University of Derby: Strategic Leadership and People Management Report

This report examines the relationship between strategic leadership, human resource (HR) policies, and organizational performance, using Apple Inc. as a case study. It analyzes various HR policies of Apple Inc., including recruitment and selection, equal employment opportunity and diversity, compensation and benefits, and training and development. The report investigates how these policies, combined with the company's leadership style, impact employee performance and overall organizational effectiveness. The study highlights the importance of democratic leadership, employee engagement, and innovative HR practices in driving organizational success. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the role of strategic HR in achieving competitive advantage. The report also explores the impact of training and development strategies on employee skill development and organizational innovation, and the role of leadership in fostering freethinking and improving organizational performance. The report also touches upon the importance of equal opportunity and diversity in recruitment and selection, along with the effect of attractive compensation packages, including employee stock purchase programs, insurance coverage, and saving and investment plans, on retaining talent within the organization.

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STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLE MANAGEMENT
6/29/2019
Student name

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLE MANAGEMENT 1
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Apple incorporation HRP policies and leadership impact over employees performance...............3
Recruitment and selection policy.................................................................................................3
Equal employment opportunity and diversity..............................................................................4
Compensation and employment benefits.....................................................................................4
Training and development...........................................................................................................5
Leadership....................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLE MANAGEMENT 2
Introduction
Performance of an organization is based on several aspects, policies, and the conduct of the
business of the company. In organizational performance, including the actual result or output of
the company that can be measured in front of its plant outputs as per the researcher's
organizational performance would comprise of three particular areas of company results back
will be product market, performance financial performance, and shareholder return.
Organizational performance is being impacted by various activities in the business that has been
implemented by the human resource manager of the company and the leadership skills of the
company. It has been identified that the leadership of the company influence the employee’s
performance and the motivational level to perform in an industry. Therefore, it can be said that
the human resource policies of the company or leadership activities of the company are majorly
responsible for the organizational performance of activeness or inability of a company to
perform well (Javed, 2015).
The report’s purpose is to analyze the link between organizational performance and strategic
human resource policies considering a real life example. Organizational performance is a very
wide aspect to assess which is used continuously with efficiency productivity and effectiveness
of the company and the competitiveness of the company, therefore the report will discuss the link
between the HR activities and the organizational performance (Abdulraheem Sal, 2016).

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLE MANAGEMENT 3
Apple incorporation HRP policies and leadership impact over employees
performance
Apple Inc. is one of the largest technology companies that are dealing with various electronic
products like smartphones, laptops, televisions, and other smart electronic consumer products.
Moreover, the company has its personal software like iTunes (apple, 2019). The key
effectiveness of the company and the key success factors of the company or identified to be the
human resource of the company and the performance of the company is largely depend over the
organizational performance and human resource policies of the company (Gabriel, 2016). Some
of the human resource policies that have been impacted over the organizational performance are
as follows
Recruitment and selection policy
This policy of Apple Corporation is a major element of the success of this organization the
company has invested a large amount in recruitment and selection process with the key objective
of procuring the correct competencies and talent according to the organizational cultural fit and
required job description (Akkermans et al., 2015). The company looks out for the staff that is
found to be committed and hard working to their jobs and loyal to the companies. The company
has been using a very different recruitment policy and strategy ask compare to those of its
competitors, the company is not promising their staff regarding their career progression, they are
expected to search for the data and information regarding their own jobs. The recruitment policy
or process of Apple incorporation is structured in a manner that only staff who is suitable as per
the culture of the organization are selected and rest are rejected. The verbal will interview is
being conducted for the selection process which enables Apple incorporation to have suitable

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLE MANAGEMENT 4
talent in order to execute and serve the organization. This policy of the company has been able to
company to have the correct human resource for the correct job, which would initially add value
to the organizational performance and future performance of the company (Ferrell et al., 2015).
Equal employment opportunity and diversity
Another human resource policy of Apple incorporation includes equal and diversity in
employment opportunity. The company has been providing equivalent Opportunity of
employment to people regardless of race, gender, disability or a tent city among others. After
incorporation has also employed individuals from various backgrounds in order to enhance
diversity and to attract most suitable talent according to the job profile and the best way they can
serve to the company in order to make the company grow and towards the success factors
(forbes, 2018).
Compensation and employment benefits
Thought you meant to source policies that have influenced the organizational performance is
compensation and employment benefits. Motivation is one of the key factors in order to enhance
organizational performance and keep the employees working to words the organizational goals.
Apple incorporation has provided attractive competitive packages to the staff in order to retain
the talent in the organization (apple, 2019). The company has understood the relevance of the
talented human resource, which will be one of the key assets of the company that will be
responsible for the success of Apple Inc. The advantage is that the company has been providing
to the employees include employee stock purchase programs, insurance cover, saving and
investment plans and these are based on the geographical location and employment status of the
employer (Frost, 2018). In addition to this bonus are being provided to the employees who are
working in the industry for many years that is to the experienced talents. The best retention

