Talent Management Plan for Uber Inc Free Essay

Executive Summary

This paper is a proposition for a talent management plan for Uber, ride-hailing company. The report commences by analyzing key information regarding the present internal and external corporate environment practices that Uber Company operates with. The report continues to an identification of the key talents of Uber Company which are technical employees, general managers, and drivers. As such, this report then delves into an examination of both internal and external environments from where Uber Company may best source its talents. The report comes to a conclusion by a proposition and justification of a differentiated human resource management model for the above identified positions of talent.

Introduction

This paper is a proposition for a talent management plan for Uber, ride-hailing company. As a concept, talent management refers to the means by which the needs of the human resource in an organization are determined and the plan or stratagem aimed at providing or attaining the determined needs. In essence, it is a collection of procedures that provides structure about the main stages of the life cycle of an employee which includes; attracting, recruiting, developing, retaining, motivating, compensating, as well as terminating. It is a process which focuses on getting and keeping good workers, that is answer questions or if an employee is good for a firm, or if they have a potential to contribute to the success of the organization. The functional areas of talent management revolve around hiring, onboarding, learning, performance and goal monitoring, remunerations, succession, and development (Fitzgerald, 2014). This paper is a business report on talent management plan developed and justified for Uber Company.

An analysis and background on the current position of Company X

Uber Company is an international city-based cab service giant which was founded in 2009 and has continually grown over the recent times in terms of a number of employees and expansion to major world cities. Its core business is the provision of a marketplace for ride-hailing cab services which is enabled by a point to point technological-application that can be used in computer platforms that connect drivers and passengers. In the recent past, it has launched self-drives, air transports, quick and affordable food order, removal of health care barriers, freight reservations, as well as help companies offer a smooth travel experience to their clients (“Uber Newsroom,” n.d.).

Talent Management Plan

IDENTIFYING KEY POSITIONS

Talent management plan for Uber Company seeks to help in the alignment of their business strategy with its employees in order to meet the organizational goals and objectives. This can be attained by assigning the right workplace position to the appropriate worker (Charan, 2013). This strategy will help Uber Company in attracting and retaining talented individuals and whilst it is a responsibility of every division of the company, it should be a major concern for the HR department which hire, train, and develop an employee (Berger & Berger, 2011). Furthermore, to successfully enact a talent management plan, there is a need to incorporate the exercise of sharing information about key employees, their work history, as well as an accomplishment to every quarter of the company so that any division can use the available talent in any rising opportunity.

This is in the quest to appraise the underutilized talent to its highest possible potential. Uber Company’s utilization of talent management would be important not only to the organization but also to every single employee since a total assessment of the capabilities and interests of an employee will enable the company to place the employee in the right position which will I turn to make the employee sated and very productive. The top executive of the company would be able to comprehend the dynamics of each employee including their abilities, capacity, levels attained in education as well as the experience of the employees (Jones et al., 2012).

The positions of talent that this report identifies in Uber Company are technical employees such as engineers, general managers, and drivers. Uber’s general managers aid the top executive in the management of employees, or as Uber Company calls them in some regions, “contractors”. Technical employees like engineers are the intermediaries between drivers and top executive and are the key pillar of Uber. Drivers are the revenue generators for Uber. The choice of these employees as the talent pool of Uber Company is reached by a consideration of inclusive approach or the egalitarian theory which posits the vitality of the contribution of every employee in a company and therefore the potential of being a talent (Acar & Yener, 2016).

THE EXISTING INTERNAL TALENT ENVIRONMENT OF UBER

Initially, the organizational structure of Uber Company was hierarchical in nature where the chief executive officer yielded great power. With that model, the company was hit with major scandals pertaining to employees such as harassment, discrimination at a place of work, among other issues. This led to the resignation of the chief executive officer and a new CEO by the name Dara Khosrowshahi was appointed and the company was subsequently restructured. The CEO is atop the structure, and the subsequent divisions divided into two categories. One side has the senior vice presidents of engineering, business, policy and communication, and leadership and strategy. The other side has Chief officials in charge of financial, technology, legal affairs, human resource, products, and security. Directly under the CEO and below the two categories is the head of Uber everything, general counsel, and the president of ride-sharing (“Uber Newsroom,” n.d.).

