1. CASE STUDY: NIKE HRM
MANAGING PEOPLE IN SPORT AND EVENTS
ALEXANDROS EFTHYMIOU:6718767

2. 1 | P a g e
“My men are my money.”
“Children imitate their parents, employees their managers.”
― Amit Kalantri

3. 2 | P a g e
INTRODUCTION
The role of the HR function is to enable the organization to achieve its objectives by taking
initiatives and providing guidance and support on all matters relating to its employees
(Armstrong M., 1006).
Today, the basic element to define a firm is total quality and efficiency. Those two can be
achieved by a successful HRMplan. Human resources management is one of the most
important issues of today’s business. This coursework will inform about the human resource
management practises of Nike and Google, and compare some companies in the same
industry. Google is a “talent magnet” firm and that is its primary driver of success, just like it
is for the New York Yankees in baseball and Barcelona in soccer (Dr. John Sullivan, 2013).
Nike is the largest seller of athletic footwear in the world based in the United States. The
company has more than 45.000 employees, and they sell their products in more than 180
countries around the world. Their strategy is to create innovative products for their
customers. The first chapter tells us about how the Nike meets the challenges of: staff
training and development, methods of recruitment and selection, and finally about the
rewards and how the retain their employees. In the first part, there is a comparison about
between how Nike and its peers meet the challenges faced. Adidas Company has developed
a lot during the past 5 years by planning their HRM strategy in a more efficient way. I think
that Puma has a lot of work to do. We see that Nike and Adidas bilk from their competitors
just because of the good programming strategy. In the last part I compare the human
resources systemof Nike with Google’s, which is one of the best in the world. In fact, Nike
has improved a lot during the last 10 years and it is time to say that it is the best company at
that sector in their industry. As we conclude, we found that Google and Nike HRM systems
are very similar indicating the importance of a good HRM plan in order to be retained as a
high calibre firm. That is the driving force of investing much time and effort to plan a good
strategy for the fictional harmony of the company.

4. 3 | P a g e
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................ 2
CONTENTS...................................................................................................................................3
MANAGING PEOPLE IN SPORT ORGANISATIONS...........................................................................4
ΝΙΚΕ: STAFF TRAINING & TALENT DEVELPOMENT .........................................................................4
HRMTraining Program.............................................................................................................. 5
NIKE: METHODS OF RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION......................................................................6
NIKE: REWARDS AND RETANTION ................................................................................................ 7
COMPARISON WITH PUMA..........................................................................................................8
Staff training and talent development............................................................................................ 8
COMPARISON WITH PUMA AND ADIDAS...................................................................................... 9
Methods of recruitment and selection........................................................................................... 9
Rewards and retention ................................................................................................................. 9
GOOGLE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT............................................................................ 10
HR Planning, Job Analysis & Design.............................................................................................. 11
Recruitment, Selection, Retention............................................................................................... 11
Google’s Recruitment Practices............................................................................................... 11
Selection Process at Google..................................................................................................... 11
Employee Retention Programs................................................................................................. 12
Training, Performance Management............................................................................................ 12
Compensation, Career Development ........................................................................................... 12
NIKE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT.................................................................................. 13
COMPARISON NIKE – GOOGLE HRM ........................................................................................... 14
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 16
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................... 18

5. 4 | P a g e
MANAGING PEOPLE IN SPORT ORGANISATIONS
The sport industry’s distinctiveness is characterized by the inimitability of sport & its ability
to engender irrational passions and emotional attachments, despite the often variable
quality of the product. The distinguishing characteristics of sport combine to create a unique
management environment for sport organisations.
The effective management of the employees who work for the organisation is critical. The
HR manager is like a coach in football. Both of them want to get the best out of their
players. The right HRM strategy, to attract, develop and retain best employees helped many
organisations to grow and gain a competitive advantage. HR managers are them who can
change the fortunes of a sport organisation from the bottom to the champion. The best
“mix” of people will allow the organisation to meet their future strategic objectives as well.
ΝΙΚΕ: STAFF TRAINING & TALENT DEVELPOMENT
In 2009 Nike presented many new factories in both Vietnam and Southern Chine, which
applied a new developed human resources management training plan, which helped them
to strength their manufacturers HR systems. Each factory complete an employee survey in
order to understand what issues they are facing and to measure the level of mutual trust
and respect. After these results every factory could understand what action plans have to
do in the next six months and to address the core areas of HRM. Each factory could set
specific goals. One of the factories manage to reduce their employee satisfaction from 15%
to 5%, another one increase technical skill level of the workers. For every factory there was
a plan with clear goals, responsibilities, timelines and methods to see the progress that they
made.
“All of the factories that participate in this training reported positive results and statements:
 “We now share best practice at our weekly meetings and include CR and HR."
 "HRM has helped us to have a better understanding of how strong HR supports lean.
If HR is strong, we'll use effective processes to recruit the right people and develop
them with a foreseeable career path. Skilled employees will stay with us longer. This
means our turnover rate will be reduced and our recruiting efforts and training
investment are not wasted."

