Human Resource Management Strategies and Practices at NIKE Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of NIKE's human resource management (HRM) strategies. It examines how NIKE creates value through various HRM approaches, including high-performance working and commitment vs. control strategies. The report explores the impact of regional and national cultures on NIKE's HRM practices, particularly in Asian and African countries. It applies an organizational model of employment, specifically the matrix model, and identifies organizational levers used by NIKE to create value. The report also applies Storey's 27 points of difference to compare HRM policies and personnel management within the company. Furthermore, it discusses the importance of considering local culture when hiring and firing employees, especially in transnational and international subsidiaries. The report concludes with suggestions and recommendations for NIKE's HRM practices and how they can be improved.

Human Resource
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1: Examine how value was created by firm using HR strategies. Use of concepts of
HRM should be evident..........................................................................................................3
TASK 2 : Analyse the impact of regional and national culture on the practice of HRM in the
chosen country........................................................................................................................4
TASK 3 : Use appropriate organisation’s model of employment and state the organisational
levers used by the firm to create value. .................................................................................5
TASK 4 : Using Storey’s 27 points of difference between HRM and Personnel Management
as a benchmark, state what is being practised by the firm in the Asian / African Country-
HRM policies or Personnel Management or both..................................................................6
TASK 5 : When it comes to hiring and firing do you consider the importance and significance
of local culture and HRM practice needs to be undertaken in general and the practices need to
carry out HRM in transnational/international-subsidiary. .....................................................6
TASK 6 : Examine the differences in terms of employment laws when international HRM
changes local business systems..............................................................................................7
TASK 7 : Suggestions and recommendation..........................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
This report revolves around the importance of human resource management in the
organisation. Human resource management is explained as managing the human resources within
a organisation in such effective and efficient way that it helps organisation in achieving their
goals and objectives. Human resource management is associated with the management of the
workforce of organisation which includes employees and also it includes the issues related to
them. Human resource management includes the process of recruitment and selection, training
and development of employees, performance appraisal of the employees, focusing on the
performance of the employees, motivating employees and focusing on skill development of
employees by orientation and development. Human resource management helps in achieving the
individual and organisational goals. It also includes selecting the right candidate for the job and
providing training to the candidate to understand the job profile. It is used to utilise the skilled
workforce which is available in the organisation and gain the maximum efficiency in achieving
the goals and objectives. It helps in understanding the needs of the employees by which
organisation can retain their best employees because skilled employees are considered as the
asset of the organisation. The organisation we are taking in this report is NIKE. NIKE is one of
the top brands in the market which provides sportswear, footwear, apparels, equipments and gym
accessories. NIKE was founded in 1964 by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight in USA. NIKE is
one of the largest brand which deals in the products related to sports and in order to make it
successful NIKE have implemented different strategies to manage their human resources.
Manufacturing units of NIKE consists of thousands of employees globally and it is very
important to manage them effectively and efficiently. This reports will help in understanding
how NIKE is managing their employees by implementing different HR strategies.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1: Examine how value was created by firm using HR strategies. Use of concepts of HRM
should be evident.
Organisation uses different type of strategies in order to maintain their employees
performance positively and makes sure that the strategies implemented are helping them in
managing their employees effectively and efficiently (Adla, Gallego-Roquelaure and Calamel,
2019). NIKE also implemented different kind of strategies in order to maintain their employees

because NIKE is one of the biggest global brands and the products they provide should maintain
high quality standards and this can only be possible when the employees of NIKE should be
trained well because the better training of employees helps them in understanding their work
which helps employees in achieving their goals effectively and efficiently and by this the value is
created by the organisation. There are some strategies which are implemented by NIKE are
mentioned below:
The High performance working approach
This strategy is focused on the performance of the employees in the organisation. This
strategy implies that the performance of the employees can be increased by providing them the
appraisal and providing them the right training which helps them in understand their
responsibility by which employee can deliver the better performance. NIKE uses this strategy in
order to encourage employees to give better performance in return NIKE gives them appraisal in
terms of rewards and incentives. NIKE provides training to their employees on timely basis
which improves their skills and helps in overall development of the employees (Ahammad,
Glaister and Gomes, 2020).
Commitment vs control strategies
This strategy focuses on the different aspects, commitment strategy includes defined
tasks, high benefits, high wages, highly skilful workers, Higher level of training etc. Whereas
control strategy includes narrow tasks, low skill, low wages and benefits and intensive training.
These type of strategies helps organisation in understanding the skills of their employees and on
the basis of that organisation gives task to their employees. NIKE uses this strategy as it helps
them in understanding the skills of the employees and also helps them in preparing the training
and development programme for their employees who lacks in term of skills and it also help the
managers of NIKE to give tasks to the employees according to their ability. This strategy helps
NIKE in retaining the employees who are asset to their organisation (Barrena-Martinez, J.,
López-Fernández and Romero-Fernandez, 2018).
TASK 2 : Analyse the impact of regional and national culture on the practice of HRM in the
chosen country.
Culture plays a vital rule in the success of any organisation who is working in different
country. Culture helps organisation in understanding the norms, values and ethics of the society.
Organisation have to follow the domestic culture in order to penetrate the market and expand it's

