For decades, many corporate leaders have declared that people are our most important

asset. In the last decade more and more executives are making this statement and they are
making it with greater frequency. In fact, there are a number of reasons to believe that people
are increasing in their strategic importance and that corporations should act as they are one of
their most important assets or their most important asset.
Talent management is not an end in itself. It is not about developing employees or
creating succession plans, nor is it about achieving specific turnover rates or any other
tactical outcome. It exists to support the organizations overall objectives, which in
business essentially amount to making money. (Capelli 2008)

In this assignment 3 MNCs Google, General Electric and Apple have been analyzed to see
how they manage talent.

GOOGLE

Google lets its engineers spend about 20% of their time on projects outside their main job.

Googles Chief Executive, Larry Page has spent the past year trying to bring a renewed sense
of urgency and focus to the search company, in what he calls putting "more wood behind
fewer arrows." Playing a big part in that effort to battle threats from Facebook, Apple and
Amazon.com is GoogleEDU, the company's two-year-old learning, talent and leadershipdevelopment program.
GoogleEDU is formalizing learning at the company in an entirely new way, relying on data
analytics and other measures to ensure it is teaching employees what they need to know to
keep profits humming. Last year, Google offered more classes to more employees than it ever
has before, with about a third of its 33,100-strong global workforce going through the inhouse program.
Google thinks it has found a way to make its learning and talent management stick. It has
become more exacting about when it offers classes and to whom. It uses employee reviews of
managerssimilar to the instructor reviews that college students fill out at the end of a
semesterto suggest courses to managers. Ever data-obsessed, Google uses statistics
gathered from current and former employees to recommend certain courses to managers at
different points in their career, say after a move to a new city or joining a new team.

A Google logo is seen through windows of Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Google has revamped its training programs. The company, with $38 billion in annual
revenue, hired 8,000 employees last year, the biggest annual head-count increase in its
history. As part of revamping GoogleEDU, the company's people team also began thinking

about how to better integrate the influx of new employees, made up of managers as well as
rank-and-file staff.
Decisions on promotions and raises at Google are often made by consensus among peers and
superiors. "There's a lot more persuasion involved because Googlers are really smart," says
Scott Lederer, a former Google user-experience designer who left the company in 2011.
"They are not going to do something for you just because of your title. You really have to
make your case." Thus Google offers a special class for new managers and executives where
they are taught how to exert influence in more subtle ways.
Google has also begun offering specific classes based on an employee's work area
(engineering versus sales) and career stage (junior developer versus senior manager). "The
more targeted it is, the better, because it is specific and actionable," authorities at Google
think. Rather than train a new manager in how the Google performance evaluation process
works as soon as they are hired, they'll instead receive the training just before performance
reviews begin. If a manager is taking on a new team member who is transferring from a
Google office in a different location, he or she will receive an email as a reminder that new
employees have said it is helpful when managers introduce them to others in the office or
review the team's goals with the new employee. "More individualized, customized
recommendations are part of how, as we grow, we're trying to individualize and personalize
the learning experience here," Google Authorities say.
The company's focus on learning has long been apparent to employees, some of whom say
they were offered more classes at Google than at any other company at which they've
worked. Jason Morrow, who left Google in 2010, says that continuing education is "baked
into the culture" of the company.
Even before the formation of GoogleEDU in 2010, Google would assign promising young
product managers career and management coaches who would teach them how to negotiate
better salaries, improve their presentation skills, or talk through the reasons why someone
should or shouldn't leave to found a start-up, remembers one former employee who left the
company in 2007. He says that such programs "engendered a lot of loyalty" among
employees.
Googles has a famous model of letting engineers spend about 20% of their time on projects
outside their main job. The story of innovation has not changed at Google. It has always been
a small team of people who have a new idea, typically not understood by people around them
and their executives. This model gives a systematic way of making sure a middle manager
does not eliminate that innovation.
Google's Project Oxygen, is a statistics driven research project to study what makes good
managers. Google's People Analytics team apparently studied the attributes of highperforming teams and published the "Eight Habits of Highly Effective Google Managers."
1. Be a good coach.
2. Empower your team and don't micromanage.
3. Express interest in the team's success and personal well-being.

4. Dont' be a sissy: be productive and results-oriented.

5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team.
6. Help your employees with career development.
7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team.
8. Have key technical skills so you can help your team.

