Apple Company Overview

Company Overview

Apple is one of the leading technological companies and it operates its business all over the world. Apple started their journey on April 1, 1976 with the motto “Think Different”. It was incorporated on January 03, 1977. This American multinational company has its headquarters in Cupertino, California. Its Vision is- “To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the man that advances humankind”. Its Mission is- “Apple is committed to bring the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and internet offerings.” Slide 2: Difference between personnel management and human resource management in Apple Inc. Though human resource management and personnel management is used interchangeably but there are some basic differences between these two concept. These differences are as follow:

1. Main differentiating point between personnel management and human resource management is that the personnel planning is the traditional form of managing people within the organization where human resource management is the modern approach regarding managing people in an organization.
2. Personnel management is a process of keeping administrative records which will be used to evaluate the terms and conditions of the employment. On the other hand, human resource management combines the functions of traditional personnel management to corporate goals and strategies and put emphasis on people centered organizational development activities.
3. Norms, customs and established practices are in the focal point of personnel management. But human resource management talks about values and mission.
4. Personnel manager give importance to establishing rules, policies, procedures and contracts, and attempt to monitor and enforce such regulations, with careful representation of written contract. On the other hand human resource managers do not worry about rules and regulations. They relax the traditional norms basing on the demand of the business.
5. Under personnel management, managers depend on compensation, bonuses, rewards, and work simplification to motivate the employees. But in this case, human resource managers depend on work challenges, team work, and creativity to increase motivation.
6. Here in Apple Inc., managers use Human Resource Management approach rather than Personnel Management. In Apple Inc., values aren’t formalized, lines of communication aren’t hierarchical, and team works get priority.

Objectives of Apple Inc.

Apple has some predetermined objectives to be fulfilled. But according the Jonathan Ive, senior vice president of industrial design at Apple, Money isn’t the main objective of Apple. I've said that it would sound a little flippant, but it's the truth. He said that their goal and what makes them excited is to make great products. If they were successful, people would like them and if they were operationally competent, they would make money automatically. From the analysis the following objectives are identified as the core objectives of Apple:

1. To expend Apple products to those customers who have not yet own one of them.
2. To ensure service and enjoyment for customers proving hassle-free products.
3. Becoming a leader in the mobile market.

How are HRM Strategies corresponding to organizational objectives? To achieve these objectives, Apple put emphasis on the following strategies-

1. Expanding distribution channel.
2. Increasing investment in Research and Development activities.

Human Resources practices in Apple Inc. are capable of supporting these strategies. For expanding distribution channel effective and efficient marketing employees are very much crucial and Apple has one the most efficient workforce all over the world because the employees are fully motivated and satisfied here. As they get enough holidays and vacation, they are always charged up to exert extra effort. Their training program can bring a significant change in the technical ability of the employees which will accelerate the Research and Development activities. Slide 6: Personnel Management and Leadership skill to achieve the strategic goal of Apple Inc. As Apple does not have any structured rules and regulation, values aren’t structured and communication line is not hierarchical, effective personnel management and leadership skill more especially leadership skill will be a key to achieve strategic goals of Apple. The following leadership skills help a manager Manage Effectively, Gain Respect of the Employees, Quick Decision Making, and Motivating Employees:

1. Vision- A manager needs to have the ability to focus on the big picture. Employees respect an ambitious manager.
2. Confidence- A manager needs to be confident. He should know himself. He should be decisive and should have the ability to keep calm in stress. He should also have the ability to accept criticism.
3. People Skill- A manager needs to be flexible. He should listen carefully to what others saying. And he should be supportive of his subordinates.
4. Motivation Skill- An efficient manager needs to have the ability to encourage people. He should back his subordinates from the backline. By celebrating the success he should encourage his staff to reinforce the performance.
5. Responsibility- As Sir Winston Churchill said, the price of greatness is responsibility. A manager should have the ability to accept blame, solve problems and lead by example.
6. Integrity- To prove the integrity to the employees, a manager needs to do the right thing, be honest and avoid gossip.

Having all of these leadership skills and being able to use the tools of personnel management effectively, a high level of employee satisfaction and an increase in the level of motivation can be ensured in Apple Inc. which will lead to a overall positive change in Apple Inc.

