Managing Diversity And Retention Policies In Apple, An Essay.

Apple's Retention Policies

Discuss about The fairness matter in managing diversity.

Human resource management is one of the key factors that are being considered by the contemporary business organizations. This is due to the fact that, determination of the feedback of the employees is important for the business organizations in order to gain competitive advantages in the market (Purce, 2014). One of the key competitive advantages being gained by the business organizations from the effective implementation of the human resource management is the reduction in the rate of the employee turnover (Hancock et al., 2013). Thus, the less will be the turnover rate of the employees; the more will be the competitive advantages and less will be the cost of recruiting new employees. This is the reason behind the initiation of the retention policies by the contemporary business organizations. The key objective of initiation of the retention policy by the business organization is to increase the rate of retention of the employees along with reduction in the rate of the average turnover.

Apple is one of the leading organizations in the current business scenario who have effective and extensive retention policies for their employees. Apple is the leading brand in electronic gadget market in the world with having their product portfolio present in different locations around the world (Apple 2018). They are mainly having two competitive advantages, which set them ahead in the competition. One is their innovative products and the other is having the same set of employees for amount of time. Same set of employees helps in retaining their skills in the organization. Their innovation oriented business approach is being made possible with the help of the skill sets being possessed by their employees who are being nurtured for a long period of time.

This report will discuss about the techniques that are being used in managing voluntary and involuntary turnover of the employees. Moreover, the benefits and weaknesses of the techniques will also be discussed in this report. In accordance to the identified weaknesses, various recommendations will also be discussed in their report from the perspective of Apple. 

Voluntary turnover leads to the attrition of the employees at their will from the organization. Thus, it mainly leads to the loss of the organization due to the reason that, majority of the skilled employees tends to opt for new organization due to having better opportunities (Russell, 2013). Apple in order to retain and manage the voluntary turnover of the employees initiates various techniques. The following sections will discuss about the various techniques initiated by Apple to manage the voluntary turnover of the employees.

• Providing of best in class benefits to the employees. Apple provides salary and other benefits to their employees, which are being considered as the benchmark in the industry (Cohen, Blake and Goodman, 2016). Thus, it reduces the voluntary turnover due to the reason that, majority of the employees voluntarily terminates for better opportunities. Thus, having the benchmarked facilities in Apple refrain their employees to look out for other opportunities.
• Apple also initiates the process of effective human resource management. This involves maintenance of the ideal working environment for the employees, maintaining the work life balance of the employees and motivates the employees to work better (Lazaroiu, 2015). Thus, it helps the employees to be engaged in their workplace along with having the reward and recognition for their job. It de-motivates them to look for other opportunities.
• Employee grievance management system is being made effective and efficient for the employees in Apple. This is also important for managing the turnover of employees. A major portion of the employees leave the company due to grievances (Gomathi, 2014). Thus, having the effective grievance management system helps Apple to manage the issues with the employees at their primary stage and refrain them from leaving the company. 

Techniques for Managing Voluntary Turnover

• Apple is having effective training and development program for their employees. This helps their employees to have the required training do deal with the organizational challenges along with enhanced skills set (Jehanzeb and Bashir, 2013). Thus, the more equipped they will be in their workplace; the less will be the occurrence of involuntary turnover by the organization.
• Communication is important in the organization in order to reduce the rate of occurrence of involuntary turnover. This is due to the reason that, in many cases, involuntary turnover occurs due to not having effective communication between the managerial levels and subordinates (Mishra, Boynton and Mishra, 2014). In accordance to this phenomenon, Apple is having effective communication process in their organization, which involves all the internal stakeholders of them. This helps in having mutual understanding among the internal stakeholders and the issues of the employees can be effectively conveyed to the superiors.
• Effective and efficient recruitment and selection policy of Apple also contributes in reducing the involuntary turnover of the employees. This is due to the reason that, in majority of the cases, involuntary turnover occurs due to having wrong employee in wrong place (Klotz et al., 2013). Thus, with the help of the effective recruitment and selection process of Apple, they hire right people for the right place. Thus, the generation of the issues from the side of the employees is less. It will leads to the retention of the employees for major period of the time. 

