General Electric HR Practices

"Developing leaders, developing people takes three things. It takes leadership commitment, it
takes disciplined processes and it takes commitment to people. It works for us."
- Bob Corcoran, Chief Learning Officer, General Electric Co. in 2004.

Introduction
GE is one of the world's leading conglomerates with operations spread across eleven businesses.
It has been adjudged as one of the top companies for executive development in the world in
recognition
of
its
ability
to
nurture
executive
talent.
In 2005, General Electric Company (GE) was one of the world's biggest conglomerates with a
presence across 160 countries, 11 varied businesses and employee strength of around 307,000.
Some of its businesses were large enough to make it to the Fortune 500 list on their own. GE had
not only survived successfully for 133 years but had also consistently generated great value for
its shareholders, despite its size. GE had won many accolades as the world's most respected
company in appreciation of its people management and sustained profitability.
One of the factors that contributed to the company's success was its ability to train and develop
its multinational, diverse workforce in a successful manner. GE was one of the first companies to
establish a management development center to train and develop its employees. During the
1980s, this center put the company on a growth trajectory that very few corporations could
match. It inspired many other renowned companies like Boeing Co., Home Depot and Toyota
Motors to model their training centers on the one at GE.
In the media, GE has been referred to as a "captain-of-industry university" or "the leadership
factory" in recognition of its ability to produce exceptional leaders who went on to became CEOs
at other Fortune 500 companies.
General Electric also makes a strong emphasis on the importance of having a high performance
workforce to drive GEs high performance business model. As Jack Welch, the legendary former
Chairman and CEO of GE said in his first address to the Wall Street analysts in 1981, he wanted
GE to become the most competitive enterprise on earth, where people dare to try new things,
where people feel assured in knowing that only the limits of their creativity and drive, their own
standards of personal excellence, will be the ceiling on how far and how fast they move.

GE harnesses its human resources to be one of the most competitive enterprises on Earth can be
broadly divided into few HR practices mentioned below.

I. Performance Management System

1. Vitality Curve
The First area in GE's process of harnessing its HR is the stringent performance management
system. The performance management process at GE consists of a forced ranking system of its
employees to groupings of 20:70:10. These groups are categorized as the Top 20, Vital 70
and the Bottom 10. In this Vitality Curve as it was called by Jack Welch, the top 20 are the
top performing employees of the organization and they are generally earmarked for further
development and to rise up the leadership ladder. Vital 70 are the competent performers who
continue to perform at the required level. The bottom 10 consists of the poor performers of the
group and generally they were shown the door and are replaced by new hires.

2. Session C
This process is designed to support the managers career interest and development needs. Starting
at the level of department manager, this "session c" process generated the evaluations, career
forecasts, and succession plans for every managerial position in GE. After filling out a form
requiring a self-evaluation, career interests, and plans for development, each subordinate would
meet face-to-face with his or her boss to compare their self-evaluations with the manager's
assessment, to review career interests and opportunities, and to agree on development plans.

II. Training and Development

Second practice is the Training and development of GEs talent. Generally GE attracts the
brightest of talent for their entry levels rolls. GE rarely hires from outside for their top or senior
level positions. Therefore GE has a very good system in place for training, developing and
grooming their people to grow with the organization. These employees will eventually fill the
senior ranks of GE and ensure the sustainability of GE as a high performance organization.

1. Leader in residence
Program in which professor from a renowned University was brought as a resident leader for a
year or so. Slowly this program is modified to groom internal seniors from GE as leaders.
Leaders teach at various classes, but the benefit is also about what happens outside the classroom
sitting on panels or giving fireside chats telling leadership stories. They also do 'speed
coaching short, discreet bits of time that they spend coaching someone. GE have also taken
innovation all over the world in terms of in-house teaching of leadership classes.

2. "Rise" Program for mid-level managers

This training Program called 'rise' is for mid-level managers who have the ability to really grow
in their careers and bring all the greatness to training and networking. But it's all done in region
so that GE can localize the development to those particular needs of the region.

Analysis on Stringent Performance and Training and Development:

GE places great importance on hiring, training and development in order to ensure that
their employees are the best performing lot in the market. GE views high performance of
employees as a vital element that gives GE a competitive advantage in the market.

GE has a stringent policy of weeding out non performers.

