Contemporary People Management: Apple Inc. Report

Executive Summary

Human resource managers are faced with the major challenge of managing the employees and ensuring that they have a good relationship with the organization. This is the major role of the HR managers. Employees are regarded as the most significant assets in an organization.

In order to facilitate this, the organization has to respond effectively to all the changes that happen in the internal environment, as well as the external environment. This article will examine the internal and external environmental factors whose changes may affect the organization Apple Inc. and the relationship that Apple has with its employees, as well as its ability to manage people. The paper will focus on how the changes can affect the organization and how the Apple Inc. should adapt to the changes.

Introduction

People are the most valuable assets of any organization because human resources hold the keys to the success or failure of an organization. The performance of the employees has a direct effect on the performance of the organization. It is, therefore, important for the organization to spend sufficient time and investment in developing a good workforce that has the ability to propel it to higher heights in the market competition.

The human resource management department is the one that is responsible for managing employees. An organization should focus on creating a good relationship with the employees through effective people management. This article will focus on the changes that are taking place in the internal, as well as external environment of the human resource management department of Apple Inc.

Company background

Apple Inc. is an organization based in the United States. It is a multinational company with operations in many countries across the globe. Its headquarters are located in Cupertino, California. Apple’s major operations involve the design, development, as well as the sale of electronics, personal computers, and computer software. Apple Inc. is a private company that was founded in the year 1976 by three entrepreneurs: Ronald Wayne, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Linzmayer, 2004).

Company shareholding

The company is a privately owned firm, with its shares listed on the NASDAQ stock market in the US. The total number of Apples Inc. shares held by a total of 1,994 shareholders is 538,137,959. The percentage of outstanding shares is approximated at 60.29%. Institutional and Mutual Fund Owners shareholding percentage is about 62%.

The highest institution holder is Vanguard Group Inc. with 4.89%, while the highest Mutual Fund holder is Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund with 1.48% (NASDAQ, 2014). Below is a graph of institution shareholding at Apple Inc.

Source: NASDAQ, 2014

The graph below shows the insider trading of shares at Apple Inc.

Source: NASDAQ, 2014

The yellow colour represents the number of buys, sky blue – the number of sells, while green is the total number of insider trades.

Company profile

Apple Inc. lies third behind Samsung and Nokia respectively among the largest mobile phone companies. Apple has become the company that is admired by most people in the United States since the year 2008 (Lashinsky, 2012). Apple currently has over 400 retail stores in over 14 countries across the globe. It also has online Apple stores, as well as iTunes Stores.

It should be noted that the Apples Inc. iTunes Store is currently the largest music retailer in the world. Despite its success, the company has faced criticism over the years regarding its labour practices. Apple is criticised for providing its employees with working conditions that are not acceptable. Failure to offer employees their rights has also been a concern among observers.

Employees

Apple Inc. is one of the largest employers in the world. The company has been able to employ over 70,000 people across the world, with most of them being situated in the United States. Among the employees are also those from the companies that Apple has acquired, such as NeXT and Emagic. The employees are distributed across the various Apple departments, which include manufacturing department, sales department, marketing department, and engineering department.

Most of the employees working in the engineering section are located in Japan and France, while most of those in the sales, marketing, and manufacturing departments are in the United States. The company has been accused of a poor remuneration system, which is evidenced by the compensation given to its employees. In fact, Apple Inc. has been involved in a lawsuit concerning the same (Lusted, 2012).

External environment changes

It is not possible for any management to control the external environmental factors as the organization has no influence on them whatsoever. However, it should be noted that the external environment has a great influence on the company’s operation and activities, as well as its performance. Therefore, it is important for the management to be aware of these external factors to consider them in their decision making (Books, 2011).

External environmental components include customers, competitors, economic conditions, legal and political factors, and labour force, among others. Each of the named factors has the ability to affect Apple negatively or positively, depending on how well the organization is able to adapt to the changes. The company has to be flexible enough to any changes that occur in the external environment for it to succeed in its operations.

The figure above shows the internal and external factors that potentially have an effect on Apple Inc.

Effects of power relations and management

The organization is supposed to satisfy the needs of its customers. This is one of the steps that will help it gain a competitive advantage over its rivals. It is not possible for an organization to control or regulate the customer needs. In the case of Apple Inc., customers’ needs are changing rapidly as technology continues to change (Books, 2011). The company is under pressure of coping with the increasing customer needs.

That means its production technologies are prone to becoming obsolete often and faces the challenge of incurring significant capital expenses, a factor that is likely to affect its profitability. To satisfy the needs of customers, the management keeps pressuring its employees to be innovative and produce quality devices which affects the relationship between the management and employees. The management tries to establish a relationship that will enhance the productivity of employees (Adams, 2002).