• One of the key benefits being gained by Apple from their retention policy is the involvement of the higher level management in the process. This is due to the reason that, in the earlier sections, it is being discussed that, higher level managers are involved in the communication channel and employee grievance management. Thus, it helps in determining the requirement and issues that are being faced by the employees. It helps the organization to provide facilities according to the requirement of the employees.
• Providing the best standard facilities for the employees helps to gain the employer branding in the market for Apple (Leekha Chhabra and Sharma, 2014). This is due to the fact that, the more effective facilities will be the provided to the employees, the more will be the generation of the positive word of mouth from the side of the employees. Thus, the employer branding of Apple will get enhanced, which will attract more talents for them.
• Retention approach being followed by Apple is not having any intervention from third parties. Thus, it helps them to limit their internal issues in the organization rather than publicizing in the public. It eventually helps them to maintain the positive impression in the market.
• This retention policy of Apple not only helps them to manage the turnover of the employees, but also it helps to enhance the level of motivation of the employees. In the previous sections, it is being discussed that, Apple promotes effective working environment and proper work life balance for their employees. Thus, it helps in enhancing the level of motivation and engagement of the employees that in turn increase the organizational productivity (Terera and Ngirande, 2014).
• It also helps them to gain competitive advantages from the market. This is due to the reason that, having the same employees in right place and with enhanced skill sets is helping Apple to maintain their organizational culture. Moreover, the employees are comfortable with the organization with being with for long terms. It helps to gain competitive advantages.

• Initiation of the retention policy involves cost for Apple. This is due to the reason that, the facilities and activities being promoted by Apple to retain their employees involves huge cost for the organizations (Sung and Choi, 2014). It incurs added cost for the organization. Thus, though retention policies of Apple help them to gain competitive advantages from the market, but it also proves more costs for them.
• Initiation of the training and development program for the employees also having demerits for Apple due to the reason that, the market and business requirements is rapidly changing and it is difficult for the business organizations to equip their employees accordingly (Dhar, 2015). This will in turn create dissatisfaction among the employees.
• Voluntary turnover of the employees occurs for different reason rather than just for the dissatisfaction with their organizations and working environment. Thus, it is not possible for the business organizations such as Apple to reduce the rate of the voluntary turnover with the initiation of their retention policies.
• In the earlier section, it is being discussed that, Apple is having effective process and policies of recruitment and selection to hire right employees for the right job. However, in the current era of globalization, Apple is having their operational facilities in different locations around the world with having diverse employees in the workplace (Choi and Rainey, 2014). Thus, it is not possible for the human resource managers to select employees from different social and cultural backgrounds in every time.
• With the change in the time, the business requirement is also changing and thus, the skills set expected from the new employees are also evolving. Thus, it is difficult for the human resource managers to recruit according to the business needs (Pulakos et al., 2015). Moreover with the frequent change in the business scenario, the existing employees will face the difficulties to cope up with. It will lead to the voluntary turnover of the employees.

The above sections have discussed about the retention policies of Apple along with discussing their benefits and weaknesses for them. The following section will discuss about the recommended steps to be followed by them in order to overcome the identified weaknesses.

• One of the key recommended steps to be followed by Apple is to initiate the concept of the learning organization. This will help the employees to learn new skills in due course of their job profile and without having to invest extra time for the training programs. It will have benefits for Apple. One will be the reduction in the cost of the initiation of the training and development programs for the employees and the other is reduction in the loss of time of the employees due to training purpose.
• Allocation of the job profile for the employees is more important than the initiation of the recruitment and selection policies. This is due to the reason that, with the change in the business trend and requirement, process of recruitment cannot be changed. Thus, in that case, allocation of the employees should be done effectively. Employees should be allocated in different job profile based on their skill sets. It will help to have right people in the right place and will face less issue from the frequent change in the business scenario.
• Apple should have their policy of human resource management according to the local trend and requirements of their operational locations. For instance, their approach to the human resource management should be different in the United States and in China. This will help them to cater to the diverse requirements of the employees from different locations around the world. Moreover, initiation of the human resource management according to the local preferences will help to engage the employees effectively with the organization.
• Employees should be given enough time for their personal life. As discussed in the earlier section, employees are having various reasons for their voluntary termination from the organization. Thus, providing enough personal space to them will help the employees to meet their personal requirements. This will reduce the emergence of more reasons for voluntary termination.

Conclusion

Thus, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that, Apple is truly known for their effective retention policies. This report discussed about the policies to manage the voluntary and involuntary turnover of the employees. In addition, the benefits and the weaknesses being faced by Apple with their retention policies are also being discussed. It is being concluded that, one of the key benefits being gained by Apple from the initiation of the retention policies is the skill sets of them, which lead to the innovative approach of Apple. On the other hand, various weaknesses are also being identified and in accordance to that, different recommended steps are also being discussed in this report. 

Reference

Apple. (2018). Apple. [online] Available at: https://www.apple.com/ [Accessed 21 Jan. 2018].

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