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FACULTY OF ENGINEERING & COMPUTING

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

TOYOTA CASE STUDY

Module Leader:Anthony Olomolaiye

Submitted by: Xiaowei Wang

2010

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HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT COVENTRY UNIVERSITY

Contents

1.0 Abstract........................................................................................2

2.0 Introduction.................................................................................3

3.0 SWOT Analysis...........................................................................3

4.0 Human Resource Management....................................................6

4.1 Culture..............................................................................................6

4.2 Structure...........................................................................................8

4.3 HRM Issues....................................................................................11

4.4 Leadership......................................................................................11

4.5 Recruitment....................................................................................12

4.6 Team Working and Mentoring.......................................................14

4.7 Communication and Influence.......................................................16

4.8 Performance and Motivation..........................................................17

4.9 HRM Aspects in Other Systems.....................................................19

4.10 Mission, Vision and Management of Change..............................20

5.0 Conclusion.................................................................................22

Reference........................................................................................25

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1.0 Abstract

Toyota Motor Corporation (TOYOTA) is an automotive manufacturing

enterprise which was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937. In current automotive

market, Toyota leads the development of the global automotive industry through its

excellent products and management system. This report adopts the SWOT analysis to

understand the situation and the future opportunities of the company. Then the

companys structure, culture and strategy are discussed to assist the analysis of this

company. Toyota tries to provide the best service to its customers and dedicate to the

customers as their tradition. The company delivers this through working as teams, no

matter local teams or global teams.

Some human resource management aspects of Toyota show that how the

company manage its human resource. These aspects comprise recruitment, training

and mentoring, performance and motivation, and other aspects in management

system. According to companys human resource management, its current situation

and some recommendations are given in this report. Because of its excellent human

resource management, Toyota attracts many talents to work for it. Effective human

resource management closely combines with the cultivation of core competitiveness

in the enterprises. Toyota cant succeed without the support of human resource

management.

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2.0 Introduction

Toyota Motor Corporation (TOYOTA) is an automotive manufacturing

enterprise which was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 and belonged to Mitsui

industrial tycoons. Kiichiro Toyoda was born in Japan and graduated from Tokyo

Imperial University. At end of 1929, Kiichiro Toyoda personally inspected the

European automotive industry. In 1933, he found the Automobile Department at

Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd.

It is headquartered in Toyota City and Bunkyo, Tokyo. Toyota is one of the

world's top ten automotive companies and largest automobile company in Japan.

Since 2008 Toyota Motor Corporation gradually replaced General Motors as the

largest car manufacturer in the world (Toyota 2010). Its brands include Lexus, Toyota

and other series which face different customers.

Early brands such as Toyota, Crown and Corolla are very famous, recent

Cressida, Lexus also attract many customers. Toyota's logo of three ellipses is used

from the beginning of 1990. The large oval means the earth, the other two ellipses

represent Toyota. Toyota's products cover automobiles, steel, machine tools,

agricultural chemicals, electronics, textile machinery, fiber fabrics, household goods,

chemicals, construction industries and so on. Annual production of vehicles is 6.809

million in FY 2010 and sales result are 7.237 million vehicles (Toyota 2010).

Currently, Toyota is the largest car company in the world, playing a pivotal role in

automotive industry.

3.0 SWOT Analysis

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SWOT analysis is the method which lists major internal strengths, weaknesses,

external opportunities and threats closely related to the objective through surveys,

then arranges these elements according to matrix form (Bratton and Gold 2003).

Researchers can use systematic analysis to match various factors and analyze them in

order to draw the corresponding conclusions which usually involve a certain degree of

decision-making.

Using this method, the researchers can investigate the situation of objectives

comprehensively, systematically and accurately, and develop the appropriate

development strategies, plans and countermeasures according to the results. SWOT

analysis is often implemented in developing enterprises strategies and analyzing

competitors situation, in strategic analysis, SWOT analysis is one of the most

commonly used methods(Amos et al. 2008).Toyota Motor Corporation (TOYOTA) is a leading automotive manufacturing

enterprise. The enterprises products cover automobiles, steel, machine tools and so

on. During last few years, the company continuously develops its products. However,

the rising prices of raw materials and other cost negatively impact the performance of

company (DATAMONITOR 2010). Figure 1 shows the SWOT analysis of Toyota

Motor Corporation.