market share. Norms, values and ethics define the behaviour of the people and helps the
organisation in understanding the culture and what influences the buying behaviour of people.
NIKE is expanding their business in countries of Asia and Africa and they have successfully
entered in the market. In terms of the culture of Asia and USA both the countries have different
culture and language. US culture focuses more on the fitness and health, progress and success.
HRM practices which are affected due to the culture can be determined in such a way that the
people of US are more success deprived and it works in the favour of NIKE as the employees
they hire are very effective and efficient which helps NIKE in achieving it's goals and objectives.
NIKE focuses on the betterment of the employees by organising training and development
programmes for them to increase their efficiency and skills (Boon, Den Hartog and Lepak,
2019). Culture of US also includes to be health conscious and active which encourages NIKE to
provide top quality running shoes as people of US are more focused on their health. The culture
in Asia is very diversified there are different religions, traditions, arts , philosophy and lifestyle
which gave NIKE great opportunity to enter the market. Culture of Asia believes in truth, values
and norms so NIKE have to focus on providing the products which they promise to give the
people who belongs to Asia. This affects the HRM practices as the employees of NIKE who
belongs to Asian culture thinks they should be rewarded with what is promised to them by the
organisation. They think the truth is above all the things and NIKE have to make sure they give
every benefit to the employee which is promised by them.
TASK 3 : Use appropriate organisation’s model of employment and state the organisational
levers used by the firm to create value.
Organisation model of employment helps in running the organisation effectively and
efficiently. It ensures that the everything is in place and running smoothly. NIKE uses the matrix
model which is one of the effective and efficient business model. This model is effective for the
companies which are targetting different segments of market and helps managers in running the
market campaigns. In this model manager focuses on the respective department and also focuses
on the team progress (Brewster and et. al., 2016). This type of model helps NIKE to utilize the
resources effectively and efficiently. This model helps NIKE in managing the different teams of
the organisation which includes HR, marketing, finance etc. Organisation levers which are used
by the NIKE to create value are as follows:

Strategic Direction
This term is explained as understanding the purpose of the organisation in order to set the
long term goals. This helps in assigning the tasks to employees in order to achieve the end goal.
Communication
Communication in the organisation helps in understanding the goals and objectives of the
organisation by every employee and effective communication helps in the flow of information
with transparency and by this people can understand their role and responsibilities (Harrison and
Bazzy, 2017).
TASK 4 : Using Storey’s 27 points of difference between HRM and Personnel Management as a
benchmark, state what is being practised by the firm in the Asian / African Country- HRM
policies or Personnel Management or both
Storey's 27 points of difference helps in understanding the difference between HRM
policies and personnel management and helps in determining the what should be applied in the
organisation. NIKE practices both HRM policies and personnel management in Asian and
African country. As personnel management helps NIKE in understanding the needs and wants of
the employees by the help of different theories and also personnel management helps in
maintaining conditions for employment. Personnel management helps in managing the
departments of the organisation effectively and efficiently which results in the success of the
organisation. HRM policies used by the NIKE explains about the benefit given to the employees,
payment of the employees, health and security of the employees etc. HRM policies of NIKE
helps employees to settle with the organisation and make them comfortable with the organisation
(Kianto, Sáenz and Aramburu, 2017).
TASK 5 : When it comes to hiring and firing do you consider the importance and significance of
local culture and HRM practice needs to be undertaken in general and the practices need to
carry out HRM in transnational/international-subsidiary.
When expanding internationally the company have to do various analysis so that they
don't face any problems related to the environment of the specific country. When hiring and
firing someone the company have to to take in account the local cultural practices as people
living in south Asia are very particular about their culture religion etc. The analysis process take
a lot of time, efforts and money and to save this, the HRM of Nike hire local or the nearby
people who are familiar with the areas. As the company when entering the new market are not

