture. Recently, General Motors has also implemented certain changes to its
organisational culture.
Initially, the company had a culture where the employees were not empowered at all. The
company had a top to bottom approach where the senior level executives take all the
important decisions related to the company and convey them down in the organisation.
Through the surveys conducted initially, the company had already discovered that the
engagement levels amongst the employees were already down by 50%, which was a huge
area of concern for the company. At that point of time, a lot of competitors had already
started considering their human resources as one of the most important assets and had started
involving them in the day-to-day decision making process. As a result, General Motors
decided to implement certain strategies that could help it in bringing a change in its
organisational culture (Hashim & Khan, 2014).
The company changed its top to bottom approach and started empowering its employees to
take up responsibilities instead of feeling accountable. The company also tried to implement a
culture that made it more decisive, focused, responsive and responsible. Previously, the main
focus of the company was on sale volumes and market share. After the cultural change in the
company, General Motors started taking its profitability and leadership more seriously and
shifted its focus to such markets where it could make more money by selling fewer vehicles
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(McIlvaine, 2018). The company started taking customer feedbacks seriously as well and the
feedbacks were used as founding stones by the research and development department. The
company also admitted to its inefficiencies and started taking its problems seriously instead
of letting them fester. Ultimately, the company was able to foster a culture where it accepted
the conditions as they were and stopped pretending that their bankruptcy was a result of
credit crisis and not because of the management’s bad decisions (Barra, 2017). The success
of the new organisational culture of the company could have been measured by taking
feedbacks from the employees at all levels and also by keeping a check on the performance
levels of the employees, various departments and of the organisation as a whole.
Employee Engagement Strategies
Employee engagement is defined as the degree to which the employees of an organisation can
give the best of their efforts to achieve individual as well as organisational goals. Employee
engagement is an important part of employee well-being programs and can become a factor
for motivation amongst the employees. Lack of employee engagement can create a tensed
situation for the employers as the employees fail to find any interest in their own jobs and
their performance starts to suffer.
As discussed above, General Motors has undergone a situation where employee engagement
levels had hit an all-time low and were down by as much as 50%. Since then, the company
has been implementing a number of strategies to ensure high levels of engagement amongst
the employees. The company has fostered a workplace culture that revolves around “Made
For More” concept, which is aimed at getting more out of life for the employees (Thompson,
2016). For the employees, the concept means better benefits, higher expectations, employee
related social events, an interesting and modern workplace environment, etc. The company
has allowed its employees to interact with each other socially and also with the world around
them.
General Motors has also initiated a global recognition program for recognising the efforts that
its workforce puts in towards the achievement of organisational goals and objectives. By
having a standardised system throughout the globe, the company has eliminated the
possibility of overwhelming problems and challenges with juggling priorities. The
recognition program is very consistent and has had a huge impact on the workforce of the
company. One of the employees working at General Motors told that he was doing what he
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needed to and something extra as well. He also mentioned that it was that something extra,
which was being recognised by the company. The recognition program started by the
company has actually ensure high levels of employee engagement throughout the globe
(IHRA, 2017).
Scope for Improvement
The company has implemented some exceptional policies that have enabled itself to revive its
position in the market but there is always a scope for improvement. First of all, the company
needs to strengthen its performance management system by adding a 360 degree performance
feedback system to it. This system of performance management would allow employees to
get performance feedbacks from multiple sources at a regular level, which will make the
performance feedback more reliable and accurate. Secondly, to improve the cultural values in
the workplace, General Motors will still have to put in a lot of efforts. The company will have
to reiterate its mission and vision statement in a way that they are able to convey the
objectives of the company to the employees. The employees of the company should feel
unified under the mission and the vision statement of the company and should be ready to go
an extra mile for the success of their organisation. Thirdly, employee engagement is another
area where a number of strategies can still be implemented to improve the employee
engagement levels. General Motors can introduce a system of balanced scorecards and Key
Performance Indicators, which can be used to assess the performance of employees,
departments and also of the organisation as a whole. The balanced score cards can be made a
part of the performance management system and should also be included in the performance
feedback of the employees. Having an effective performance management system along with
balanced score cards and key performance indicators, General Motors will be able to make
the work more challenging for the employees, which would prevent boredom amongst them
and would also promote engagement at the same time.
Conclusion
General Motors is one of the top multinational companies in the automobile sector that has its
business running over in 65 countries. Such a business organisation is always expected to
lead the market by setting examples for its competitors and to fulfil their Corporate Social
Responsibilities. Therefore, it is important for companies like General Motors to
continuously implement strategies that could help them in strengthening their performance
management systems, organisational culture as well as employee engagement levels. The
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company should not only focus on the three human resource management areas discussed
above, but should also look after other important functions, which can have a huge impact on
the performance of a company if implemented properly.
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Bibliography
Barra, M., 2017. GM Leader Drives Cultural Change, Innovation and Results. [Online]
Available at: https://electricaltrends.com/2017/06/gm-leader-drives-cultural-change-
innovation-and-results.html[Accessed April 2019].
Hashim, M. & Khan, M. A., 2014. Organizational Change: Case Study of General Motors.
[Online] Available at:
https://www.asee.org/documents/zones/zone1/2014/Student/PDFs/159.pdf
[Accessed 6 April 2019].
IHRA, 2017. 4 STRATEGIC DRIVERS OF GENERAL MOTORS’ ADOPTION OF
RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY [CASE STUDY]. [Online]
Available at: http://lhra.io/blog/4-strategic-drivers-general-motors-adoption-recognition-
technology-case-study/[Accessed 6 April 2019].
Marr, K., 2009. Toyota Passes GM as World's Largest Automaker. [Online]
Available at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012101216.html?
noredirect=on[Accessed 6 April 2019].
McIlvaine, A. R., 2018. Changing a Culture Amid Constant Challenge. [Online]
Available at: http://hrexecutive.com/changing-culture-amid-constant-challenge/
[Accessed April 2019].
Thompson, J. W., 2016. Walmart & GM: Employee Engagement at the Fortune 500 Level.
[Online] Available at: https://www.jwtinside.com/walmart-gm-employees-happy/
[Accessed April 2019].
Zenger, J. & Folkman, J., 2017. Redefining performance management – How Celgene and
General Motors are approaching the challenge. [Online]
Available at: http://leadership4you.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Article-3-Webinar-
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February-performance-management.pdf
[Accessed 6 April 2019].
Zenger, J., 2017. Redefining Performance Management - How Celgene and General Motors
are Approaching the Challenge. [Online] Available at:
https://www.slideshare.net/ZengerFolkman/redefining-performance-management-how-
celgene-and-general-motors-are-approaching-the-challenge[Accessed April 2019].
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