Human Resource Management at Siemens Ohio: A Full Analysis

Introduction

The practice of human resource management is becoming increasingly important within the climate of modern business. This trend is generally associated with the realization that people are not merely individuals operating machines, but valuable resources possessing essential intellectual capital. As the business climate shifts more and more toward services and away from industry and agriculture, economic agents are compelled to invest more in the management of their staff.

Human resource management is a complex set of techniques and mechanisms by which economic agents manage the relationship between the firm and its staff members. This relationship is vast and includes not only the collaboration between the parties, but even the periods before and after an employment contract has ended.

The practice of HRM is multifaceted, and each economic agent implements it as it finds most suitable to its particular context. The specialized literature promotes a wide array of models and advice on how to manage human resources, but the fact remains that each economic agent must devise the models best tailored to its own specifics. In this context, the current project seeks to assess the HRM function at the Siemens plant in Ohio through six distinctive lenses:

The Human Resources Department at Siemens

A detailed analysis of the HRM department at Siemens' plant in Ohio is rather difficult to conduct for the simple reason that the entity is private and does not disclose such specific information to the public. A first observation that can be made, however, is that the firm's focus is on improving the technical capacities of the plant in Ohio.

Siemens is dedicated to innovation and improvement in managerial practice, production volume and quality, as well as environmental sustainability and energy efficiency. As the company's own materials note, "Siemens AG is a global powerhouse in electronics and electrical engineering, and operates in the industry, energy and healthcare sectors. For more than 160 years, Siemens has built a reputation for leading-edge innovation and the quality of its products, services and solutions" (Siemens Website, 2011).

In this commitment, relatively little emphasis appears to be placed on human resource management. The primary weakness of the HRM department at Siemens Ohio is therefore that insufficient attention is paid to the human resource itself.

One explanation for this is that Siemens is a manufacturing firm, producing and retailing consumer electronics. In such a context, organizational attention naturally falls on the quality and volume of production, with less emphasis placed on the motivation of staff members.

As noted in the introduction, much of the increasing role of HRM is attributable to a shift in the activities that generate revenues and create employment opportunities. Agriculture, once the primary occupation of humankind, is emphasized at only a limited scale today; the same is increasingly true of manufacturing, as the services sector continues to expand. Within the United States, for instance, only 1.1 percent of gross domestic product is generated by agriculture, 22.1 percent by industry, and the remaining 76.8 percent by the services sector (Central Intelligence Agency, 2011).

Within the modern setting, the role of HRM grows most strongly within the services sector, where there are no production lines and where people are the most valuable organizational asset (Zak and Waddell, 2010). At Siemens, which remains a manufacturing firm, emphasis is placed on the production lines, and less attention is granted to employees as human capital.

Selection and Interviewing

Aside from this impediment, there is an important strength that characterizes the HRM department at Siemens: organizational resources. Siemens is one of the global leaders in the electronics industry and generates impressive financial results. In 2010, for instance, it registered revenues totaling $75,978 million and gross profits of $21,647 million (Siemens 2010 Annual Report). The company therefore possesses substantial resources that could serve as a genuine strength for the HRM department by funding robust HRM strategies.

The recommendation at this stage does not revolve around efficiency — this is already an organizational aim at Siemens — but rather around integration. The HRM department should develop stronger policies and implement them company-wide. Specifically, it should initiate HRM policies that place staff members at the center of organizational operations and ensure that this orientation is present and integrated at all organizational levels. In other words, HRM should become an integral part of the business model, rather than remain an isolated department.

As staffing needs increase at the Siemens plant in Ohio, the HRM department plays a central role in hiring new employees to fill vacant positions. The company typically requires staff members in either salaried positions or union positions. The interviewing process is similar in both cases, but the overall selection process differs.

For salaried positions, the selection process is organized around the following stages:

For union employees, the selection process is also organized in seven stages, though these differ somewhat from those for salaried staff:

The interview processes are similar in both cases, with the primary difference lying in the nature of the questions asked in the second half of the interview. In the first half, emphasis falls on familiarizing the company and the candidate with one another. In the second half, emphasis shifts to testing the candidate's ability to fulfill the tasks associated with the available position. For union employees, questions are linked to negotiation tactics and other job-relevant features, whereas for salaried employees, questions are more technical and revolve around the candidate's ability to fulfill job responsibilities as required.