NINTENDO

HR STRATEGIES

APRIL 26, 2019

[COMPANY NAME]
[Company address]
Table of Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................................1
Rationale of embedding HR strategies in corporate strategies .................................................................................1
How HR strategies is embedded in the broader corporate strategy of Nintendo ..........................................................3
Educating Employees on their Approach to CSR Management.................................................................................3
Promoting a diverse Work Culture ............................................................................................................................4
Maximizing Employee Strength through Equal Opportunity .....................................................................................4
Employee training and periodic evaluation, health and safety committees ...............................................................4
How Nintendo may implement their HR strategy at the departmental level ..................................................................4
Finding Great Talent .................................................................................................................................................4
Tracking projects for forecasting staff requirement at all levels ...............................................................................5
Contemporary challenges facing Nintendo and its effect ..............................................................................................5
Employee’s struggle at maintaining healthy Lifestyle ...............................................................................................5
Challenge to Stay innovative and creative.................................................................................................................6
Human Resource development...................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion .....................................................................................................................................................................6

Introduction
Nintendo Co. Limited primarily engages in the manufacturing, development, and sales of the
video game systems and entertainment products through its subsidiaries and associates. The
company’ s main products can be categorized into playing cards, video game platforms, Karuta,
and similar products. The company’s focus has been on expanding the users who have access to
Nintendo IP (Le, 2018).

This report evaluates and estimates Nintendo’s HR practices, and its relation with corporate
strategies, and studies how Nintendo tackled issues in HRM department.

Rationale of embedding HR strategies in corporate strategies

We are in an era where conventional support services like Finance, HR, IT, Legal, and
administrative are in under increasing pressure to have more direct impact on the business.
Organization, these days are getting pushed more and more by board of directors, investors,
analysts and customers to do more with the company’s resources, deliver better services, and
customize the experience (Ansoff, Kipley, Lewis, et al., 2018).

HR strategy is the articulated plan that and company adopts for managing its people. Some of the
companies do not use HR strategy, while others have overarching strategies for managing the
different group of people in the company. A solid HR strategy is that one that is documented,
and is explicit or implicit. They vary with different approaches chosen for the different people in
an organization (Wheelen, Hunger, & Bamford, 2017).

Companies need an articulated strategy that enables it to make an optimum use of its resources,
people, and investment to achieve the goals. Here’s the rationale of embedding HR strategies in
corporate strategies:

1. To align the goals of the business

Embedding HR strategies in corporate strategy helps align the overall business goals.
Business leaders like to set up meetings, review the HR strategy, and the need of business
unit. They review the HR management to assess the area of strategic focus that can help
improve the services offered, and thus align human resources of the organization to
business goals (Wheelen, Hunger, & Bamford, 2017).
2. To see the human resource practices from a business lens

As the corporates creates the strategic goals for the business, they also know how HR
practices can impact the revenue growth, risk management, and cost control in the
company. And that’s the reason they view human resource practices from a business lens.
They trace back practices in HRM through value chain and analyze how it affects the
objectives of a company (Lee, 2017)

A customer’s needs are impacted by the value proposition of a business, and value
proposition can be enhanced with focused HR practices. For example, through the
development and training programs, and compensation programs that are tailored to build
the skills, motivation, knowledge, and confidence of service staff. Investment in HR
practice has help tailor the employee to execute value proposition is a manner that it
 establishes a positive and unique customer experience (Noe, Hollenbeck & Wright,
2017).

3. To make the connection between human resource strategy and business results
Corporates are creating HR strategies to execute corporate strategies for the organization.
There are strategic reasons why majority of successful companies execute progressive
human resource practice like performance management, organizational structure, learning
plans, change management programs, engagement initiatives, and employee feedback.
All of these enhance the value proposition of a company and offer a key advantage that
drives success (Le, 2018).
4. To assess the financial impact
HR practices are now being discusses in financial manner, where the impact of each
practice is assessed in terms of financial affect it causes. Leaders calculate the dollar
benefit, estimate the potential benefit or loss, and find the best use of organization’s
financial resources (Ansoff, Kipley, Lewis, et al., 2018).

How HR strategies is embedded in the broader corporate strategy of Nintendo

Educating Employees on their Approach to CSR Management

Nintendo works to spread employee awareness on their approach to CSR management.
Since CSR is one the major corporate strategy of Nintendo, the managers embed HR
strategy with it to increase the impact. Through seminars, trainings, ad corporate
intranets, the employees develop an accurate understanding of CSR priority area ad
societal expectations of Nintendo. At Nintendo, there are three main pillars for employee
awareness, this includes educating more, understanding more, and participating more. All
such activities outside Japan are facilitated by the regional CSR personnel or committees
(Satterthwaite & Pfeffer, 2017).
 Promoting a diverse Work Culture
At Nintendo, employees from all race, ethical background, region, gender, and culture
work together. This is one of the best human resource strategies because this way,
Nintendo avails a diverse work culture; different minds, different ideologies, and
different background helps Nintendo avail a rich human resource pool, using which the
company fosters creativity and innovation. Since they are engaged in a diverse culture,
there is an environment where employees contribute their ideas, perspectives, and
expertise to ensure creativity and innovation thrive (Satterthwaite & Pfeffer, 2017).

