The Walt Disney Company, which is commonly referred to as Disney, is one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in the world founded in 1923. The company operates diverse entertainment brands, such as Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Walt Disney Pictures. Despite the company having its headquarters in Burbank, California, it operates in more than 40 countries with more than 200,000 employees. The company has been affiliated with some of the most successful film projects in an out of Hollywood, which highlights its impressive position as a leading mass media and entertainment conglomerate. However, one of Disney's notable successes is on its human resources element, which plays a central role in defining its positioning as a leading stakeholder in the entertainment industry. This report aims to examine Walt Disney's approach to human resources to identify some of the key characteristics of its approach and its effectiveness.
Walt Disney’s Approach to Human Resources
Walt Disney’s success in the entertainment industry is directly hinged on the human element. The company recognizes the importance of its employees, who play a central role in defining its success. Therefore, Disney fosters an environment that would allow it to take care of its employees based on their different needs and wants through reframing its human resource approaches. Westbrooks (2012) notes that reframing helps in thinking about situations from multiple perspectives. The company holds a corporate image that defines its highest standards of ethics, quality, and social responsibility guided by the need to create a safe working environment. Disney’s goal is to ensure that its employees remain well motivated to perform in their respective positions.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Another important aspect of Walt Disney's human resources approach is that the company considers workforce development as a catalyst to achieving better performance. Workforce development refers to the involvement of employees in multiple programs aimed at enhancing their capacity to remain effective as part of a company. Disney involves many of its employees in multiple training and development programs guided by the need to enhance their performance and productivity outcomes. The company organizes these programs in each of the countries where it operates, which guides its capacity to maintain a sense of efficiency in defining its overall positioning as an employer. According to Disney’s Human Resources (2014) denotes that Disney’s approach to workforce development is reflective of a well-structured avenue to promoting a comprehensive environment that would guide their performance.
Disney focuses on three principles as it engages in human resources management, which has been of great value in delivering the best possible outcomes. The first principle is R.A.V.E., which is an acronym for Respect, Appreciate, and Value Everyone (Ligos, 2009). The company’s objective is to ensure that each of its employees feels respected and appreciated. Disney believes in the need to ensure that each of its employees maintains a close sense of connection to the company. The second principle focuses on bug efforts to help break the mold, which ensures that the company creates a wealth of opportunities for its employees. Disney motivates its employees by ensuring that they receive opportunities for their career growth and development. This principle conforms to the first principle considering that it highlights an environment where its employees feel a sense of appreciation and value. The third principle is the recruitment of candidates with exceptional talents, skills, and experience as a way of guiding the company's growth prospects.
Based on its human resource management principles, Walt Disney worked hard to advance the philosophy around working as a team by allowing its employees and cast members to work in teams to guide their progress. Creating a team philosophy has had notable advantages for Walt Disney considering that it has increased acceptance of its projects across different audience categories. Each team is allowed to brainstorm on some of the ideas that would be valuable for the company, especially those associated with determining key projects the company may consider. However, each of the employees is fully aware of their roles and responsibilities in the company, hence, improving the possibility of enhanced delivery. On its part, Disney ensures that its employees are well equipped with vast knowledge in multiple areas, such as leadership, as well as, professional and individual career development (Working Here Overview, 2014). Equipping its employees is essential considering that it gives them a sense of connection to the company; thus, creating the need for them to focus on improving its performance.
Human Resources/Human Relations Characteristics and Effectiveness
Employee Benefits
The first major characteristic of human relations in the company is employee benefits and perks. Some of the key benefits and perks that the company provides to the employees include insurance benefits, retirement benefits, and vacancy policies. The company ensures that the employees enjoy a wide range of benefits such as free admission to the park and discounts in major restaurants and gift shops that offer a certain percentage off the stated amount (Ligos, 2009). The human resource department has a mandate to capitalize on enhancing the benefits received by the employees. Disney capitalizes on increasing the benefits by focusing on a wide range of factors that concern the wellbeing of the employees. Other vital benefits that are accrued include weekly pay, annual pay rise, the stock purchase programs, and premium-pay incentives. Additionally, the company ensures that the employee in full-time positions receives their vacation and sick leaves promptly.
Another crucial aspect of benefits obtained by the employees include the provision of affordable insurance policies to full-time employees. Disney upholds the issues of quality healthcare among the employees. The company capitalizes on the establishment of different programs that have an immense benefit to the employees. Some of the programs include health fairs and seminars, wellness programs, life management services, among others. Additionally, the company focuses on providing leisure benefits to the employees to enhance their mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. The leisure benefits provided to the cast crew and the employees include Disney Cruise Line discounts, sports leagues admission, instructional programs, theme park admissions, among others. Part-time and full-time employees enjoy a wide range of benefits that include work and educational benefits. These benefits have a significant role in enhancing productivity levels.
The characteristics are considerably effective in enhancing and improving productivity levels of the company. The employees' benefits and perks play an integral role in increasing the motivation of the employees, which is a crucial aspect that helps towards improving individual and organizational productivity (Trahan, 2009). Another key aspect of employee benefits and perks is the increase in the satisfaction levels, thus making it possible for the employees to build on their roles and responsibilities without coercion. It is important to note that the company has invested in ensuring that the employees get the best working environment to create a platform for improved performances. Additionally, the characteristic has played an integral role in ensuring that the employees work towards the achievement of the stated goals and objectives of the company. Through the implementation of the human resource, characteristic mentioned the company has gained a competitive advantage in the industry and has remained a leading company that can focus on factors such as employee retention and engagement.
