Managing People Global Context - Case Study Example

Managing People Global Context Table of Contents Introduction 3 HR policies of H & M 4 a.Workforce and Work Environment 4 b.Work Culture and Technology 5 c.HR Strategy 6 Consistent HR strategy of H & M 7 Motivation of Workers 9 Referencing 12 Introduction Human Resource Management deals with the people dimension in the management. Human Resource management focuses on those activities designed to provide for and co-ordinate the human resources of an organization. It is the planning, organizing, controlling and directing of the recruitment, compensation, development, integration, and maintenance of human resources to achieve individual, organizational and social objectives. Human Resource management views people as an important asset to be used for the benefit of the organizations, employees and the society. Two major objective of HRM should be ensuring availability of the competent and developing a willing workforce of the organization (Mondal and Shastri, 2009, p.245). With the rise in competition talent acquisition and retention has become an integral part of the corporate strategy. Organizations now identify human resource as the most valuable asset. This study looks to analyze the Human resource strategy of an organization with respect to some focal points such as workforce, work environment, organizational culture, innovation, and consistency in HR strategy, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Keeping the focal points in mind and after conducting in depth research H & M has been chosen. H & M has been very highly appreciated due its unique and innovative human resource policy. It has also been tagged as a fun place to work and is respected as one of the leading employer brand. This study will focus on the overall HR strategy of H & M with respect to the key focal points mentioned before. The H&M Group has over 104,000 people and there are 2,800 stores (approx) spread over 40 markets in North America, Europe, Asia, Middle East and North Africa. HR policies of H & M a. Workforce and Work Environment H & M is famous for their innovation. Initially they were a single women’s wear store in 1947. Since then they have become a global company providing fashion products for all the family members, and their home, under the variety names of H&M, Monki, COS, Weekday, Cheap Monday, as well as Other Stories and H&M Home. Therefore the employees require having ability to be flexible and adapt to changes probably a lot faster than any other tech. firm. This is where H & M is believed to be different from other firms. H & M doesn’t try to provide any formal learning plan to the employees. Rather they expect the employees to be self- sufficient. Many would be surprised to know that the retail sales force of H & M doesn’t get any formal training on selling. This is certainly unconventional to say the least. For H & M it’s simple. They feel that providing stagnant training can reduce self sufficiency and innovation. On the other hand self owned training and development program will help the employees to acquire skills that may be required to make the most of the new opportunities. H & M believes career paths weaken employee self-sufficiency and decreases inter organizational co-ordination. And to be really honest when you are a company where innovation and creativity is the king you don’t want anything to reduce the curiosity and innovation of the employees. Many organizations are now promoting the concept of work and life balance. However H & M prefers to be different. In H & M you are unlikely to find the term balance in H & M. They look for extremely committed and hardworking people. It is a well established culture in H & M. They proudly say that it is not a corporate nine to five job. H & M makes it very clear for the employees. If you don’t wish to get every precise details right then H & M is most definitely not the place for you. b. Work Culture and Technology Many firms built the ability to dominate their own industry. P&G, Intel, etc. are prime examples of them. H & M however wishes to be different. They exhibit the ability to make shifts to different industries. For many years H & M was a company providing women’s wear. But since then they have diversified. The very basis of such great success has been the work culture and technological innovations. H & M started providing products for all the family members. Next they changed the definition of clothing business. The ability to transform technology has even left other companies behind. The main reason behind such technological innovation is the agile work culture of H & M. The vision and direction of the senior leadership and the corporate culture is believed to be key driving force behind such technological innovation. The senior leadership of H & M has developed a culture which says that you must keep clam when you win and stay brave when you fail. The senior management doesn’t expect you to brag about your success. Rather they expect you to shift to one task once you have successfully completed one. So the employees know very well that they have to re gather and rethink again. The expectation of such drastic change sends a very clear message to the employees that there is no time to celebrate their success. Such rapidly changing work means that the employees would not get bored with the work. So to sum it up it can be said that the ability of H & M to dominate different industry is only possible due to the organizational that manages and seeks the employees, those extra ordinary talents to come up with new innovative product ideas. c. HR Strategy Frankly speaking there are so many of us around who wishes to work for H & M. But to be really honest unlike other companies it is quite difficult to make out about the Life at H & M. Through internet searches you may come across some alumni groups. It is believed that most of the executives of H & M are quite tight lipped largely due to the non disclosure agreement signed by them. People are very unlikely to stumble upon employment advertising with the logo of H & M on it. Despite of such silence, if someone decides to carry out a survey he or she would still find that H & M has a great employer brand image. It is believed to be ranked among the top ten global tech. companies. The HR strategy of H & M is quite simple. H & M believes in management practices that are more likely to support the enterprise brand image. Complicated elaboration of brand management is not likely to be required. H & M is quite often regarded as the “most admired firm”. As a matter of fact the company has been the leading the race for four years so to speak. Experts believe that few factors influence such positive perceptions of the applicants. Some of these factors are social responsibility, innovativeness, quality, excellent man management, etc. The above discussion was about the external HR strategy of H & M. Now efforts are put in to have little sneak peek inside. Senior managers along with his management team have believed to work restlessly to build an internal image of the employees as rebels. Probably that is the reason the senior leadership at H & M had very rarely been seen in formals even during any formal product launch. H & M has been quite famous for parties, T-shirts and celebrations to develop a sense of cohesiveness among them. Experts have believed to have adopted a top down approach. It is also believed that don’t like image of being too corporate Consistent HR strategy of H & M People who have stepped in to any of the retail outlets of H & M must have noticed that the employees operate like well oiled machine. During this section some the focal points about such modus operand would be discussed. This something even other organizations must also learn from H & M. Every aspect of the store starting from its layout to the physical design reflects the corporate