Strategic Human Resource Management Practices at Apple Inc. Report

This report delves into the strategic human resource management (HRM) practices at Apple Inc., with a focus on high commitment HRM (HCHRM). It begins by defining HCHRM, emphasizing job security, selective recruitment, training and development, employee involvement, teamwork, performance-based compensation, and minimizing status differences. The report then analyzes how Apple Inc. implements these practices to create a motivated workforce, highlighting talent recruitment and selection, equal employment opportunities, compensation benefits, employee development, recognition, and training programs. Recommendations are provided for further enhancing Apple's HRM strategies, including developing structured training programs, expanding university networks for talent acquisition, and implementing team-based rewards. The report concludes by underscoring the importance of aligning broad organizational objectives with HR practices to boost employee commitment and innovation. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wide range of academic resources for students.

[STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT]
2018

Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Understanding what is HCHRM..................................................................................................................4
Human Resource practices at Apple Inc......................................................................................................5
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10
2

Introduction
High commitment human resource management works on the principle of ‘handing over of a
responsibility to an employee entrusting in him/her and providing him/her with all the resources,
authority and the freedom to do it his/her way’. However, HCHRM does not expect the
employees to turn trustworthy overnight and without any efforts put by the organization or the
top management, it believes in creating an environment that is conducive for the employees for
them to take the organization as their own. Only when an employee develops a feeling of
belongingness with an organization, does he/she fully fulfil what is expected out of him/her
(Wisdom Jobs, 2018).
Thesis statement: High commitment human resource management would lead in to a better
performing organization as a result of positive change in behaviour and attitude of employees.
3

Understanding what is HCHRM
The concept of High commitment HRM is briefly explained in the below mentioned
components:
1. Security of job/employment: It is important that, an employee is provided with adequate
security at his/her job so that, the constant fear of being laid off anytime without any
notice does not linger in the minds of an employee. If, this kind of fear troubles an
employee, he/she will obviously not focus 100% on the job and instead, he/she will keep
looking for employment outside.
2. Selective recruitment and careful selection: Another way of getting the employees to
commit to their work is, of recruiting them and consequently selecting them carefully by
thoroughly analysing the need of a particular job and again, a thorough screening of the
prospective employees for the job. Now, here, it does not mean that, if a person
approaches the organization for a particular job opening, he/she will be considered only
for that job, it might be a case where, the person is not suitable for the opening he/she has
come for but, is absolutely suitable for another job role, in such case, a counter offer can
be made.
3. Provision of training and development, consequent learning: It is of critical in nature
that, the organization arranges for training and development programmes for employees
at all levels in line with the assessment of the training needs. The market is very versatile
today and technology is picking up fast, not every employee can acquire a new skill
besides doing a job as well, it might be due to various reasons and this is where, training,
development and continuous learning enable an employee to contribute in a better way.
4. Involvement of employees, sharing information with them: When it comes to trusting
the employees, it is not to be followed only in theory, it is important to practice the same
in reality by sharing respective job relevant information with an employee and trusting
him/her that it will be used only for the good of the organization. Equally important is
giving the employees an equal opportunity to participate in decision making wherever
required and possible, besides, creating commitment in employees, it gives a different
angle to a perspective.
5. Working in teams: Trusting the employees for completion of a particular work also
means they are given the responsibility of building a team that they think would benefit
4

the organization the most and extract the best potential out of each employee. In such a
scenario, the teams are motivated to contribute their best because, they are granted with
the liberty of building their own teams and also, a process of learning a particular skill by
one’s own self is evolved. This leads to on-the-job learning and creation and storage of
data, knowledge and information.
6. Performance based incremental compensation: Money is a basic motivator for
employees at a lower level. Though, it is not, only money that employees work for and
there are other motivating factors too, money is important to sustain a living and hence,
this underlines the importance of the compensation made to an organization’s employees.
If an organization wants to hire and continue to retain the best of best talents of a
particular industry, it also needs to pay a remuneration that is the best in an industry or at
least higher than the fellow competitor companies. However, a major component of the
remuneration can be performance based for job roles like that of sales but, the
remuneration should be as competitive as are the products and services of an
organization.
7. Decrease in differences on the basis of employee status: This refers to creating of
harmonization amongst all the level of employees, be it from any department and any
designation. The examples of such a practice are: allotment of same work stations and not
having many cabins for senior employees, provision of the same recreational facilities to
senior as well as junior employees. This comes from the organizational culture that is
built around by the management. Respect for an individual’s skills sets and talent and not,
respect according to his/her designation in an organization is what is important. Another
example of such practices is that of having same policies in regards with the leaves
granted to an employee, the benefits of gratuity, pension, etc (Sturm, 2007).
Human Resource practices at Apple Inc
How do the HR practices followed at Apple Inc. create a motivated workforce and make Apple,
the leader in the segment they operate.
Introduction to Apple: Apple is a multinational organization that deals in software, hardware as
well as online services, worldwide and is based out of Cupertino, California, the United States of
America. It was founded in April of 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. It
5

