Research Of Strategic Human Resources Management In Apple Inc.

Apple Inc. is an american manufacturing and service company founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1967. Today it designs, develops and sells operative systems, pc, multimedia devices with headquarter in Cupertino (California). At the head of Operations Department today, there is Jeff Williams (Apple, s. d. ); he oversees the Apple’s entire supply chain, services and support and takes care about the social responsability initiatives aimed to protect more than one million workers worldwide. The department is committed to carry out the whole production process, from the design for the product to the shipping process. The design process is headed by the CDO at Apple inside the Industrial Design Studio (where only few people have access). (Interaction Design Foundation, s. d. ). Suppliers from USA, Asia and Europe permits the implementation of the designed idea. (Supplier List, s. d. )The manufacturing has been outsourced in China mostly in Foxconn (230,000 workers), because in US no infrastructures and labor forces exist at the levels necessary to support Apple’s operations. (Engadget, s. d. ). Once the products are finished the VP of Retail and Online stores hendles the shipment process.

Diagram of current operations department

Global Operations Strategy

Apple aims to reach the globalization implementing “One-Size-Fits-All Approach”. The objective is to accomplish the concept of “global” at its purest level. Therefore Apple produces standardized designed product across all regions, the same range of product without any visible customization. Since the global brand success comes from the cultural understanding, Apple has found the common denominator for a particular product. (Jobs, s. d. ) Furthemore Apple is pushed inside the global market though FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) mostly in China. In China and in India Apple follows the Heckscher Theory based on factors endowments. Apple carries out operations in almost all the countries, and has offices, design studios, manufacturing centers, development centers, sales and marketing offices in Europe, America and Asia. This globalization of operations often generates some problems to Apple because, the countries where Apple operates have significant variations in their political, economic and legal systems.

3. Description of the department future requirements

Named as the “World’s Most Valuable Brand” (Cult of Mac, s. d. ) and “World’s Largest Tech Company” (Forbes, s. d. ) Apple represents one of the tech mondial leader whose annual net profit is about 48. 35 billions of dollars. Since the operations department is at the basis of Apple’s sources of revenue it needs attention. This department is very huge, expanded around the globe and many workers are employed to work within it: Human Capital is at the basis of it, since without an efficient operational department Apple wouldn’t be profitable. Today, Apple is facing problems in regarding the “Ethical and Social Responsibility” issues for what concers the relationship suppliers (Foley, s. d. ). As mentioned before, the manufacturing process is carried out outside Apple, mostly in China thanks to the lower cost of production and wages. In the latest years many labor violations has been founded inside the Supplier Responsibility Progress Report of Apple, mostly regard the working conditions (health and safety situation) and environmental issues that have caused dilemma for Apple itself and its suppliers. (Gizmodo, s. d. )Not only, Apple has also been accused to oblige Pegatron, a chinese supplier to breakdown its relationship with Asus otherwise Apple would stop to contract with them.

So, the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) of Apple has to be reviewed, since they want to mantain their strategy to provide a high-level quality product, the operations process requires the same high-level quality and the background needs to be HR respectful and substainable too. The future HR figures needs to overcome these problems. The HR head of Operations Department should ensure the adequacy of the infrastructures where employees carry out the manufacturing process. The workers should be considered firstly as human and their capabilities and competencies used in a respectful way. (Kimble, s. d. )The HR department has to mix both Hard and Soft Approach in managing the Operations Deparment employees. The Employees must be threated as important resources and source of competitive advantage, having respect for their needs but being sure that their skills are strongly linked with corporate business planning. To accomplish the strategy of Apple, the Operations Department requires a re-qualification of resources:

• Skilled, Expert and Professional Staff: the staff requires dynamics competencies to be ready to change, problem-solving and decision-making prepared, supply chain manage, mantainance of software and hardware, put in practice social responsabilities norms;
• Infrastructures, building and machineries: environmental-friendly, high-skilled and high-tech, specialized infrastructures separed used to design products;
• CSR Budget: invest part of the budget to improve the management of corporate social responsability issues be more in compliance with the norms. Furthemore, the competencies of the department needs to be coordinated to Apple’s strategy (Workforce, s. d. ):
• Managing Change: the Department needs to be able to demonstrate support for innovation and for organizational changes, to improve organization’s efficiency, implementing organizational change.
• Forward Thinking: the ability to anticipate the implications and consequences of situations and take appropriate corrective action to anticipate problems and develops plan to avoid them or limited their impact on the company’s strategy.
• Stress Management: ability of the department to keep operating also under pressure and mantain selfcontrol.
• Responsible: the department must be responsible for all activities of the productive process from the design of the product to the shipment.

