Introduction to People Management at Nissan: Leadership, Training and Talent Management

This article explores the leadership, training and talent management practices at Nissan. It discusses the collaborative leadership style, diverse training opportunities, and global talent management programs at Nissan. The article also provides recommendations for enhancing the three key areas of people management.

Introduction to People Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY........................................................................................................................................3
Leadership and management.............................................................................................................3
Training and development.................................................................................................................4
Talent management...........................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................8
APPENDIX...........................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
People management refers to the use, gathering as well maintenance of workforce in
an organization. It is also referred as personnel management. It is the process of management
of training, motivation and development of employees. The managers are responsible for
personnel management in their respective departments. The context of people management
have changed as there have been new upgrades in nature, scope and extent of people
management (Gümüş and et.al., 2020).
Nissan is a Japanese Multinational Company which is an Automobile manufacturer. It is a
part of Renault and is known as Renault-Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance which is partnership
between Nisan and Mitsubishi Motors of Renault. It serves its cars in all over the world. In
2018, it was the world’s largest electric vehicle. The report will aim to analyse the leadership
and management, training and development as well as talent management at Nissan.
MAIN BODY
Leadership and management
In Nissan, the operational function have the obligation to provide good quality
products and services to their consumers. It focus on generating a significant value and
satisfaction to customers. For this the company uses build-to-stock model for maintaining the
high quality product status for satisfying the demand of their customers (Chen, 2018).
Carlos Ghosn was the leader of Nissan who promised to turn the company around in
only two years. Under his leadership, the company had resolved many challenges like
employee’s resistance to change and organizational structure. The leadership style at Nissan
is Transformational leadership style. The transformational leadership style is that leadership
in which a leader inspires ad stimulates others for attaining the extraordinary results. The
leader in transformational leadership pays close attention to development needs and
concerned of employees as well creates awareness for the issues in order to help them for
looking at problems with a new perspective as well as inspire them to put extra efforts to
attain goals (Bush, Bell and Middlewood, eds., 2019). Tis kind of leadership have helped
Nissan in its successful acquisitions and merger processes. It should also be taken into
account that, the success of Renault-Nissan is due to the leadership approaches and leader’s
abilities to address the effects of cross-cultures. Ghosn was a successful transformational
leader who helped the company in minimising the effects of cross culture and leveraged

positive aspects of cross cultures. The major contribution to success were the integration and
implementation if cross-company teams as well as cross functional teams which focused on
bottom line performance and enhanced teamwork at the time to resolving cross cultural
issues. It empowered the teams. Now, the company have adopted a collective leadership style
in which the Board of Directors ensures that no one can dominate their decision making. It
means, it emphasised that the decision making is not influence fully by a single person.
Collective leadership refers to the distribution of powers and authority for decision making
within the organizational structure. In this leadership style, multiple leaders address issues
rather than letting one person to do so (Golensky and Hager, 2020).
The leaders had noticed various issues in Nissan in which the major issue was
communication. Communication was based on hierarchy which made it difficult for top
management to understand what employees and managers at lower levels were doing. Also
there was no communication among employee. Soon the communication systems were closed
and a new communication system was adopted i.e. vertical communication systems. They put
the open communication systems in Nissan where the managers were able to understand eh
company as a big picture. It enabled the management to focus on problematic areas more
closely as well. It enabled the employees from distinct areas and departments to communicate
with each other (Toma and Grădinaru, 2021). It also created a sense of accountability in
employees where they understood that the organization’s performance id dependent upon the
inputs which they are providing. The communication systems involved transparency and
team spirit. The Management of Nissan follows three main philosophies such as
transparency, focus on task execution and better communication among all.
Training and development
HR processes are the procedure through which Human resource department of an
organization attempts to bring visibility and consistency as the common function in the whole
organization. There are various processes of HR which underpin the performance
management of people at work such as Training, on-boarding, development, recruitment and
selection etc. Training and development refers to the activities which are undertaken in
organizations which a view to improve and enhance the skills, abilities, knowledge and
capabilities of employees as well as providing information on how they can perform
particular tasks more effectively and efficiently (Haugen and et.al., 2019). Training is a short

