Human Resource Frame at The Walt Disney Company
This paper applies Bolman and Deal's human resource frame to The Walt Disney Company, examining how one of the world's largest entertainment employers motivates and retains approximately 200,000 workers. The analysis covers Disney's investment in personal growth through tuition benefits and coaching, its deliberate efforts to sustain high employee morale, and its strategy of empowering cast members to deliver exceptional customer experiences. Drawing on company financial reports, Forbes rankings, and HR literature, the paper argues that Disney's strong parks-and-resorts revenue growth and its reputation as a top employer are direct outcomes of its commitment to meeting employee needs as outlined by the human resource frame.
- Overview of the Organization: Disney's scale and employee-driven entertainment mission
- The Human Resources Frame: Bolman and Deal's frame applied to Disney's workforce investment
- Role of Human Resources at Disney: Labor competition and Disney's inspiration-driven staffing strategy
- Attribute #1 – Personal Growth: Tuition benefits, coaching, and flexible education programs
- Attribute #2 – Focus on Morale: Backstage investment, executive engagement, and cast empowerment
- Effectiveness of the Human Resource Frame: Revenue growth and Forbes rankings as HR outcomes
- Recommendations: Sustaining human-centered strategy to retain top talent
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What makes this paper effective
- Consistently ties each observed HR practice back to the theoretical lens of Bolman and Deal's human resource frame, keeping the analysis focused rather than descriptive.
- Uses specific, quantified evidence — revenue growth percentages, employee counts, Forbes rankings — to ground abstract claims about morale and empowerment in measurable outcomes.
- Moves logically from theory to practice to results, showing a clear cause-and-effect chain: HR investment → employee morale → superior guest experiences → financial performance.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied organizational analysis: selecting a real company, choosing an established theoretical framework, and using publicly available data (annual reports, government statistics, trade press) to test whether the theory explains the company's behavior and outcomes. This is a model approach for business and management coursework at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with an organizational overview, then defines the theoretical frame before applying it through two thematic attributes — personal growth and morale. An effectiveness section evaluates outcomes using financial data and reputational evidence, and a brief recommendations section closes the argument. Each section builds on the previous one, creating a coherent analytical arc from theory to evidence to conclusion.
Overview of the Organization
The Walt Disney Company is one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world. Its products and services meet the needs of billions of consumers globally through storytelling and the creation of fantasy and entertainment. In order to produce these outcomes, the Disney Company employs around 200,000 people (Forbes, 2018). The Walt Disney Company is consistently ranked as one of the best companies to work for. The essential strategy behind that distinction is that the company requires its employees to create amazing experiences for guests and consumers. In order to achieve this, employees themselves must be inspired and committed to delivering those kinds of experiences. The human resources frame can be used to explain how Disney is able to inspire 200,000 employees to deliver those exceptional experiences.
The Human Resources Frame
Bolman and Deal describe four frames through which to analyze an organization. The human resources frame places "emphasis on people's needs," including "giving employees power and opportunity to perform their jobs well" (Business Balls, 2020). This frame lends value to an organization in several key ways.
The first is that it allows employees to be their best — when people feel valued, they are in a better position to give their best. Disney creates this sense of value by investing in its workforce: approximately 80,000 employees have access to company equity, and many more have opportunities for training and education (Walt Disney Company, 2020). This level of investment not only creates loyalty, but it signals that the company genuinely invests in its people, which in turn leads employees to invest back into the company.
Furthermore, Disney creates opportunities for many who might not otherwise have them, including veterans, people without high school diplomas, new immigrants, and others (Walt Disney Company, 2020). Investing in people who might not receive such opportunities elsewhere gives the company the ability to get the most out of its workforce — employees are motivated by having the chance to be their best and to achieve their dreams, something that might not be available to them elsewhere.
The second reason such investments are valuable for Disney is that they make the company an employer of choice. Disney has appeared on the Forbes list of best employers, ranked highly even as a non-tech company. This means that many employees specifically choose Disney over other available options. Because of this, the company attracts a higher standard of worker — people more likely to create the kind of magical experiences that Disney sells to the public. Someone who wishes to enter the entertainment field will naturally gravitate toward Disney, giving the company a competitive advantage over others in the same business.
