Analyzing Strategic Human Resource and Business Issues at Apple Inc.

This essay analyzes the strategic human resource and business issues faced by Apple Inc. It highlights how the company's focus on secrecy and business prospects sometimes overshadows employee well-being, leading to issues such as long hours, inflexible schedules, and a poor work-life balance. The analysis reveals concerns about limited perks, poor promotional measures, and a growing bureaucracy that impacts employee morale and retention. The essay also discusses the low retail salaries and the pressure on retail employees to build personal connections with customers, suggesting that Apple needs to re-evaluate its HR strategies to address these issues and ensure long-term sustainability and competitive advantage. Desklib offers more solved assignments and past papers for students.

AN ANALYSIS OF A SPECIFIC ORGANISATION'S BUSINESS AND
HUMAN RESOURCE ISSUES

Introduction
It has been assessed that the frequently changing market dynamics are imposing several
challenges and threats before the organisations, which is enforcing the business owner to
emphasise explicitly on productivity and profitability than on HRM (Human Resource
Management) functions. In the consideration of ten Have et al. (2015), since organisations are on
the verge of constantly experimenting with new methods to survive the threats of uncertainties
and fierce competition, the employees are getting exhausted with the repeated changes in the
operation. The employees are getting several amendments to do as a result of the new
experimentations by the organisation. This to a certain extent is also exploiting employees,
where they are asked to dedicate extra time and energy to the companies with receiving any hike
in compensation.
According to Koplyay et al. (2014), HR issues can definitely slow down output, reduce
employee confidence and thwart a business from growing. The HRM department is a significant
department within any chief business or company. It is imperative for the HR department to deal
with its employee requests and conformity subjects on a regular basis, besides focusing on the
profitability. The current essay attempts to evaluate the strategic HR issues and the business
concern of Apple Inc. The brand is extremely popular for innovation and creative lines. Hence,
the essay attempts to find out the conflicts management face with its internal resources and the
efforts taken to mitigate them. Based on which an authentic conclusion would be derived.
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Strategic Management of Human Resource Issues of Apple Inc
It is a well-known fact that Apple Inc is an incredibly secretive brand and intends to get more
secretive with the passage of time. However, the brand sometimes crosses its limits with its
efforts to retain its secret formulas. Apparently, the excessive secretive efforts of the
management often create issues and fatigue for its employees of every department. Information
gathered from employees underscore the fact that these secretive efforts sometimes demand
employees to do their work on the repeated number of times, which is highly demotivating and
exhausting (Business Insider., 2018). Moreover, few of the employees claimed that on the very
basic level, the extreme level of secrecy often made it impossible for the resources to know
exactly why a certain assignment or project has been allocated. The only option the employees
had was to trust the organisation blindly and do as told. Sometimes resources were asked to
work with the ones who are extremely arrogant in nature and the HR department had been
strongly inefficient to look through the matter an avoid taking necessary steps. It can be assessed
from the previous information that the brand is more concerned about its business prospect than
to pay equal attention to the issues employees are facing with its change initiatives. In the
opinion of McGuire and Brenner (2015), employees are the foremost assets of every company
ranging from small-medium to multinational business. It is significant to pay equal attention
towards employees' concerns and their demands to witness the growth and profitability for a
longer run.
Employees from every department throughout the organisation sorting from the retail advisors to
engineering leaders had complained for its long hours, hectic and inflexible schedules, which
reduces the space for employees to maintain a perfect work-life balance while working in Apple
(Glassdoor.co.in., 2018). This automatically creates a negative impact on employees’ morals. It
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can be stated that spending a quality time for employees definitely work as a stress buster.
Several employees of Apple have raised complains about receiving professional emails form
managers even after 10 pm (Business Insider., 2018). Nevertheless, employees are required to
respond to the email on an immediate basis even after the working hours. However, brands that
fail to offer this facility often left out with demotivated and frustrated staff. Since, excessive
pressures within workplace create negative energies within the staff, which can be recovered
through effective physical activities and spending quality times with near and dear ones.
However, information highlights that as compared to other tech businesses, Apple’s perks lacks
in ides. As per the employees’ records, Apple has no specific free launches or Gym within its
premises. Thus, employees merely get the scope to shedding their stress within their working
hours.
It has been realised that several employees working in Apple took out their frustration on its poor
promotional measures. Information gathered underscores that it is extremely tough to get desired
or deserved a promotion in Apple (Business Insider., 2018). The management is extremely
reluctant to increase its employees’ motivation by offering suitable performance appraisals or
rewarding them with financial appreciations. Moreover, Koplyay et al. (2014) denoted that the
particular brand is more inclined towards external recruitment instead of strengthening its
internal resources base by providing necessary rewards and promotions. It has been recognised
that the bran is into so much external recruitment, that it is running short of space. The
employees are having space issues and they are asked to share their space with the newly
recruited employees within the same department. Therefore, the management is knowingly
creating a congested atmosphere and forcing its employees to work in the clumsy environment. It
can be denoted from the latter statements that the management of Apple is somewhat exploiting
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its employees and getting their work done to the maximum at the cost of minimum
compensation. Therefore, the retention ratio in Apple much lesser as compared to other tech