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLE MANAGEMENT 5
strategy of Apple incorporation is an economic award that has been provided to the employees.
Moreover, the periodical/grants are awarded for their effective contribution in the organization.
The company is providing a good opportunity for the staff to enhance their wealth and
acknowledge personal accomplishment at the time of retirement of an individual (Zacher &
Rosing, 2015). This policy has positively affected the organizational performance, in addition to
this, the company also motivated employees to have acknowledge the talent of all the available
activities and make them ready for the next great opportunity. For example, an employee of
Apple Corporation are motivated to rotate from one department to another that is a person can
shift from among many featuring department to the music department and then to a smartphone
department (Sumukadas & Sawhney, 2004).
Training and development
Training in development is another major HR policy of Apple that the company has utilized in
order to enhance organizational performance through improving individual personal
performance. The company believes in enhancing The competencies of the individual through
providing appropriate equipment, coaching and training programs for in providing right skills to
the employees that will perfectly fit the job profile, especially in case of job rotation
(appleinsider, 2019). Since the company has largely been involved in innovation and change the
training and development programs are major activities of HRM to avoid resistance from the
employees and keep them motivated to perform well. The company believes that the employees
must learn from their mistakes and motivate them to develop them a strong and self-reliant
individual. This training and development strategy of Apple has increased the skill development
of individuals in the organization and has been able to develop more innovative skills while
working in different departments in the company (Loewenberger et al., 2013). The teams have

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLE MANAGEMENT 6
been formed in the company and they compete with each other in order to serve anything
innovative or new that is completely variant from the previous project done by the team. The
company also provides recognition to the team after completing the task and selects the best
team who has been able to provide the innovative and new task to the company (Frost, 2018).
Moreover, the company Objective is to increase innovation through organizational culture for
which the company in courage freethinking and meeting of teams at least two times a week. The
brainstorming activities are also implemented in order to bring innovation in the company and
increasing employees to provide new ideas to the organization (Pansari & Kumar, 2016).
Therefore, it can be said that the training strategy of the company has resulted into affective
performance improvement of the individual which has eventually increase the organizational
productivity and organizational performance to a greater extent (Abdulraheem Sal, 2016).
Leadership
Democratic leadership style was introduced and promoted by the previous CEO of a company
that is Steve Jobs and current CEO that is Tim Cook as well (Rugala et al., 2018). This has
increased the freethinking strategy in the organization and it improves organizational
performance by keeping them motivated to perform better, and it will increase productivity
(leadershipcenter, 2018).

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLE MANAGEMENT 7
Conclusion
Organizational performance is a very wide aspect to assess which is used continuously with
efficiency productivity and effectiveness of the company and the competitiveness of the
company. The recruitment policy or process of Apple incorporation is structured in a manner that
only staff who is suitable as per the culture of the organization are selected and rest are rejected.
Another human resource policy of Apple incorporation includes equal and diversity in
employment opportunity. Apple incorporation has provided attractive competitive packages to
the staff in order to retain the talent in the organization. The best retention strategy of Apple
incorporation is an economic award that has been provided to the employees. Training in
development is another major HR policy of Apple that the company has utilized in order to
enhance organizational performance through improving individual personal performance.

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLE MANAGEMENT 8
References
Abdulraheem Sal, M.R., 2016. The Impact of Training and Development on Employees
Performance and Productivity. International Journal of Management Sciences and Business
Research, 5(7), pp.2226-8235.
Akkermans, J., Brebbibkmeijer, V. & Blonk, R.W., 2015. It's all about CareerSKILLS:
Effectiveness of a career development intervention for young employees. Human Resource
Management, 54(4), p.533.
apple, 2019. au. [Online] Available at: https://www.apple.com/au/.
appleinsider, 2019. apple-ranks-among-best-in-class-brands-for-loyalty-in-new-marketing-study.
[Online] Available at: https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/07/26/apple-ranks-among-best-in-
class-brands-for-loyalty-in-new-marketing-study.
Ferrell, O.C., Fraedrich, J. & Ferrell, L., 2015. Apple Inc.'s Ethical Success and Challenges. In
Business ethics. 11th ed. Cengage. pp.551-65.
forbes, 2018. 8 Key Tactics For Developing Employees. [Online] Available at:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2015/07/20/8-key-tactics-for-developing-employees/
#289da6a86373 [Accessed 20 july 2015].
Frost, S., 2018. The Importance of Training & Development in the Workplace. [Online]
Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-training-development-workplace-
10321.html [Accessed 30 June 2018].

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND PEOPLE MANAGEMENT 9
Gabriel, A.S., 2016. Enhancing emotional performance and customer service through human
resources practices: A systems perspective. Human Resource Management Review, 26(1), pp.14-
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Javed, A., 2015. Impact of Innovation on the Performance of Employees. IISTE, 5(12), p.1.
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[Online] Available at: https://leadershipcenter.wharton.upenn.edu/uncategorized/collaborative-
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Rugala, E.A., Bixler, D. & Holbrook, C.M., 2018. The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and
Its Role in the Management of Workplace Threats. In Workplace Violence, pp.68-73.
Sumukadas, N. & Sawhney, R., 2004. Workforce agility through employee involvement. Lie
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Zacher, H. & Rosing, K., 2015. Ambidextrous leadership and team innovation. Leadership &
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