Strengths

Global brand

Continuous improvement

in products

Stable quality

Weaknesses

Weak performance in Asia

Some products quality

problems

Opportunities

New market in China or

Threats

Competition in global

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Indian

New demand for hybrid

electric vehicles and small cars

market

Rising raw material prices

Market shrinkage in US

Figure 1.The SWOT analysis of Toyota Motor Corporation.

Strengths:

Toyotas brand can be the most recognizable in many countries and areas. Since

the enterprise established, the company has successfully attracted the customers

around the world. Through great effort for the past many years, Toyota becomes the

leading provider of automobile products. Toyota has its market leadership because of

products stable quality which has been the customers favorite. Toyota always

focuses on its product improvement, with continuous investment in products research

and development, Toyota always provides new products to satisfy different customer

needs. The company can gain a significant competitive position in the market with

these advantages.

Weaknesses:

Although Toyota has very proud achievements, Toyotas operating performance

is weaker than other regions. Toyotas market, sales and production in Asian

countries are lower than developed countries during last few years. For instance, in

2009, the sales in U.S.A are 1.770 million vehicles while the sales in China are 0.716

million vehicles (Toyota 2010). Reducing sales and profit of Toyota in Asian

countries indicate the company should improve its operations in this area to gain the

automotive market. Besides the weak performance in Asia, the quality problems

emerge in some series of products. These quality problems seriously influence

company image and make the cost increase substantially.

Opportunities

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As mentioned before, Toyotas performance is weak in Asia, which brings new

opportunities for Toyota. Asian counties, such as China, India, continuously develop

in this decade, because of large number of populations, the demand of automobiles

increase. If Toyota can grasp opportunities in Asia, the company will develop further.

Due to the increase of oil prices, economic crisis and other reasons, the demand

of hybrid electric vehicles and small cars keeps growing in the future, which will

aggrandize the companys revenue and the competitive strength in the market. For

instance, the worldwide sales of Toyota hybrid electric vehicles reached

approximately1.047million vehicles in May 2007 (Toyota 2010). The emphasis on

positive market trends becomes Toyotas competitive advantage.

Threats:

In 2008, the economic crisis engulfed the entire world, especially in developed

countries. Until now, the economy is recovering slowly. The economic crisis has

brought about the slowdown of demand to automotive products and rising raw

material prices. Shrinkage of the market affects the company, for instance, customers

choose to buy their new products more cautiously and decrease the frequency of

replacement, the US sales declined from 2.620 million vehicles in 2007 to 1.770

million vehicles in 2009 (Toyota 2010). Besides these, the intense competition from

its large rivals, such as Ford and Honda mounts the large pressure on Toyota. The

rising of raw material prices indicates that the component and production cost will

increase which will reduce the companys future profit and cash flows.

4.0 Human Resource Management

4.1 Culture

Every enterprise has its own particular culture, organizational culture is the soul

of the enterprise, which successfully reflects the pursuit of the enterprise and spirit of

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enterprises employees.

Schein (1990) gave a useful definition of culture which is suitable for Toyota:

Culture is a pattern of basic assumptions invented, discovered, or developed by

a given group as it learns to cope with problems of external adaptation and internal

integration that has worked well enough over time to be considered valid and

therefore can be taught to new members the way to perceive, think, and feel in

relation to those problems.

There are five main principles in Toyota (Toyota 2010):

Be faithful to own duties, thereby contributing to the company and to

the overall products.

Be studious and creative, continuously develop, striving to stay ahead

of the times.

Be practical and avoid frivolousness.

Carry forward the spirit of friendship, strive to build a homelike

atmosphere at work that is warm and friendly.

Have respect for God, and remember to be grateful at all times.

These principles reflect the integration of Toyota's goals, beliefs, the pursuit,

philosophy and values of Toyota, and give expression to the spirit of Toyota. During

decades, Toyota has been under the guidance of these principles to operate its

business. This enterprise culture has been firmly entrenched in Toyota employees

minds, thereby form unified values, shared beliefs and the same personal goals of all

the employees. Because of the motivation of these principles, the employees of

Toyota are dedicated, working hard and constantly improving productivity to create

outstanding achievements.

