People Management Considerations for the UK-Based Organisations - Essay Example

? A critical discussion of people management considerations for a UK-based organisation desiring expansion into France, Germany and Japan BY YOU YOURSCHOOL INFO HERE DATE HERE A critical discussion of people management considerations for a UK-based organisation desiring expansion into France, Germany and Japan Introduction Human resources practitioners and general business managers that hail from the United Kingdom will find stark differences when working with diverse employees in France, Germany and Japan. The United Kingdom is a highly individualistic culture, which translates into a business set of values emphasising recognition for personal achievements and securing the rights of the individual. UK culture also scores low on Hofstede’s measurement of power distance, meaning that it is a general societal belief that inequalities and authority disparities should be reduced. The United Kingdom is also a very masculine society, which emphasises a cultural orientation toward achievement of success and exhibiting ambition and motivation in the professional world. This culture is also driven by a short-term orientation, meaning that future gains will be more eagerly sacrificed in order to achieve rapid results, especially in business. This is especially apparent in the professional relationship between the London Stock Exchange and UK investors, using quarterly results to help investors achieve instant gains. In order to fully understand the complexities, problems or opportunities for UK-based management expanding into France, Germany and Japan, it is necessary to outline the most prominent cultural characteristics that make up societal and professional values, beliefs and orientations. This essay describes the characteristics of the French, German and Japanese business cultures to critically assess what degree of adaptability will be required by the UK-based organization upon new foreign business market entry. Research indicates that there are some distinct differences and moderate similarities to the UK culture that will determine the strategy direction for people management in these countries. Working with French employees For people management to be effective in France, the UK-based HR team must understand the fundamentals of what drives professional culture in this country. France scores highly on the power distance metric in Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions framework. The notion of cultural power distance is defined as the level of inequality that is tolerated within a culture (Leng and Bothelo 2010). For instance, a less powerful figure (such as a subordinate employee) will be more indulgent and accepting of a more powerful figure (such as executives) maintaining disparity between ranking representatives of the business. Much of these cultural beliefs are driven by long-standing power distance between government and general society that was founded during the historical periods where France was governed by autocratic monarchy structures (Communicaid 2009). Powers in France, as it relates to business and government, have always been centralised in which business executives maintain the majority of control, thus creating organisational structures where decision-making authority is top-down rather than horizontal. French citizens further maintain a great deal of ethnocentrism, a belief in superiority of French culture and its rich history, which further supports acceptance and tolerance for power distance. For a UK human resources practitioner, there should be consideration of the high prevalence of tolerance of power distance. It is unlikely that French employees will be accustomed to working within decentralised business hierarchies that facilitate a great deal of team-working and horizontal problem-solving and decision-making. Therefore, there would be advantages for the UK manager that is attempting to facilitate more effective work processes and outcomes to take a hard approach to people management. Armstrong (2007) describes the hard HRM approach as an HR strategy that ensures more effective worker controls by exploiting human capital as a means to achieve competitive advantages and more productive work processes. Under this approach, human capital is considered much like tangible resources, which are coordinated and allocated with emphasis on statistical synchronisation of worker activities with strategic business strategy (Armstrong 2003). UK human resource managers are generally accustomed to utilising strategies that consider employees as valuable contributors to the business model, focusing on motivating, empowering and coaching employees to achieve dedication and more productive commitment. There will need to be adjustments to UK-centric human resources policies for employees that are not acquainted with close inter-professional working relationships with senior-level managers. There would be more emphasis in this nation, when working with French employees, on making immediate and decisive action under a more autocratic management style in order to gain productive outputs and performance. This ties in closely to the characteristics of French professional culture that scores very highly in Hofstede’s measurement of uncertainty avoidance. French culture is very risk averse and appreciates when proper planning has been considered to remove ambiguities from within the business model. Establishment of specific rules and a sense of business security are necessities in French business and, if not available, can lead to stressed employees (Hofstede Centre 2012). Therefore, from a human resources perspective, it is likely that management-by-objectives under the transactional leadership model would provide more effective results associated with people management. Under this philosophy of management and leadership, goals and expectations are clearly outlined and, when achieved, a series of pre-established rewards are generated for goal-attainment and productivity (Antonakis, Avolio and Sivasubramaniam 2003). Employees in France are likely to be resistant or uncooperative if there are not clearly identified objectives and expectations delivered by managerial team members. Transactional leadership and the management-by-objectives ideology would remove any conceptions of risk and uncertainty, making employees more focused and content toward meeting organisational expectations. However, both France and the United Kingdom are short-term oriented societies, which gives HR practitioners the opportunity to utilise some dimensions of people management used in the UK while operating in France. For businesses offering products and services to consumers, social consumption habits