HRD Practices and Strategies of Hewlett Packard and Nestle - Research Paper Example

? TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT …………………. College/ ………….. …………. Introduction Business contexts of technology, lifestyles and workplace environment have experienced tremendous changes in recent years and as a result Human Resource Management has accustomed with such changes to evolve major developments by implementing various strategies that help organizations face challenges. For any organization, its people are most powerful assets and therefore they are extremely important resources. They are to be trained and developed in order to make them high performance workers and help organization achieve competitive advantages. Noe, Hollenbeck and Gerhert (2003) stressed that Human Resource Management has recently been playing its pivotal role to help organizations achieve competitive advantages over the major competitors by making its people high performance working through training and development. This piece of research paper addresses human resource development in relation to the human resource perspectives and theories and analyzes how this is different in two major companies with different environment and core technologies. This paper identifies Hewlett Packard and Nestle as the two major companies with quite different environments and attempts to find how these two companies modeled and structured its human resource development practices and strategies. Human Resource Development According to Blanchard and Thacker (2007, p. 29), Human Resource Development plays vital role in improving the effectiveness of an organization by providing employees with knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA) that in turn can enhance their current as well as future job performance. Human resource development is thus a broad term that includes training, development and coaching to the employees of an organization in order them to learn, grow and adjust with various workplace related issues. As mentioned earlier, due to a number of ever-changing business contexts like technology, workplace changes etc, workers are to cope with all such changes and related issues. This is one of the main reasons why people in an organization need training and development. Training, development and any other program that is essentially a part of Human Resource Development help people in the organization become high performing workers, highly productive and thus to help the organization become highly profitable as well as highly competitive in the market as well. Blanchard and Thacker (2007, p. 29) explained what happen if knowledge, skills and abilities are not considered as important and employees are trained or developed to improve these areas. If new KSAs are not seen relevant, they won’t get converted to employees’ jobs and this will cause nothing more than wastage of the available resources. Effective training and developmental programs can meet needs of both employees and organization. Werner and DeSimone (2008, p. 4) defined Human Resource Development as “a set of systematic and planned activities designed by an organization to provide its members with the opportunities to learn necessary skills to meet current and future job demands”. Gaining new knowledge, learning new methods of performing the jobs, understanding easier ways to do the current or future jobs, developing these knowledge and skills to perform them are at the core of human resource development. Workplace learning and performance has recently become an extremely important human resource concern. As human resource management focuses on workplace learning and its integral part, namely knowledge management, the Human Resource Development program aims to develop the knowledge, skills, expertise, abilities, productivity and satisfaction of the people in the organization. Human Resource Development has recently evolved to be a management strategy that, with the title HRM, makes individuals sound almost like the nuts and bolts of an organization that can be interchanged and dispensed with at will (Wilson, 2005, p. 3). As Wilson (2005, p. 3- 6) argued, Human Resource Development essentially involves three elements, namely training, education and development. Training is a planned process to modify people’ attitude, knowledge or skill behaviour through learning experience in order to achieve effective performance in doing a particular job. Education is an activity that aims at developing the knowledge, skills, moral values and understanding that are required in almost all aspects of life. Development happens when an individual experiences growth or realization of his ability, through conscious or unconscious learning. Strategic Human Resource Development is a proactive and system wide intervention being aligned and linked with strategic planning and cultural change (Wilson, 2005, p. 11). Perhaps, one of the most significant buzzes in business literatures in recent years is ‘strategy’. It plays significant roles in Human Resource Management too. There are many strategies in the filed of Human Resource Management that are developed to help the organization achieve its goals more easily and run it very effectively. Similarly, strategic human resource development can be considered to be an integral part of Human Resource strategies. HRD of two different organizations with Different environment and core technologies This part of the research paper identifies two multinational companies to study how they both implement their human resource development program. The companies chosen for this study are HP and Nestle. Microsoft is one of the largest technology company where as Nestle is one of the highly successful Supermarkets in the world. Hewlett Packard: An overview Hewlett-Packard Company is one of the highly successful multinational and most influential technology companies of all times, headquartered in California, USA. It has started to grow as a company from 1950s and by 1957 it has become a publicly traded company. The efficient management systems that its co-founders Hewlett and Packard have promoted from the very beginning itself, the organizational culture, very dedicated team work and focus on human resource development have eventually helped the company become a globally operating large manufacturer of technology. This has also caused it to become a fortune 500 company by 1962 (House and Price, 2009). Contribution, profitability, fairness and trust have been the major elements that HP has built its organizational culture with. It has always thrived on innovation, technology and its success stories showed that it has always been committed to the highest standard of technical excellence (House and Price, 2009). The Hewlett Packard company provides both desktop and notebook computer and various computer accessories to its customers worldwide, through reliable and safe distribution channels by effectively using its supply chain strategies. HP employs more than 15,000 employees in more than 170 countries through out its plant, manufacturing, assembling