The company tries to provide the best service to its customers and dedicate to the

customers as their tradition. Toyota keeps on pursuing high quality products and

service to satisfy the customers. The company delivers this through working as teams,

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no matter local teams or global teams (Liker, Hoseus 2008). The relationship between

the customers and employees, the reputation and the trust can be the importance

factors to a companys existence.

Throughout the 70 years development, Toyota develops form small to large,

from weak to strong, from general to excellent, because of promoting the companys

culture to provide customers with better products. However, with the development in

recent years, Toyota's culture gradually changes which brings some problems. Recent

leaders of Toyota might become a little greedy and impulsive, pay attention to the

rapid development and slack off in quality management. High-speed expansion, rapid

development and expanding global market share particularly in North America, have

become the theme of Toyota in recent 10 years, while the company culture that the

older generation created gradually decreases. This situation leads to the quality

problems of car mats, accelerator pedal and brakes which cause damage of reputation.

It is difficult for Toyota to rebuild the good reputation. These problems need to be

solved through Toyotas effort.

4.2 Structure

Organizational structure is the fixed pattern of relationships within the various

departments, organizations and members, which is also designed by the organization

under the guidance of the organization theory, in order to achieve organizational

objectives (Torrington, Hall and Taylor 1987). Outstanding organizational structure

can help the enterprise produce good performance. If the enterprises have the poor

structure, no matter how excellent employees are, the enterprises will fail to gain the

market share.

In 1936, Toyota produced its first AA Sedan, after 70 years development, Toyota

becomes one of the world's top ten car companies. Through learning and the

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introducing European technology and management mode, Toyota quickly masters the

advanced automotive technology and production management. In accordance with the

characteristics of the Japan, Toyota creates the famous Toyota production

management mode, and continues to improve and perfect this mode.

After 1990s, in order to promote the demand of quick response to market, Toyota

introduced "the 21st century organizational reform plan. After the reform, Toyota

abolished the level of kachoo (section supervisor) and introduced project management

system, which substantially increase the proportion of the personal capacity in the

personnel evaluation (Liker, Hoseus 2008). R & D departments have reduced from 49

to 27, which makes the communication between the ministers become more

convenient; chief engineers used to coordinate with 12 departments, now only six

departments, the amount of coordination decreased 30%; the staffs were authorized to

expand the scope of their responsibility, so they can think about the problems from

the overall view of the automobile. Surplus employees who were generated from

business reduction, were assigned to the new higher creative projects (Steven, H. Kent

1999). These changes swept away the tedious and complicated operations in Toyota,

renew vigor and innovation within Toyota, and improve Toyota's core

competitiveness in the new period.

In 1992 Toyota set up multi-development centers, to transform into R & D

organization mode of multi-project management. R & D departments were

reorganized into four development centers, within each center the company still

implements strong matrix organizational structure and project management. The first

center is responsible for rear-drive platform and vehicle development; second center

is responsible for front-wheel drive platform and related development; the third center

is responsible for functional vehicles, the platform of light trucks and related models

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development; the fourth development center is responsible for research of advanced

automobiles and other kinds of automobiles.

Toyota reduces the number of functional engineering departments from 16 to 6,

which improves the level of engineering professionalism in the departments; Toyota

also reduce the number of projects which the managers are responsible for from 15 to

5, therefore the managers have more time to coordinate with chief engineers, and pay

attention to departments knowledge accumulation, resource allocation and

technology sharing; chief engineers and managers report to the same superior together

which decreases conflicts and contradictions; through the establishment of the fourth

center, the fourth center simplifies the work of other three centers to avoid the

situation that previous R & D departments were responsible for the development of

both vehicle and a large number of components.