6. 5 | P a g e
 "HRM created a community where each factory set off the boundary of its own
experience and knowledge. In return, each factory received many good practices - a
great return on investment.”
” (Nikebiz.com, 2009)
Of course factories are not alone in that process. They are supported by the HRM Learning
Community. The Learning Community brings closer factories which shared their training and
continue to share lessons learned and best practices in order to improve the HRM.
HRM Training Program
(Nikebiz.com, 2009)

7. 6 | P a g e
As we see, Nike investing in people. In 2012, Nike launched a new online platform named
NikeU in order to train and develop the employees in the following areas:
 Merchandising
 Retail
 Leadership
 Management
And help them build skills to execute better business strategy. Also, in that time they
presented their Manager Manifesto, which includes their four core principles:
 Lead
 Coach
 Drive
 Inspire
Nowadays, more than 80% of the employees have create an account at NikeU. In 2003 the
employees have taken over 175.00 web-based sessions and over 32.500 instructor-led
sessions. Nike improves their platform (NikeU) by increasing the translated courses and
custom their sessions for different functioned areas in the company. They also design an
application for mobile phones in order to be more widely accessible and reach their global
employees, including sales associates and distribution center employees. In 2014 NikeU
launch Manager Core, including more than 40 courses translated into 24 languages.
NIKE: METHODS OF RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION
Until 2002, Nike was receiving too many CV’s every month. They concerned about how well
they protect the applicants personal information and they also sometimes made some
mistakes by calling wrong people for interviews. They wanted to change their recruitment
methods.
The EMEA staffing manager of Nike, Rolien Hoogers commented that:
“We have a firm policy that each applicant is a potential employee and customer and so we
must respond appropriately, in an individual letter where possible”.

8. 7 | P a g e
All these concerns led Nike to reviews their HR process. Their goal was to reduce costs per
hire and at the same time to improve the overall quality of the talent hired. The faster
response to applicants with the consistency in handling the administration associated with
each appointment would also improve the company’s image.
Finally, the solution came from Jobpartners. They create an e-recruitment form named,
“ActiveRecruiter” which designed to help companied manage their HR process more
effectively and quickly. The external applicant can now apply for specific or general job
opportunities via Nikebiz.com. In Nkebiz.com applicants can attach their CV after filling their
profile. Every applicant who has a profile needs to update their CV every six months in order
not to deactivate their account (HRzone, 2004:1).
ActiveRecruiter helps to reduce the recruitment costs. Also, has the ability to search for
specific competencies to ensure better quality of the candidates. The e-recruitment form
helped in:
 reducing recruitment costs by 54% since 2002
 reducing the time to fill the vacancies from 62 to 42 days
 increase-ensure the better quality of candidates in each vacancy
NIKE: REWARDS AND RETANTION
A famous USA industrialist of the 19th century, Andrew Carnegie, once said:
“Take away my factories, my plants; take away my railroads, my ships, my transportation,
take away my money; strip me of all these but leave me my key people, and in two or three
years, I will have them all again”.
Nike knows that “Employee Retention” is the key fundamental for the growth of the
company. The company uses a compensation systemfor the employees, including benefits
that provide them the opportunity to stay fit, also supports the wellness of their families
and create a good working environment. The benefits includes: health insurance, life and
accident insurance, disability insurance, retirement savings plan with a company
contribution, employee stock purchase plan, paid vacations and holidays, paid sabbaticals,
product discounts , onsite fitness center/fitness discounts, transportation
allowance/discount, tuition assistance and more.
The company knows that with these benefits can motivate most of the employees, but they
don’t stop there. In order to motivate the employees the use also intangible rewards, which
help the employees become more loyal, such as:

