Executive Band at Ge Essay Example

addition to all these factors, historically, the existing CEOs commitment to nurturing the next generation CEOs acts as a pillar supporting all activities that go into produce this result. Management Development (MD) policies are important issues invariably with all companies these days. However, few companies have been able to master the techniques involved in grooming their star employees the way GE has been doing it so far.

While most companies have training programmes, feedback sessions, top management interactions, these still remain as isolated processes and do not fit together in the company’s system of activities to provide the kind of competitive advantage that GE enjoys.Thus, GE’s MD policies are not easily generalizable, yet given the right attitude of employees, they are not impossible to adopt either. Transferability across cultures: Meritocracy and performance measurement vary dramatically across cultures. In some cultures such as India meritocracy is largely defined by technical skills, while soft skills and leadership potential have not been given much importance. GE’s culture depends heavily on positive and negative feedback given by managers.

Some cultures might not be receptive to negative feedback. As a result the very essence of the model might be ineffective. Further, determining adequate compensation for good performance also varies across cultures. Transferability across industries: In most industries, especially those that rely heavily on performance evaluation for promotion, this model is replicable.

In some industries such as BPOs, where leadership potential is recognised at a later stage of one’s career, this system might not work.Some other industries might operate better with a centralized structure, where it would be hard to replicate GE’s success with its existing practices. Transferability across companies: Unlike GE, every company

doesn’t have the luxury of different businesses which can be put into use to test out leadership potential of star employees. This combined with centralised structure, a “nothing beyond target” mentality, lack of exposure to diverse businesses and complex situations might go against transferability of GE’s business model across companies.

GE is a diversified, multinational conglomerate and we believe that HR policies need to be fine tuned to reflect this. There is a high risk of churn associated with the talent pool of employees at GE and as Immelt we would have the following recommendations: Vitality Curve: With the strategic shift into building more human capital project, it becomes all the more important that performance and meritocracy doesn’t take a backseat.We would not change the system immediately, since it may create motivation issues within the 70% group who are staying. Rather it is a time to analyze the reason behind people leaving.

Are too much efforts/rewards concentrated on the top 20%? Immelt should analyze the possible reasons for people leaving; whether they were monetary reasons or motivational factors (not getting enough good work). People might also be demotivated due to recent layoffs in an economic downturn. Without this analysis it would not be ideal to change the finely tuned GE culture. MBA and International recruitment: Immelt should increase the MBA and international hiring intake because this will help the firm arm its business units with multinational talent that better understands regional social and cultural nuances.

As Immelt we would observe the effects of such hiring on GE culture which already consists of well seasoned professionals with an American centric hiring process.We do believe that GE should although follow

a more stringent hiring process and that experienced top management should be involved in the hiring and screening process to ensure that the best talent is roped in. Then we can capitalize on GE’s capability to develop & mentor management talent to retain these high potential employees. Executive Bands: Welch had clearly defined the performance meritocracy by collapsing the bands to 7, but this doesn’t align with Immelt’s strategy of globalization (since inherently all the cultures are different).If globalization and decentralization have to be hand in hand then there can be different bands in different countries, but this would give rise to problems in measuring performance across geographies. So, we may increase the number of bands in certain geographies but they should clearly correspond to particular bands in the International organization. Depending on the culture’s outlook the people should be rewarded with whatever they are motivated by. If better job responsibility signals future growth for some, then level promotions are not required