An Executive Summary

In order to enable the board of trustees to assist them in realigning the strategic initiatives, this study aims to assess the best practices utilized by three Fortune 500 businesses. Ford Motor Company, Apple, and Walmart are among the businesses. Walmart is a global American retailer that operates a chain of supermarkets, inexpensive department stores, and hypermarkets. Technology firm Apple Inc. is an American multinational that focuses on creating, developing, producing, marketing, and disseminating computer software, internet services, and consumer goods. Ford is an American multinational manufacturer that creates, produces, and markets high-quality automobiles, trucks, SUVs, and many other types of vehicles. These three companies are the best for benchmarking of the best HRM practices because they possess characteristics that can be easily adapted to the organization under study. They are top performing businesses that have achieved standards of performance on the key indicators that have been widely recognized. Walmart has created the dedicated workforce that has higher productivity, excellent customer service with lower turnover. Apple is a leader in the consumer electronics due to its unique HRM practices in attracting better talents and the superior talent management. Ford Motor Company is internationally recognized for excellence in its HR innovation through the highly disciplined culture, vigorous and consistent processes and outstanding training opportunities. Apple, Walmart and Ford managers have achieved the expected organizational competitiveness and performance through achievement of desired employee abilities and motivation.



Recruitment or Onboarding

Walmart’s recruitment strategy includes direct recruitment within the organization (internal sourcing), online recruitment and thirdly, through the academic institutions. (Bergdahl, 2010). Ford Motor is known to utilize external recruitment. The pros of internal recruitment include enhancing the staff morale. The second advantage includes time-saving and less costly as a company overcomes the expenses of advertising in the external media. There is a reduction of executive turnover and also develops a sense of responsibility and loyalty. The cons include revitalization and a limited scope as it may not be possible to fill all the required gaps. The advantages of external recruitment include encouraging young and innovative minds to be part of the firm and a wider scope of selection. Secondly, there are minimal chances of partiality or bias. Lastly, it is not necessarily for a company to maintain the confidential records. The demerits include very costly due to elements such advertisements and medical examinations. It is time-consuming which results from the lengthy selection process.

Training and development

They apply on-the-job training methods. Apple utilizes apprenticeship and the Job Instructional Technique (JIT) (Shetty, 2011). Walmart and Ford use job rotations and mentoring. On-the-job training merits include the provision of immediate feedback on the performance and also swifts the remediation if the supervisor feels that the task is not performed to the required standard. Its demerits may involve slowing down the trainer production as well as disrupting a firm’s workflow. Job rotation leads to a reduction of the employee boredom and allows development of rapport with the number of people. Secondly, it increases skills as the employee becomes acquainted with the different jobs open new opportunities for the staff. Its cons include dissatisfaction and decrease of morale of an employee. Mentoring and coaching have several advantages to an organization. They enhance higher retention of staff, personal development, and efficiency, enhancement of the organizational communication and strengthening of the company culture together with ethics. However, this approach can result in mismatched pair and frustration to either the mentor or mentee (Raheja, 2015).

Employee or labor relations

The Ford Motor Company’s best HRM practices include making the human resources more accessible to all employees (Ford Motor Company, 2015). Apple, on the other hand, has always cooperated with the labor unions for the betterment of its workforce. Labor unions pros are as follows. Firstly, they usually protect employee’s interests by ensuring fair compensation and safer working environment. Unionized workers seem to be satisfied with the jobs assigned to them and thus becoming beneficial to an organization. The cons of labor unions include being costly to both employers and employees, and the workers will tend to be dictated by these labor unions. HR access is best practice since it has been categorized as the most important method that can strengthen and enhance relationships between the employee and the employer. Furthermore, it increases the frequency of interaction between managers and staff. The disadvantage includes a challenge in of modifying the HR department hours.

Performance management

Walmart and Apple Inc. uses the performance appraisal system. Also, Walmart utilizes the HR software product that helps in analyzing the individual and team performance in the organization. The first advantage of the performance appraisal systems includes the provision of a document of the employee achievement and productivity over an extended period of time. Secondly, it improves communication within the organization and provides a career path by establishing the long-term goals. Moreover, appraisals improve the decision-making ability and encourage good work. The disadvantages include being time-consuming and overwhelming to the concerned managers. They usually base on the human assessment which makes them subject to biases and errors. Lastly, they can create a negative experience as well as a stressful environment. The benefits of the HR software include being user-friendly, improved engagement and retention, easy integration and more motivated and satisfied employees (Bee & Loo, 2013). Another advantage involves achieving an improved learning and development accompanied with reduced job performance evaluation costs.

Compensation and benefits incentives or practices

Apple provides salaries and commissions to its employees while Ford and Walmart provide the individual incentive plans that involve percentages on sales and profit sharing to motivate the managers. These HRM are advantageous as they reward performance hence increasing motivation and a stable income to the employees. However, they may be too complicated to apply and have a limited impact. Profit sharing and commission based incentives is an over-aggressive approach and result to variable expenses (Sikyr, 2013).

Recommendations

The board of trustees should utilize the external recruitment which promotes new ideas and innovative minds trained according to the market trends. On-the-job training is appropriate in enhancing the workforce skills and knowledge. HR access should be necessary for employee relations management. The performance appraisal systems should be considered in the performance function. Salaries and bonuses are best practices in compensation and benefits function.

References

Bee, L. & Loo, L. (2013). Human resource management best practices and the firm performance: A universalistic perspective approach. Serbian Journal of Management, 8(2), 155 – 167.

Bergdahl, M. (2010). How the HR division at Wal-Mart drives a company's success through people.

Ford Motor Company (2015). Human Resources. Retrieved on June 6, 2017, from https://corporate.ford.com/careers/departments/human-resources.html

Raheja, K. (2015). The Methods of training and development. Innovative Journal of management and business, 4(2), 35-41.

Shetty, N. (2011). Human Resource Management of Apple Inc. Retrieved on June 6, 2017, from

http://www.managementparadise.com/forums/human-resources-management-h-r/213861-human-resource-management-apple-inc.html

Sikyr, M. (2013). Best practices in human resource management: the source of excellent performance and sustained competitiveness. Central European Business Review, 2(1).