9. 8 | P a g e
 Appreciation (Appreciation brings self-encouragement which helps employees to
generate improved ideas)
 Recognition (Recognition is an open acknowledgement of an employee’s behavior
and performance in the business.)
 Empowerment (Every employee wants his innovative ideas heard. Becoming a part
of a decision making panel and expressing ideas and suggestion freely gives you a
feeling of authority which is above all other rewards.)
COMPARISON WITH PUMA
Staff training and talent development
As we saw earlier, Nike uses a new online platform named NikeU in order to train and
develop their employees. Puma also wants to develop talented employees, to drive the
company forward.
First of all, Puma wanted not only to improve the employee’s retention, but also reduce the
reliance on external recruitment companies. As every employ has more responsibilities and
more roles, Puma needed a personal employee development plan. In order to accomplish all
the above, Puma worked with external consultants and human resources managers. They
came with an idea of a systemcalled people@puma, which includes talent management
process through competency reviews and development evaluations. That was the first time
that Puma had set up a talent management process system. Every employee now can create
his development plan and he get evaluated annual for his performance and his potential.
As we see, Puma trains his employees different from Nike. They measure the performance
and they evaluate the development. They also use a 360 feedback strategy to discuss about
the development plan. In my opinion, Nike uses a more modern approach with the NikeU
platform. The common area is that both companies use feedback from their employees in
order to develop their HR strategy. In the employee development Puma difference from
Nike because the use a training systemin work and not an online system like Nike uses.

10. 9 | P a g e
COMPARISON WITH PUMA AND ADIDAS
Methods of recruitment and selection
The recruitment strategy of the Puma’s company is very simple. We can call it an “old
fashion” recruitment policy. They use online adverts at recruitment and at their online
webpage. When you join their website you can click on the careers option and you can see
the available vacancies all around the world. It’s a whole different perspective from the
Nike’s and as we see, is the second HR strategy which is obsolete in comparison with Nike’s
“ActiveRecruiter”. So, I will compare Nike’s strategy with the Adidas recruitment methods
because they seemto be more modern.
Adidas managers couldn’t handle the high volumes of CV’s they were receiving, so they
thought of a more modern way. They create an online system in order to provide a world
class service and be sure that the going to answer to any individual application. You get to
the online systemof Adidas, you put your CV, then they evaluate you as a potential
candidate and they put you in a shortlist. When a vacancy is available, the recruiter will
review the candidate’s application and call all of them for further discussion. After that they
decline or pass you to the next round. If someone of the candidates declined, the company
will definitely send a reply that notifies that. At the final stage, the recruiter and the hiring
manager will compile the final list. The selected ones will be invited for an interviews. In
2007 Adidas rolled out their new e-recruitment tool, the ActiveRecruiter, as Nike (Nike use
ActiveRecruiter since 2002).
As we see, Adidas used both ways of recruitment. They had an online systembut was not
as modern as Nike’s. In 2007 they make a contract with JobPartners in order to take the e-
recruitment tool too, and since then they increase their efficiency and their effectiveness.
Adidas Company used to prefer more personal contact with the candidates until 2007 but
from then and now on, they copy the Nike’s recruitment plan.
Rewards and retention
Puma uses an employee retention program which takes individual development to the next
level. They offering employees learning, social activities, clubs and sports. The Puma’s staff
play football, basketball, golf, paintball, ping pong, hold cart and bicycle races and many
other activities. Puma provides cooking classes for its employees. Notably, Puma also invites
its staff to public screenings of sports events, the company’s head of Human Resources
Development Roman Klein said. Such activity brings out a primal feeling of togetherness
(The Budapest Times, 2013). As we see, Puma wants to take advantage and get benefit from
the rewards by offer them group activities in order to make stronger the bond between
them.

11. 10 | P a g e
In 2012 the company redesign their goal setting programs in order to support “New ways of
working” principles. That change help both individuals and groups to achieve their goals
more simple. Also, Adidas recognise that good performance of the employees should be
rewarded, that’s why they made the following programs
 Global Salary Management System : Adidas Company provide the salaries based on
the market-driven and performance-oriented way
 Aim 2 Score : the programme combines the employee’s individual performance
(measured in the Performance Management process) and corporate performance
(actual financial results measured against targets)(Adidas, 2015)
 Champion bonus : profit sharing program
 401-K pension plans : for Senior Management and Executive Board
 Other types: Health insurance, supplemental insurance etc.
As we see, all three companies (Nike, Adidas, and Puma) recognise the high performing
employees and they reward them, every company with a different way. I think that Nike and
Adidas is one step in front of Puma at the moment. Especially Adidas gives everything in
order to help their employees remain motivate. All companies today know that the money
is not important to everyone, and we can say certainly that is not the only motivator way.
The cash rewards occur only once in a year. In order to maintain the staff motivate you need
something more frequent.
GOOGLE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
HR Planning,
JobAnalysis&
Design
Recruitment,
Selection,
Retention
Training,
Performance
Management
Compensation,
Career
Development