and offices. Acer, Apple Inc, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba and Sony are some of the major competitors of Hewlett Packard company. HP has been positioned to be 16th in the fortune 500 companies’ list. Around 60% of its total revenues are generated from its operations outside the US (Luo, 2007, p. 195). HP has remained to be the market leader in the United States PC market, with more than 25 percent market share. In the first quarter of 2010, HP was able to ship 43,67,000 personal computers to countries worldwide, with almost a 7% increase from the year ago shipping figures (Tilmann, 2010). Human Resource Development strategy of Hewlett Packard Company Hewlett-Packard company has long been maintaining a legacy of commitment towards human resource issues. The company underwent various changes in its strategic perspectives of human resource development especially when the company’s HRM was presided by Pete Peterson. He made tremendous changes to the ratio of HR people to employees, keeping it relatively good from its previous ratio of 1:53 to 1:80 while maintaining the high quality of services. All the improvements HP experienced after 1990s derived from reengineering of all the HR processes, redefining of the HR roles and reassigning the accountability for managing people to various line managers (Ulrich, 1997, p. 31). Translating the vision in to action and reality is at the core of human resource development too. Making knowledge work positively for the organization is also a critical element to the Human Resource Development. As Peter Drucker wrote in 1978, “To make knowledge work productive will be the great management task of this century, just as to make manual work productive was the great management task of the last century” (Swart, Mann and Brown, 2005, p. 5). Human Resource Development is thus a management strategy that aims at making knowledge work, converting skills to be productive, turning experiences to be beneficial and transforming abilities to be useful for the overall benefits of the organization. when it comes to the case of Hewlett Packard, it can be observed that the company has been able to manage its human resources from 1990 onwards very effectively and implement human resource development through various on going training and development practices. From 1990 onwards, Peterson at Hewlett Packard company challenged his personnel throughout different countries to create a specific environment by increasing value for the organization, mainly by providing supreme quality services to its employees and by utilizing the available human capital very effectively (Ulrich, 1997, p. 31). As Wilson (2005, p. 160) noted, HP’s focus on human resource development has been very clear from its focus on performance management process which was successfully aligned strategically to individual objectives together with some set of values. The human resource development strategy maintained by the HP has eventually resulted to foster commitment, pride and trust among its employees as well. HP has been thus translating its strategic vision to reality and actions. HP has been thus translating its strategic vision to reality and actions. The Human Resource Management team at Hewlett Packard company has been assigned four specific goals. They were, first to facilitate, measure and improve the quality of management and teamwork. Second, HR was responsible to contribute to the core of the business strategy, recognize the HR implications and facilitate change. Third, HR was expected to accelerate individual and organizational learning across the firm. Fourth, HR was expected to manage people-related processes (Ulrich, 1997, p. 32). Ulrich (1997, p. 32- 33) reported that the human resource development practices implemented by the HP has been found to be very successful in fulfilling various goals like gaining competitive advantage, achieving financial strengths, improving a global outlook, bringing innovation, effectively managing change, consistently improving the quality of life and creating system that could improve service qualities. As part of its developmental program, HP implemented a course called ‘Personnel as Competitive Advantage’. And this has resulted greater significance in improving the productivity and profitability of the firm as well. Nestle: An overview Nestle is a multinational company, headquartered in Switzerland and operating in more than 86 countries. Nestle is bringing together some of the best known-food items, chocolates, confectionary and beverage brands in the world. It employs 247,000 employees throughout its plants, production units, offices, retail-stores in various countries (Careernomics, 2011). One of the very reputed and widely consumed brand of Nestle is Nescafe, which is a specific coffee that ensures greater value of health. As its fundamental way to create value to customers and important stakeholders, nestle creates value by offering consumers tasty, nutritious products of foods and drinks that contribute to their health and wellbeing. It not only creates values to the consumers, but also to the entire society including farmers who help them get raw materials, suppliers who help them get necessary resources, retailers who help them distribute the goods and more importantly the employees who help them become a high performing organization (Nestle, 2009, p. 3) Human Resource Development strategy of Nestle Nestle is widely known for better training and development practices to its people. It employs 247,000 employees and they all are frequently trained and developed through various training programs in order them to be highly productive and to ensure maximum returns from the utilization of available resources. Nestle has been focusing on creating shared values and maintaining superior values in almost all different levels and dealing with different stakeholders. The depiction below is an extract from Nestle report 2009, that shows how it has been treating its employees and other important stakeholders. Employees were focused for innovation and knowledge transfer through continuous training and development programs. In order them to get satisfied with workplace environments, Nestle enhances social security and workplace safety etc. Its focus on providing training and development was primarily a strategy of Human Resource Development that in turn has provided long term benefits of profitability and increased productivity to the firm. Nestle 2009 reports stated that the company has provided formal class room training as part of its Human Resource Developmental programs to its people in several countries. one of its various training program was Nestle NQ program for nutrition training. Nestle conducted NQ- Nutrition Quotient training program as part of its overall training and development program to equip its people with the right nutrition skills and insights so that they can inform its customers to make more informed choices. Employees were to take a general foundation Module whereas those with product development responsibilities were to go