In order to spend the time with each employee, to establish a relationship of trust

and train the capacity of solving problems, Toyota has found 5 is the ideal span of

control for a work team (Liker, Hoseus 2008). But there are different sizes of the

teams in Toyota, most of teams own 6 to 8 members. Toyota chooses to consider the

employees as the most important parts at the top of organizational structure. The

structure of Toyota is shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 2.TOYOTAs Structure (Liker, Hoseus 2008: 234)

4.3 HRM Issues

Toyota has its own special structure and culture, simultaneously it faces some

problems in the companys human resource issues. For instance, because of the

recruitment of new employees and retirement of many senior leaders, the company

worries that its thrift, rigorous culture will be lost and exhausted, these cultures have

played a crucial role to be successful. In the past years, Toyota hires about 40,000

workers, who know little about the company culture. Besides this, the recent leaders

of Toyota become a little greedy and impulsive, pay attention to the rapid

development and slack off in quality management, which causes the quality problems

around the world. The leaders should consider the market situation more cautiously.

4.4 Leadership

Leadership can be described as a combination of a series of acts which will

inspire people to follow the leaders and their orders. According to the definition of

leadership, leadership will be found around peoples life, in government, in the

military and in multinational companies, even a small family. Leadership exists in all

areas, which is the core of everything people do (Armstrong 2005). In the period of

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information revolution, leadership decides the companies characters and destiny.

Even if an enterprise has very high performance in other areas, with poor leadership,

the enterprise will lose the market. The good leadership behaviors include the

listening skills, role model, giving the feedback and so on.

Toyota cultivates leaders within the company and searches suitable people,

instead of "Airborne." Toyota doesnt consider the leader's responsibility as just

completed work and good interpersonal skills. They believe that leaders must be the

model of company's philosophy and ways of doing things, then the leaders can train

employees who completely understand and support the company's culture to be next-

generation leaders. Toyota would prefer to cultivate a leader from enterprise internal

and seldom hire the leader from outside.

Genchi genbutsu is a Japanese word which is one principle of Toyota. This

principle implies that the solution of problem is to personally see the actual situation

and own first-hand information. No matter in any aspects, the leaders should be the

one always in the place of operation. In todays Toyota, leaders must personally

observe that the materials are sent to the production process, must personally view the

on-line operators are using security lights to request support and when it is necessary,

suspend the production line, and so on (Liker, Hoseus 2008). Toyota requires the

leaders to go out of the offices, investigate the existing problems, lead executives to

stores, look for the evidence of waste in Toyota, search encumbrance of providing

value to customers, and communicate with distributor to deal with the pricing strategy

which causes divergence.

Compared with the traditional organizational forms of enterprises, most

organizational structure of enterprises is top-down, while Toyota places the valuable

employees on top of the structure as shown in Figure 2 (Liker, Hoseus 2008).

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Business leaders instruct, impart and support the team employees who are doing

value-added work. In other words, the leaders services for the team. Their duties are:

they should strengthen enterprises common objectives, identify the team functions

and tasks, provide coaching, help the team to solve problems, and ensure the team to

get deserved encouragement and authorization.

4.5 Recruitment

Competition among modern enterprises increasingly becomes cruel and fierce, if

enterprises enhance their competitive advantages in the commercial war, the

enterprises must constantly adjust and replace the employees quickly. Successful

recruitment can find the suitable job-seekers legally and effectively to meet the

enterprises needs of employees. Therefore, the successful recruitment is a

prerequisite of enterprises development (Liker, Meier 2007). Recruitment has an

important significance in human resource management which directly relates to HR

formation of the enterprise. Effective recruitment can enhance the employees quality,

improve the personnel structure, simultaneously bring new management ideas into the

organization, and increase new vitality to the organization, even cause major

innovations of enterprises technology and management. Recruitment is considered as

the foundation of enterprises human resource management activities, effective

recruitment lays a solid foundation for future training, evaluation, wages, labor

relations and other management activities.

Toyota's comprehensive recruitment system is aimed at recruiting the best

employees who have responsibility, the company has made great efforts to achieve

this objective. In general Toyota's recruitment system can be divided into six stages,

the first five stages of recruitment last about 5 to 6 days, including the initial

selection, evaluation of technical knowledge and working potential, collective

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interview, a comprehensive physical examination, and evaluation of employees

interpersonal skills and decision-making capacity. Finally, in the sixth stage, the new

employees need to receive 6 months assessment of working performance and

development potential, employees will accept tight attention and training in different

aspects.

Toyota's recruitment philosophy is to choose the right, not the best (Liker, Meier

2007). Like other multinational companies, Toyota recruits fresh university graduates.