The personal growth of Uber Company is overseen by the head of global operations. To hire leadership in a new market, the firm adopts a 3-split leadership scheme that includes three positions; a general manager, community manager, and driver operations manager. These employees’ roles are heading Uber’s business growth, marketing, and corporate development, and driver relations management respectively. Uber’s hiring process is done on the social media platforms as well as newspapers of the countries within which the career opportunity is set to be undertaken (Divyae  Sherry, UTC). However, Uber uses its website to market available vacancies in the career section of the website.

Uber’s head of worldwide processes, Ryan Graves confirmed that they change the hiring process over time and via varied channels where candidates are found and interviewed. With the 3-split model, the firm decided to hire based on the needs of the particular city, such that the company looks for certain skills and proper regional knowledge. The interview is a data-intensive process that the candidates are subjected to in order to be hired. They are required to be individuals with strong work morals and high-pressure workers (Moran, n.d.). Uber also hires from its competitors, a quest seen as to bring competitive advantage for the firm, and indeed it announced that it had hired more than fifty drivers in 2 big cities within 6 months, where employees from other cab services are paid twice the amount as to poach them.

Uber’s current hiring and succession plan have various problems as a record 4 percent of its employees only remain (McGee, n.d.). Its hiring model has met criticism since Uber drivers have continually complained of unmet expense as well them not being able to set their own pricing as per the markets which means that Uber evaded the responsibility of being an employer as it does not offer the driver’s employee benefits such as holidays or job guarantee. There are reports of widespread gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment in the firm’s head office. As reported by one of the former employees who was an engineer for the organization, Susan Fowler, she was sexually discriminated against by her team manager. On reporting to HR, her boss was not disciplined and further on, Fowler was moved to another team and discriminated against. She was not the only one subject to such harassments. The firm has also be slapped with claims of possible theft of intellectual property. Further on, two more issues came up, the CEO was involved in politics and the company might have subjected employees to evade authorities by use of software called “Greyball”. All this points to an uncomfortable work environment and the stringent series of questions used when hiring would not attract talent (Etherington, 2017). Further on, employee mistreatment was evidenced by the former CEO squabbling with an Uber driver.

PROPOSED NEW MODEL FOR TALENT DEVELOPMENT

In order to mitigate and avert the problems bedeviling hiring and talent development process at Uber Company, a clear strategy needs to be enacted. First, Uber needs to restructure its own remuneration scale for the Uber drivers so as to avoid the inveterate conflict between Uber’s corporate goals and its drivers who aim at maximizing their hourly revenue. Even though Uber would want to increase the number of drivers, the probable revenue earnings for each driver would decline. Therefore, it should increase the share that drivers accrue from the gross revenue to 45% of the gross revenue to meet the threshold set by fellow competitors like Lyft. Uber should offer signup bonuses for its new recruits (Divyae  Sherry, UTC).

In order to attract talent outside, its data-based interviews need to be restructured to only encompass market relevant information. Uber should consider the long-term perspective of growth and there work on creating its repute as a good place to work in (Fitzgerald, 2014). This would mean restructuring the HR department and giving it the power to act on a misuse of power by corporate leaders. The supervisors or project managers should be appointed based on merit and impeccable reputation that is aimed at ensuring the safety of each and every employee within the organization which will, in turn, make Uber organization a better place to work in (Buckner, n.d.). Uber should have a system by which disputes are resolved rather than moving discriminated employees and then subjecting them to unnecessary performance reviews.

