Company Profile – APPLE INC.Apple Inc. is a technology company headquartered in California, United States of America. It is best known for its iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, iPod and Mac products. Founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne today serve globally and have 500 retail stores as of 2018. It is the largest IT company in the world and the second largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. It also has well-known subsidiaries like Shazam. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The name “Apple” was inspired by Steve Jobs' visit to an apple farm where he thought the name “Apple” was fun, lively, and non-intimidating. Apple was one of the most successful companies of the 1970s and landed in the Fortune 500 at #3. It has developed its own operating system for its devices, MacOS for personal computers, iOS for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, watchOS for Apple Watch and tvOS for Apple TV. Human resource management is defined as the process of hiring employees who, as they develop, will become more valuable to a company. The human resources management process includes recruiting the right people for a position, providing orientation and training, managing salaries and benefits along with evaluating staff performance, and ensuring clear communication with all employees. Ethical Issues: Sexual and Racial Discrimination and Harassment: Apple's California headquarters faced lawsuits from numerous female employees who said sexual harassment and pranks had been going on for too long. Women make up about a third of Apple's workforce, and numerous women have reported a hostile work environment with fears of retaliation if they take action against their colleagues. Furthermore, women said they find it difficult to rise in the company, regardless of the amount of experience they hold, due to the predominantly male organization in which they are assigned senior-level positions. The right to privacy: After Facebook was criticized for violating its consumers' right to privacy, all companies, including Apple, updated their privacy policies. In the past, a group of hackers known as The Turkish Crime Family claimed access to around 250 million iCloud accounts, threatening to reset passwords and wipe their devices if a ransom (in bitcoin) was not paid. Safe Working Conditions: In its 2017 annual audit, Apple outlines the working conditions of workers who make its products. It turned out that there are 44 “core violations” of labor regulations, double the number of violations in 2016. Among the serious violations is the falsification of working time data. Employees were forced to pay extra money just to get a job. In one case, more than 700 foreign workers recruited from the Philippines were accused of working for a supplier, Apple subsequently forced the supplier to return the money. License Issues: Apple has filed several lawsuits against its largest competitor, Samsung. In 2011, Apple filed a lawsuit claiming that Samsung phones and tablets infringed on their intellectual property: style, patents, trademarks and user interface to which in 2012 the jury ruled in Apple's favor, awarding Apple $1.049 billion of damage. With the appeals, Apple has officially lost $120 million in damages received from Samsung. Labor and human rights: Apple's main supplier, Foxconn, is the largest electronics manufacturer in the world. Produces iPhone and iPad forApple employs over 900,000 workers. 240,000 of these workers work at the plant. In 2010, several media outlets reported several cases of suicide at Foxconn. 13 workers committed suicide from 2009 to 2010. Investigations found that Foxconn's internal management was poorly managed, with military-style management in which workers were not allowed to interact with each other and worked over 70 hours a week ( which is 10 hours above the Apple suppliers code). Furthermore, it was reported that child labor problems at computer, iPod and iPhone suppliers had worsened in 2011, revealing that 91 children were working at the suppliers. Sexual/Racial Discrimination and Harassment: To stop such misconduct, Apple can take these 3 practical steps:i. Tone from the top - To take the lead in stopping such harassment complaints, Apple needs to have its say on all employees directly from the top, i.e. the CEO. The CEO has the biggest impact of anyone in the company and no one else can make it so clear to the workforce how serious this ethical issue is and that any kind of racial or sexual judgment will be taken lightly of him/her. Effective definition, enforcement and encouragement of rules must be implemented. HR can only do anything if it does not come from above.ii. Establish procedure in everyone's performance reviews - Build a 0 tolerance policy regarding harassment into every manager's performance goals. Make it as strict as possible so that workers know that one mistake will make them regret it. One strike and you're out. Zero room for error is one way to get people's attention. and also, for the record, sexual harassment is not always the man's fault (women have also been reported to have sexually harassed men) and women can also falsely accuse men, and every accusation should be carefully investigated. Establish reporting programs - So many racially charged/sexual harassment issues go unnoticed because no one knows who to report the problem to or they fear being ridiculed. There is only one solution to this, provide a universally known, accessible and safe place to report it. It can take the form of a website, a hotline, or even a unit of the organization. If the process is handled with fairness and integrity, it is possible to proceed. Apple has the ability to track any reported lost device as it has a database of its serial numbers and a company-managed internal kill switch for all devices. This switch can stop and delete any application in the user's phone if it is used maliciously. Since the Apple iPhone is equipped with GPS, which can make it possible to locate anywhere on earth using a combination of 24 satellites. With Apple's huge servers iPhones can be located anywhere on earth. Apple may also be able to track the frequency of use of its products and have consumption data by country. By using GIS, Apple can make mapping and tracking of lost iPhones possible. There may be existing services for tracking and recovering iPhones, but the whole process could be more efficient if Apple took care of it. A theft monitoring system would cost the company a large budget as more than 100 million iPhones are in use worldwide today. Management should strive to ensure ethical practices even with any type of system adopted by Apple. With the company's extensive databases on users of their products, including names, addresses, and serial numbers of their iPhones, it would be easy to obtain information that detracts from our privacy. Apple has a moral obligation to.