for further advanced and specialized workshops and training. Since Nestle implemented this training program in 2009, more than 121,360 employees have already undergone this training by the end of 2009, and others by 2010 (Nestle, 2009, p. 41). Needham and Dransfield (2000, p. 433) found that Nestle has been providing two kinds of on-the-job training as part of its HRD. The first one was for trainees. These training sessions were generally short in duration and are aimed for new arrivals or those who joined newly and going to start a new job within the company. this training program has been widely used throughout its both national and international workplaces. The other training program has been conducted for existing employees. Almost all Nestle employees are more likely to receive this training throughout his time with the company. This training has been arranged in a way that the people get constant and systematic communication of knowledge from executive levels. This communication channel includes various levels of management and executives. At the central of Nestle’s training and development program was that it was regarded as part of the very normal duties and normal responsibilities of the management (Dransfield, 2000, p. 433) As Zarate (2008, p. 81) observed, continuous training and development of professional skills were paramount to Nestle Company. It was because the company recognized that training is an investment for the future and therefore the company carefully selected, prepared and conducted training programs to address various needs of its employees. Various training and developmental programs it designed and provided to its employees were able to meet a broad range of functional and personal development objectives, mainly including the topic areas of management and leadership. Nestle has conducted various different programs for training and development of its people. Small Group Activities, Sports and Recreation programs, Family program, Staff shop and scholarship programs were some of its training strategies to successfully improve the abilities, knowledge, skills and experiences of its people (Zarate, 2008, p. 81- 84). All these programs and activities were designed and developed to uplift its employees and professionals in order them to be very competent in delivering supreme quality services to its customers. these training programs were aimed to give insights to the employees on how to effectively run the shops, how to effectively communicate with customers and how to effectively distribute its foods and drinks products. Comparing the HRD strategies of HP and Nestle Hewlett-Packard company is one of the most successful technology companies of all times. It has designed and developed various programs and strategies for its Human Resource Development mainly considering its people, process, technology and workplace environment. For any company, its people, process, technology and workplace environments will be quite or entirely different from another company. There are major differences between the workplace environment, technology used, skills and knowledge required for people and workplace environment between HP and Nestle. Major similarities and differences of HRD between Hewlett-Packard and Nestle are detailed below: HP focused on translating the HR vision in to reality and this has been considered to be at the core of its HRD programs, whereas Nestle basically focused on providing frequent training and development practices to its employees. The training and developmental programs provided by Nestle are more likely to be the integral part of HRD both theoretically as well as practically. Hewlett-Packard, mainly with the leadership of Peterson from 1990 onwards, has been providing high quality services to its employees, with an aim to increase the value for the organization. Similarly, Nestle has been trying to improve the innovation and knowledge transfer that were aimed for creating and increasing the value for the organization. both HP and Nestle have been attempting to increase the organizational value through the HRD practices. HP’s Human Resource Development program was designed as follows: 1) facilitating, measuring and improving the quality of management and teamwork, 2) contributing to the core of the business strategy, 3) accelerating individual and organizational learning across the firm and 4) managing people-related issues. But, Nestle has facilitated very formal classes for training including both in-the-job and off-the-job training. Nestle has also arranged various different types of learning and development strategies as part of its HRD. It shows that the strategic structure, the way of training and development and the basic perceptions are almost different in both the companies. Nestle’s training and developmental programs were more seemingly very effective both theoretically and pragmatically because it has included all different kinds of learning and development programs. There are different training programs and Nestle has been successful in conducting all such different types of training to improve employee performance. When it comes to the differences, there are many differences between the HRD practices of HP and Nestle. HP has been focusing on Human Resource Management program and maintained an organizational learning culture as part of its HRD. But Nestle’s ways of HRD and strategies were different. Because, it conducted various types of traditional training programs like on the job training and off-the job training etc. HP is a technology company and the scope for training and development may be relatively less as compared to that of Nestle. Rationale for the HRD variances between companies HP is a technology company but Nestle is a food and confectionary company. As compared to HP, Nestle requires more number of employees to work in various departments like stores, manufacturing ,industrial, official and so on. All these people require different types of training and development programs and therefore Nestle has set up all different types of learning and training programs. These include on-the-job and off-the-job training and other major workshops. Conclusion People in any organization are extremely critical factor as they are most powerful and valuable assets than any other assets. A business can be said to be successful only if its human capital are managed well. in order to ensure maximum utilization of the available human resources, proper training and developmental programs must be given to them so that business can ensure that they help the company become high performing and achieve competitive advantages. This piece of research paper has highlighted theoretical perspectives of Human Resource Development and has detailed how this can help a business achieve its goals. This paper considers HRD strategies of two different companies, namely HP and Nestle and attempted to find how the HRD strategies of these two companies are different and what are the basic reasons behind this differences. 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