Siemens Human Resource Management

Siemen’s human resources management (HRM) practices that are highlighted in the case study are employee selection, training and compensation. Wine and Sels (2013) refers to them as soft HRM practices. Soft HRM ensures that employees are recognised as the important resource for the organisation with the source of competitive advantage; while hard HRM treats employees as any other resource such as equipment or machinery. (McKenna and Beech, 2013:441)

The outcomes that will be discussed in this section are effort and involvement, turnover intentions, organisational commitment and employee retention. The workforce competencies and behaviours needed to achieve the outcomes are also mentioned.

Strategic Human Resources Outcomes and workforce competencies

This should motivate employees and create personal accountability for their job functions.

Siemens believes that learning is necessary for a company to strive, hence continuous training is provided to the employees. Wine and Sels (2013) says that training allows autonomy by making employees feel in control and satisfied. It shows that employees are valued. Therefore employees must be willing to learn and grow their skills. They must be proactive in attending classroom and hands on apprenticeship.

Turnover intentions

Turnover intentions are cognisant and considered actions to leave the organisation. When there is a low turnover intention, employees performance is increased as opposed to high turnover intentions.

Siemens builds a climate of mutual respect by having openness, transparency, fairness and supporting diversity, hence the employees can have low turnover intentions resulting in increased performance. Employees should have the commitment to stay long in the organisation. They should have the ability to build relationships with team members and other employees.

Organisational

Compensation of employees and job satisfaction are one of the means that organisations can use to ensure employee retention.

Compensation such as bonuses, owning shares in the organisation and adequate salaries. The competence of the salary package can be a competition factor for employees in the labour market. The package can be a combination of salaries, shares and bonuses. Job satisfaction allows employee’s autonomy, decision making and more involvement in the jobs that their job functions. The job becomes more meaningful and challenging. (Sigler, 1999: 1)

As mentioned before at Siemens, employees are given exposure to the whole process of product development and freedom to work together; this produces job satisfaction. Therefore employees should be able to communicate well with other employees, be polite and be helpful to other employees. They also should be willing to travel globally and gain cross border and cross cultural experiences, so as to advance their careers.