are for immediate gratification so the business serves these societal trends which incorporates a short-term minded set of organisational goals. In business, managers and employees are rewarded for their short-term gains and achievements (Hofstede Centre 2012). It would be practical, then, for the HR practitioner to establish not only management-by-objectives, but also to set short-term targets for achievement and performance rather than long-term rewards attainable over a longer period of time. Rewards provided quarterly for meeting budget-related expectations or specific job performance would be more effective than annual appraisals leading to one-time yearly rewards. Working with German employees Germany is surprisingly similar to the United Kingdom in the professional world. Germany is also a short-term oriented culture, maintains a stronger propensity for individualism versus collectivism, and scores identically to the UK as it relates to masculine tendencies in culture. The only significant culture disparity between Germany and the United Kingdom is the level of risk that is tolerated by business employees and managers in Germany. As a masculine oriented culture, German employees are focused on achievement, value competition and find social value in achievement of professional success. These values begin foundationally during their academic years and carries forward into the professional environment (Hofstede Centre 2012). This is quite similar to the UK organisational environment. As such, it would be practical for the human resource practitioner to consider establishing competitive reward structures that pit functional expert groups against one another with friendly competition in order to achieve an established reward. Though Germans score moderately high on Hofstede’s individualism scale, at 67, there are still some collectivist characteristics that drive perceptions of the importance of maintaining loyalties for others in the organisation. Self-actualisation is strongly supported culturally in Germany, yet loyalty can be established through the contract between employee and employer (Hofstede Centre 2012). Because of this, the UK HR practitioner should be able to effectively establish a system that identifies personal accomplishments (an appraisal process) whilst also promoting friendly competition within a group dynamic. For instance, if the business has a goal of reducing operational costs, within a short time period, functional teams disparate from other expert groups can be promoted to rapidly seek opportunities for cost reduction where the team achieving the first significant goal achieves an appropriate reward. Germans, much like the French, are very avoidant of uncertainty and want it removed from the business environment. German employees and managers want there to be detailed plans and schematics for change operations within the business and will likely be resistant if there are ambiguities associated with taking on a new business direction if there are perceived risks or lack of contingency to assure positive and productive end results. This, again, would be a predictor of potential success using a transactional and management-by-objectives system that rewards contingent on specific and well-defined objectives. This is supported by Jung, Bass and Sosik (1995) who offer that high risk-avoidant cultures respond more effectively to transaction-based leadership structures. Germans also score low on power distance tolerance, which is common in the UK business model almost identically. Therefore, there would need to be little adjustment to existing UK HR strategies when facilitating management of German employees. Participative communication philosophies and shared decision-making would be demanded by German employees as control is known to be highly unpopular (Hofstede Centre 2012). HR practitioners should be considering a decentralised business model that promotes team-working function and horizontal communications to provide opportunities for employees to be more actively involved with business practices and strategy developments. For instance, a laissez-faire leadership strategy might be effective so that employees have more autonomy in their working roles. The laissez-faire leadership model is essentially defined as a lack of leadership (Bass and Avolio 2004). If the HR practitioner attempts to instil a great deal of control systems that monitor and dominate individual job roles, it is likely it will create resistance based on German cultural perceptions of power distance tolerance. Therefore, a soft approach to human resources would also be most viable that champions personal growth and achievement and works toward mentoring as part of closer and more intimate inter-professional relationships between managers and employees. Working with Japanese employees The Japanese culture is significantly different than the United Kingdom in the professional world, requiring a substantial adjustment to pre-existing HR and management policies and ideologies. Japan is considered one of the most masculine-oriented cultures in the world driven largely by long-standing values associated with academic achievement and the competitive environment in business that was established during rapid development in an effort to compete with major Western countries in technology, product development and general consumerism. As such, these societal values translate into the type of organisational culture that can be expected by UK managers when working with Japanese employees. Japanese employees are highly motivated when they become a part of high-performance, competitive teams, especially when this competition is promoted against competitors in the industry (Hofstede Centre 2012). Japanese employees have a significant pride associated with achievement of professional perfection, which is highly superior to the cultural dynamics of the UK culture which scores moderately high on masculinity. This has many advantages for the UK HR practitioner. There should, when working with Japanese employees, be well-defined and opportunistic systems that provide opportunities for employees to advance or gain training-oriented knowledge so that they can find fulfilment by moving up the corporate ranks at a speed appropriate to their talents and ambitions. It is likely that job cross-training to improve skill-sets of employees and ample opportunities established that guarantee completion of a holistic training program will provide for promotional security. The highly motivated and competitive aspects of Japanese professional culture will provide the business with quality, retained employees that has implications for removing costs of recruitment and allow the business to expand its human capital-related