Introduction
The concept of corporate strategy of the General Mills Company is generally based on the principles of workers satisfaction, organizational requirement satisfaction, latest tendencies in human resource management, and implementation of the latest tendencies in the sphere of human resource management as the integral part of business performance. The aim of this paper is to analyze the Human resource management strategy of General Mills company, and formulate the concept of corporate strategy in the context of HRM.
Staffing Strategy
We are highly committed to an environment that supports the varying needs of all our employees inside and outside of work, making us an employer of choice. It is shown in the environment we create at work and in the types of resources, we provide outside of work. (General Mills, 2009) Originally, this is the text, taken from the official web page of the company. The main positioning of the company in the sphere of HR management is performed from the perspective of personnel friendly company, that takes care of successful career development of its workers. The fact is that, it is within the primary interests of any company to create the reliable and highly professional staff, and decrease the turnover rate. Consequently, the HR strategy is based on the constant qualification improvement and encouragement of the workers to improve their own performance, as well as providing ideas for the company’s development. The corporate HR strategy entails the statement of the success keys, which are the following:
- Leadership
- Results orientation
- Business orientation
- Interpersonal skills
- Maturity and adaptability
- “Street smarts”
- Comfort with conflict
In the light of this fact, there is strong necessity to emphasize that the HR strategy of the company is based on the principles of improving the organizational satisfaction.
As Kevin Wilde, the Org Effectiveness & Chief Leaning Officer at General Mills, Inc stated:
We built the program around intact management teams which included both a divisional and a functional team. For example within the cereal business, (comprised of the Cheerios, Wheaties and other leading brands), would be a multi-function management team with a division president and all the functions represented on his or her team. (Sparrow, Brewster, Harris, 2004, p.291)
From this perspective, it should be emphasized that the allover strategy may be regarded as the multi-angle approach towards managing the personnel. Originally, this may be achieved only with the properly developed marketing strategy, which pays particular attention to HR, and chief management, which is open to innovations and constant improvement of the organizational structure.
Aspect of Leadership
The fact is that, successful HRM is impossible without strong leadership. Taking into consideration the fact that only a few types of leadership are implemented in any business organization, HRM strategy of General Mills Inc presupposes the implementation of all five main types of leadership, which are based on the following principles:
- Vision and Strategy,
- Innovation,
- Developing people,
- Delivering outstanding results, and
- Integrity and Character
This “multi-leadership” approach helps to integrate as many managerial strategies as it is possible, combining the approaches and deriving the maximal performance and effectiveness. Moreover, these five aspects of leadership, if implemented properly, help to provide all the possible aspects of HRM into the company’s activity.
Organizational Performance
Generally speaking, the relations between organizational performance and HRM approaches is widely discussed in the researches, nevertheless, it should be emphasized, that General Mills, is the company, with flexible structure, which is open for adding or eliminating the managerial blocks from the allover managerial hierarchy. Moreover, the structure also presupposes quick restructuring of the hierarchy in the case of necessities, thus, providing the opportunity for constant improvements of performance, and encouraging teams to generate the new ideas.
As for the treatment of the workers, the company pays particular attention to employee well-being, as in accordance with Budhwar and Debrah (2001, p.241) it impacts the allover performance of the workers:
The concept of employee well-being refers to psychological well-being, which consists of several components including affective well-being, job satisfaction, aspiration, anxiety and burnout. Researchers have identified different structures of affective well-being, which is why several measures of well-being are applied in this study, as well. (Budhwar and Debrah 2001, p.241)
Thus, the company constantly follows the psychological well-being of the workers, performing constant observations and interviews. Personnel psychologists provide the charts of well being to team managers, for they could estimate the effectiveness of every worker, and base their HR policies, considering the indications of well-being.
Conclusion
Business performance of any organization should regard the HRM approaches as the integral part of successful activity. General mills, is the company which pays particular attention to the matters of Human Resources, and management approaches, intended to regulate these aspects. Originally, the HRM and organizational structure of the company are two closely interconnected factors of business performance, and General Mills uses regards interconnection as the central concept of the business strategy.
References
General Mills (2009) Why Work at General Mills. Web.
Budhwar, P. S. & Debrah, Y. A. (Eds.). (2001). Human Resource Management in Developing Countries. London: Routledge.
Gratton, L., Hailey, V. H., Stiles, P., & Truss, C. (1999). Strategic Human Resource Management Corporate Rhetoric and Human Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sparrow, P., Brewster, C., & Harris, H. (2004). Globalizing Human Resource Management. New York: Routledge.