has been acclaimed to be the world’s biggest information technology organization and ranks as
world’s second biggest cell phone manufacturer. The scope of operations of Apple Inc. is as
wide as, it operates in 22 countries with 123,000 full time employees, with 499 stores across
these 22 countries and with a valuation of US$700 billion as of February 2015. For the financial
year of 2017, it revenue touched a whopping figure of US$229 billion (Apple, 2018).
So, which are the employees who are the key to Apple’s success in the market? They are the
employees in the technical, staff and marketing positions. The main goal of Human Resource
management at Apple is to; retain the attracted best talent in the industry. It thus, recognizes the
value of the human force as a vital contributor to its success. Capitalization of the competencies
of the human resources to gain competitive advantage in the market is the primary goal at Apple
Inc.
To capitalize on the competencies of their human resources, the HR of Apple Inc has been given
numerous responsibilities and below is an analysis of how the HR of this organization carries out
various responsibilities keeping in mind, the practices under HCHRM:
1. Recruiting and selecting of talent: Apple Inc invests a huge portion of its HR cost
component on recruiting and thus, selecting only the candidates that they analyse would
fit in their organizational culture. It believes in ‘employee owning his/her career at
Apple’. Thus, Apple’s main focus is not on the career progression of the employee hired,
that is completely owned responsibility of the employee, what Apple does is that, it
creates opportunity and gives the employees various platforms to demonstrate their
talents and use their skill-sets. To leverage that opportunity and to showcase their talent is
the responsibility of the employee himself/herself. Thus, it is an altogether different
approach followed to ensure, the employee takes full responsibility of his/her career at
Apple which indirectly stimulates commitment towards the interest of Apple.
Another policy under recruitment that Apple follows is that of, attracting and hiring talent
from varied industries to leverage on different knowledge and perspective of such
employees.
2. Opportunity of equal employment and maintain a diverse workforce: As mentioned
earlier, Apple believes in hiring employees from different industries and it thus, builds on
employees from diverse fields and backgrounds to take advantage of their knowledge and
6

better ways of doing certain things. It also provides equal opportunities to all the people
despite of their race, caste and creed, gender or even for that matter, disability. The under
lining requirement is that of hard working and talented employees, be that of any field,
any background (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014).
3. Compensation benefits: Apple sure provides compensation packages that are
competitive in the market. The objective is to hire talent, however, the compensation and
other benefits provided vary from location to location and different across statuses. Apple
has a policy of flexibility in additional benefits provided to the employees, they can thus,
avail the benefits that they think are suitable for their way of living. These additional
benefits include, insurance, leave travel benefits, discounts on the Apple products, bonus.
Another strategy that Apple uses is that of economical reward in the form of shares,
granted from time to time in return of their service.
4. Development of employees: Besides monetary benefits, Apple provides opportunities to
employees where they can move from one department to another, from one industry to
another. It believes in agility. Due to its large scope of business, the employees have
different options in hand to develop their skills in different job roles and in varied
industries. As an employee moves up the hierarchy, it is not only monetary benefits that
an employee looks for, it is personal and all round development that an employee seeks
for, as explained in Maslow’s hierarchy, and Apple exactly meets their this need.
5. Recognition and appreciation of employees’ contributions: In the year of 1995, Apple
introduced a program, called ‘Apple Fellows’ under which employees are recognized for
their contribution that is extraordinary in nature. Such employees are rewarded with
leadership positions to guide the organization in the stream of their particular expertise.
This proves to be a huge motivation to the employees to reach a level of excellence to
achieve this award.
6. Development and training: There is of course, on-the-job training provided to the
employees working with Apple, but, besides that, Apple also hires interns, provides them
with training and learning and develops them for prospective opportunities.
How does Apple inspire its employees to innovate? The HR department of this
organization has built a culture that allows the employees to learn and absorb new skills
7

by learning by themselves; employees are allowed to do mistakes, learn from them and
apply at the right place (Grant, 2016).
Recommendations
1. Developing a training program: Apple strongly believes in on-the-job training,
however, it should also develop a schedule for conducting training programs to
develop the skills of the employees. The employees should be provided with proper
guidance and a trainer to introduce the new employees to the new culture and
cultivate skills over a period of time rather than leaving the employees to learn by
them. It should adopt the culture of handholding of the employees.
2. Grow and expand the network: Though Apple does welcome internship and train
them, however, it should have officially have a tie up with universities across the
world so that it does not miss out the talent pool newly created and freshly passed out
from these universities.
3. Team Rewards and bonus: Apple, for sure evaluates performance of an individual
and rewards him/her accordingly but, it should also engage itself in to rewarding team
performances as well because, in most of the situations and cases, employees work in
team and not in isolation. This will lead to the teams innovating and creating
developments for Apple.
Apple surely attracts and possesses the best of best but, one of the reasons contributing towards
attraction of best pool of talent is also the brand equity that the organization carries, as such
Apple should take more efforts in alignment of its broad objectives with its HR practices and
boost the morale of those working with them (Prabhu, 2012).
8

Conclusion
The above explanation lays down the following broad objectives of the practices of high
commitment HRM:
1. Employees have an in depth understanding of what is in the interests of their organization
and they work towards fulfilling the best of the interests.
2. To make the employees flexible in nature and motivate them to take up work assignments
that differs from their routine work and contribute to the interests of an organization, as
and when required.
3. Employees should use reasonable judgement where required to take decisions in the
favour of the organization. This means that the employees are enabled to utilize their
mental power to take decisions smartly and productively.
9

References
 Apple, 2018. About Us. [Online] Apple. Available: https://www.apple.com [Accessed on
24th May 2018]
 Armstrong, M., and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong’s handbook of human resource
management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
 Grant, R.M., 2016. Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley &
Sons.
 Prabhu, D., 2012. Apple Inc. a byte out of Apple. [Online] Slideshare. Available:
https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/divya111/apple-11617705 [Accessed on 24th May
2018]
 Sturm, T., 2007. High commitment organizations: a case study. Grin Publisher.
 Wisdom Jobs, 2018. Best practices SHRM: high commitment models. [Online] Wisdom
Jobs. Available: https://www.wisdomjobs.com/e-university/hr-management-tutorial-69/
best-practice-shrm-high-commitment-models-8742.html [Accessed on: 23rd May 2018]
10