advantages over competing firms. Japan scores moderately on Hofstede’s framework for collectivism versus individualism, meaning that the business culture will maintain elements associated with both. In business, Japanese employees experience shame and disgrace when they have lost face (reputation) in front of a collectivist group by which their sentiment and opinion are important factors. “Japanese in-group conceptions, however, are very situational” (Hofstede Centre 2012, p.2). Individuals still want to be recognised for their own personal achievements, but at the same time maintaining loyalty to an in-group are still prominent conceptions in the cultural environment. This provides opportunities for the UK-based manager in establishing systems that will be favoured by Japanese employees. It would be recommended that the UK HR practitioner develop a 360-degree feedback system that provides not only sentiment about performance from immediate managers, but from the collective whole of other relevant stakeholders that have experience working with the individual Japanese employee. Luthans and Peterson (2003) offer a model of the 360-degree feedback system that utilises a supplemental feedback coach to assist in not only evaluating the employee’s reported performance competence, but also provide opportunities for improvement to help the employee achieve their desired level of perfection in professional behaviour. Since individualism needs and collectivist loyalties are both considered important conceptions in the Japanese culture, this would be ideal for satisfying and motivating future performance. Japanese culture also scores only moderately on Hofstede’s power distance scale, meaning that there is some level of tolerance and intolerance for control systems and the level of disparate authorities allocated between executives, middle managers and subordinate employees. Japanese companies are renowned for their slow decision-making processes as this culture scores extremely high (a score of 92) on uncertainty avoidance. Therefore, Japanese managers and employees ensure that contingency plans are developed, goals are explicitly spelled out for a change to processes or a new business venture, and demand a great deal of figures and statistics to support decision-making. Japanese companies, however, as a matter of globalisation, are becoming more participative in decision-making, reducing the disparity between high power and low power organisational actors. Furthermore, Japanese culture is very long-term oriented, in which preservation of resources in the short-term, when accompanied with corporate thrift, are considered paramount to achieve long-run goals and rewards for these efforts (Hofstede 1991). Since executives are so concerned about short-term budgeting and positioning the business so that it achieves long-run rewards using minimal resources, it tends to create power disparities between lower-ranking employees by which subordinates grow accustomed to operating under this structure of power distance. Because of this blended cultural set of characteristics related to long-term orientation, moderate acceptance of power distance, and tremendously high intolerance for ambiguity and risk in decision-making, there are complexities for the UK-based HR practitioner in designing proper management strategies. Edwards and Ewen (1996) reinforce the benefits of using a 360-degree feedback system as these researchers have identified that employees are more likely to change or improve their work habits and motivations when they receive respect from their co-workers rather than supervision. As such, to fulfil all cultural needs associated with Japanese long-term orientation, moderate acceptance of power disparities, and high uncertainty avoidance, the HR practitioner should develop opportunities for employee colleagues to be directly involved in decision-making processes whilst still segregating important cost-related and strategic decision-making within the centralised executive hierarchy. Since there is only a moderate volume of tolerance and acceptance of disparity in authority distances, this will set the impression that the Japanese employees are considered vital contributors and also allows senior-level managers retain their scope of control to ensure that only qualified decision-makers, relying on quantitative data, are changing business strategy and structural direction internally. This would provide effective motivation for not only the employee population, but also the higher-level executives that are also reliant on the intervention and policies of human resources leaders to fulfil executive-level concerns as well. Sometimes these relationships between HR professionals and executives increase the cohesiveness of the organisational culture as well as motivate senior managers to achieve more effective and productive outputs. Conclusion As illustrated by the research describing the characteristics of French, German and Japanese cultures, there must be at least moderate to extreme modifications of UK-centric management and human resources policies in order to effectively manage these diverse cultures. As shown, French employees are going to be unaccustomed to working within highly collectivist business environments where decision-making occurs horizontally. This French culture also does not appreciate risk-taking and uncertainty in the business model, which is actually a fundamental characteristic of the entrepreneurship ideology that is prevalent in so many United Kingdom businesses. France appears to be the country that would require the most significant change in behaviour and managerial attitude over that of Germany and Japan to achieve effective results. Regardless of the differences or similarities in Germany, Japan and France, the UK model of leadership and human resources management that drives superior performance are not going to work effectively in foreign cultures. It would be necessary for the UK-based practitioner of management or HR to fully examine all characteristics of the French, German and Japanese cultures in order to develop workable and accepted policies that will avoid change resistance or de-motivate employees maintaining highly disparate or moderately-different cultural characteristics to that of the UK. References Antonakis, J., Avolio, B.J. and Sivasubramaniam, N. (2003). Context and leadership: an examination of the nine factor full-range leadership theory using the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire, The Leadership Quarterly, 14(2), pp.261-294. Armstrong, M. (2007). Armstrong’s Handbook of Strategic Human Resource Management, 5th edn. London: Kogan Page. Armstrong, M. (2003). 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