Employee Orientation and Training Program
The second characteristic of Disney’s human resources is the employee orientation and training program, which helps in reframing its human resource development. Mabey (2003) notes that reframing human resource development is a process that extends beyond the management of employees to ensure employees conform to specific norms and traditions. Disney is well known for its quest to ensure that its employees and casts perfectly undertake projects to guarantee overall effectiveness in acceptance among the audiences. The achievement of this outcome arises from the orientation and training program that the company has developed, which provides each employee with deep insight into the specific roles and tasks to undertake. Employee orientation begins with each employee going through the company's culture and traditions. Employees are given a brief overview of how the company has been performing over the years, which will help give them an insight into its success today. The next step involves taking the employees through the four park themes in-depth (Ligos, 2009). Employees and cast members use this as an opportunity to learn about how the company performs relative to its position as one of the largest entertainment companies.
It can be argued that the employee orientation and training program is rather effective in instilling Disney’s culture and traditions among its employees. Since it was developed, the program has been instrumental in creating a feeling of togetherness among Disney employees considering that it changes their perception towards the company. Disney focuses much of its attention on ensuring that its employees feel comfortable in their respective roles and responsibilities, which would guarantee improved productivity. The program is effective because it gives employees a much better connection with the company considering the value that each employee has in the company. Disney maintains a tradition of recognizing the value in its employees, which has been key in defining their motivation. Additionally, the company uses the program to ensure each employee familiarizes him/herself with the processes to avoid delays or accidents likely to hamper overall efficiency.
Recommendations for Walt Disney’s Human Resources Effectiveness
The current approaches to human resources that Disney considers have been of great value towards enhancing its competitiveness among companies in the entertainment industry. However, the company needs to consider several improvements, which would help maximize the effectiveness of these approaches. The first area of improvement is on the high employee turnover, which is one of the key human resources problems that Disney is facing. Disney is spending a significant amount of money as it undertakes recruitment, orientation, training, and induction of new employees into the company. The challenge is that the amount of money that Disney is spending as a result of high employee turnover is threatening to affect its future financial positioning. Therefore, the management at Disney needs to reconsider the approaches it is taking to help improve employee motivation, which is a lacking aspect; hence, the rate of employees’ turnover experienced.
The second recommendation involves the need for Disney to abandon the "casting" process, which it undertakes during every project. Instead, the company should focus on finding a cast that would aid in the development of long-term projects that would have positive financial implications on the company. The company's constant engagement in the "casting" process acts as an issue impact productivity of those working on the projects. Additionally, the "casting" process also acts as a source of discrimination where the company works on finding employees that fit a specific description, age, race, or ethnicity among other factors. The challenge for Disney is that the "casting" process is rather expensive considering that it focuses on the recruitment of a new cast for every project the company intends to undertake. Allowing its current employees to sign long-term contracts would have a far greater benefit considering that it will not only increase motivation among employees but would help in cost saving.
Lastly, Disney may need to reconsider its training and development programs with the intention being to ensure compatibility with multiple cultures. The entertainment industry is multicultural, which means that it focuses on projects that depict different cultures and cultural backgrounds. Disney has been involved in various projects that depict different cultures apart from popular culture, which highlights the importance of promoting compatibility. As has been noted earlier, Disney operates in more than 40 countries, which means that its employees are expected to work within multiple cultural environments. By reconsidering its training and development program, Disney will be in a much better position of restructuring its employees to work in multicultural environments to facilitate the best possible outcomes. The advantage that Disney will experience is that its employees will be in a much better position of engaging multiple projects regardless of cultural expectations.
Conclusion
The Walt Disney Company is one of the leading companies in the entertainment industry operating diverse entertainment brands, such as Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Walt Disney Pictures among others. The company has an employee base of more than 200,000. An in-depth evaluation of Disney's approach to human resources indicates that takes it upon itself to foster an environment that would allow it to take care of its employees based on their different needs and wants. The company has been at the forefront in promoting workforce development as a catalyst to achieving its goal of a better performance. The three principles that define its management of human resources are R.A.V.E., which is an acronym for Respect, Appreciate and Value Everyone, bug efforts to help break the mold, and recruitment of candidates with exceptional talents, skills, and experience.
References
Human Resources. (2014). The Walt Disney Company . http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/about-disney/human-resources
Ligos, M. (2009). How Mickey makes magic. Successful Promotions, 42 (5), 44-47.
Mabey, C. (2003). Reframing human resource development. Human Resource Development Review, 2 (4), 430-452.
Trahan, K. (2009). Make your company a magic kingdom. Sales & Service Excellence, 9 (2), 15.
Westbrooks, E. (2012). Reframing organizations: The human resources frame. Prezi . http://prezi.com/8n7gntvkuzw8/reframing-organizations-the-human-resources-frame/
Working Here Overview. (2014). Disney Careers . http://disneycareers.com/en/working-here/overview/