term process which emphasis more on how tasks can be performed better, whereas
development is a long process which emphasis more on employees.
In Nissan, the management s commitment to make its environment in which the
employees feel trusted and responsible. The company wants to make the company most
innovative as well as environmentally trusted among the world. To do so, it focus on two
major aspects i.e. effective people and vehicles which are innovative (Alfiah, Sudarji and Al
Fatah, 2020). It also focus on development of their most valuable assets which are its people.
The organizational climate of Nissan encourages life-long learning where the leadership
support this climate with a number of opportunities and choices which contribute towards
professional growth. For this, it have introduced a number of diverse training opportunities
and various development programs. The company believes that the employees join Nissan
with knowledge and experience, but the company actively enhances those knowledge and
experiences throughout the careers of its employees.
The company provide various opportunities of training and development for all the
employees i.e. newly hired to seasoned professional. The training and development
opportunities covers a range of topics such as leadership skills, problem solving skills for
project management and listening skills as well. Additionally, it also provides various
opportunities for professional development such as mentoring programmes, cross cultural
team assignments and assessment and feedback as well (Maity, 2019). These professional
career development offerings are focused with a common view which is to continue the
learning and momentum in employees’ careers. The major training and development
programmes of Nissan are as follows:
Targeted leadership training: In all the Nissan companies, the management provides target
leadership programs which are focused towards the critical skills and subtle skills which the
effective leaders have. It partners with other leading experts to undertake the workshops and
training seminars for career progression.
Cross functional teams: Nissan offers its employees to work with other employees globally
through its processes which are known as Cross-functional Teams (CFT). These teams
provide training to employees on topics such as quality of management and supply chain
excellence. These teams helps the organizations creating a pipeline of various transformative
ideas which provide immediate effects on company (Life at Nissan- Training and
development).

Special accelerated development: It also provides distinct Special Accelerated Development
programs which are focused towards enhancing performances for employees. It focus on
evaluating principles, tools and processes which provides bold ad creative solutions for every
decision and actions.
Talent management
Talent management refers to the selection, retention and attraction of candidates and
employees in an organization. The process involves a combination of various HR processes
all across the employee Life cycle. It involves learning and development, employee
engagement, performance management, recruitment, succession, retention and workforce
planning etc. There are various contemporary issues facing line managers relating to people
management such as performance management, training and development, workforce
planning and other legal issues relating to workforce (Burhan and et.al., 2021). To resolve
these issues a successful talent management strategy needs to be implemented.
Nissan have adopted a talent management strategy as well as inclusive workforce
approach in which a series of activities which address contemporary management, succession
planning, career development and contemporary management. In restructuring of company,
Nissan had lost many employees. Due to the alliance of Renault-Nissan the company have
employees from various Nations ad countries. It have teams working from all over the world.
The ability of its leaders to lead distinct teams, making cooperation among people from
different zones and speak distinct languages and are from distinct cultures have contributed a
lot towards its success (Whysall, Owtram and Brittain, 2019). There are some talent
management strategies which Nissan has adopted for recruiting and retaining the best and
brightest employees within the company. The company ensures that it the candidates which
are best as well as who challenge it. It hire other experts for recruiting the highly effective
performers who can help the company in attaining their goals and objectives. The company
also leverages its partners for enduring that has a deep talent tool. It uses its global potential
managers for providing the diverse and challenging career opportunities to candidates.
The most important talent management practice at Nissan is “shatter the glass ceiling”
approach (Mikami and Bird, 2022). It means the organization keeps the high performers at
the top levels of management. The employees who showcase high and effective performances
are promoted to top levels. It does not limit the ability of its candidates on the basis of some
irrelevant factors such as age, gander, or race. The company believes in promoting gender

equality and does not limit specific gender to attain top level roles. In some companies, only
those employees are promoted to C-Suite who have same nationality as the company. But in
Renault-Nissan he case is not same. It promoted the employees solely based on their
performances and abilities. Even though, Nissan is based in Japan, most of its important
positions are held by Non-Japanese people from distinct countries. It promotes creativity with
a global mind set. As, the company followed glass ceilings approaches which made it
difficult for the management to attract and retain its local employees are overseas subsidiaries
(Nasiri and Bageriy, 2020). Therefore, the optimum utilization of human resources on global
basis was not realised. Due to these issues, the company adopted the Global Talent
Management for resolving all these issues. In this management, a personnel committee was
formed which built the global talent pipeline. The global corporate values known as “Nissan
way” were established which worked as a global glue for integration and standardization of
world-wide personnel evaluation systems. This in return, helped the company in forming
global human networks where the leading positions were held by employees regardless of
their nationalities.
Recommendations
As there were many issues identified in all the three key areas i.e. talent management,
leadership and management, and training and development, there are some recommendation
which Nissan can opt for maximising the required knowledge, skills and behaviour by
management to deliver 3 key areas:
 Creating several retention programmes: As the company have effective retention
programs in existence already, but it should also be taken into account that one size
retention program cannot fit for all the employees even for those who are on same
organizational levels. So, it is recommended that Nissan should customise its
retention programmes for individual employees who are high performers within the
company.
 Submitting authority of others: as the company follows collaborative leadership, there
are a number of leaders who collectively take decisions. However, it is recommended
that a baseline for the identification of authority must be created in which all the
leaders are also accountable for their actions and decisions. It will helps the company
in keeping its leaders under supervision.

