Human resources management at Foxconn - 2 Essay

Human resources management at Foxconn - 2 - Essay Example It has been estimated that Foxconn currently supplies nearly forty percent of all electronic components required worldwide (Duhigg & Bradsher, 2012). Additionally, Foxconn generates a revenue of around 3.5 billion USD each year and employs around 1.2 million people worldwide, making it the single largest global employer (Business Week, 2013). In recent years Foxconn’s employment practices have come under intense scrutiny given a number of untoward incidents with Foxconn employees. The suicide rate in Foxconn workers shot up following 2010 in China while there was an intense riot in the Mexican manufacturing plant (Daily Mail, 2006). Human Resource Management (HRM) Issues and Solutions HRM Problems Foxconn has been blamed for providing workers with low compensation compared to other establishments. However, it must be taken into account that Foxconn’s Chinese plants are in one of the country’s poorest regions and hence people are willing to work for the wages offe red (Daily Mail, 2006). As long as labour supply and demand economics remain unaltered, the minimum pay of the workers in Foxconn’s plants will remain the same. On another note, there have been massive complaints that Foxconn tends to skip out on overtime payments even though workers are forced to work overtime. In certain cases, Foxconn employees have not been paid wages for various reasons without much proper justification. Additionally, there have been instances where work place accidents were either ignored outright or paid little attention to (Williams, 2012). This indicates that management attitudes towards safety are relatively low if not lax altogether. There have also been allegations that work place accidents are common at Foxconn manufacturing plants and often such accidents go unreported. HRM Solutions A number of different HRM solutions can be presented in order to deal with Foxconn’s current problems. This paper will limit its focus to Goleman’s Em otional Intelligence model and the Managerial Grid model in order to solicit solutions for Foxconn’s employment problems. Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence Goleman (1998) has declared that emotional intelligence is essentially the â€Å"sine qua non† of any leadership mechanism (Goleman, 1998). Emotional intelligence can be seen as the ability to recognise, evaluate and manipulate the emotions and emotional states of oneself and of other individuals. Goleman’s model (1998) asserts that a leader needs to be able to identify emotional symptoms in order to manipulate the worker to submit to the leader’s settled direction. However, it must be kept in mind that Goleman’s model (1998) has come under intense scrutiny on a number of different accounts and needs to be evaluated accordingly to provide solutions for Foxconn’s problems. For one thing, Goleman’s model (1998) has been criticised for being too qualitative in nature and of bein g unfounded through actual HRM practice. Goleman’s model (1998) and its derivatives do boast of quantitative tools such as the Emotional Competency Inventory (ECI) and the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI) but the use of such tools has not been approved of except in academic circles (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009). The application of Goleman’s model and its derivatives to the world’s largest private employer, Foxconn, would make little sense as