Skill Development Plan To develop a skill development plan to deliver improvement seven precious steps should be followed:

1. Outlining the Goals- Being the CEO of Apple Inc. within 2018 should be the primary goal.
2. Assessing Current Situation- Currently taking care of Human Resource Department as the Manager of HR.
3. Acknowledging Strengths and Skills- Ambitious, Ability to focus on big picture, motivate subordinates, Ability to take responsibility and having high level of integrity.
4. Identifying Weakness- Lack of flexibility, lack of ability to keep clam under stress and lack of ability to accept criticism.
5. Creating a Action Plan- increasing flexibility, practicing to keep clam under stress and learn to accept criticism, reading biography of Steve Jobs.
6. Assigning a Time Line- being able to flexible within 6 months, being able to keep clam and accept criticism within 14 months.
7. Check In Progresses- consulting with psychologist, current CEO and others to check the progresses.

Organizational Structure of Apple Inc.

Impact of operational and culture in Apple Inc. to HRM As Apple does not have a hierarchical communication line and it emphasis on team structure, the human resource management is a tough task in Apple Inc. The lack of formal human resource and organizational policies and casual work environment has made the job further complicated. As a human resource manager in Apple Inc., it is really a challenging job to manage human resources all around the world without any formal Human Resource Management policies. Elements of HRM meeting organizational objectives:

1. Recruitment- Currently 14,000 employees are working in head office of Apple Inc. Each and every day Apple needs new and newer employees for its newly opened posts and vacant posts. Filling up these posts with best people is essential for them to keep operational excellence by hiring best person. And recruitment procedures of Apple are very much efficient to meet this need of the organization. Their internship program helps them a lot to serve this need.
2. Development- Development is the process of increasing employee's (existing and newly hired) performance ability through grooming, advising and training. Apple has a highly developed and equipped with modern facilities training facilities.
3. Retention- As the employees of Apple Inc. work in a team, it is easy to identify and retain the positive performance of the team. Negative attitude of team members should be punished and positive one should be encouraged to reinforce in future performance. Apple's Team leaders monitor and evaluate the performance of each team member and take necessary measures.

Elements of HRM meeting organizational objectives:

4. Reward- It is a common phenomenon in Apple Inc. that any significant success is rewarded. It helps Human Resource Manager to ensure employee satisfaction and to motivate them.
5. Performance Management- performance management is the process of between supervisors and employees through which strategic objectives of the organization are communicated with the employees and their specific responsibilities are set and evaluated in this process. But in Apple Inc. there are no supervisors as apple does not have any hierarchical structure. In this case, team leaders take this role of supervisors which is comparatively inefficient than a hierarchical structure.
6. Communication- communication is important for employee performance as well as for organizational performance. Without effective communication channel, organizational goals and objectives could not be communicated with the subordinates. Similarly, an employee's performance evaluation and feedback is not possible without a proper communication channel. Apple Inc. has a very effective and efficient communication channel as it has no hierarchical structure. Team leaders communicate with the team members in a friendly manner which is far effective than the traditional structure.

Slide 12: Capacity Management Approaches in Apple Inc. Capacity management is the procedure of managing information technology. Its main objective is to ensure that the information technology capacity meets the current and future needs of the organization in a cost-effective manner. Apple Inc. uses proactive capacity management approach. Main components of a proactive capacity management approach is as follow:

1. Monitoring- Monitoring helps managers to observe how a particular Information Technology Component or an application performs at that time. It provides significant data to the manager for analyzing and decision making. Apple Inc. contentiously monitors the potential market or industry which helps them to gather information about the need of the customers and design a new product to fill that need.
2. Collecting & Analyzing Data- From the monitoring stage managers get an ample amount of data about a certain information technology component or an application's performance. In this stage, managers need to collect these data and analyze them carefully. This helps increase efficiency and generate forecasts from trend analysis. Apple Inc. analyzes and forecasts market demand based on the information collected from monitoring stage. They usually use two basic approaches to forecast i.e. top-down forecast, bottom-up forecast. They usually forecast their sales for 2 quarters.
3. Tuning- Tuning is the process of optimizing the settings of the information technology system. It ensures the efficient utilization of the system components. Apple tries hard to reach its target sales by advertising and promotional activities. By these procedures, they ensure the optimization of the system.
4. Capacity Planning- In the process of capacity planning several business planning information is used and this business planning is converted into information technology system needs and predicts the future needs of business and predicts what resources would be required to meet those needs. In this stage, Apple Inc. makes a layout of their company. They usually makes two types of layout i.e. production layout, process layout. They use the cellular arrangement approach which is less handling and flexible.
5. Implementation- In this stage, change managers provide newly adopted or regenerated information technology system capacity.
6. Requirement Management- Through requirement management, change managers influence the capacity demand and they optimize the existing resources. To increase capacity Apple Inc. follows three strategies i.e. diversification, product development and new production plant.

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