Human Resource Management General Electric – HR Practices

CONTENTS
Introduction - General Electric HR Practices 4
GE’s Current HR Mandate
General Electric HR Practices
HR Practices
Performance Management System
Vitality Curve
Session C
Training and Development
Leader in residence
"Rise" Program for mid-level managers
Analysis on Stringent Performance and Training and Development
Recruitment
Ability Edge Internships
Recruiting from Military
Employee references source
Employee empowerment and discipline
GE’s WORK OUT Process
Ombudsperson process 10 Human Resource Management General Electric - Best
HR Practices

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 Human Resource Management General Electric – HR Practices

Introduction - General Electric HR Practices

Vision
GE - The Most Competitive and Productive Enterprise in the World
HR- Credible, Visible, Value-Added Business Partner
HR initiatives and outcomes closely linked to business score card
• Anticipating Business needs, defining and creating what adds value to business
performance
• Best HR talent with world-class functional skills and business understanding
• Making a GE job the best job in every community in the world by “Raising the
Bar”

Formal organization
General Electric's formal organizational structure involves a hierarchal system as
Max Weber, a German sociologist, describes as a form of bureaucracy that follows
general rules of super and subordination. Shareowners, the Corporate Executive
Office, and the Board of Directors make up the top of this structure. The Chairman
and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, Jeffrey Immelt, acts as the
intermediary between the top of the structure and the presidents of the seven sectors.

GE’s Current HR Mandate

Helping the Business Become More competitive
• Business Partner: Align HR and Business Strategy
• Change Agent: Manage transformation and processes
• Infrastructure Expert: develop and implement efficient and contemporary
Organization Structures and HR Practices
• Employee Champion: understand, respond and advocate employee issues within
the context of the business strategy.

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General Electric HR Practices

General Electric too makes a strong emphasis on the importance of having a high
performance workforce to drive GE’s high performance business model. As Jack
Welch, the legendary former Chairman and CEO of GE said in his first address to
the Wall Street analysts in 1981, he wanted GE to become “the most competitive
enterprise on earth”, “where people dare to try new things, where people feel assured
in knowing that only the limits of their creativity and drive, their own standards of
personal excellence, will be the ceiling on how far and how fast they move.”
GE harnesses its human resources to be one of the most competitive enterprises on
Earth can be broadly divided into few HR practices mentioned below.
HR Practices

Performance Management System

Vitality Curve
The First area in GE's process of harnessing its HR is the stringent performance
management system. The performance management process at GE consists of a
forced ranking system of its employees to groupings of 20:70:10. These groups are
categorized as the “Top 20”, “Vital 70” and the “Bottom 10”.
In this “Vitality Curve” as it was called by Jack Welch, the top 20 are the top
performing employees of the organization and they are generally earmarked for
further development and to rise up the leadership ladder. Vital 70 are the competent
performers who continue to perform at the required level. The bottom 10 consists of
the poor performers of the group and generally they were shown the door and are
replaced by new hires.

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Session C
This process is designed to support the managers career interest and development
needs. Starting at the level of department manager, this "session c" process
generated the evaluations, career forecasts, and succession plans for every
managerial position in GE. After filling out a form requiring a self-evaluation, career
interests, and plans for development, each subordinate would meet face-to-face with
his or her boss to compare their self-evaluations with the manager's assessment, to
review career interests and opportunities, and to agree on development plans.
Training and Development
Second practice is the “Training and development” of GE’s talent. Generally, GE
attracts the brightest of talent for their entry levels rolls. GE rarely hires from outside
for their top or senior level positions. Therefore, GE has a very good system in place
for training, developing and grooming their people to grow with the organization.
These employees will eventually fill the senior ranks of GE and ensure the
sustainability of GE as a high performance organization.

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Leader in residence
Program in which professor from a renowned University was brought as a resident
leader for a year or so. Slowly this program is modified to groom internal seniors
from GE as leaders. Leaders teach at various classes, but the benefit is also about
what happens outside the classroom – sitting on panels or giving fireside chats telling
leadership stories. They also do 'speed coaching’ – short, discreet bits of time that
they spend coaching someone. GE have also taken innovation all over the world in
terms of in-house teaching of leadership classes.