GENERAL ELECTRIC

The GE Effect: GE managers make superior CEOs relative to

those from the general pool of management talent.

When a company needs a loan, it goes to a bank.

When a company needs a CEO, it goes to GE
Kratz (2005)

There is substantial practitioner literature hailing GEs leadership and talent management
abilities. Colvin argues that GE is one of two legendary caldrons of managerial brilliance
(1999: 238). GEs leadership and talent development has been identified to be one of the best
by Hewitt Associates (Fredman, 2002; Goldsmith, 2004; Pomeroy, 2005). GE gives its high
potential executives experience in many disparate businesses (Byrnes 2000; Colvin, 1999).
Kahn (1999) refers to GE as a CEO breeding ground. Grant (1995) argues that GEs
executives are shaped by a system that is unparalleled at identifying and developing
leadership talent and is more comprehensive than any outside of the military. GEs leadership
and talent development has a long history. Welch and his predecessors emphasized
managerial talent and its development. GEs John F. Welch Leadership Center at Crotonville,
NY turned 50 years old in 2006 (Durett, 2006). Ralph Cordiner, GEs president in 1958, was
quoted in the Academy of Management Journal as saying Not customers, not products, not
plants, not money but managers may be the limit of General Electrics growth (Whitehill,
1958). This argument is reflective of Penrosian thinking (Penrose 1999). Welch put it
differently but the emphasis upon people was similar: people first, strategy second (Tichy
& Cardwell, 2002:154). This emphasis is seen in Jack Welchs active participation in GEs
executive development process, which reportedly consumed 30 per cent of his time (Rowe,
2001).
GEs executive development capability is broader and more involved than just GEs training
and education programs; rather, it is an entire system encompassing identification, selection,
and development of executive resources. Many pieces of this system for instance, job
assignment are integrated into other management processes (Frost & Kerr, 1997). Over the
long history of executive development at GE, the system has evolved in a path dependent
manner to become socially complex and embedded in the organization. The boundaries
between GEs talent development process and other organizational processes are not distinct.
GE develops more general management talent than it utilizes. Its executive development
system selects and develops good managers and is coupled with a disciplined merit-based
evaluation and promotion process (Colvin, 1999). At the top levels, these executives vie to
become the next CEO of GE.
GE has also encouraged long CEO tenure by choosing relatively young candidates. Both
Welch and Immelt came through the GE system and were appointed CEO while in their mid40s with the expectation they would serve approximately 20 years. During this time, as would
be expected, many CEO-caliber candidates left GE to pursue leadership positions at other
firms. Kratz (2005) states, when a company needs a loan, it goes to a bank. When a
company needs a CEO, it goes to GE. Although the focus of our study is at the CEO level,
many executives also leave GE to join other firms at mid-management levels.
The generation entering the workforce today is uniquely connected digitally and socially
attuned to the forces of change and common purpose. But what's the best way to unleash their
potential? Anticipating their needs is one of the great tasks of leadership and talent
development; and an area of sustained inquiry at GE. At Crotonville, GEs corporate

university, it is addressing this challenge through an evolutionary leadership curriculum,

breakthrough learning experiences, and a transformational environment.

GEs effort named "Global New Directions" aimed at identify ways to attract, develop, and
retain talent in the future. The group gave certain recommendations to GE as to how to
manage talent:

Leveraging gaming technology to create a new channel that connects the world to GE in

a fun and engaging way, helping to educate prospective employees about the company
and its economic and social values.
Creating a personalized suite of benefits, providing greater flexibility and choice to
better meet the needs of a global, diverse workforce.
Enhancing its performance-management system with new tools to help employees
navigate their career at GE and identify a wider range of opportunities across the
company.
Expanding its leadership-development and accelerator programs and connecting
participants across those programs in order to support a broader base of culturally
adaptive global leaders.

GE is now implementing these key recommendations to manage the talent of its managers.

