Introduction
The rate at which HP’s revenue was from 15.3% to $16.4 billion made the HP Company; Hewlett-Packard, recognized as one of the best in that industry when John Young was the manager. By 1992, the company was ranked the best in office and computer equipment compared to apple, DEC, and IBM. When Platt took over as the CEO after Youngman number of challenges concerning the company rose, bringing attention to the top management. From the tension brought by these challenges, the company had to know where the problem was coming from (Rogers et al., 1995). Below is an essay on the relationship between HP Way and human resource practices, the rose, and cons of the company, whether I would like to work in such a company and why, how HP should adapt to the revolving human resource management, and whether the company should continue to apply HRM s it grows and why.
HP and human resources are aligned. HP’s core values work together with human resource practices , especially in terms of its structure or organization and business policies (Rogers et al., 1995). The main core value of HP ways is workers’ freedom in places of work. Freedom for workers in HP Company has been achieved in many ways. Workers are given flexible working hours. Many companies give their workers specific working hours from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.. HP believes that giving workers the freedom to work when they feel like doing so makes them offer quality work.the workers offer and make suggestions for change, free to express any change in the workplace, such as offering the best option rather than the offered one and are free to access their president anytime. Many companies have heads who represent workers and are the link between them and leader, unlike HP, where they are free to access their leaders. Lastly, HP workers can access the president’s office even when he is not there, for the door is always open for them. HP has committed to teamwork as a core value too.
Human resource has an organization that is decentralized to support the HP strategies. The organization is independent, self-sufficient, and integrated to support the HP four core values. The organization’s primary purpose is to provide conducive working conditions for the workers; hence, this aligns with the values since it aims to offer freedom for them while at work. Back in 1957, the personnel in HP was 1200 and this made the company manager Dave Packard not form a personnel department supporting the value of allowing the workers to access the president’s office at any given time (Rogers et al., 1995). HP had a value of keeping as minimal debt as possible in workplaces. Human resource practices had a business policy that worked by paying workers, which is the phenomenon of the pay-as-you-go. The policy aligned with HP since they all worked towards minimizing long-term debts.
The alignment of HP and human resources can be improved by solving the challenges that might result from the HP values and the human resource practices. The workers are given a lot of freedom. There cannot be order, privacy, and equality in workplace. To solve the challenges, a personnel department should be introduced. The department will have its head communicate with the management about the worker’s access to the president for the workers and present workers’ demands to provide order at work (Rogers et al., 1995). The challenge of avoiding long-term debts can be solved by having a board responsible for holding funds for workers’ payments. Lastly, there should be a set of rules set to govern the workers in areas such as their working hours. This will promote equality at the workplace since all workers will have no responsibility, such as knowing the working hours one has to do in a day. This will bring order and ensure one will not overburden the other.
Pros and Cons
The good thing about working in a company such as HP is that it offers freedom of expression to its workers; hence work production is good, its business policy is computerized, and this helps to identify the case of any problem that might bring challenges later shortly (Rogers et al., 1995). HP works toward managing assets, which assures the members that even though the revenues collected may go down, the workers are assured that there are investments set for them that can cater to their payment. The company has a financial reporting system, unlike the other companies such as Apple, which always struggle with transparency and honesty.
The cons about working in a company such as HP is that it lacks order of workflow. There should be departments set in every working area including personnel and accounting departments. Such departments may solve problems for example inequality or payment problems. There is no respect in the company, and especially the leaders are not respecting their workers (Rogers et al., 1995). The company president assures the workers there will be no circumstance that will probe change on the pay-as-you-go policy. This is disrespectful since he terms workers’ arguments as minor ones to bring change.
Would You Like to Work for This Kind of Company and Why?
I would like to work in a company such as Hewlett-Packard. HP offers a lot to its workers.they are given the freedom of expression at the workplace to suggest the amendments to be done in their favor. HP is accountable for its work since it aims at solving payment challenges. HP has an insurance cover and employment security for its workers. Even though HP fires its workers, especially when they offer poor work, it gives them all their assets even when the economy is downtown (Rogers et al., 1995). HP workers aim at teamwork, which will benefit me since I will ask for assistance in case of any difficulties, unlike the other companies where one has to do their work on their own. HP supports a pay and performance policy that benefits the hard-working or during the high economy season, unlike the other companies who have set salaries for all workers regardless of their performance.
How “HP WAY” Should Adapt to Changes
Introduce new business strategies. HP should introduce an open system that the workers can process by mixing bot software and hardware to catch up with the others. Again, HP should introduce new computer architectures such as RISC (reduced instruction set computing) to catch up with the other companies such as DEC and IBM (Rogers et al., 1995). HP should look for partnerships with other companies to support them financially to improve and adapt to the new systems since they have no savings set for emergencies. HP should look for acquisitions to adapt with the competitive environment.
Change in business policy. HP has had its tradition of avoiding partnerships and acquisitions with other companies. Still, the competitive environment will push it to look for acquisitions that can help them expertise for future development. HP should also amend its policies and do forward pricing and outsourcing. Though this may affect the workers since outsourcing is characterized by redeployment, it will benefit the company (Rogers et al., 1995). Outsourcing was once done in 1987, and the company lost its workers since they lost the assurance they had thought would help the company to adapt to the new environment.
Can HP Continue to Apply its HRM Approach as it Grows Into new Businesses and Why?
No. HRM is a computer application that is used to store information. Human resources management is used to computerize data since a lot of information is given out as hardware. On the changes done to HP entrance to computers, HRM will be of no importance since everything is already computerized.
Conclusion
The primary core value of HP is offering freedom to their workers. Other core values are commitment to teamwork, especially amongst workers, equality of workers, and teamwork. HP and human resources can be aligned by introducing a permanent department and accounts board and setting rules for workers. The pros and cons of human resource management are business policy, employment, offering freedom to its members, and employment security. The cons are no order at work and no respect to workers. Working with companies such as HP is assurance, freedom, teamwork, insurance and pay on performance. HP can adapt to the competitive environment by changing business policies and strategies. Since there is the computerization of HP, there is no need for HRM as it grows.
Reference
Rogers, G. C., & Beer, M. (1995). In Human Resources at Hewlett-Packard. Essay, Harvard Business School.