Name: Julia Ahumuza Byaruhanga

RegNo: S18B41/196

Course: International Business and Management

Course unit: International Human Resource Management

Question: Training and development for international organisations is key for success

on the global stage. Analyse a case study of a Multi-National Corporation (MNC) of

your choice and explain the training and development programs therein. Examine the

objectives, types of training, purpose and management development.

In today's business world, most companies have provided training and development programs,
regardless of scale, top priority. It may be anything from teaching staff or employees how to use new
technologies, fill out a questionnaire, provide excellent customer service, or write a professional letter.
What is important is that training is an essential part of every organization’s management. Practically
speaking, the idea of investing on the employees or on the people within the organization makes a good
business sense. This is why most companies formalize training these people and even allocate budget
and resources for the said training. As a result, it has an influence on the company's decision to
recognize training and development as important in terms of benefit, given that investing in it does not
guarantee that it will be successful or effective, and can simply result in time, resources, and effort
losses. The selected organization will be Apple Inc. and for the purpose of this essay. Training can be
described as making planned and organized educational programs of instruction available to them in
professional, technological, or other fields that are or will be relevant to their job responsibilities.
Development is generally considered to include training, structured on-the-job learning experiences,
and education.

Coaching, mentoring, and rotational assignments are examples of developmental interactions. Training
and development initiatives are designed to help the agency achieve its mission and objectives by
enhancining individual and, eventually, organizational efficiency.

Apple’s HR Strategy under Training and Development

Apple's training and development curriculum is carefully designed. Employees are one of the company's
most valuable assets, especially in the research and development and marketing departments. Effective
training and development programs are a critical component of a learning atmosphere that can help
Apple Inc. attract and retain employees with the skills and competencies required to deliver results for
the company's benefit. Training and developing new and existing employees to fill new positions and
work in new ways will be critical in the company's efforts to address its transformation challenges.
Employee learning and success will continue to change how Apple Inc. does business and engage or
compel workers to innovate and grow in line with the company's goals.

“To help drive change from the bottom up, we engage directly with workers to teach them new skills
and raise awareness of their rights. And we train managers on their responsibilities under the Supplier
Code of Conduct and beyond” quoted in Apple’s official
website: www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/education-and-development.

There are numerous situations wherein training needs can be assessed from and they can be from an
individual role, project team, department, or an entire organization. Apple considers the three key
features centering around Organization culture, personal analysis and task evaluation when carrying out
a training needs assessment.

Organization analysis involves assessing the suitability of training in light of the organization's business
plan, training services available, and management and peer support for training activities. Personal
analysis involves deciding whether performance issues are triggered by a lack of expertise, abilities, or
capacity (a training issue) or by a motivational or work-design issue, as well as (2) assessing who needs
training and (3) determining whether workers are ready for training. Task analysis identifies the
important tasks and knowledge, skill and behaviors that need to be emphasized in training for employee
to complete their tasks.

Apple Inc. uses a training needs survey to help assess the above features. Apple Inc.'s training
requirements were determined using three methods: assessment questionnaires for various employee
skills, a formal basis based on company document reviews and employee data, and finally, a Training
and Development survey form for representative people per department
Apple-designed training programs are used to educate suppliers and employees about local laws, their
rights as workers, occupational health and safety, and Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct. Today around a
million people in Apple’s workforce knows their rights because they went to work for an Apple supplier
(Apple, 2012).

Apple collaborated with Verité and the Fair Labor Association, two globally recognized human rights
groups, to assess the standard of their social responsibility training (Apple, 2012). According to their
findings, Apple-mandated training improved employees' knowledge and understanding of their rights
(Apple, 2012).

In addition to training the workers, they also train supervisors and managers on their responsibilities to
those workers. For example, they require management from suppliers in Malaysia and Singapore to
attend a two-day workshop that covers their Prevention of Involuntary Labor standard along with best
practices for labor agency monitoring, direct hire processes, and onsite management of foreign workers
(Apple,2012).

Apple's Supplier Employee Education and Growth (SEED) initiative has also increased professional
development opportunities for employees. Staff will learn about finance, computing skills, and the
English language through this Apple-designed curriculum (Apple,2012) SEED programs, as reported on
their official website, collaborate with Chinese universities to encourage employees to earn associate's
degrees. In 2011, the program was extended to all final assembly sites after starting as a pilot at Fox
Conn's facility in Shenzhen. About 60,000 workers have taken part in the initiative, and their feedback
suggests that participants have better productivity and are rewarded more often than other employees
(Apple, 2012). Their entire final provider, including this one in Shanghai, has onsite e-learning centers.

Apple performs a post-training audit to monitor and assess their progress. For example, in 2011, they
held training sessions for 200 suppliers on how to avoid using underage labor. Their investigations of
final assembly suppliers this year showed no cases of underage labor. Although the findings are
promising, Apple says that it will continue to perform frequent audits and dig deeper into its supply
chain to ensure that no underage employees are hired by any Apple supplier (Apple, 2012).

All the training and development programs and policies mentioned above cited from Apple’s official
website clearly shows that they have a highly integrated and controlled training and development
program. Apple is intensively dedicated to their training and development program to bring out and
sustain the competitive advantage they enjoy from their employees and suppliers. As Apple frequently
produces new products requiring expertise in completely different industries (i.e., computers, music
devices, media sales, and telephony), its employee skill set requirements change faster than at almost
any other tech firm. Apple follows a strategy to make their employee self-reliant‟ (Sullivan, 2011).

Apple University is a resource that is continuously used for training of Apple employees. It was created
as a means to teach executives Jobs’ approach “Steve P. Jobs established Apple University as a way to
inculcate employees into Apple’s business culture and educate them about its history, particularly as the
company grew and the tech business changed” (Chen, 2014). The university is a learning curriculum
designed to help workers "think differently," or to think like Steve Jobs, as some would put it. It's Apple's
management-development software.
Apple has a team environment, according to an author, Dr. Suvillan (2011). Despite the fact that many
teams are forced to work in isolation, this actually helps to improve team cohesion. The rivalry between
the various development teams is also fierce, but this helps to strengthen teamwork even more.
Employees in a team learn from one another, which aids their progress. Apple praises and motivates
innovation and creativity the most in employees as it can be seen by seeing their training and
development programs and policies.

Conclusion

Effective training and development programs are a critical component of a learning atmosphere that can
help Apple Inc. recruit and retain employees with the skills and competencies required to deliver results
for the company's benefit. Training and developing new and existing workers to fill new positions and
work in new ways will be crucial in the company's efforts.
 References

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Harrison M. Rose, Harrison M. (1998, January). Apple: Now a niche company. Electronic News.
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