Toyota promotes life-long employment. Because the company provides stable work,

good benefits, and employee turnover rate is extremely low, the company is very

strict to control recruitment. If departments plan to propose increasing the employees,

additional detail and persuasive quantitative analysis reports are needed. Generally if

there is no increased business, the plans are difficult to get the approval from

personnel department.

From a comprehensive recruitment system, first, Toyota not only needs the skills

of employees but also examine the values of employees and investigate the

employees quality, spirit of continuous improvement, teamwork and so on; second,

the company emphasizes continuous improvement, basic skills test, psychological test

of professional attitude and simulation tests of problem solving have contributed to

the formation of a good team; third, employees self-selection is an important

recruitment process. In the early stages of recruitment, or in 6 months probation

period, Toyota provides employees the opportunity to choose to stay or not, at the

same time eliminates incompetent staff.

4.6 Team Working and Mentoring

Team working is the voluntary spirit to achieve the objectives by the efforts and

cooperation. It can mobilize all the resources and intelligence of team members, and

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automatically eliminate all the discord and injustice, simultaneously it will give those

sincere and selfless dedicators the appropriate returns (Stredwick 2005). If the team

working is completely voluntary, it will produce a powerful and enduring force.

When enterprise becomes larger and larger, management becomes more

complicated, most work depends on team working. In Toyota, flexible team working

has become one common form of organization, sometimes the same person

simultaneously belongs to different teams which are responsible for different tasks.

Large team which promotes Toyota's new product development plan, which consists

different team members from different departments, including marketing, design,

engineering, manufacturing, procurement and so on (Steven, Kent 1999). The

members work together, greatly reducing the time of new products introduction and

providing higher quality, lower cost. Because a lot of problems have been fully

considered from the beginning, before the problems bring the troubles, the problems

have been solved by professionals. The small team is a first-line production unit.

About 5 to 8 employees build a basic production team, which is led by a team leader,

the members help each other to complete production tasks together as shown in

Figure 2.

In Toyota, the team working is truly implemented the daily operation. Many

companies have taught the various methods to solve difficult problems, and set up the

team to hold regular meetings for improvement suggestion. Toyota has effectively

integrated this way with the daily management system together. In engineering, in

sales, in finance, or in factory production, gathering the related employees to resolve

the problems becomes a habitual working style (Steven, Kent 1999). All employees

have been incorporated into the working teams, the team leaders are responsible for

the whole team, and summarize the results of everyday work. The team working

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solves the companys problems.

Toyota pay attention to the mentor employees, the company developed the

comprehensive staff training and mentoring system to support the team members to

become outstanding employees. Some people think that training for staff development

should be the functions of the department through a series of training courses.

However, Toyota's tradition is a skilled person to learn through in-service training.

This approach resembles a skill training system. The daily guidance uses mentoring

approach. All new employees are also mentored with Toyotas mode, accepting the

guidance from senior employees. The senior employees are responsible for mentoring

all things, this approach produces very good results, the time of mentoring is usually 6

months (Liker, Hoseus 2008). During the work, daily life, professional employees

give the new employees guidance and attention, and coordinate new employees

interpersonal relationship. This mentoring approach is institutionalized in Toyota.

4.7 Communication and Influence

Any team needs cooperation among members to achieve the team objectives,

interpersonal collaboration is more effective than individual effort. However, any

organization is constituted by the people, differences among members abilities,

interests, expectations and objectives lead to different levels of conflict, which has a

serious impact on organizational performance.

In order to solve the problems, it requires team members with different

experience and backgrounds to communicate effectively, the communication makes

the members understand each other, and solve all the problems through collaboration.

Communication is an important component of management activities in an

organization. To determine whether an organization is full of vitality and

development potential, it is important to see whether the members exchange

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information and feelings. Employees clearly understand the organization's principles,

policies, and situation, establish a mature and complete communication system, and

then create a trust and satisfactory employee relations, in order to achieve

management objectives effectively and maintain long-term developmental energy of

organization (Stephen, Robbins 2010).

Toyota requires managers to communicate with their employees, so the

employees understand their strengths and weaknesses, which can also help the

managers to understand the employees well. The leaders should communicate with

their employees to get employees understanding, because each employee can

represent the company and their behavior can influence the companys performance.

