1. General Electric - Best HR Practices
Project Report

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Basamgari Mounica
Anand Chaurasia
Mathan Anto Marshine P
Rachit Devendra Pradhan
Soumya Choudhary

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CONTENTS
Introduction - General Electric HR Practices 4
GE’s Current HR Mandate 4
General Electric HR Practices 5
HR Practices 5
Performance Management System 5
Vitality Curve 5
Session C 6
Training and Development 6
Leader in residence 7
"Rise" Program for mid-level managers 7
Analysis on Stringent Performance and Training and Development 7
Recruitment 8
Ability Edge Internships 8
Recruiting from Military 8
Employee references source 9
Employee empowerment and discipline 9
GE’s WORK OUT Process 9
Ombudsperson process 10

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Introduction - General Electric HR Practices
Vision
GE - The Most Competitive and Productive Enterprise in the World
HR- Credible, Visible, Value-Added Business Partner
HR initiatives and outcomes closely linked to business score card
• Anticipating Business needs, defining and creating what adds value to business performance
• Best HR talent with world-class functional skills and business understanding
• Making a GE job the best job in every community in the world by “Raising the Bar”.
Formal organization
General Electric's formal organizational structure involves a hierarchal system as Max Weber, a
German sociologist, describes as a form of bureaucracy that follows general rules of super and
subordination. Shareowners, the Corporate Executive Office, and the Board of Directors make up the
top of this structure. The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, Jeffrey Immelt, acts
as the intermediary between the top of the structure and the presidents of the seven sectors.
GE’s Current HR Mandate
Helping the Business Become More competitive
• Business Partner: Align HR and Business Strategy
• Change Agent: Manage transformation and processes
• Infrastructure Expert: develop and implement efficient and contemporary Organization
Structures and HR Practices
• Employee Champion: understand, respond and advocate employee issues within the context
of the business strategy

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General Electric HR Practices
General Electric too makes a strong emphasis on the importance of having a high performance
workforce to drive GE’s 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.
HR Practices
Performance Management System
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.

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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.
Training and Development
Second practice is the “Training and development” of GE’s 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.

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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.
"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.
However in our opinion these policies have their own pros and cons.
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.

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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.
• GE’s 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.
Recruitment
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.
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.

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Disadvantages
 Military leader were known to work by orders, hence out of box thinking will be quite less.
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.
Employee empowerment and discipline
GE’s WORK OUT Process
It is a 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

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• 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.
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 all-employee 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.