Human Resources Assignment Pixar PDF

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Human Resources Assignment Pixar...

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EPD2

Human Resources Management

26/10/2017

Introduction Have you ever heard about Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Brave or Ratatouille? Well, they are all animated films made by Pixar. Pixar Animation Studios is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California that is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Lucasfilm computer division, before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986, with funding by Apple Inc. As of 2017, Pixar has released 19 feature films and several short films. Pixar’s stories have grown up with the children as they were raised as the adults of today. Now also their daughters and sons can appreciate and be part of this world. Pixar’s success has led the company to major achievements, like 8 Oscars for Best Animated Feature. Pixar is known for CGI-animated (Computer Generated Imagery) feature films created with RenderMan.

1. Figure out what the main strategy is following up “To infinity and beyond” Is a famous phrase of a well known feature film, Toy Story. It, was released in 1995 and it was the world’s first computer animated feature film, a huge change and radical innovation for the animated film industry, setting new challenges within it. Pixar made of this motto its guiding light. They follow this direction in managing the company and their goals. For them the sky has no limits and they go beyond the boundaries of the impossible, both technologically and creatively wise. The unconventional thinking, that is part of the company, has and is helping Pixar to achieve ambitious goals that they have set and allows them to be one step beyond in the computer animation industry. Pixar Animation Studios’ strategy, to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, is both Innovation and Quality Enhancement. After a thorough analysis of Pixar’s activities and brainstorming, we resolved that the main competitive strategy, followed within the company, is an Innovation Strategy. Why did we come to this conclusion? Pixar states that their strategy is based on “Unique ideas, compelling stories, visual artistry and cutting-edge technology". So if we take a look at Pixar’s track record it is unique thanks to the ideas and the producing breakthroughs that they made. In fact, Pixar's objective is to combine technology, they own and creative talent to develop computer-animated feature films with memorable characters and amazing stories that all the generations love. By taking a look at Pixar’s varied movies and its peculiar successful ways of working, we can demonstrate that Pixar Animation Studios follows an Innovation Strategy: the company’s orientation is set towards developing products and services different from the competitors. Their goal is offering something new, with different and unique characteristics and constantly innovating it.

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At the same time, we have found that the Innovation practices followed by Pixar are very closely related to those of a Quality Enhancement Strategy. Pixar’s thirst to develop new movies that cover modern and updated topics and story-plots owes its success. This is done by producing every movie with detail and very high quality standards. However, despite the close link between both orientations, we can see that the company uses its high quality to support its innovation strategy, which is the actual strategy followed to produce Pixar’s movies. In the early 1990s, Pixar was known as the leading technological pioneer in the field of computer animation. The years of R&D culminated in the release of Toy Story. In the following 22 years, they have released nineteen films. Pixar is known for having the movie ideas and scripts created inside the company, unlike other studios, they have never bought them from outside. All their ideas, stories, characters, worlds are thought and created internally by the highly talented human resources. During the film making, they also push the technological boundaries of computer animation, allowing to own dozens of patents. This shows how important the human resources are for the company. They are the key factor of success of pixar to achieve and maintain sustainable competitive advantage. Managing them is extremely important, for this reason, Pixar has created a set of principles that allow community of artists and technicians to do their best and show their talent. So, as we can see, innovation within Pixar is both connected to the creation of new and interesting ideas for the films and technological improvement, this combination allowed Pixar to be the leader within the industry.

2. Explain which behaviors are needed to such strategy “The adventure is out there” Innovation strategy requires specific conditions in order to achieve the goals of the company. The human resources management plays a major role in this sense. In order to guarantee Pixar’s success, the HR Practices need to be coherent with the overall business strategy. This will lead Pixar to a higher performance and to be more innovative and deliver high quality and original movies. The success of Pixar is due to their adherence to a set of principles and practices for managing creative talent and risk. Pixar is a community, they believe that lasting relationships matter, and share some beliefs: “Talent is rare. Management’s job is not to prevent risk but to build the capability to recover when failures occur”. As we learnt from the case study, it’s necessary that the human resources that are part of Pixar, have some specific behavioural roles:  Creative Which in Pixar is one of their main mantras. In the company creativity is the key to everything. The environment of fun in the company inspires the worker to imagine and

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to materialize the workers’ craziest dreams. Every idea is valued, no matter the content of it. They express that “good ideas are rarer and more valuable than good people is rooted in a misconception of creativity.”  Long-run focus They are really focused in the long run because of the producing process, takes almost 4-5 years to release a new film. Pixar, also understands that the world is changing and also want people like. So to maintain their position in the industry in the long-run they have to focus on the future and continue innovating.  Cooperation and Interdependence To make a new animated film, a lot of different competences and skills need to come together. Pixar works in teams, this requires a high level of cooperation between the people. However, they are aware that many tasks need to be completed individually by specific technicians.  Quality They are truly concerned about the quality of their movies, as we stated before, not only about the high quality standards and the appearance of the movie but also the story.  Less is more The quantity is not important. In the company workers have all the time they need to create the best animated film. As their producing process is so long, they are not that concerned about making a great number of movies. Their goal is to have a strong production and develop original movies and with a strong meaning. An interesting point is that Pixar has an agreement with Disney, in which they agree that they could only release a certain number of films per year.  Process and Results This concept is applied in Pixar everywhere. As we mentioned, Pixar’s animation process takes from 4 to 5 years to be completed. Their films are visually developed, meaning their process gives importance to visual presentation. They use traditional skills, like drawing, painting, sculpture and storytelling in their planning process. Technology and the artistic process enrich both the story and characters, which are the final result.This demonstrates that they are concerned of both because a good, well planned process leads to an outstanding result.  Risk-Taker Pixar company is a great risk-taker and that means also the workers are. It’s important that the staff has the right initiative and takes some risk. The executives support the staff and their ideas. They are aware of the skills and the competences they all have. Pixar, because it’s a risk taker, it’s always having brilliant ideas and creating new films. This differentiates them from the competitors that are adverse to risk and that copy, not only the idea, but also the way of success of leader companies like Pixar. The correct level of risk leads to a greater success.  Reaction to Change The environment is constantly and rapidly changing, setting new challenges, especially for companies that innovate, like Pixar. Pixar is operating in an environment with a high level of uncertainty. For this reason, the staff has to be tolerant with the complexity and the changes. This requires a high level of flexibility, adaptiveness, quick response. Pixar accepts the uncertainty, although

