Toyota's HRM Practices in the UK

Toyota's HRM practices in the UK

Abstract

This report examines Toyota's HRM practices in Japan and looks at how changes were made when setting up the European plant in the UK. Toyota were faced by the pressure to remain internationally consistent with their HRM practices, which include, employee commitment, employee integration with the organization, flexibility and adaptability and lastly quality. However there were local cultural forces which also needed to be taken into account.

Introduction

The HRM strategy in Japanese companies is supported by the six pillars of Japanese employment practice – lifetime employment, company welfare, quality consciousness, enterprise unions, consensus management and seniority-based reward systems. Toyota is at the heart of global manufacturing, a company that has grown over 70 years to become the world's third largest vehicle manufacturer. (Toyota worldwide 2006) Toyota is the seventh largest company in the world and the third largest manufacturer of automobiles, with production facilities in 26 nations around the world employing more than a quarter of a million people. The decision to manufacture in Europe was based on a corporate policy of building vehicles where the customers are and The United Kingdom was chosen for many reasons including its history of vehicle manufacture, the large domestic automobile market, its components supply base and its excellent links with the rest of Europe.

The vehicle manufacturing plant is located at Burnaston in Derbyshire, the engine manufacturing plant is located at Deeside in North Wales.(Toyota Manufacturing UK 2006 ) the company has, since production began in 1992, grown to its current size with 5,500 members are employed. As ...

... middle of paper ...

...ions, consensus management and seniority-based reward systems – all suitably adapted to the local context, of course, this would force the adoption of Japanese practices such as Kanban(JIT) and Kaizen (continuous improvement), that call for flexible utilization of resourceful humans.

Legge, (2004)

Toyota was forced into adapting its strategies to different marketplaces as well as altering its management style. For example in Toyota UK the organisational structure corresponds to the traditional Toyota system which encourages team working and communication between workers this was done through training, sharing of information and knowledge between teams and team members. The fact that Toyota dealt with trade unions, shows departure from traditional Japanese organisational behaviour represented innovative adaptations on the part of the company to operating in the UK.