familiar with the working in that area so they hire some local people so that they can easily work
and complete the task and can provide more and more detail about working in that area. This
practice will save a lot of time for the company as they had to analyse the market and then they
had to train their employees so that they can easily work in the market. Also when firing an
employee the company have to take note of all the local culture like if a person I not compatible
with working in the particular sector than the company have to fire him so that the individual
might not become their liability. There might be a lot of people who are just liability for the
company as they don't know how to work in this particular region or how to deal with particular
culture so they be just in the way of their working (Lorincová and et. al., 2018).
Nike being a company from USA has produced good for so many years on the basis of
the culture in America while expanding their business they have to keep in mind the culture there
as in some Asian countries wearing a dark green shoes can give invitation to various debates and
problems, when hiring or firing they have to see or think about the religion sentiments of that
particular country. When firing, some employees are particular about the having a proper reason
for firing them , as some times the company fire their employees on the basis of difference in
culture.
TASK 6 : Examine the differences in terms of employment laws when international HRM
changes local business systems
While expanding the business to different countries all the companies whether big or
small have to face various problems and challenges. Likewise Nike also have to face some
challenges in order to expand. There are various rules and regulation which the company have to
look out so that they don't face any problem. While entering any new market or any other
country Nike will see various differences in the employment laws when they change from
international HRM to local business system. Employment laws are the one which guard the
rights of the employees. Some of the major laws are the employment act and the equality act
2010.
 Employment act – This is one of the most important act that Nike had to abide within, as
this act are the one which guards the rights of the employees this act this act is provides
the terms and condition for the employment with some exceptions (Ogbonnaya and
Messersmith, 2019). Some of these terms and conditions are providing a proper contract
and giving the copy of that contract to the employee, so that he can feel safe. Nike should

always have proper contract whenever they are hiring a new employee, they have to
modify the contract according to the needs and environment of different countries. They
have to give their employees various benefits such as providing them with provident fund
and medical insurance and many other.
 Equality act – Another major act that the HRM of company should see is the act that
provide equal right to all the employees. According to this act all the employees are same
and the HRM should treat all of them equally. Nike should see for this act as diffrent
countries have different terms and conditions provided in this act. But the most common
of them all is that the HRM should not differentiate between the members of trhye
company on the basis of caste, creed, colour and sex. Nike should treat all their
employees equally. In some countries if these laws are not followed the company hve to
face some bad consequences later on (Tooranloo, Azadi and Sayyahpoor, 2017).
TASK 7 : Suggestions and recommendation
HRM practices determine that whether a employee is motivated or not and these also
defines about the performances of the employees. So a company with good HRM practices can
improve the performance of the employee and their motivation towards doing the task. Some of
the must recommended HRM practices are as follows:
 Providing security to employees – it should be the most important practice that is
recommended to Nike as people living in Asians countries are very particular about the
security provide to them by the employer. Providing security means that Nike should
provide Provident funds, medical insurance and job security. Through providing this the
employer is giving motivation to the employee.
 Providing training to the employees - this is also a successful practice as the people
living in Asian countries need training from the employer ass compared to the people
living in USA. Although this training and development will come up with a big cost and
Nike have to pay for it. Initially it may seem a heavy cost but later on the result will be
shown through the performance of the employee. After having the training the employee
will feel more motivated and will perform with their full potential. With training and
development program the company trains the employees to adapt to this fast forwarding
world (Zehir and et. al., 2016).

 Recruitment and selection – this may seem as the practice that is neglected but this can
be the most important as this practice states that the employer have to recruit the talented
staff so that they will not need the additional training. They have to select the best
candidate out of all the recruited candidates (Tweedie and et. al., 2019). The selection
criteria can be on the basis of the ability of the individual and its commitment for the job
and required task. This practice can lay the footwork for the performance and the
potential of the employee.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of the above report it is concluded that Nike being an international company
operates in Asian region and they have to face a lot of challenges like how to create value using
various HR strategies and with the help of these strategies the Nike was able to operate within
Asia region. This report also states that there are various regional and national cultures which
impact the working if the company both internally and externally . It is also concluded that the
with the help of appropriate organisation model of employment and the organisational levers
Nike can do wonders and create their own value. This report also state the differences between
the HRM and personal management with the help of storeys 27 point as a benchmark. Nike uses
both of these so as to increase their efficiency and effectiveness in the Asia region. This report
also throws some light on the hiring and firing in Nike. According to this report Nike hires local
people so that they can reduce the cost, time and efforts that have to be put in when hiring
someone who s not familiar with this practice. They also think of local culture and practices
while hiring and firing people. In this report it is also stated the difference in terms of
employment laws when HRM practices changes local business system. This topic told about the
different laws that Asian countries follow like employment act and equality act. Finally there are
few recommendation for employer so that they can motivate their employees .

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