A Look into ACME Engineering’s People Practices

ACME Engineering is a Japanese manufacturing and sales plant, which makes it distinct from other UK Japanese plants that are exclusively dedicated to manufacturing operations (About ACME). Employees are enjoined as employees of ACME because of the attractive vision of Japanese management. They did not want the company to be peculiarly Japanese, but neither did they envision the company to be traditionally British and unionised. There is also a strong emphasis on the effective management of people, but with a distinct, non-union approach.
From a normative perspective, ACME seems to have taken a non-traditional stance to the personnel function. HR seems to have taken a more strategic role in the organisation – a clear paradigm shift. The concentration on the synthesis of HRM practices and policies with strategy has been depicted as a paradigm shift from a tactical to a strategic thrust or orientation (Thomason 57).

ACME is also strongly paternalistic, giving very conspicuous favours to deserving employees; in return they implicitly expect that employees will have enhanced psychological ownership and exhibit organisational citizenship behaviours. The paternalistic culture of ACME is not in itself negative, if viewed from the perspective of rewarding the best performing employees. Those who perform exceptionally well may receive intangible rewards apart from financial gain. Culture is a very critical factor to consider when drafting motivational programs or initiatives for employees and in judging which style of leadership is most apt (Managing Diversity 35).

The appraisal is conducted once a year and is their basis for a performance-based pay system. They also advocate continuous feedback giving, and the formal appraisal process is simply a documentation of the feedback that has been constantly given to the employee. There are pre-determined performance criteria, including quality of work, innovation, problem solving, and continuous improvement.

Traditionally, employee performance has been evaluated solely by supervisors. However, in ACME’s case, it is not so. The one who directly supervises the employee is not the one who rates him or her. This may be effective to some extent but may also be prone to bias. It may be recommended that both department manager and team leader carry on the appraisal, with their ratings carrying respective weights. To obtain an accurate view of the staff’s performance, other sources apart from one’s superior should provide feedback (Gruner 81). Sources of relevant information include supervisors, peers, subordinates, customers, and self-appraisal.

ACME grows leaders from within; however, it does hire externally for engineering and managerial sales positions. All production managers have been internally bred and grown.
There is transparency in promotion decisions, and people are aware of who the high potentials are even before the actual promotion transpires. The organisation is pragmatic in not “turn[ing] the organisation upside down to accommodate that” – pertaining to employees who have outgrown the job and yet do not have a vacancy to allow the promotion to take place.

There is a lack of HR systems in the current set-up of ACME. Clearly, there are no promotion criteria or policy, there are also no guidelines on the establishment of new positions, and the lack. Career paths are not clearly defined. These are some of the areas that may be further improved on and linked to performance as with the other HR systems.

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