Maximizing Employee Strength through Equal Opportunity

Through this, Nintendo raises the collective strength of the organization, and makes
complete use of each staff’s strength and multifaceted talent. By supporting employees
and by giving the equal opportunity, Nintendo has a very diverse human resource
(DeCenzo, Robbins & Verhulst, 2016).

Employee training and periodic evaluation, health and safety committees

Since Nintendo has employees with extensive values and background, it helps them
easily utilize every individual’s strength, and ultimately boost organizational
productivity. For further utilization of individual values and strength, Nintendo assures
arranging regular development programs like employee training, skill update courses, and
periodic evaluation (Satterthwaite & Pfeffer, 2017).

How Nintendo may implement their HR strategy at the departmental level

Finding Great Talent

Nintendo should attract best professional and technical talent possible. This will give the
company a competitive edge as new talents can help foster creativity at the departmental
level. In the growth stage, Nintendo should recruit adequate mix of qualified workers.
Manage the internal labor market movements, and plan management successes (Lasserre,
2017).
 At departmental level, Nintendo must encourage sufficient turnover for minimizing
layoffs and providing new openings. The focus should be at encouraging mobility as
reorganization is likely to move the jobs around. The emphasis of hiring processes must
be to hire a talent that’s willing to grow along the company and is cross-trained (Franklin,
2018).

Tracking projects for forecasting staff requirement at all levels

In a product-based company like Nintendo, employers and managers often ask who
should come first for them, customer or employees? When a leader chooses to take on
additional project without new staff, not only employees suffer, but the product delivered
to customers will also be poor. Employee is the primary expense which a product or
service-based company like Nintendo takes on (DeCenzo, Robbins & Verhulst, 2016).

Hence to effectively implement their HR strategies at departmental level, Nintendo

should forecast employee hiring. This will help the company leverage quality of products
while maintaining the high margins. They should avoid the under-estimation in employee
recruitments and accurately track the need of human resources (Chelladurai & Kerwin,
2018).

1. Creating a positive corporate culture: At all levels, whether low or high, the focus should
be to create a positive company culture. This way, everything falls into place and the
company becomes capable of attracting the right people (Therrien & Picard, 2016).

Contemporary challenges facing Nintendo and its effect

Employee’s struggle at maintaining healthy Lifestyle

Since gaming industry is one of the most competitive industry, it demands sheer creative,
innovative, and trendy features. As an ever-evolving industry, both the manufacturers and
employees are always stressing over what to introduce next. This is one of the reasons why
employees working in such companies often struggle to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Same was
with the staff at Nintendo (Therrien & Picard, 2016).
To combat this, CSR committee at Nintendo Iberica, introduced Health and Safety intranet
channel for Nintendo employees. Using this, it shares information for encouraging the employees
to have a healthy lifestyle. The company offers health insurance to staff and guides them to lead
healthier lives. Further, they provide fruits and healthy foods to promote healthy eating habits in
the office. There are several campaigns like 5k to 15k runs, 100 mil cycling, internal gym, don’t
gain challenge, and medical plans that have proven to be very effective for employees (Shen &
Benson, 2016).

Challenge to Stay innovative and creative

Since the biggest challenge for gaming companies like Nintendo is to introduce creative and
innovative product, the company needs to foster human resource development. The product in
this industry has relatively shorter life cycle and there always is risk around business activities,
economic environment, and legal troubles (Therrien & Picard, 2016).

To tackle this, Nintendo strengthened its HRM by advanced research and development activities.
It encourages the employees to engage in the active development of software and hardware for
designing innovative video game system. There is reward program for every great idea
introduced by a Nintendo staff. They continuously undertake research and investigate for scope
of improvement (Wesley & Barczak, 2016).

Human Resource development

Since there is always the risk of business operation getting affected by minor fluctuations.
Nintendo knows the employees are the integral part to their growth. That’s why they offer
appropriate development opportunities, modes to evaluate each individual’s strength, weakness,
and long-term competency development. Apart from the on-the-site training in all departments,
Nintendo also offers opportunities to staff to attend the external seminar for their personal and
career growth (Brewster, Chung, & Sparrow, 2016).

Conclusion
This report analysed Nintendo’s HR practices, and its relation with corporate strategies, and
studies how Nintendo tackled issues in HRM department. It also recommends few strategies for
Nintendo to implement in their HR strategy at the departmental level

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