12. 11 | P a g e
HR Planning, Job Analysis & Design
Google uses certain human resources management approaches into different areas of the
company. In order to be effective HR managers focus on forecast information to be as
balanced as possible between the demand and the supply employees.
Recruitment, Selection, Retention
The success of Google is based on their high quality HRMsystem. In google they emphasize
in 2 main characteristics, smartness and excellence. Also the company’s HRM plan include
practises and techniques which have been carefully selected for recruitment and the
retention of their high quality employees. In fact, Google’s retention programs have
designed carefully in order to maintain their high quality employees to their company.
These programs not only help the company to keep their employees loyal to them but also
attracts new employees to the firm. Nowadays, Google is one of the best companies to
work.
Google’s Recruitment Practices (Panmore Institute, 2015)
 Sources
o Internal: uses promotions, transfers, and trainees/interns
o External: educational institutions and respondents to job advertisements
 Methods
o Indirect: advertisements on the company’s website
o Direct: in the form of contacts with potential interns and future employees
through academic institutions
Selection Process at Google
In Google, they don’t care so much about the experience of the candidates. They want them
to be creative, innovate, smart, excellence. That’s why, before they hire them, the
candidates have to pass different procedures like on-the-job tests, interviews.

13. 12 | P a g e
Employee Retention Programs
Google uses different kinds of retention and reward programs which always are above the
average. They also provide to their employees high salaries and wages. Also, they provide
them with free meals, high design offices and so many other things that help the company
retain their employees.
Training, Performance Management
Google has planned an effective employee training program. Every time the program gets
evaluated to ensure the company that meet the Google human resources needs. The
company also uses past experiences on problems and practises as basis in order to improve
their performance management.
The employee training has 4 stages of process:
 Needs analysis
 Program design
 Delivery
 Evaluation
The performance management practices is very important for Google. The company
measures the performance management and then try to find the problems at the process.
It’s like a circle. When they found a problem at the process they start planning again the
performance management.
Compensation, Career Development
Career Opportunities and Requirements Identification
Google identifies the careers opportunities by a combination of job analysis.
Employee Potential Assessment

14. 13 | P a g e
Hr managers’ asset employee potential via interviews, coaching. By evaluate them they can
learn how they can be more effective in different sectors.
Compensation Strategy
Google’s has a high competitive plan if we compare it with same industry firms. They
provide their employees with high salaries, medical insurance, retirement pensions, and
free meals. Google’s human resource plan has succeeded because they attract intelligent
employees and they can retain them.
NIKE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
(Nikebiz.com, 2009)

15. 14 | P a g e
As we saw earlier Nike uses the best HRM strategy in their industry. They have a plan with
recruitment, training and retention that every year becomes better and better, and that is
happening because they evaluate their system.
COMPARISON NIKE – GOOGLE HRM
Google and Nike have many similarities at the way they operate in their industry. Both
companies want to have the best employees possible, they try to train them as good as
possible and finally they try to keep them by offering some kind of rewards.
Google recruits in a different way than Nike and that is because they want to have
intelligent employees. Not everyone can work at Google. The employees have to be
innovate, smart, excellent. They try to find what we call “high quality” employees. On the
other hand, Nike doesn’t care so much about the quality of their employees. Nike wants
their employees have some specific skills.
That’s why Nike can train their employees in order to become better and better every year.
Google can’t train their characteristic that they want. They can’t make you smarter, they
can’t make you innovate if you are not. That’s why it is a bit different at the recruitment
strategy. Nike hires people from their ActiveRecruiter online platform. As we see Google
doesn’t wait the candidates to apply for a job. They also searching if they can find a possible
employee who cover their criteria.
The develop process is kind of similar in both companies. In one hand they want different
kind of employees because they are in different industries but on the other hand they
develop their employees in the same way. Both companies have an evaluation system which
in fact is very effective. Every time the program gets evaluated to ensure the company that
meet the human resources needs. They both planned their development process as the
following graph.