"Rise" Program for mid-level managers

This training Program called 'rise' is for mid-level managers who have the ability to
really grow in their careers and bring all the greatness to training and networking.
But it's all done in region so that GE can localize the development to those particular
needs of the region.

Analysis on Stringent Performance and Training and Development

GE places great importance on hiring, training and development in order to ensure
that their employees are the best performing lot in the market. GE views high
performance of employees as a vital element that gives GE a competitive advantage
in the market.
GE has a stringent policy of “weeding out” non-performers.
However, in our opinion these policies have their own pros and cons.

Advantages
• Fast route for creating high performance teams by removing the weak links rather
than spending time and resources on developing these week links to be better
performers,
• Creating opportunity for new hires to come into the teams through the openings
created.
• Performance pressure created by this process on employees, forces them to
improve their performances to match the GE requirements without any managerial
involvement.
• Building leaders from the employees having a proven track record of performance
ensuring sustainability.

Disadvantages
• Unhealthy competition would be created among the team members due to the
requirement to maintain a good ranking for their individual performances. This can

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lead to a situation where individual goals can undermine the overall team and
organizational requirements.
• Distrust can be created among the employees regarding how the individual
rankings were determined, thus exposing the organization to legal issues and
litigations.
• GE’s models, one of the main drivers of a high performance business model are
the people of the organization. Therefore one of the main requirements is to have
effective HR management policies and processes to harness the best out of the HR
an organization have.

Recruitment

Ability Edge Internships

Ability Edge, a Career Edge program that serves as a national youth internship
strategy. This program offers six-, nine- and twelve month paid internships to
graduates with disabilities in effort for interns to gain work experience, learning,
coaching and networking. At GE since we believe the value of diversity is that it
promotes innovative thinking and more creative ideas, the Ability Edge program is
another avenue for GE to explore and reinforce our commitment towards it.

Recruiting from Military

GE has a long history of hiring enlisted military and expert and has appeared on GI
Jobs Magazine's Top Military Friendly Employers for the last five years. GE has
dedicated a careers webpage to U.S. Military experts Careers and more than 35
recruiters participated in career fairs on military bases in 2010. Additionally, GE
offers an entry-level leadership program, Junior Officer Leadership Program,
designed specifically for military officers as well as supporting specialized
programs.

Advantages
It adds more disciplinary and obedient employees to organization.

Disadvantages
Military leader were known to work by orders, hence out of box thinking will be
quite less.

Employee references source

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GE has structured system where the current employees of the organization can refer
their friends and relatives for some position in their organization. Also, the office
bearers of trade unions are often aware of the suitability of candidates. Management
can inquire these leaders for suitable jobs. In GE these are formal agreements to give
priority in recruitment to the candidates recommended by the trade union. Unskilled
workers may be recruited at the factory gate these may be employed whenever a
permanent worker is absent. More efficient among these may be recruited to fill
permanent vacancies.

Employee empowerment and discipline

GE’s WORK OUT Process

It is a HR practice innovated by GE. It is focused on fast implementation of
measurable improvements with accountability which is obtained by speed,
simplicity and self-confidence. The Work Out process helps GE in optimizing its
processes and become lean, efficient and responsive to changing market conditions.
Objectives of the Work Out process
• To cultivate grass root solutions
• To eliminate bureaucracy and barriers
• To create a forum for dialogue and change

Advantages
• Helps in developing a system oriented thinking
• Promotes rapid cycle change and fast decision making
• Encourages lateral thinking
• Helps in creating ownership of a project
• Helps in overcoming the resistance to change among employees

Disadvantages
May or may not work in other companies, as it also depends on the attitude of
employees working in the company.

Ombudsperson process

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GE has an extensive ombudsperson process that serves as a mechanism for

individuals to ask questions and report integrity concerns without fear of retaliation.
With a global network of approximately 700 ombudspersons, coverage is provided
for every business and country in which GE operates. Employees come to know their
local business ombudsperson through postings, articles and various Company
intranet sites, and by ombudsperson introductions at all-employee meetings within
the businesses, including integrity events and trainings.
As GE employment and business activity has changed, increased rigor around the
ombudsperson appointment process has been added. All ombudspersons speak the
local language and understand the culture and business environment of their
locations.
GE takes pride in their history of governance and their culture of integrity. No matter
where they operate, every GE employee is responsible for knowing and complying
with integrity and privacy guidelines.