organisations, for example, Samsung, Google, etc.
Furthermore, several employees have criticized in the recent periods that bureaucracy is starting
to move stealthily in at Apple, which is making the company a much less pleasing place to work
(Business Insider., 2018). The engineers have complained to the fact that the managers and other
executives are inferring too much within the work after Steve Jobs had left. It has been
recognised that allowing any other executive to get in the way with the creative-genius engineers
is the abomination to the ethos of Steve Jobs at Apple. The present administrative or HR system
is more about sharing of resources, which is inevitably leading to unnecessary fights and
weasels excuses. In addition to the latter statement, the retail salaries at Apple are disreputably
low in broad, and the majority of Apple Store employees are necessitated to work on a part-time
basis. Herein, the hourly compensation rates are on the higher side of the retail gamut. However,
the full-time payments are excessively low for the executive to meet the emerging market trends.
On the other side, the employees are given benefits by offering a great deal on Apple stock.
Apple Store executives are given the opportunity to purchase a stock at least twice a year, with
money deducted from their salaries. The management of the brand had decided to sell its retail
executives the stock at a 15 % discount from the marginal price at the six-month period interval
(Inc.com., 2018). This has been by far the most interesting and beneficial rewards the
management of the brands has planned for it employees to uphold their motivation level and
retention ratio as well.
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Moreover, the most annoying part is that employees are instructed to build a personal connection
with the customers in the retail stores. For which, the employees are suggested to ask the
customer about their "favorite flavor of ice cream" (Inc.com., 2018). After the transactions
completed, the employees are instructed to report its manager and give a brief about their
customers' details including personal information, which often turns irritation and frustrating for
the employees to report its manager after every transaction briefing about their customers'
personal details. It sometimes becomes impossible for the executives to remember very minute
details of its customers during the peak hours. However, this criterion is considered into the
objective setting creation based on which the appraisal of executives would be set. Although it is
significant for an employee to engage customers with a proper discussion, however, the method
followed by Apple to form a personal connection with customers is too extreme to maintain.
Moreover, the inclusion of this criterion into performance appraisal section is too tough for them
to accomplish.
Hence, it is high time for the management and the HR department to show concern towards its
people management issues and focus on the regular problem the employee is facing with the
unusual work culture followed in Apple. The brand needs to revise the pay scale as per the inputs
are given by each employee. The brand extremely concern about its secrecy and employees can
be convinced to perform as they are told if the compensation and incentive structure justify their
loyalties and efforts given.
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Conclusion
Based on the discussion and analysis executed in the preceding sections of the essay, it may be
construed that the essay derives a concluding statement that emphasises on the fact that despite
being one of the most popular and profitable tech company in the global context, Apple fails to
serve effective HR facilities to its employees. It is needless to mention that such scenario may
not be construed to be conducive to the success of the organisation in the long term. The
employees are often exploited within the organisation, which led them to compromise their
work-life balance. The compensation and performance appraisal structure of the brand is
extremely poor as compared to its rivals, which is the major reason before its high employee
turnover rate. The management may need to chalk out the relook into the HR strategies for the
business in conjunction with the employees’ needs and expectations in order to achieve the long-
term sustainability in both the operations as well as in the market (Nolan, 2011). Finally, it may
be concluded that the management of Apple Inc should be vigilant on the latest technologies and
cutting edge HR strategies which may be implemented in the operations and routine approaches
towards the employees. An efficiently designed strategic HR approaches well supported by the
technologies and other organisational resources will sizeably contribute towards the goals and
long term objectives of the business in the form of sustainability and competitive advantage in
the market and industry.
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References:
Business Insider (2018). Actually, Sometimes It Sucks To Work At Apple – Here's Why. [online].
Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-biggest-complaints-employees-have-about-
working-at-apple-2012-6?op=1&IR=T#you-have-to-deal-with-too-many-coworkers-who-are-
arrogant-2 [Accessed 7 Sep. 2018].
Business Insider (2018). Apple's Engineers Are Complaining That Executives Interfere Too
Much With Their Work Now That Steve Jobs Is Gone. [online]. Available at:
https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-engineers-are-being-micromanaged-by-corporate-2012-
5?IR=T [Accessed 7 Sep. 2018].
Business Insider (2018). Be ready to get aggressive.. [online]. Available at:
https://www.businessinsider.in/Apple-employees-reveal-15-awful-things-about-working-at-
Apple/Be-ready-to-get-aggressive-/slideshow/48118686.cms [Accessed 7 Sep. 2018].
Glassdoor.co.in (2018). [online]. Available at: https://www.glassdoor.co.in/Reviews/Apple-
Reviews-E1138.htm?countryRedirect=true [Accessed 7 Sep. 2018].
Inc.com (2018). 11 Seriously Weird Things About Working at an Apple Store. [online]. Available
at: https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/11-seriously-weird-things-about-working-at-an-apple-
store.html [Accessed 7 Sep. 2018].
Koplyay, T., Lloyd, D. and Mako, C., 2014. HR issues evolution along the market lifecycle and
the value chain: case of the hi-tech industry. Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource
Management, 2(1), pp.7-33.
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McGuire, T. and Brenner, L., 2015. Talent Valuation: Accelerate Market Capitalization Through
Your Most Important Asset. FT Press.
Nolan, S. (2011). HR analytics. Strategic HR Review, 10(2).
ten Have, S., ten Have, W., Huijsmans, A.B. and Van der Eng, N., 2015. Change competence:
Implementing effective change. Routledge.
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