Human Resources

at Ford

WELCOME TO

Ford
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 Ford Motor Company
 Active in over 38 countries
 Worldwide sales of $189 billion
 Assets over $338 billion
 Global workforce of nearly .5 million people
 Celebrating 78 years in Australia this year
 Fordis the 4th Largest company in the
world.
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 Ford Motor Company of Australia
 Employees approx. 5,500 people in Australia.
 Company headquarters in Broadmeadows,
along with the assembly plants, Customer
Service Division, training centre and
research & design centre.
 InGeelong Ford has extensive casting,
engine and stamping facilities as well as the
product engineering centre.
 Proving (Testing of Vehicle) ground located
at Lara.
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 Ford Motor Company
 Geelong plant opened 1925.

 Broadmeadows Assembly Plant opened 1960.

 Average 445 cars built per day (nearly 1 every

minute).
 Over 7km of production line.

 18 Hectares of under roof area.

 Over 65 nationalities represented throughout the

plant.

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 Ford Motor Company
 Ford part owns many Brands and Services around
the World.
 Ford buys into other Companies for several
reasons:
- It allows it to buy into Technology of other
companies.
- It gains different Target Markets.
- Gains different Niche Markets.

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 Ford Motor Company
 Other reasons for buying into other companies are:

- Language

- Cultural Differences

- Profit Motive.

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 The Brands and Services
Brands
Services

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 What is Human Resource
Management?
 HRM – Activities necessary for staffing the
organisation and sustaining a high level of
employee performance
 HRM at Ford - When 5,500 people work
together as a confident, inspired and motivated
team, the rewards are great.
 “People are the Company’s only sustainable
competitive advantage.”

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 HRM at Ford
 HR functions:
 Recruitment
 Advertising
 Application process
 Screening
 Testing
 Interviewing
 Referencing
 Selecting
 Training & Development
 Induction (4 to 5 weeks training for New Staff)
 Competency based training (Vehicle Industry Certificate 2½ to 3 yrs)
 Team Development Training and Job Specific Training
 Organisation & personnel performance (O&PP)

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 HRM at Ford (cont’d)
 Compensation & Benefits
 Payroll
 Ford Privilege Club
 Superannuation
 Corporate Citizenship
 FECCS – Ford tries to be a good Corporate Citizen by doing
good things for the community. What people think of you is
important, as people must feel good about your product.
 Labour Relations
 Industial Relations impact on employees.
 Enterprise Bargaining Agreements are quite flexible at Ford
 Union involvement is significant (Amalgamated Metal
Workers Union)

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HRM Practices at Ford (cont’d)
 Managing Diversity
 Maintaining a fair and equitable workplace
 Worklife balance
 Ford has 67 different nationalities amongst a total of
1800 employees at the Broadmeadows plant, with
1400 employees, 250 management staff and 150
maintenance staff.
 Ford has encouraged a program of English classes
amongst those employees with limited English
skills. Ford shares the cost of such English classes
with the Employee.

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HRM Practices at Ford (cont’d)
 Managing Diversity
 Observance of Religious Holidays for a range of
ethnic groups. Eg. Greek employees were given the
option to take a ‘strikeday’ as an RDO for their
Greek Easter festival in 2002.
 Shut down of the plant occurs at Christmas, Easter,
Chinese New Year, Greek Easter and 2nd week of
term 2 holidays.
 Prayer rooms provided for religious employees.
 Zero Tolerance Policy. Harassment is not accepted
with employees sacked for breaches.

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HRM Practices at Ford (cont’d)
 Managing Diversity
 Staff are provided with 3 RDO and 9 PDOs (Paid
Day Off) per year at Ford. Employees can use thes
when they want. Both staff and management prefer
this as Ford is then able to plan its staffing in
advance and can also plan its supplies for J.I.T.

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HRM Practices at Ford (cont’d)
 Other Cultural Issues
 Safety is a major priority at Ford, so warning signs
are designed in pictorial form to take account of
language differences
 Equal Employment Opportunity policies are
implemented to ensure that various ethnic groups
are not disadvantaged in relation to promotion,
training, remuneration and leave.

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HRM Practices at Ford (cont’d)
 Work Schedules
 The Broadmeadows plant operates on a flexitime
work schedule based around the daily core times of
7:00 am to 4:30 pm.
 Face time in a job is becoming less important than
what is actually achieved in the job.
 There is much lateral movement of staff before
promotion occurs. Job Rotation is strongly
encouraged. That is, an employee may spend 1
month in the paint shop, then 1 month in assembly,
then 1 month in Quality Control. Job Rotation stops
boredom and increases safety as if employees lose
concentration due to boredom safety decreases.