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it can be uncomfortable and challenging for them, and they have the capability of adapting fast to the changes.

3. What is the orientation of HRM practices? “You and I are a team” Pixar is seeking for creativity and for hardworking staff. At the same time they seek for talents that work in a different way. Fundamental to this is a unique culture which enables the company to unshackle people's imaginations and create the best products and services in the market. Since they prefer good people rather than good ideas, their HR department is key. So, to make this possible, they follow some practices: 1- Putting fun back into work: Culture of fun is one of the main aspect when unleashing the creative talent of their employees. Pixar uses several techniques in order to reduce stress levels and make employees comfortable. For instance, during meetings, koosh balls can be thrown around or you can see some executive blowing bubbles in order to relieve some of the tension. They even share jokes with one another to break potential meeting monotony. Therefore they become excited about what they’re doing and engage more to their work. While they are having fun in work they are still working towards a common goal and vision: Making great films. 3-Training: Training at Pixar is one of the most important elements of the company. It also makes it a great place to work. Pixar has its own University that offers more than 110 classes that are either related to the specific job of the employee or not. PU curriculum forces everyone to work together and complete tasks and assignments. According to Pixar, it’s important that every person, that is part of the organisation, can learn something new or improve his skills. In this way they are able to have a continuously well trained staff that is also curious of learning new things and opening its horizons. Pixar knows that their employees have unlimited potential and the more they are exercised the better they can work. Moreover, Pixar’s HR department also has created a comprehensive orientation process which trains employees in order to make them understand the company’s visions and values. 4- People is key: Since they want good people, recruitment process is key. They normally look for: 1. People who have failed. Looking for people who have failed and overcome which is key if you’re asking someone to solve a never-before-solved problem. 2. Highly talented. “If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they’ll screw it up. But if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they’ll make it work.” 3. They look for is people who are interested rather than interesting 4. Good communication skills

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5- Office design: Pixar’s office design builds community and contributes to developing informal ties and knowledge across the organization. The cafeteria, meeting rooms, employee mailboxes and restrooms are centralized to make it more likely employees will interact with one another. 6- Constructive feedback mechanisms: Directors, writers and heads of story come together every few months to review a film’s progress. Since making a film is a tough process, feedback becomes extremely important. Helping one another can make incredible things. Following a screening of the film and comments from the director, his or her peers provide feedback about what they liked and what needed to be improved. 7- Open communications: During the making of Toy Story, production managers tried to force artists and technologists to follow the chain of command when discussing the project with others. The artists and technologists rebelled and started acting disrespectfully to production managers. It got so bad that production managers no longer wanted to work at Pixar. They decided that anyone should be able to talk to anyone else, at any level, at any time, without fear of reprimand...It’s more efficient to adjust to more open communications. 7-Recharge. Apart from monetary compensations, Pixar provides its employees additional time off after intense periods of film production. Pixar is concerned about their employees’ health and encourage healthy routines, for example sport activities and doctors and masseuses visit Pixar weekly. Pixar’s HR Practices encourage employees to trust one another and feel comfortable sharing opinions, insights, and ideas in order to achieve the best result.

4. Conclusion: coherence? “Together, even the smallest can achieve the greatest goal” As it is said before, Pixar has matched the competitive strategy to their HRM practices in order to be more competitive and productive. Since they want to innovate, their recruitments procedures and the day-to-day work are, as well, innovative. They seek for creative, open-minded and talented people who match perfectly with the firm culture and strategy. Since we were talking about innovation, and, as we know, technology changes a lot, Pixar does not only develop its technology but their employees’ knowledge through training courses in order to adapt them to the dynamic environment. Thus, makes Pixar’s employees become more flexible and make them react quicker to the changes in the environment. These training practices make possible the creation of new films and products that have never seen before. Moreover, they want creative and open-minded workers who must be also, capable to understand that cooperation is key. In order to make a film, several departments need to work hand in hand to bring the best result as possible. Therefore, they need to be conscious not only the process they follow in order to bring a movie into life but also

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the higher risk level they are working with. Film industry is tough and unpredictable and maybe the customers will love or will hate that film you were working during 2 years. Pixar employees are taught to manage unpredictability and risky situations, they know how much is at stake when they create a new project but they know how to overcome failure, which is key to become a trendsetter. However, despite the fact that they know how daring their work is, they are not afraid to show their ideas, a key element to innovate. For instance, who would have thought that the cowboys doll and the astronaut action figure adventures would become the phenomena Toy Story is. This risky but responsible behaviour is also shown in the Human Resource practices, which engage perfectly with the competitive strategy the firm follows, if Pixar dares so does their HR Department. These examples are just a part of how well coordinated the HR department is with the firm and their strategy, making it one of the most successful company in the film industry.

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