16. 15 | P a g e
Empower employees are engaged employees. Empower employees have now on the
suitable tools in order to be productive leaders and connect and collaborate with their
colleagues. Also companies now reward the employees who have good performance. Both
Google and Nike have program that help their employees retain their motivation. For every
company, it is too difficult to find high quality employees, but for Google it is easy. Most of
the people want to work at Google because of the high recognition and their salaries. In
Nike, they have performance-based bonuses, rewards for their employees based on their
personal contributions, and in some times they use a program sharing profit in order to
encourage the teamwork and help the employees achieve company’s goals.
These words from the Vice President of people development at Google only serve to
support that fact:
“It’s less about the aspiration to be No. 1 in the world, and more that we want our
employees and future employees to love it here, because that’s what’s going to make us
successful.”
Planning
What must be
achieved?
To what standard?
What development
is needed?
Progressreview
How am I doing?
Can I do better?
Does anything
needs to change?
Evaluation
How did I do?
How can I do it
better?
What have I
learned?

17. 16 | P a g e
The U.S. EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) state at the 10/18/2006 press release:
“For the third straight year, Nike Inc. has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency as one of the country’s top workplaces for commuters based on the
company’s innovative efforts to promote alternative ways for employees to get to work,
from carpooling, buses and trains, to skateboarding, biking, walking and telecommuting. The
U.S. EPA’s Best Workplaces for Commuters list ranks Nike 17th out of 133 FORTUNE 500
companies making the list. Nike is also the top ranked company in the apparel industry” (U.S.
EPA, 2006).
CONCLUSION
None of the above firms could have done so much in their industries if they hadn’t a good
Human resources system. The key functions for the success of the Human Resources
Management team include recruiting people, training them, performance evaluations,
motivating employees and much more. All the above firms use learn from their experience.
They pick a program and then they adjust it due to the today’s trends in HRM. The HRM
strategy is not just developing talents, but also enhance communication and cooperation
between colleagues. It is the key for both individual and organization development.

18. 17 | P a g e
Finally, there are 3 quotes from people who worked many years in different industries and I
am going to write them because they inspire the new companies and the hr managers.
Herb Kelleher, the CEO of Southwest Airlines stated that:
Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your
customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and
the rest follows from that.
Anne M. Mulcahy, chairperson and CEO of Xerox Corporation stated that:
Employees are a company's greatest asset - they're your competitive advantage. You want
to attract and retain the best; provide them with encouragement, stimulus, and make them
feel that they are an integral part of the company's mission.
Harvey Mackay, author of seven bestseller books stated that:
Employee loyalty begins with employer loyalty. Your employees should know that if they do
the job they were hired to do with a reasonable amount of competence and efficiency, you
will support them.

19. 18 | P a g e
REFERENCES
Adidas (2015) Rewards [online] available from http://www.adidas-
group.com/en/sustainability/employees/rewards
Adidas (2012) Motivation and accountability [online] available from http://www.adidas-
group.com
Armstrong M. (2006) Human Resource Management practise (10th edition) [online] available
from http://library.magistersipil.janabadra.ac.id/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Human-
resource-managment-practices.pdf [08/12/2015]
HRzone (2004) Case Study: E-recruitment gets Nike on track (page 1) [online] available from
http://www.hrzone.com/lead/strategy/case-study-e-recruitment-gets-nike-on-track
[09/12/2015]
Nikebiz.com (2010) HRM in practise FY08/09 [online] available from
http://www.nikebiz.com/crreport/content/workers-and-factories/3-12-0-case-study-hrm-
in-practice.php [08/12/2015]
Panmore Institute (2015) Google’s HRM [online] available from
http://panmore.com/google-hrm-hr-planning-job-analysis-design [08/12/2015]
Puma (2015) HR development [online] available from
http://about.puma.com/en/careers/puma-as-an-employer/hr-development [05/12/2015]
Sullivan John Dr., (2013) How Google Became The #3 Most Valuable Firm By Using People
Analytics To Reinvent HR [online] available from https://drjohnsullivan.com/articles/how-
google-became-the-3-most-valuable-firm-by-using-people-analytics-to-reinvent-hr
[05/12/2015]
The Budapest Times (2013) HR managers unveil surprising personnel retention tricks [online]
available from http://budapesttimes.hu/2013/03/21/hr-managers-unveil-surprising-
personnel-retention-tricks [07/12/2015]
U.S. EPA (2006) Nike Named One of the Country’s Best Workplaces for Commuters [online]
available from http://www.bestworkplaces.org/pdf/bwc_media/f500-nike-socialfunds.com-
10-19-06.pdf [08/12/2015]