Human Resources at the AES Corporation: The Case of the Missing

Department

Based on the description about AES case, I resume some important point
above. AES (Applied Energy Services) Company was founded in 1981 by Roger
Sant and Dennis Bakke. From the beginning, AES had a strong set of core values
and beliefs about people that it works hard to operationalize on a continuing
basis, The four core values are: Integrity, Fairness, Social responsibilty, and Fun.
AES also has a set of core assumptions about people that it tries to use in
designing and managing its organization. These assumtion are that AES people
are creative, responsible,falliable, desire to make positive contributions to
society,and unique persons.
AES operationalizes its values in myriad operating policies and practices.
An example,The operation in Connecticut: The Thames plant, located in
Uncasville, Connecticut, Near New London. Shows us the implementation of its
values, The plant is in close proximity to neighboring houses strives to be a good
neighbor to those living nearby, the plant and neigborhood area also immaculate
and clean, and the people who work in the plant are proud of its appearance.
AES keeping with social responsibility and concern for the environment.
AES believe that getting the right people is key to the companys success,
and are actively involved in it. AES likes to say there is no human resources
department in the company . Hiring is done by the plant personnel without the
support of any staff human resource people. The company wanted people to be
there who really liked the place, believed in the AES system, and enjoyed what
they did. Although there isnt any HR department, the plant and the corporation
take performance problems seriously and do everything possible to help
individual improve. As for traning, we train ourselves-Experienced employees
train new employees.

Trust is a value that is manifest in how AES-Thames

organizes and manages work. For instance, the employees all develop a list of
jobs to be done, they dont report to the supervisor, so they are able to redesign
improvement. And then, There is a great deal of decentralization decision
making, for instance all Thames people are involved in discussing and setting the
budget at an annual meeting held in the fall. Information on the financial and
operation performance is also widely shared.

AES tries to get everyone to be reasonable,act responsibly,and use their

own discretion. AES avoided putting in rules that would hamstring everyone just
to cover a the one or two percent who were exceptions and needed such rules.
The

corporation

culture

and

organizing

principle

has

come

to

called

honeycomb, which captured the idea of relatively small, flexible, interrelated

teams of people working on projects and activities and learning a lot in process.
Coordination across the work teams or communities was encouraged through the
sharing of information,making people reasonable, and accountable for result, and
encouraging in many ways informal communication across various international
boundaries. AES is the example how the company growth through the value that
appear in every person despite there is no set regular rules that conducted the
company.