Advantages:
Fast route for creating high performance teams by removing the weak links rather than
spending time and resources on developing these week links to be better performers,
Creating opportunity for new hires to come into the teams through the openings created.
Performance pressure created by this process on employees, forces them to improve their
performances to match the GE requirements without any managerial involvement.
Building leaders from the employees having a proven track record of performance
ensuring sustainability.

Disadvantages:
Unhealthy competition would be created among the team members due to the
requirement to maintain a good ranking for their individual performances. This can lead
to a situation where individual goals can undermine the overall team and organizational
requirements.
Distrust can be created among the employees regarding how the individual rankings were
determined, thus exposing the organization to legal issues and litigations.
GEs models, one of the main drivers of a high performance business model are the
people of the organization. Therefore one of the main requirements is to have effective
HR management policies and processes to harness the best out of the HR an organization
have.

III. Recruitment

1. Ability Edge Internships

Ability Edge, a Career Edge program that serves as a national youth internship strategy. This
program offers six-, nine- and twelve month paid internships to graduates with disabilities in
effort for interns to gain work experience, learning, coaching and networking. At GE since we
believe the value of diversity is that it promotes innovative thinking and more creative ideas, the

Ability Edge program is another avenue for GE to explore and reinforce our commitment
towards it.

2. Recruiting from Military

GE has a long history of hiring enlisted military and expert and has appeared on GI Jobs
Magazine's Top Military Friendly Employers for the last five years. GE has dedicated a careers
webpage to U.S. Military experts Careers and more than 35 recruiters participated in career fairs
on military bases in 2010. Additionally, GE offers an entry-level leadership program, Junior
Officer Leadership Program, designed specifically for military officers as well as supporting
specialized programs.

Advantages:

It adds more disciplinary and obedient employees to organization.

Disadvantages:

Military leader were known to work by orders, hence out of box thinking will be quite
less.

3. Employee references source

GE has structured system where the current employees of the organization can refer their friends
and relatives for some position in their organization. Also, the office bearers of trade unions are
often aware of the suitability of candidates. Management can inquire these leaders for suitable
jobs. In GE these are formal agreements to give priority in recruitment to the candidates
recommended by the trade union. Unskilled workers may be recruited at the factory gate these
may be employed whenever a permanent worker is absent. More efficient among these may be
recruited to fill permanent vacancies.

IV. Employee empowerment and discipline

1. GEs WORK OUT Process

It is an HR practice innovated by GE. It is focused on fast implementation of measurable
improvements with accountability which is obtained by speed, simplicity and self-confidence.
The Work Out process helps GE in optimizing its processes and become lean, efficient and
responsive to changing market conditions.

Objectives of the Work Out process:

To cultivate grass root solutions
To eliminate bureaucracy and barriers
To create a forum for dialogue and change

Advantages:
Helps in developing a system oriented thinking
Promotes rapid cycle change and fast decision making
Encourages lateral thinking
Helps in creating ownership of a project
Helps in overcoming the resistance to change among employees

Disadvantages:

May or may not work in other companies, as it also depends on the attitude of employees
working in the company.

2. Ombudsperson process
GE has an extensive ombudsperson process that serves as a mechanism for individuals to ask
questions and report integrity concerns without fear of retaliation. With a global network of
approximately 700 ombudspersons, coverage is provided for every business and country in
which GE operates. Employees come to know their local business ombudsperson through
postings, articles and various Company intranet sites, and by ombudsperson introductions at allemployee meetings within the businesses, including integrity events and trainings.
As GE employment and business activity has changed, increased rigor around the ombudsperson
appointment process has been added. All ombudspersons speak the local language and
understand the culture and business environment of their locations
GE takes pride in their history of governance and their culture of integrity. No matter where they
operate, every GE employee is responsible for knowing and complying with integrity and
privacy guidelines.

Conclusion
The human capital strategy of GE is to make every individual the core of their strength and
success to keep them on the track and stay on top of success.
The General Electric HR team is all about developing real talent and being a business partner to
the organization. It is focused on building a positive and productive work culture, individual and
organizational capability, supporting global growth and being an effective employee advocate at
the same time.
Largely owing to its strategic human resource management, General Electric has been steadily
climbing the ladder of success and in the years to come they will continue to be one of the most
promising companies with respect to deliverance as well as one of the most promising
employers.
To conclude by quoting Jack Welch, Chief Executive Officer (1981-2001), General Electric Co.
in 2005,

"Great people build great companies. Talent development is not a slogan at GE, it is a way of
life."