The employees communicate with consumers by eliminating the fear quickly to

reduce corporate crisis. Toyota believes relationship between employees and

managers should be mutual trust rather than against each other. Employees and

managers should devote themselves to product improvement in order to become a

world-class company.

Besides this, the company pays attention to communication among the

employees. Group activities within the company are based on the characteristics of

employees, and divide employees into smaller groups. Small groups allow

participants to be more casual and have intimate contact, which is very helpful to train

the thought of team working (Liker, Hoseus 2008). An employee can participate in

different groups with different roles. By participating in these meetings, the

employees can carry out social activities and have the opportunity to communicate

with each other at the same time. For these group activities, the company builds the

gymnasium, assembly hall, meeting rooms and other facilities for free use. The

company doesnt intervene nor limit these groups.

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The employees set up such organizations with individual expenses, leaders of

groups are elected by each other. Therefore every employee has the opportunity to be

a leader and bring his ability into full play. These gatherings have a common

condition that is these groups become places of interaction where the employees

communicate with each other, self-inspire, and effectively use spare time to

communicate with other members from different departments.

4.8 Performance and Motivation

Performance is an objective impact from the working behavior, methods and

results in a certain period. In the enterprises, the performance of the employees can be

considered as the quantity and quality of completed work, cost and other contributions

to the enterprises. The performance of individual employee is determined by

assessing and evaluating. Performance management is the strategic and integrated

process which delivers sustained success to organizations by improving the

performance and capabilities of the employees (Armstrong 1994).

Motivation is also an important part of company management. The employees

performance is related to their ability and motivation. In an enterprise, scientific

motivation system has some functions. Many enterprises in developed countries,

especially those which are competitive and powerful, use a variety of preferential

policies, benefits, fast promotion and other efficient methods to attract and retain

business talents. Motivation develops employees potential to promote employees

giving full play to their talents and wisdom. Scientific motivation system contains a

competitive spirit, it operation creates a healthy competitive environment and

competition mechanism.

Toyota assesses its employees performance through interviews to determine the

objectives of appraisal and evaluate the degree of achievement (Jeffrey H., Kentaro

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2000). Through the interview, the leaders understand which kind of support the

employees need, and employees attitude, abilities and areas for improvement during

the process of achieving objectives. Through performance appraisal, the company

brings forward expectancy of future work, the employees can correct the

shortcomings. In fact, performance appraisal can assist the employees to achieve the

transformation from quantity to quality, and promote employees continuous

development. Performance appraisal of Toyota is also a process of personnel training.

Toyota's motivation system not only contains the collectivism of the Japanese

companies and the cultural characteristics of long-term employment, but also

emphasizes the corporate values which are mutual trust, practice and the team

working. For instance, in addition to stable employment, there are ubiquitous rewards

for employees (Norman 2008). Toyota emphasizes the reward and a lighter

punishment, Toyota establishes many policies about the punishment, but the leaders

seldom punish the employees. Besides these, the personnel training system and

different employees activities motivate the employees to work harder. Toyotas

motivation makes the employees continuously develop their potential and improve

their performance.

4.9 HRM Aspects in Other Systems

When the employees are recruited in Toyota, they must read and understand the

staff handbook. Toyota uses the staff handbook to introduce the situation and history

to employees. Then handbook helps the employees to understand the company culture

and basic policies of behavior standards. Employees responsibility and related rights

are also mentioned in the handbook. Toyota uses the staff handbook to ensure the

employees clearly understand their responsibility, related rights, rewards and so on,

then according to the policies of the handbook, Toyota gives employees relevant

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rewards and punishment every year. The use of staff handbook gives employees better

understand of their position and the company's culture, therefore employees further

contribute to the development of the company.

In other aspects of human resource management, Toyota commits to create

pleasant working atmosphere (Liker, Hoseus 2008). Toyota provides a clean and safe

working environment to employees. The leaders keep commitment of healthy and safe

working environment to their employees. Toyota establishes a health and safety

management system, specifically to prevent the occurrence of accidents and rapidly

respond to these emergencies.

