TOYOTA MODEL OF HRM

Toyota is famous for several world-class products. It is known for a variety of quality initiatives including famous JIT (Just-in-time inventory) production system. Toyota is also famous for its HRM policies and practices too and its human resource practices can serve as a model, particularly for manufacturing and production oriented companies. Toyota's HRM framework broadly consists of four kind of goals. 

1. Organizational integration Goal:   
Toyota’s HRM strategy aims at the integration of employees at individual and group level. The extensive use of teams subordinate to organizational goals achieves this purpose. Welfare of employees also receives wide attention as a part of this goal.

2. Commitment of Employees: 
In order to achieve this goal, Toyota followed a two-pronged strategy. First, Toyota preferred semi-rural workforce for induction in their plants as they believe that people uncontaminated by industrial culture and influences tend to retain a kind of value of loyalty, which can be converted into organizational commitment. Second, methods such as suggestion schemes, quality circles and employee involvement are applied to gain commitment.

3. Flexibility and adaptability: 
Team authority holding all the powers paved way for realizing flexibility in the organization. Task-based can be dismantled or restructured, depending upon the situation. The multi skilling and job rotations institutionalized the adaptability. 
4. Pursuit of quality: 
Peer, team surveillance and self control techniques ensure better product quality.  Measures such as time and motion study, constant process- improvement, employee involvement and benchmarking add to the attainment of quality.

Toyota recomposed four HRM goals into l7 specific practices classified into employment and production practices. JIT, Kanban, Line stop, Level scheduling, Continuous flow and processing are the production practices. Continuous improvement, Single status facilities, Performance appraisal, Daily team briefings, Temporary contracts, Performance related pay, Group decision-making,  Cross training Company- wide council, cross disciplinary teams, and Single unions are the employment practices.

The Toyota model serves as an ideal in terms of how an HRM strategy must be formulated. A sound HRM strategy should integrate super ordinate goals to organizational goals.  The mix of domestic ethos with international HR practices to obtain commitment and organizational integration of workforce proves as a great learning tool.