Normally, the employees of Apple Inc. work for long hours in an effort to fight off the competition. Approximately, employees work for up to 60 hours a week. This is among the issues that have attracted criticism from human rights activists, as well as labour force. They claim that the company overworks its workforce and, in return, only pays insufficient remuneration in comparison to the work they put in for the company.

However, following these claims, the company has been able to improve on some of the issues that have led to its criticism. It has been working on improving the working conditions, such as reducing the working hours and increasing the remuneration (Bazin, 2013). This will improve the productivity of employees and their ability to meet the consumer needs in the long run.

The competition in the industry in which Apple Inc. operates is too high. The major competitors to Apple Inc. include companies such as Samsung and Nokia, among others. Samsung has been the greatest of the competitors. Apple Inc. has been working towards winning the competitive battle against Samsung.

In this bid, the company offers more training chances to its employees to enhance their skills and enable them produce better products that can help the company stay within touching distance of the competition challenge it gets from Samsung. It also works towards enhancing the ability of the employees to be innovative (Jun & Park, 2013).

The economic conditions also affect the relationship that a company has with its employees, as well as people management in an organization. For instance, in a bad economic situation, the company will normally tend to lower its expenses in the efforts to maintain its profitability at a favourable level. This would involve laying down some employees to reduce its wages expenses. In a good economy, the company will be performing well and likely to employ more workers.

Apple Inc. was affected minimally during the economic recession that hit most parts of the nation starting the year 2007. The company was in good shape during this period, thus it did not lay off its employees (Zylla-Woellner, 2013). This improved a good relationship with the employees, a factor that could boost their productivity.

On the legal conditions, Apple Inc. has been involved in lawsuits due to its treatment of workers. It has been accused of having them work in poor conditions. The labour force has also put pressure on the company to improve on the same. As a result, the company has rapidly and significantly improved on its people management and its relationship with employees.

Internal environment changes

As opposed to the external environment, the internal environment is within the organization and the management has direct control over it. The organization has the ability to regulate its internal environment to improve its performance. Internal environmental factors include the culture of the organization, corporate strategies, rules, policies and procedures, employee skills, communication, and the management, among others.

Effects of power relations and management

It is normal to have internal politics among the employees and the managers within the organization. At Apple Inc., the politics among the members of the organization has been positive and only purposed to improve the general performance of the company. The major issue raised at Apple Inc. is the improvement of the employees’ working conditions (Hasan, 2013; Ryan, 1995).

The reaction to this has been the efforts by the management to improve on the same. The company has implemented and continues to implement policies and procedures that can be effective in improving its already good performance.

An illustration of power relations in an organization

Source: Mutshewa, 2007

Communication is a very important tool for the success of any organization. The human resource managers should be able to communicate effectively with the employees (Grant, 2010). This has been a major factor in the success of Apple Inc. The company is able to communicate with the employees the manner with which it wants them to design its products. It creates a relationship that enhances the flow of information.

The good communication in the company has also made it easy for the human resource department to manage the workforce. Communication enhances staff motivation, reduces conflicts, and enables staff development. With good communication, it is possible for the human resource management to learn about the employees’ skills and their training needs (Muema, 2012). As a result, the organization will offer relevant training that will boost its competitiveness.

Finally, corporate strategies are an important internal environmental factor. An organization should develop a strategy that will enable it to compete effectively (Mourdoukoutas, 2012). The corporate strategy should be in line with the organizational culture. Apple Inc. has had a corporate strategy that largely contributes to its success. The company is known for its strategy of releasing few high end products that are highly anticipated (Travlos, 2012).

This is a strategy that widely agrees with the company’s culture that embraces innovation. The company produces goods that are highly innovative and largely satisfies the customers’ needs. The effect of this on the employees’ relationship is that the organization enhances employee motivation strategies to improve their creativity and innovativeness.

Conclusion

Managing people is one of the most difficult functions of the human resource management. It is also essential for the success of an organization. The organization should ensure that its management of people creates a good relationship between the management and the employees. This will almost guarantee success in the long run. Apple Inc. is regarded as one of the most successful companies in the modern business world. The company has embraced people management strategies that have enhanced the productivity of its employees.

However, the company has been criticised for the poor working conditions that it offers to its employees in a number of occasions. In fact, it has been involved in lawsuits over the same. Apple has responded to these claims by working towards the improvement of the working conditions for its employees. It has been able to respond to its external environmental factors in an effective and timely manner. It is for these reasons that Apple Inc. has been successful over the years.

Reference List

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