 Benchmarking training programs: As the company have a number of training and
development programs, it is essential to ensure that training programmes are
compatible to markets. It is recommended that the company should benchmark its
training and development programs with the competitors.
CONCLUSION
People management is the practice of maintenance and retention of workforce in a
company. Nissan is International automobile company who deliver its products to worldwide.
The company follows collaborative leadership style in which, there are more than one leader
for decision making processes. The company have a number of training and development
programs such as targeted leadership training and special accelerated development program
etc. The company have introduced various global talent management programs so that it is
able to retain and attract the top leaders and positions from employees who are not form same
nationalities. Various recommendation such as creating several retention programmes etc.
have been provided to enhance the three key areas mentioned.

REFERENCES
Books and journals:
Alfiah, F., Sudarji, R. and Al Fatah, D.T., 2020. Aplikasi Kriptografi Dengan Menggunakan
Algoritma Elgamal Berbasis Java Desktop Pada Pt. Wahana Indo Trada Nissan
Jatake. ADI Bisnis Digital Interdisiplin Jurnal, 1(1 Juni), pp.22-34.
Burhan I., and et.al., 2021 "The Role of Training and Development on Organizational
effectiveness." Ismael, NB, Othman, BJ, Gardi, B., Hamza, PA, Sorguli, S., Aziz,
HM, Ahmed, SA, Sabir, BY, Ali, BJ, Anwar, G.(2021). The Role of Training and
Development on Organizational effectiveness. International Journal of Engineering,
Business and Management ., no. 3 (2021): 15-24.
Bush, T., Bell, L. and Middlewood, D. eds., 2019. Principles of educational leadership &
management. Sage.
Chen, C.C., 2018. Leadership and management in China. Cambridge.
Golensky, M. and Hager, M., 2020. Strategic leadership and management in nonprofit
organizations: Theory and practice. Oxford University Press.
Gümüş, S. and et.al., 2020. Science mapping research on educational leadership and
management in Turkey: a bibliometric review of international publications. School
Leadership & Management. 40(1). pp.23-44.
Haugen, T. and et.al., 2019. The training and development of elite sprint performance: an
integration of scientific and best practice literature. Sports medicine-open. 5(1).
pp.1-16.
Maity, S., 2019. Identifying opportunities for artificial intelligence in the evolution of training
and development practices. Journal of Management Development.
Mikami, K. and Bird, A., 2022. Opportunism and trust in cross-national lateral collaboration:
the Renault-Nissan Alliance and a theory of equity-trust. Journal of World
Business. 57(3). p.101286.
Nasiri, F. and Bageriy, M., 2020. The Relationship among Talent Management,
Organizational Intelligence and Entrepreneurship Tendency. The Journal of
Productivity Management. 13(4 (51) Winter). pp.173-193.
Toma, S.G. and Grădinaru, C., 2021. STRATEGIC ALLIANCES: THE CASE OF
RENAULT-NISSAN.
Whysall, Z., Owtram, M. and Brittain, S., 2019. The new talent management challenges of
Industry 4.0. Journal of Management Development.
Online references:
Life at Nissan. Training and development. [Online]. Available through: <
https://www.nissanmotor.jobs/life/training/>

APPENDIX
1. Leadership styles
(1)
Transformational leadership
Leader works with the followers beyond their self-interests to identify and implement change.
The transformational leaders have the abilities for adapting to distinct situations, sharing a
common consciousness, inspiring as well are self-managed.
Enhances:
 Motivation
 Morale
 Job performance
 Commitment to work
 Loyalty towards organization
Mechanisms used in transformational leader:
 Connecting follower self to a project
 Linking identify and self of follower with organization
 Acting as a role model for others for inspiring and raising interests
 Challenging workforce to enhance performances
 Understanding and identifying strengths and weaknesses of followers
Transformational leader sets high goals and inspires as well directs the followers to attain
them.
(b).
Collaborative leadership

Collaborative leadership is that practice of management in which there are more than one
leader involved in the organization. The decision making processes are not dependent upon
the influence of a single person, rather every leader is involved in decision making.
Characteristics of collaborative leaders:
 They have transferable skills such as strategic planning, stakeholder management
 Contextual intelligence in different languages, cultures and performance indicators
 Integrated networks across various sectors
 Prepared mind-set
Qualities of collaborative leaders
 Optimistic about the future
 Abilities to share their powers and credit
 Accountability
 Active listener
 Willingness to take initiative