Apple, Inc: Labor Market
Being a multinational corporation, apple is well known for its design and marketing of consumer electronics, personal computers, and computer software. The most famous hardware products from Apple are the computers known by the name of Macintosh, iPods, iPads and the iPhone. Some of Apples software in the market include Mac Operating system, a multimedia and creativity software called iLife, media browser by the name of iTunes, productivity software by name of iWork, and mobile operating system, among others. Such involvements dictate the kind of labor market the company draws its labor from. In this light of the products designed in Apple Inc., the purpose of this paper is to explore the labor market from which it obtains candidates to fill the open positions.
For one to qualify to work in Apple Company, it is important that one holds a university or well known college certificate accompanied by high profile credentials as the competition is very high now that the company is a leading best in the world. In addition, the largest pool of employees are drawn from America since the company is American and owned by Americans but still, due to the presence of subsidiary companies all over the world in various foreign countries, employees are as well scoped from these countries to join the larger Apple work force.
Currently, Apple Company holds 46,600 employees working under full time conditions and 2800 workers working casually all around the globe (US department of labor 2011). As of the end of financial year 2009, the company had registered annual sales of $42.91 billion and has gained increased favor by consumers in its products in the electronics industry. To begin with, the two owners of Apple by the name of Wozniak and Steve Jobs started developing apple computers in 1976 (apple.com 2011). For Steve, the area of profession was engineering whose main work was to build the computers and Wozniak’s work was mainly in the marketing of the already made computers under the company name of Apple Computers Inc. under a partnership, the two college drop outs developed strong bonds that they used to design and market their products in an outstanding way that has not yet been experienced again (US department of labor 2011).
From this humble starting point, the two created a vision for the future of computers which they worked hard to attain despite the hardship of expensive computer products then. To handle this problem, Steve, the engineer and developer focused on designing of cost-effective products using minimized amounts of components required to develop each. Since then, the focus of Apple has been to develop competent personal computers.
Since its inception, Apple Inc has employed more than 75,000 workers universally most of whom are located in the United States of America. Despite the Headquarters being located in the United States, Apple has other subsidiary companies in foreign countries all of whom either deal with substantial production, marketing, support organizations, and sales among others. in Paris and Tokyo, the main concern is in engineering operations. Apart from the direct workers of Apple Company, other employees in the Apple, Inc. company include those in companies acquired by Apple such as NeXT and Emagic. These employees range from engineers in computer, software, telecommunications, and electrical; computer scientists, finance officers, accountants, auditors, marketers, programmers, among others. Others are directors, apple evangelists and Apple executives (linkedin 2011). However, being a market leader in personal computers, Apple has remained protective over the information and names of people who work for them to prevent head hunters from snatching away its experts or talented professionals with the promise of better pay and benefits.
According to linkedin (2011) the levels of education in Apple company employees range from high school degree, bachelors degree, masters degree, associate and doctorial degrees while the years of experience range from zero to twenty and more. In order to keep staff motivated and informed of new concepts in the market, Apple offers training to this pool of employees to keep them up to standard with the company’s operations.
In Apple, a compact new employee training commences with the establishment of training manual that are both in hand copy form and an online form which is a manual on technical skills required to prepare a person for their newly acquired position. It is important therefore that the online or hand copy remains up to date to ensure that what the employee receives is up to date and current (Stead, Staric and Stead 2003). In addition, the user manual or online form must be made as interesting as possible to ensure that the employees aren’t put of by the corporate language they are not so conversant with. In filling open positions, the managers in the respective departments must ensure that the employees are provided with the right orientation to the department and the company as well (apple.com 2011).
To make training beneficial to the company, then it must be taken as an investment rather than an expense since after training the employees, one can engage in contracts, benefits and better pay to restrict unplanned job shifts. In the training, the company must also analyze the skills that are more in line with the current and future needs of the company as well as those which prove helpful to the company. Whenever they are need for adjustment, the process should keep changing to incorporate such adjustments (apple.com 2011).
Apart from training new workers, the company has a culture of providing training to all employees at one time in each year for the purpose of team building and capacity enforcement (Stead, Staric and Stead 2003). This not only promotes effective working but also provides the employees with the opportunity to interact with each other and share ideas that are beneficial to both the management but also to the staff in general.
Training of employees goes hand in hand with the provision of the company’s compensation philosophy where benefits and awards are provided to employees with the required qualifications at one point or the other. Training must be made by staff members with the right amount of knowledge concerning the company as this will be useful in the understanding of the company by the new employees (Stead, Staric and Stead 2003). It must also be ensured that the correct materials for training are provided to the trainees to facilitate the acquisition of valuable information and direction. This will also serve the purpose of future reference.
The training of employees should be accompanied with the right materials like a projector to simulate visual training sessions and the right setting to allow for the same. After training, the new employees can now be evaluated for the expected kind of growth or adaptation that appears to provide reasonable outcomes to the company (Stead, Staric and Stead 2003). For any specific qualifications in the company, the employees should be provided with training from an associate in the organization by the use of a side by side training technique. This is important in the provision of the right information to maneuver through the work associated with such a department as well as assist in the creation of new associations with the continuing employees.
References
apple.com 2011). Company history. Retrieved from http://www.apple-history.com/?page=history§ion=h1 last updated 2011.
Linkedin (2011). Employees’ statistics at Apple. Retrieved on 13-05-2011 from http://www.linkedin.com/company/apple-inc/statistics last updated on 2011
Stead, E., Staric M., and Stead J., (2003). Sustainable strategic management. Sharpe, Inc. New York: NY.
US DOL, (2011). Labor highlights. Washington: DC. Retrieved from http://www.dol.gov/dol/last updated 2011
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