Human recources management "Apple"

At Apple, there was a cultural expectation that after succeeding one task, you will immediately move on to something completely different. You know that you will have to retool and learn quickly. The expectation of radical change eliminates resistance and sends a message that employees can’t rest on their laurels. That means that they must mentally prepare for the next extraordinary challenge.

The rapidly shifting work load means than an employee bored with their work won’t be for long because the work and the focus will change, a major attraction factor that brings in recruits desiring the challenge of radical change.

There was a lean approach to the management which also affected the HRM. The lean approach can improve innovation because with everything being tried, there simply isn’t enough time or money for major misses and re-do’s. “Unrealistic deadlines” as they were commonly called at Apple mean that you have to get project problems solved early on, because there isn’t time to redo things over and over. Being lean forces the team to be more cohesive. Even providing a lean schedule forces everyone to be productive because they know there is no room for slippage. At Apple, the lean approach meant that even with its huge cash resources, every employee must adopt the mentality of leanness.

There was a “performance culture” at Apple which was continually reinforced by operational processes and practices. For example, having stock as primary motivator, forces employees to focus on the performance of the company and its stock. The rewards and recognition programs at Apple don’t include a component for effort or trying — only final results. Rather than celebrating numerous product milestones, only the final product unveiling is worthy of a major celebration.

Numerous HR functions proudly and prominently push work/life balance. Like them, Apple is proud of its long-established culture. You won’t find the term “balance” anywhere on the career site; instead, Apple makes it clear it is looking for extremely hard-working and committed individuals. On the website, for example, it proudly states: “This isn’t your cushy corporate nine-to-fiver.” It reinforces the “hard work” message several times, including “Making it all happen can be hard work. And you could probably find an easier job someplace else. But that’s not the point, is it?

And: “We also have a shared obsession with getting every last detail right. So leave your neckties, bring your ideas.”

If you don’t care about getting every precise detail perfect, great work, and a lot of it, Apple makes it crystal clear that this is not the place for you. 

In most organizations, HR helps to speed up employee career progression. The underlying premise is that retention rates will increase if career progression is made easy. The Apple approach was quite different; it wanted employees to take full responsibility for their career movement. Apple believed that career paths weaken employee self-reliance and indirectly decrease cross-departmental collaboration and learning. Absent a career path, employees actively seek out information about jobs in other functions and business units. In a company where creativity and innovation are king, you don’t want anything reducing your employee’s curiosity and the cross-pollination between diverse functions and units.

Producing $2 million-plus in revenue per employee certainly establishes Apple as a performer, but it was its industry-dominating product innovation that differentiates it from competitors like HP, Sony, Microsoft, and IBM. Three factors drive the innovation attribute, including the expectation of continuous innovation, extreme secrecy within the product development process, and continuous brainstorming/challenge meetings (even at play just days before a product launch).

Another management lesson to learn from Apple is that intense competition may produce innovation faster than any formal ideation process. Apple did many things using small development teams, as many firms do, but didn’t rely on a single team to design each product element. Multiple teams might be assigned to the same area and they were competing against each other.

The primary monetary motivator at Apple was “the opportunity for wealth creation” as a result of stock ownership. Most employees at Apple got periodic stock grants to reward their contribution. By putting the focus on the stock, they were sending every employee a clear message that individual accomplishments are important only if they directly contribute to the overall success of the company. This approach, coupled with the firm’s famous “product focus,” kept everyone focused on product success rather than individual results and individual rewards.

At Apple, the primary long-term attraction and retention factors were stock growth and exciting work. Although most talent competitors to Apple spend huge amounts of money on benefits, Apple’s offerings were spartan when compared to Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. While Apple’s health plan was well-funded, and it had good food and an on-campus gym, neither the food nor the gym was free. One perk that did excite potential applicants (especially in retail) was the employee discount on Apple products which was given to every employee.

Because of the fact that Apple frequently produced new products requiring expertise in completely different industries its employee skill set requirements were changing faster than at any other tech firm. While there was plenty of training available, there was no formal attempt to give every employee a learning plan. The firm expected employees to be self-reliant.

Employee ownership of development encourages employees to continuously learn in order to develop the skills that will be required for new opportunities.

Jobs was able to set really aggressive (and some might say unrealistic) targets and then motivated his people (through any means necessary) to deliver—with excellence. And he did that, without fail, for more than a decade.

TIM COOK

The most obvious contrast between Tim Cook and his predecessor is that Steve Jobs was a visionary. He saw it all in every detail and was just impatiently waiting for everyone else to catch up with him. This may have been infuriating, but it was also inspiring and (for the most part) productive. Tim Cook also has visions but having a vision is one thing, making sure that it becomes reality is another.

We’ve already seen that when Tim Cook fast tracks something, like Apple Maps, he has not gotten Jobs-like results. And now we are also seeing that he has pulled back from the aggressive targets, as well, to avoid further mishaps and to assure quality control. There are many factors to the success of Apple’s products, not all internal to the company, and some the manufacturing variables may be out of Cook’s control. But he doesn’t seem to be effectively blocking the gains of Samsung and Google

The Wall Street Journal reported that Cook is giving employees more creative freedom and benefits. It’s an approach that has sparked innovation elsewhere and it could work for Apple, too.

After the Apple Maps failure, he sent a message to the employees that said: ‘Let’s not go out unprepared any more, let’s wait and have a better product’. And that is the main difference between him and Jobs. Jobs always wanted the excellent product as soon as possible. With his lean approach there wasn’t a time to redo things over and over again.

Cook steered the company in a more traditional direction, with more delegating, more spreadsheets, and more consensus. All of this has aided Apple's bottom line, but it hasn't led to the creation of any revolutionary products or a sense of meaningful momentum. Some worry that Cook's changes to the culture have doused the fire - and perhaps the fear - that drove employees to try to achieve the impossible.

Jobs used to have bi-weekly meetings about product lines, Cook delegates that to someone else. Jobs yelled, Cook is quiet. In meetings, Cook is so calm as to be nearly unreadable, sitting silently with hands clasped in front of himself.

As we can see the main difference concerning human resources management between those two leaders – Jobs and Cook – is their approach to the employees. Since Jobs left, the environment within Apple is a bit more relaxed and the intense pressure one would feel in Jobs' presence is a thing of the past. In some ways, this is a good thing. Many employees feel they can breathe for once. In other ways, this can be seen as a bad thing. Apple hasn't pushed itself to launch anything revolutionary in the last couple of years. In fact, the company has only released newer versions of iPhones and iPads since Cook took over, and these newer versions haven't exactly rocked the mobile industry. Sure, sales are great and Apple is certainly still raking in the cash, but simply changing the screen size of the iPhone from 3.5 inches to 4 inches and offering an iPad mini (change in screen size from 9.7 inches to 7.9 inches) isn't exactly enough when competitors -- like Android smartphone makers -- have had screens of varying sizes for years. Cook has done a lot of good for Apple, offering fixes to morale and a more laid back environment where people are no longer scared to admit when they've made a mistake. But many wonder if Jobs' crazy method of management paid off in the end when it came to product innovation.