CURRENT PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Uber’s performance appraisal is a unique technologized system where clients give feedback about drivers to Uber. It is made effective in real-time recording and delivery. The clients are requested to give a rating of the driver, and how the service was delivered to them after using the Uber services. Uber uses 3 key performances metric for divers that include the ratings of the driver, the number of rides that the driver accepts, as well as the frequency with which the driver cancels rides (Griswold, 2017). Upon delivery of a certain target, the firm offers an incentive by the way of business grant to the drivers. This performance management applies the inclusive or elitist theory which emphasizes on talent with ratings of performance of workers.

The performance management of Uber for office employees different from drivers is subjected to internal ratings and performance appraisals that has been branded “perf” by the Uber employees. This is a stack rating system where managers from every division of the firm allot those workers under them some numerical rankings alongside a bell curve. This system ranks employees in terms of high and low performance and the latter is fired twice in a year between a high (5) scale and a low (1). Those on the lower performance scale are categorized and subjected to a performance improvement plan which is a herald of firing should they fail to improve and also one is not able to transfer teams. This is considered not only competitive but also unfair by the Uber employees (Griswold, 2017). This competitive system subjects employees to unhealthy internal competition and probable favoritism by general managers to close friends or family. Former employees consider this practice a cause of downfall since instead of employees working together, they sidestep each other.

The shortcomings of the above performance appraisal system used by Uber Company are many and could be the downfall of the firm. The system espouses the notion that one worker succeeds only if another worker fails. Since employees are in constant direct competition as each employee seeks to be atop the best performers who are rewarded and not the 10 percent group that is to be fired. This assertion can make employees do anything possible to outdo their fellow employees (Ras et al., 2017). Uber’s ranking system is disastrous not only for the culture of the organization but also to the morale of workers since they will be always apprehensive of the prospects of their employment.

The ranking system makes Uber workplace a toxic environment where employees do not open up to the management. This would lead to a situation called “presenteeism” as they aim at avoiding any cause of them being fired. Further, this system puts a lot of pressure upon the employees who burnout hence endanger their health and will not enhance their performance. Since the rating and ranking of Uber employees are done by human beings, the assessment becomes subject to biases and subjectivity. Since the ranking system is based on just one yearly instance, they are not an accurate and reflective but rather are misinformed reports which might have been influenced by manager-employee hurt relationship (Griswold, 2017).

This system does not take into consideration the possibility of improvement by the employee. A worker could have improved their skill and expertise moving from year A to year B but they might still be placed on a low scale in the bell curve. All the hard work that the employee will have input will be rendered useless and make them be penalized Furthermore, deserving employees will not stand a chance of climbing the succession ladder (Charan, 2013). This would devastate the employees and make the firm lose a sedulous and promising talent. This has built a bad reputation for Uber Company and left unchecked, the firm would lose many of its employees to other firms which provide employees with a reasonable breathing room to work in (Deery, 2008).

PROPOSED HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT MODEL

Talent pool refers to an inventory or database of persons that Uber creates when applicants apply for jobs in the organization or employees inventory used for promotion in event of new opportunities. Owing to the dynamic and competitive nature of the business of ride-hailing sector, there is a need to enact a new human resource management model by Uber so as to meet the needs of the employees and increase productivity. The aim of the model is to create a productive and focused workforce by aligning talent with business objectives (Robbins & Coulter, 2009).

This is with the need to aid employees to comprehend their roles, inform them of the strategic objectives of Uber, and makes them aware of performance success from the employer and customers’ point of view. This calls for a need to give access to Uber’s employees their personal information within the organization so that they will monitor their career progress efficiently (Buckner, n.d.). This will be aided by an improved conversation model between managers and employees in the application of the organizational support theory. This is a talent management theory where employee’s responses to the way their contribution to Uber Company is being appreciated (Acar & Yener, 2016).

This performance management model is aimed at achieving three main outcomes; goal management, advance planning, and training, as well as succession planning. Goal management involves recognition of objectives of every employee and helping them prioritize them in order to achieve collaboration amongst workers as well as smoothen operations. Advancement planning and training involve selecting suitable individuals for the suitable place at the suitable time in Uber’s operations. The last outcome involves ensuring that every division of the company has the right leader always (Berger & Berger, 2011). In addition, the model involves a stepwise process of compensation and reward of employees and the development of leadership in employees.