Description and Explanation of the Competencies for the Specific Role

Whereas Apple HR department is looking for a new figure covering the role of Chief Operations Officer, the company should be clear about what are the required competencies the person must have in order to cover this role. The competiences, obviously, should be such that bring benefits to the company, improving the operating activities, increasing sales, maximize the use of resources, improving the whole supply chain and ensuring compliance with CSR policies. (comreg, s. d. )

Working with others:

• Communicating & Influencing: candidate’s communicating and influencing capacity must be very high, very high engaging quality. So clear and patient in communicating directives and able to influence without pressure employees.
• Leading: candidate’s will be a leader, not a boss, so that, will represent a guide for the entire department. Responsiveness, decision-making and problem solving are key capabilities.

Organizational Context:

• Contextual Understanding: analytical thinking of context, permitting him to understand the situation managing it in a rational and coherent way.
• Strategy: strategy maker, understanding, analysing and managing resources in the most suitable way.

Delivering Results:

• Planning & Organising: precise, coherent, meticulous, open-mind in planning and organising the entire department. Clear also in the communication of the plan.
• Analytical & Flexible Thinking: able to identify patterns in non-obvious and complex situations, and to adapt to new situations and changes. Candidate has to be open to adapt to new approaches and accept other perspectives.
• Technical Knowledge & Continuous improvement: high skilled, previous experience and knowledge about the operations department. Ready to continuous improvement, and participative to update masters. Continuous efforts to improve personal knowledge.
• Decision Making & Judgment: determined person, confident and smart, able to impartial decisions, and objective judgments.

Recruitment System

Using a “Best Fit” approach, the HR policies should align with the business strategy, so the high-quality level of the products and services provided by Apple should match the quality of the HR working conditions inside the company. The successful candidate will deal with the current CSR problems, creating a new policy financed by Apple followed by suppliers too, to ensure an ethical profit, increasing the compay’s reputation. Coherently with the just mentioned approach, the department will have an organic structure since there are many seniors VP responsible of any step of operative process. The Chief of the department must be helped and must cooperate with the other officers encharged to carry out the activities inside the department. This will help the decision-making process since communications will be conveyed with more ease. The recruitment will be made following a System Approach through which the candidate will be chosen according to possible changes in the job, and so he/she has to deal with ongoing changes in the department to be always moving forward, since the task concerns a polyhedral environment.

The Recruitment process will start with attracting candidates, Apple will entrust the “Head Hunt International Recruitment” where a head-hunter, through some channels and databases, will find a number of perfect candidates to introduce to Apple for the recruitment that would suit the competencies required. Since Apple is one of the most important global multinational, the recruitment process represents a critical step to reach profit. Therefore a qualified external agency will help this process. Once the candidates will be presented to the company some tests should be carried out in order to assess their competencies and their behavior, predicting what would be their attitudes towards the role. Since the Schmidt and Hunter analysis shows it is the more efficient and reliable according to the latest 85 years, the assesment of the candidates will be made through intelligent tests and structured interviews.

This method will encompass the assessment of the specific competencies required. (Lecture 3 Stages of Recruitment and Selection)The formal induction process will follow with an introduction to the organisation (an overall explanation of current situation with policies and procedures clarification), later an exchange of information about the contract condition and possible rewards, and at the end all information about learning and development opportunities and insurances. The latest step requires the motivation from COO, according to Armstrong, the psychological mentoring affects employees and has as result a positive mentoring experience in the affective commitment to the organization. So intrinsic motivation improves the experience inside the organization and pushes the employees to work better and satisfies them.