Study one of the Fortune 500 companies in terms of their HRM practices.

Human Resource Management Structure Report Apple Inc.
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Research Methods
The report made use of books, worldwide web, organizational site and journals to compile information on HRM practices. The information gathered was that which was required while the rest was not considered in making the final conclusions on the report. The references were considered in the body, while acknowledging the pages and areas the information was collected from while compiling the report.
Organizational Mission, Values, Customers and Competitors
Apple Computer is committed to protecting the environment, health and safety of our employees, customers and the global communities where we operate. We recognize that by integrating sound environmental, health and safety management practices into all aspects of our business, we can offer technologically innovative products and services while conserving and enhancing recourses for future generations. Apple strives for continuous improvement in our environmental, health and safety management systems and the environmental quality of our products, processes, and services.
Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.
Apple is a multinational company that is listed in the Fortune 500 companies. Apple Inc. Specializes in creating consumer electronics, computer software as well as commercial servers.

Some of the core products of Apple Inc. are Ipad tablet computers, Macintosh computers, and iPhone smartphone. The products by Apple are mainly multinational companies, banks students, and other technology-oriented companies.

Apple’s Organizational Environment and Culture
Fortune 500 companies refer to the top 500 companies that have been listed in the U.S corporations based on their gross profit. Originally, Fortune 500 company’s lists were just for the companies that have specialized in energy, manufacturing or manufacturing. However, in the 1994 methodology the service companies were included. Some of the examples of the top companies listed in the 500 fortune in 2015 are Exxon Mobile, Wal-Mart, Chevron, Apple Inc. And Berkshire Hathaway. Apple has been the most successful in the tech-based companies.
Apple Inc. Success has been contributed by the way they way thy have managed their everyday activities. Being a tech company, they have ensured that they have engineers running and managing the company. The human resource management emphasizes that engineers are the best placed to oversee the projects since they understand the ideas and technology used, unlike managers who are just informed on the products. Another management practice that Apple has adopted and that contributes to promoting human resource management is they have ensured there exists respect between employees and managers. This is achieved because there is no division between a product manager and other engineers since they are all engineers. Thus, the respect and the close-knit, small project teams have contributed to apple’s success (Briscoe, Schuler and Claus 45).
Managing Human Resource Issues and Changes in the Company
One of the roles of human resource is to promote employees ideas and innovative initiatives. Apple has given its employees the freedom to possess and improve products by applying their skills. For instance, if an employee realizes that the product has an issue, he is allowed to fix it without following layers of bureaucracy for approval. Another reason that has contributed to the success of Apple in human resource management is how they give challenges to the employees. The management comes up with a challenge by giving them harder tasks than their capabilities, once the employee learns from Apple and applies their skill on the challenges, they are most likely to get to the management and deliver best results.
In the human resource department, all activities and roles have to be done as per the rules and schedule set. Hence, deadlines are crucial and have to be met, and still quality of Apple products is not to be jeopardized. Another practice embraced by the management is focusing on the long-term goals and their products. Thus they do not compare with their competitors. It is noted that their employees are driven by the innovations, and they have come up with products that have been a challenge to the status quo (Briscoe, Schuler and Claus 45).
It is important to hire people who are passionate about the products that they will handle. Apple has always ensured the employees coming onboard are insanely crazy and passionate about being in Apple. The employees with such enthusiasm ensure they work to achieve the company’s goals and even raise the company to a greater level than they had found it. The love of the product pushes the employees to work to their satisfaction and to achieve their innovation dreams (Morgan and Várdy 25). In the hiring process, the enthusiasm in an employee is what the management look for, since they embrace the products, mission, and overall style. As a result, achieving the goals will be much legible for the employee without being pushed around as they understand what it’s expected of them.
Apple has ensured that work and life balance has to be maintained. They emphasize on working hard at the place of work, and still encourage the employees to enjoy life. They provide excellent health care for the employees, besides that they have office holidays, and they have ensured that there is an excellent conducive working environment for the employees. Another factor that human resource has promoted is the maintenance of focused engineer culture. They have discouraged bureaucracy within projects; their emphasis on loyal and passionate employees what makes it a corporate culture when it was established. The maintenance of culture has hugely contributed to the success experienced in Apple (staneleigh). .
Apple ensures that all their employees know their roles. They have roles that are tightly defined to ensure that all employees know exactly what they are supposed to do. They avoid ambiguous role definition that leave employees confused and idle for most of the day. Proper role definition ensures that their employees are always busy and productive. Each employee also knows the roles of other people; therefore they understand the levels that they can move into in future. They wear boldly colored T-shirts, not just for the show, they show the precise roles that each employee plays in the company. Such labeled roles include “Experts” who ensure that the needs of the visitors are assessed and “Geniuses” who can speak the complex language when there is a technical problem in specific devices.
They ensure that their leadership is freed up. The deployment of Apple employees is done very effectively. They use minimal room due to their bottle-necking process. They ensure that managers do not spend a lot of time wondering where each employee should be. Instead, they spend more time ensuring that their machines are in great shape. They ensure that their customer service is excellent. It is therefore up to the Apple leadership to ensure that they maintain a great level of quality every day. This way, they are not just managing operations; they are also training staff, leading coaching drives, and improving sales. Other companies that don’t follow each model end up spending too much time on following up on the whereabouts of employees and disciplinary actions instead of their primary role that is to increase production and improve their company’s profitability (Walsh 65).
The Apple human resource team ensures that work is made meaningful. When their employees know that the management is concerned and cares about what they are doing, it is easier for them to ensure that they do their very best. This is as opposed to other companies that show little care and support to their employees. This is even more done to their employees who staff the stores, and are always taking the front line of customer relationship. It would have been very hard for Apple to deliver Apple-grade service if their employees were not satisfied with the employee engagement level. They are also known to compensate their workers with generous remuneration and benefits handsomely. This ensures that the employees do not spend so much time struggling to make ends meet, but instead focus on growing the brand. The motivation also ensures that there is low employee turnover, thus high employee retention (Staneleigh n.p).
The company retains their top talent with growth opportunities. There are many organizations that are struggling to retain top talent. However, there are few that offer opportunities for college graduates to do something great with their knowledge. Apple has a wonderful job portal on their website with a lot of open positions. The company also prides itself on offering promotions from within. They even have young “Experts” in their early twenties manning the entrance of Apple stores to elder professionals working in the offices. These young ones can work their way into different levels of employment in the country as long as they ensure steady growth. In Apple, every job position is important. Placing importance in each role makes each person to strive individually to produce their very best.
The Future
In a much as Apple is trying to make the training smooth, there are few challenges that Apple Inc. has faced in the human resource department. For instance, once the employees have been trained and learn the best techniques they have been poached by the competitors which mean there is a loss in the training resources invested. To overcome the challenge of being poached, Apple should come with a policy where once you join them you work for them for a certain period then they can leave.

Works Cited
Briscoe, Dennis R, Randall S Schuler, and Lisbeth M Claus. International Human Resources Management. New York: Routledge (2009): 40-89. Print.
Morgan, John, and Felix VaÌrdy. Diversity inthe Workplace. [Washington, D.C.]: International Monetary Fund, IMF Institute (2006): 20-28. Print.
Staneleigh, Michael. ‘Innovation: A Strategic HR Imperative’. Bia.ca. N.P., 2015. Web. 15 July 2015.
Stewart, Greg L, and Kenneth G Brown. Human Resource Management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons (2008): Print.
Walsh, David J. Employment Law for Human Resource Practice. St. Paul, Minn: Thomson/West (2007): Print.