This report proposes a 4-step approach model of human resource management in Uber Company. This encompasses clarity in the definition of talent management in Uber company, determining the particular groups or jobs to focus on, the kind of processes that will make up talent management, as well as deciding on actions that are to be undertaken to manage talent within the organization and attain reasonable results. For Uber company, talent management refers to the integrated series of procedures that are focused on the development of people to meet dynamic business needs (Campbell &Hirsh, 2013). This involves succession planning which seeks to keep potential employees for future high-profile jobs and workforce planning aimed at keeping the right people with the right skills.

The focus of this HR management tool for Uber Company is on the general managers for each region, company technicians such as project team members as engineers, and drivers. General Managers have region-specific knowledge and expertise which are critical for the penetration of Uber in a certain region. Company technicians who are engaged in projects have specific skills which are important for the firm. Drivers are the primary generators of revenue for Uber hence the need to put attention on them. The above-aforementioned individuals should be developed for a future leadership position in the firm and offered constant training for this process (Campbell &Hirsh, 2013).

As Uber has determined the talents necessary to keep, there is a need to establish a process for managing them. This involves a transparent process of integrating business need in relation to talent needs and tying them to the specific roles played by the employees. The talent development system for Uber involves grading performance difficulties, developing roles for particular talents, giving consideration in new ventures for consistent performers, progressing high-performers, and identifying high-performing employees for high-potential jobs (Campbell &Hirsh, 2013). Talent can be determined by abilities of the employees as skills, mannerisms, and attitude, aspirations in terms of goals and opportunities, as well as engagement which encompass emotive and logical commitment towards the success of Uber’s processes.

Uber needs to enact a continuous performance management which enables Uber’s employees to get and request responses in real time, allows manager-employee constant check-ins by an automated sequence of mail conversations, offer online outlines for efficient personalized discourses, and enable human resource and senior executive to determine if frequent performance conversations take place. This model also facilitates responsive goals and short-term priorities to be set and observed. This performance management should be integrated with employee engagement which seeks to enhance employee commitment towards working at Uber, achievement of Uber’s values and willingness to engage in teamwork to avoid unnecessarily internal competition. Employee engagement should be linked with employee value proposition and employer brand which encompass experience provided for Uber to workers as compensation for productivity and performance form the employees and includes rewards and benefits (Hearn, 2016). Employer brand will enable Uber to attract many outside talents and motivate current workers.

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN OF THE MODEL

The timeline for the implementation of this model would be a period of 6 months so that the system can be left to actualize. Since Uber is a global organization, this timeframe would allow the organization to restructure its operations, set-up the new performance management tool as well as systematically determine the compensation system. This model will be implemented by the top executive of Uber Company and with the fervency of Uber’s new CEO who has restructured the outlook of Uber; this model has the possibility of success. The estimated cost lies within limits of $15 billion as proposed by Goldsmith and Carter (2010) to have been used by Avon Products, an almost equal of Uber Company and with that amount of investment, Uber would expect returns of approximately $2.6 billion within six months of operations as by Avon Products (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010).

CONCLUSION

The process of talent management involves hiring the best talent with the abilities and expertise into the firm, assessing the performance of the employee. Depending on the employee’s performance, they should be rewarded by use of perks, motivations, or money. The managers are placed in charge of teams within their locations and they should be obligated to communicate and lead the team ethically and professionally to avoid mudslinging of the reputation of the organization. Talent management involves managing talents, Uber Company should recognize, grow, and retain individuals and match the organizational objectives that these individuals will effectively attain. It involves four steps of identifying requisite talent that matches their needs, implementation of performance measurement tools, enacting appropriate reward and compensation system, and developing the leadership of the employees.