After nearly a century of continuous improvement, Toyotas salary system has

been almost perfect (Liker, Hoseus 2008). No matter salary or benefits, Toyota is one

of the most competitive companies. Once the employees come into Toyota,

employees can get welfare form retirement to death, the company has considered the

situation of employees. Employees salaries closely are related the appraisal results of

performance. Wage growth depends on the ability improvement of the employees.

The amount of employees bonuses depends on their businesses and quality of

businesses.

4.10 Mission, Vision and Management of

Change

With the disappearance of traditional geographic and competitive boundaries, the

lack of leadership in many organizations has become the biggest obstacle to the

further development.

Toyotas basic mission is to contribute to peoples lifestyles, society, and the

economy through automotive manufacturing (Toyota Global Vision2008). In order to

support this mission, Toyota always focuses on the future of the automobile industry.

Simultaneously Toyotas vision toward the year 2020 is to reexamine the relationship

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between nature and industry and to help promote efforts toward finding a harmonious

balance between the cycles of nature and the cycles of industry. To continuously

develop, Toyota has formulated its global vision 2020, which provides a vision for

Toyotas position in the world in 10 to 20 years. Toyotas vision for the future is to be

the leading company in the automotive industry which cares about the local

community and be a part of it, and to build a common future together.

In current market, competition requires companies to focus on building a more

responsive, more agile, more flexible workforce. To achieve this, companies must be

more effective in the quest for talent, allocating resources, assessing performance, and

build core competencies and skills. The human resource management plan of Toyota

should become driving force of improving efficiency to provide strategic direction.

In authors opinion, the core talents, good communication within the company,

the preparation of the leadership should the success factors of the companys

development. In the future, Toyotas change management plan should consider

improving the companys leadership in every subsidiary, continuously training new

leaders. In order to continuously develop in the automotive market, Toyota also can

put the talent recruitment in its change management plan, the company attracts talent

to work for Toyota, therefore the company can keep the ascendancy in the global

market.

Toyota ensures to use effective method to measure the employees performance

in order to connect the employees performance with their salary and welfare well.

Toyota has many branches around the world, the company should take suitable

activities to meet the local employees requirement to make sure they love working in

Toyota.

The communication within the company is important to keep the information

circulation smooth. Good communication helps the managers understand what the

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employees are thinking, improves experience sharing among the employees. Good

communication makes the company and the employees work efficient. In the change

management plan, the company should take some actions to improve the

communication, like encouraging a conversation between managers and employees in

private.

The company should develop as a responsible company. In the future, the

company has the development of responsibility. Toyota should build the

responsibility to the employees, the environment and the community. The company

could develop its business with the consideration that its products could influence the

environment and communities. With these responsibilities, Toyota could have a great

achievement.

5.0 Conclusion

Toyota tries to provide the best service to its customers and dedicate to the

customers as their tradition. The company delivers this through working as teams, no

matter local teams or global teams. The relationship between the customers and

employees, the reputation and the trust can be the importance factors to a companys

existence.

In order to promote the demand of quick response to market, Toyota introduced

new reform plan in 1990, which substantially increases the proportion of the personal

capacity in the personnel evaluation. Toyota has found 5 is the ideal span of control

for a work team, most of Toyotas teams own 6 to 8 members (Liker, Hoseus 2008).

Compared with the traditional organizational forms of enterprises, Toyota places the

valuable employees on top of the structure. Simultaneously Toyota has integrated

change management into its existing organizational structure

The SWOT analysis of Toyota shows the situation of the company, and the

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human resource management plan should be designed according to local

conditions.

6. Develop the responsibility, including the responsibility of

environment, employees and communities.

Human resource management can help companies achieve their main strategic

objectives: reducing costs and adding value of the products through satisfying

customer needs better. Development of human resource has become the key to

success in large enterprises. However, when the human resources and their capacities

are accepted by the market, the human resources can be turned into realistic

competitive advantage. Effective human resource management closely combines with

the cultivation of core competitiveness in the enterprises, and provides a solid

foundation for the formation and reinforcement of core competitiveness. An

enterprise which is full of harmony, cohesion and competitiveness will be able to

create the best working environment for every employee and give employees the best

rewards, therefore employees will be able to create more profit and wealth for the

organization. Human resources management naturally becomes the focus of modern

management, with high-quality personnel, the enterprises can ensure their outstanding

advantages in the competition and get more profit.

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