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HRM Practices at Ford (cont’d)
 Work Schedules
 Employees are grouped into Production Teams for
motivational and reward purposes. Monthly trips are
provided for winning teams on productivity.
 Work Groups meet once a week to discuss any work
problems which occurred in the previous week.

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HRM Practices at Ford (cont’d)
 Industrial Democracy
 Ford has implemented a variety of participative
styles of management including:
• Production teams setting output targets.
• Employees submitting ideas for improved
production and operation via ‘suggestion box’ to
management.
• Weekly meetings for 45 minutes to discuss ways
of improving production. Production shuts down at
this time and small production teams discuss these
issues. Smaller teams are viewed as more
beneficial and personable than larger groups.

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HRM Practices at Ford (cont’d)
 Training
 Ford encourages a strong commitment by its
employees to a vast range of training and
development programs including specialist
training in:
• Latest automotive production techniques
• TQM practices at Ford including Quality
Assurance
• HRM opportunities. That is, customer service,
recruitment, training, appraisal, induction.
• Equal Opportunity policy
• Negotiation skills with staff and management.

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HRM Practices at Ford (cont’d)
 Motivation
 Rewards for 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 yrs anniversary
 Reward and Recognition Program – prizes given
 If individuals achieve their own top 5 priorities,
reward and recognition is given
 Job Rotation – every 2 to 3 months
 Motivational posters throughout the factory

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HRM Practices at Ford (cont’d)
 Recruitment
 Ford outsources much of its recruitment to
agencies to give it a cost effective advantage.

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HRM Practices at Ford (cont’d)
 National Work Groups (NWG’s) are
established at Ford. These are specialists
groups in each section of Ford to help focus
and achieve measurable goals.
 NWG’s measure their performance with specific
measurable indicators.
Example. Safety, Quality, Delivery, Customer
Satisfaction, Morale, Waste reduction etc. are all
measurable per NWG’s

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 Restructuring
 HR must be change agents.

 Change is needed.

 If you stop change you become outdated and

don’t attract the best people.

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 Restructuring
 Tariffs decreased from 1990s which meant
quality and competitiveness needed to
increase.
 Ford cannot compete with overseas cost or
price because of our cost of labour and our
Standard of Living.
 Thus Ford must compete on Quality.

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 Restructuring
 Definitions:
 Organisational structure – The organisation’s
formal framework by which job tasks are divided,
grouped and coordinated.
 Characteristics of large organisations (>2,000 employees)
 Characteristics of smaller organisations

 Organisational design – The developing or

changing of an organisation’s structure.

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 Restructuring (cont)
 Restructuring
 Rebalancing
• Upsizing – Ford is employing more people (70 to
80 people) because of the development of a new
model eg. Designers, operators etc.
• Downsizing

 Ford Restructured in terms of number of

employees leading to Rebalancing.

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 Rebalancing at Ford

 Rebalancing is having the right people for the right job.

 What drives the need for rebalancing?
 The ‘white water rapids’ metaphor (fast change, dynamic,
aggressive industry.
 Sales position
 Current sales
 Forecast sales
• New models
• Changes to current practices
 Market share
 Increasing/ reducing capacity
 Manufacturing complexity

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 Current situation at Ford

 Rebalancing in response to forecast need

to increase capacity 2003 – 2005
 Increasing production line speed
 445 units per day (upd) currently

 Increasing work complexity

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 What does this mean for HR?
 Identifying targets
 How are the Company’s objectives and strategies
changing?
 What does this mean in terms of jobs?

 What does this mean in terms of training?

 Communication
 Corporate, cross-functional committees established

 Union awareness sessions

 Communication with current employees

 Motivation considerations

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What does this mean for HR? (Cont’d)
 Industrial Relations issues
 How do the Unions perceive the changes?

 Recruitment / staffing issues

 How many?

 How soon?

 Job analysis considerations

 Internal “churning” vs. external hiring

 Training & development

 Induction of new employees
 Training & development of existing employees

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 Benefits of effective HRM
 Competent, highly skilled employees
 A lean, efficient human resource base
 A diverse workforce
 A mutually beneficial Company/Union
relationship
 An outcome in line with Ford’s Global Vision:
 To become the world’s leading consumer company for
automotive products & services, Ford must provide a
business environment that will allow all employees to
contribute their fullest potential.

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