culture of H & M. It definitely is not a co incidence that the way H & M stores run are correlated to its user friendly products. To maintain the level of consistency the employees of H & M are very carefully screened. But that is not all. In order to understand the modus operand of the oiled machined some key factors need to be understood. It has already been discussed about the rebel mentality of H & M. Such attitude shows in their recruitment also. H & M has a history of recruiting top most talent from other companies. Many experts actually believe that the people won’t have got introduced to such innovative products without the external talent. The core principle of the company believes in hiring the best. They say that you should always hire ‘A’ people. Because as soon as you go for ‘B’ they bringing in ‘Cs’. Many believe that the recruitment approach of the company is going through an evolution as they have an imported a team of recruitment experts. If we shift towards the recruitment policies of the retail two key things must be mentioned. The first is the “Genius Bar”. In this case applicants are aided with technical support. The second is believed to be even more powerful: the use of employee referral cards. H & M authorities hand these cards to those who provide great customer service. The card says “You are amazing. We should talk”. The H & M executives are certainly high in demand. Just for the sake of records the head of retail very recently joined JC Penny as the CEO. Despite of such high demand the company rarely gets fazed by the situation. H & M believes in team environment. Sometimes they force many teams to work in an isolated environment. But that is done to develop team cohesiveness. The internal competition among the teams is very intense, but that actually helps in increasing the cohesiveness of the team. The coloured T-shirt carried by the employees of H & M is not for fun only. They are used to differentiate the role of one employee from that of the other. Experts have said that the employees of H & M retail store sell the H & M products without acting like salespeople. Whatever is the designation of the employees; the well defined roles always make sure that the employees have full idea about what they are doing. Seamlessness is one the key feature of all the key H & M products. To deliver such a level of consistency H & M needs a lasting organizational structure. The role of the managers goes beyond managing leading and training to increase sales. As a consumer brand H & M very much attractive. The same can be said about them as an employer also. It has always been rated as one of top place to work among the potential employees. One of the main reasons for this is believed to be the people and the process. H & M treats each of their employees as a product. They feel that the way the end product is being delivered to the end user i.e. the process as an area to increase the efficiency. Such consistency in their HR strategy leads to the consistency in delivering the services. H & M believes in employee engagement i.e. they believe in making each of the employees understand that what they are doing is meaningful. The managers H & M feel that their lies a huge positive correlation between what the engagement and performance. They believe that when the employees know that what they are doing really matters it is far easier to motivate them. Despite having a fine job portal with numerous openings; H & M proudly promotes employees from within the organization. Many expert master degree holders are looking to get their first step in to company and that is believed to be quite encouraging. With the rise in competition many organizations are finding it difficult to retain the talent because they firmly believe that the employees or the people are as much a part of the brand as the products. Motivation of Workers Motivation can be described as a force that provides a certain momentum to human behaviour by affecting and directing human behaviour towards certain goals. (Davidson, 20011, p.1). Numerous theorists have been developed and applied with an objective to find out the specific way to describe the main concept of motivation. Among the empirical researchers of this specific field, many of them have been told about Maslow’s hierarchy of motivation and Herzberg’s theory. Here one thing needs to be mentioned that motivation can be classified in to two parts: extrinsic as well as intrinsic. Extrinsic motivational factors refer to those which motivate a person from inside. On the other hand extrinsic factors are those which motivate people from the inside. Extrinsic factors include organizational structure, leadership, culture, process, etc. The intrinsic factors include needs, personality, aspirations, etc. However researches have shown that sometimes the extrinsic factors may also have certain influence upon the intrinsic ones. (Deci and Ryan, 2004, p.37). Successful organizations or businesses share a standard attribute i.e. they have realized very fast that employees have significant contribution in business in terms of overall performance, efficiency and growth of the businesses. In this section the motivational strategies of H & M. There will be very few who would argue upon the fact that H & M takes care of the employees financially. As far as Economic rewards are concerned at H & M they really are significant. But you will be surprised to know that economic rewards at H & M are secondary. The primary monetary reward is opportunity provided by the company for wealth creation. Most employees get stock grants as rewards. It actually is a clear message to the employees. It says that your contribution towards the company is of great value. The future of the company depends upon your performance only. The managers of the H & M believe that when people know that their performance is directly influencing the growth of the company it is quite easy to motivate them. Here it needs to be mentioned that the retail employees of H & M also get stock opportunities. This approach of H & M is coupled with the product focused approach. It is done to keep everyone focused on the product success rather than individual success. We have discussed before that many skill full master degree holders are waiting outside the doors; looking for their first opportunity to put their footsteps. H & M hires the very best and their primary objective also happens to retain the best talent. The two main motivational factors for employee retention at H & M are exciting work and stock growth. Health plan of H & M is quite well funded. It provides great food on campus and gym; however neither the food nor the gym is free. However one perk which really seems to attract the employees is discounts on products of H & M. We have already discussed about how H & M doesn’t believe in any formal training. Their organizational culture influences the employees to motivate themselves from the inside. H & M believes stagnant training sessions can actually lower the innovation among the employees which happens to be USP of the company. To conclude things, it can be stated that there is very little doubt that employee motivation plays a critical role in the success of an organization. H & M is a great example of a company which is able to get the best of the employees in a smooth fashion. They are able to cultivate both intrinsic as well as extrinsic factors such as financial and non-financial benefits, organizational culture, rewards to identify and encourage commitment. Hopefully this case will do great in terms of motivating employers and as well employees. Referencing Davidson. P. J., 2011. Motivation 60 seconds solutions. David & Charles. U.K. Deci. L. E. and Ryan. M. R., 2004. Handbook of Self-Determination Research, University Rochester Press. U.K. Mondal. S and Shastri. K., 2009. Human Resource Management. Matrix Educare. U.K. Read More