APPLE

Around here, changing the world just comes with the job description

Apple was a computer company (and its name used to be Apple Computer), but in the last
decade Apple tackled the music industry with the iPod device and iTunes distribution
channel. Next Apple conquered and dominated the smart phone industry with the iPhone and
App Store. Most recently Apple challenged the PC as we know it and is in the process of
disrupting the publishing industry. This ability to successfully shift from one industry to
another in a few short years is known as agility. A great deal of Apples agility comes from
the direction and vision of its senior leadership and its corporate culture, which is reinforced
by the agility of talent at Apple.
At Apple, there is a cultural expectation that after succeeding in one task, the employee will
immediately move on to something completely different. He knows that he will have to retool
and learn quickly. The expectation of radical change eliminates resistance and sends a
message that employees cant rest on their laurels.
The rapidly shifting work load at Apple means than an employee wont be bored with his
work because the work and the focus will change, a major attraction factor that brings in
recruits desiring the challenge of radical change. Looking at the big picture, Apples ability to
move into and dominate completely unrelated industries is only possible because of its
extraordinary approach to talent, the way that it manages it, and its approach to building an
image that attracts the new skills needed to successfully move into completely new product
areas. Apple because of its unique approach to talent has a productive work force. Apple
produces what can only be considered extraordinary revenue per employee; $2 million. A
second measure of workforce productivity is profit per employee: nearly $478,000 for Apple
(unbelievable considering it has a retail workforce).
People at Apple believes that having less is more, meaning that by purposely understaffing
and operating with reduced funding, you can make the team more productive and innovative.
Unrealistic deadlines at Apple mean that you have to get project problems solved early on,
because there isnt time to redo things over and over. Apple is involved in lean management
which forces the teams to be more cohesive. Even providing a lean schedule forces everyone
to be productive because they know there is no room for slippage.
Apple is proud of its long-established work culture. One wont find the term balance
anywhere on the career site; instead, Apple makes it clear it is looking for extremely hardworking and committed individuals. On the website, for example, it proudly states: This
isnt your cushy corporate nine-to-fiver. It reinforces the hard work message several times,
including Making it all happen can be hard work. And you could probably find an easier job
someplace else. But thats not the point, is it? and We also have a shared obsession with
getting every last detail right. So leave your neckties, bring your ideas.
The expectation of innovation is driven by Apples history of innovation, its leaders (who
forbid the use of thats not possible), and the peer pressure among employees to be among

the contributors to the final product that the customer sees. In order to generate this
expectation of innovation, it doesnt rely on posters or motivational slogans (although they
have those too around here, changing the world just comes with the job description).
Instead, every communication, process, product launch event, and even advertising slogans
(Think Different, Imagine the Possibilities, Heres to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels.
Etc.) make it crystal-clear that innovation is at the heart of Apples success.
The primary monetary motivator at Apple is the opportunity for wealth creation as a result
of stock ownership. Most employees at Apple get periodic stock grants to reward their
contribution thereby sending every employee a clear message that individual
accomplishments are important only if they directly contribute to the overall success of the
company. Although most talent competitors to Apple spend huge amounts of money on
benefits, Apples offerings are spartan when compared to Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.
The management teams at Apple have worked tirelessly to build a unique internal brand
image at Apple that positions employees (at least mentally) as revolutionaries and rebels.
Many years ago the organization influenced this internal brand by challenging employees to
think how much more exciting it would be to be a pirate, rather than someone who followed
the formal protocol of the regular Navy. It even flew a pirate flag over its corporate
headquarters. The tradition of being revolutionaries is upheld even today with many
supportive slogans including Part career, part revolution. Apple is well known for using Tshirts, parties, and celebrations to build cohesion and to reinforce the internal brand as a
ragtag group of revolutionaries.
The firm expects employees to be self-reliant. Its retail sales force for example receives no
training on how to sell, a practice that is certainly unconventional in the retail environment.
The lesson is simple: providing target competencies and prescribing training can weaken
employee self-reliance, an attribute problematic in a fast-changing environment.

CONCLUSION

From the three MNCs, Google, GE and Apple it is quite evident that different organizations
manage talent in different ways, some of which come from the time when they were formed,
some newly created. We also do learn that talent cannot be managed in some particular ways
but different organizations use different means to manage talent. The above three
organizations have managed talent through different ways, some of which are:

Training and Development Programs

Coaching and Education
Letting people do what they like
Keeping employees first
Leveraging technologies
Create personalized suite of benefits
Giving challenging jobs
Lean management
Hard-work-oriented work culture
Create employee wealth
Creating internal brand images that position employees as revolutionaries
Promoting self reliance on the part of employees

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