Role of Human Resources at Disney
Most of Disney's workers are in the United States, where the unemployment rate has been very low — around 3.6% as of early 2020 (BLS, 2020). At that rate, competition for any worker is high, let alone for quality workers. Disney typically competes with a number of other companies across its industries, and its roles are often creative or involve direct interaction with the public. In either case, the experience that each role creates is important to maintaining competitive advantage. Application of the human resource frame makes sense for a company like Disney that must compete for scarce labor resources and win the majority of available talent for every role it needs to fill.
On its website, Disney describes its mission as to "entertain, inform and inspire people around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling." This mission requires, as it states, the ability to inspire. Ultimately, that is the most challenging aspect of the mission statement to deliver — especially across a workforce of 200,000. Entertainment is itself a challenge, requiring creativity and execution, but inspiration is something more emotional in nature. For Disney to achieve both demands an extraordinary amount of talent, and each employee, especially those in public-facing roles, must be inspired themselves in order to inspire others.
Attribute #1 – Personal Growth
A large organization like Disney needs not only to attract talent but to provide that talent with opportunities to grow. Disney takes a relatively unique approach to personal growth benefits. Sammer (2019) outlines several ways in which the Disney approach differs from most other companies. First, Disney pays tuition up front, whereas most companies only offer reimbursement after the completion of studies. The typical approach is rooted in a concern that employees might take advantage of the benefit, whereas Disney's approach reflects trust. While a small number of people might use the company without giving back, the trust that the company places in its employees tends, on average, to be repaid with a higher degree of loyalty.
Disney also provides coaching support (Sammer, 2019) to help guide employees through the decision to return to school. The company recognizes that going back to school is a major decision for most people, and it seeks to reduce the friction associated with that choice. By lowering the risk, Disney makes it easier for employees to grow and to self-actualize. These coaches are available online to Disney employees everywhere, encouraging them to pursue education rather than delay the decision.
The flexibility Disney offers in terms of personal growth also includes the provision of study space in larger facilities, and employees are permitted to pursue the growth paths that interest them most. At many companies, education benefits come with restrictions requiring that the employee study only subjects directly relevant to their current role. Disney allows a greater degree of flexibility, recognizing that personal growth need not be confined strictly to an employee's existing area of work.
Following the completion of an education program, Disney then works with employees to help them leverage what they have learned. While this is partly in the company's interest, it is also genuinely in the employee's interest. Disney operates across a wide range of fields, and that breadth gives employees the opportunity to explore their passions to a degree that may not be possible in a smaller company.
References
BLS (2020). The employment situation — January 2020. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved March 2, 2020 from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
Bricker, J. (2020). Disney World investing millions on cast morale. Disney Tourist Blog. Retrieved March 2, 2020 from https://www.disneytouristblog.com/disney-world-investing-millions-cast-morale/
Business Balls (2020). Four frame model — Bolman and Deal. Business Balls. Retrieved March 2, 2020 from https://www.businessballs.com/leadership-models/four-frame-model-bolman-and-deal/
Forbes (2018). World's best employers. Forbes. Retrieved March 2, 2020 from https://www.forbes.com/companies/walt-disney/?list=world-best-employers/
Jones, B. (2018). How Disney empowers its employees to deliver exceptional customer service. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved March 2, 2020 from https://hbr.org/sponsored/2018/02/how-disney-empowers-its-employees-to-deliver-exceptional-customer-service
McLeod, S. (2011). Bolman & Deal frameworks. Big Think. Retrieved March 2, 2020 from https://bigthink.com/bolman-deal-frameworks
Sammer, J. (2019). 5 takeaways from Disney's tuition benefits. SHRM.org. Retrieved March 2, 2020 from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/5-takeaways-from-disney-tuition-benefits-approach.aspx
Walt Disney Company (2020). Website, various pages. Retrieved March 2, 2020 from https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/forbes-ranks-disney-among-worlds-best-employers-for-2018/
Walt Disney Corporation 2018 Annual Report. In possession of the author.
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