General Motors Hr Strategy

In 1997, the company founded GM University, which is one of the largest corporate educational programs in the world. The university currently has 15 functional colleges charged with developing curricula tailored to the professional needs and challenges facing GM employees.

Most of the classes within GMU are lecture-based and in a traditional classroom format. But over the past couple of years, the focus has been to move most of the training courses online. GM also launched the first training program offered completely on the corporate intranet. The course is called “HR Skills for Success,” and its launch demonstrates GM’s dedication to improving the opportunities of its 3,000-plus HR professionals. The new online course is required training for HR professionals who work at GM. The course is divided into three phases with the first phase being mandatory for the HR staff. The other phases are provided to HR professionals who want to increase their management skills.

Transformation

As the changes in HR begin to take hold, HR professionals throughout GM find that the focus of their jobs definitely has changed over the past two years. For the first time the company now has standard training programs that are used in every country and each GM facility. Prior to the change, GM’s training programs varied widely from plant to plant and from country to country. It was quite confusing and hard to keep track of. The new system was much easier to work within. While it might vary some because countries like Germany and France do have different types of labor and workplace laws, the new system means everyone is really on the same page. And it has helped to improve the communications and interaction within the corporation and that’s a welcome change.

Also the communication with GM’s headquarters in Detroit opened up and now flows both ways across the Atlantic. Before the transition began, the headquarters would just tell its other plants what they wanted them to do and there was no real discussion about it. Now the GM headquartes actively ask its other plants for suggestions and seek their input. It definitely has been very empowering.This really is the most exciting and positive change that Gm’s employees have ever seen in the company. Strategy As A Means Of Competitive Advantage

In a time of economic slowdown and an increasingly competitive global market; to have a strategic advantage over the prevalent competition is a big question. General Motors is one company currently faced with that challenge.

In 2001, the company sold over 8.5 million cars and trucks in more than 200 countries. That is the equivalent of sixteen vehicles sold every minute around the clock in a year. In order to capitalize on past achievements and ensure continued success into the 21st century, GM has made the commitment to maintain innovation and improve productivity by focusing on the education and training of its employees.

By adopting to the new HR Strategy, the 2nd T of the 3Ts, Talent, it was able to provide its employees training and education.Training and professional development play an integral role in GM’s business values. Consequently, as the company worked to launch an eMBA to make learning more accessible for salaried employees it knew it must find a strategic partner to deliver a quality program that would equip employees with the knowledge and skills required to continually develop and support the organisation’s vision and its ability to achieve key business objectives. GM turned to The Thomson Corporation, a leading provider of corporate and professional learning solutions, to elevate learning to a more strategic level. GM wanted to link training to the driving concerns of the business. It believed that well-trained and competent employees are essential for business success.

As many as 86,000 GM executive, management, technical and professional employees are eligible to enroll in the eMBA program, provided by Thomson through GM University (GMU). Thomson offered GM employees access to Cardean University’s totally online, award-winning eMBA curriculum, developed in collaboration with several of the world’s most prestigious business schools including, Columbia Business School, The University of Chicago, Stanford University, Carnegie Melon, and the London School of Economics and Political Science. The program currently includes more than 150 courses covering topics in corporate finance, communications, marketing, leadership, economics and e-commerce among others. Employees must successfully complete fifteen online courses to earn an eMBA degree through the Thomson program.

By carefully considering the vision of their company and the positive effects of an integrated training strategy, GM is reaping the rewards that result from knowledgeable and empowered employees. It also believed that these strategies (the 3Ts) helped maintain a sustained competitive advantage (Refer Appendix 3). Gm’s Market Share Through Implementation Of Hr Strategy In the recent years General Motors market share had been steadily declining. The company which was once far ahead of its competitors was facing a crisis. In order to regain GM’s market share, a swot analysis was performed. On evaluating the results they adopted to a new strategy.

The strategy was basically centred around the HR setup of the concern. This was the birth of the 3Ts, GM was able to coordinate, communicate and train its employees. It also established a good relationship with the dealers and suppliers. Maintaining good relationship with minority dealers was a part of GM’s Business Strategy. It had a relatively good marketshare in most of the countries. Further on analysing GM’s market share through Boston consulting Group Matrix (BCG MATRIX), at present it was found that the market value and the Market share of General Motors is relatively high. Hence it can be classified under Star (Refer Appendix 4).