International and Comparative Human Resources Management - Essay Example

International and Comparative Human Resources Management Number Department Introduction Human resource management of encompasses a wide range of responsibilities aimed at organizing employees. Human resource managers face challenges such as making sure employees who are knowledgeable in particular areas of work are available in market environment where the company operates, facilitating effective flow of information throughout the whole organization, and finding and nurturing people with important skillsets in each area. Multinational human resource managers must factor in the global audience in their attempt to formulate and implement HR policies. Evolving roles of HR Managers The function of multinational HR managers is undergoing transformation with the evolution of competitive markets and the recognition of the fact that Human Resource Management (HRM) contributes immensely toward the realization of strategic goals of multinationals. Egan and Bendick (2003) indicated that organizations that fail to invest in attracting and keeping talented employees may find it hard to compete in the current world. The end result may be their dwindling profits, and perhaps their complete elimination from the market by their rivals who implement strategic employment policies. Darrag, Ahmed, and Hadia (2010) argued that with the growth of many multinationals in various industries, competition, both in domestic and global markets has become stiffer. Today, organizations are forced to adopt adaptability, resilience, flexibility, and customer-based interventions to survive and stay profitable in the global market (Choy, 2007). And with this transformed market environment, HR managers must change into more strategic personnel. Basically, an HR manager should face the challenge of being an employee sponsor, and play the role of a nucleus upon which mentoring develops within the company (Choy, 2007). Pitelis and Verbeke (2007) indicated that in order to achieve these challenging tasks, HR policies must be geared towards attaining business goals. This requires a wide knowledge about the company and the ability to shape important causes and policies for business gains (Egan and Bendick 2003). In light of these qualities, Escobar and Vredenburg (2011) noted that the role of current-day HR Managers is to retain strategic workforce and nurture talent. Choy (2007) suggests that the increasing role of multinational HR managers as trainers, counsellors, guides, and succession organizers is increasingly becoming irreversible. The role of HR managers is also sidling towards promoting and championing the ideals, ethics, concepts, and spiritual elements of their multinational organizations, especially with regard to handling cultural diversity at the workplace (Choy, 2007). HR managers for multinational companies grapple with numerous challenges in their line of duty, problems brought about by globalization (Mongiello, and Harris, 2006). These include; workplace diversity, low employee morale and productivity; and complicated planning options in certain markets. However, with an open and strategic approach to management, the managers can show effective leadership for their organization and manage the resources well (Choy, 2007). Globalization Globalization has tailored the significance of HR management in multinationals to reflect the towering global scope and value (Escobar and Vredenburg 2011). Today’s HR managers have to deal with the transfer of workforces and responsibilities across countries. Additionally, globalization has enhanced the need for human resources to interact with sophisticated technologies in order to accomplish various HR tasks: these include; ensuring more competition among skilled employees at all organizational levels; more convoluted and strategic talent sourcing and nurturing pipelines (Jain, and Singh, 2013). In particular Darrag, Ahmed, and Hadia (2010) have noted the presence of a highly rigorous advertising, communication among various corporate fields and technology impact on the HR management. According to Pitelis, and Verbeke (2007), the HR manager roles involves the delicate task of realigning the organization’s human assets to respond to the changes by building new workforce alliances that are well equipped to handle new roles within the organization. Globalization will affect HR managers work by underscoring the need for new expertise such as new language proficiencies to have a wider audience (Choy, 2007). For example, in order to enlist workers from another country with a diverse culture, a HR manager will be prompted to acquire foreign language skills to eliminate the problem of language barrier. Some multinationals use English as the official language of communication in all the branches around the world (Egan and Bendick, 2003). However, this is seen as a strategy to lock out communities that are not English speakers, compromising the operations of the business, especially when it comes to relating with customers and the immediate community. The enforcement of one language for communication is arguably against the spirit of globalization and cultural diversity, and could place HR managers in an awkward position when implementing internal and external communication strategies (Mongiello, and Harris, 2006). In light of this, Choy (2007) has indicated that organizations have to consider cultural diversity influencing managerial roles when formulating multinational HR management policies, as different countries have different cultural values. According to Pitelis, and Verbeke (2007), United Kingdom-based multinationals and local companies prefer to nurture individual employee successes achieved through limited supervision, whereas in France, HR managers believe that adequate supervision, recognition, security and a cosy workplace conditions would yield high productivity (Escobar and Vredenburg, 2011). In light of the impracticability of marooning all employees together to embrace predetermined organizational values, HR managers should be conversant with and appreciate other cultural values (Pitelis, and Verbeke, 2007). A multinational that appreciates and cultivates cultural diversity will reap immense benefits because; basically, it will be bringing representatives of consumers to spearhead organizational programs (Mongiello, and Harris, 2006). With expanding globalization and stiffer competition among market rivals within the global market, Choy (2007) indicated that a diverse workforce is the key to wooing, expanding and maintaining loyal customer base. Egan and Bendick (2003) noted that while strategizing for competition in a global market, members of the workforce from various national backgrounds offer language skills and link the organization to the cultures. In such cases, HR managers will be in charge of offering the organization’s employees the necessary orientation on cultural sensitivity in the entire organization as a way of bringing the multinationals closer to the customers (Mongiello, and Harris, 2006). Workplace Diversity Challenges Workplace diversity is dependent upon age, race, lineage, sexual orientation, ethnicity, level of education, earnings, marital status, geographic location, job experience, religion, family values, and disability or lack of it (Darrag, Ahmed, and Hadia, 2010. Owing to the diverse needs of human resources at the workplace, HR managers are forced to streamline a diverse body of skillsets to achieve innovative ideas that can match the universal goals of the organization. The merging of the rich talents enables HR managers to deploy the right resources to various programs for purposes of accomplishing the corporate goals and objectives (Pitelis, and Verbeke, 2007). Choy (2007) indicated that the pitfalls and problems arising in various organizational practices, from cultural diversity require astute managers to transform them into a strategic organizational asset. This can only be achieved if multinational HR managers focus their attention on these diverse talents for purposes of transforming them into organizational gains (Escobar and Vredenburg, 2011). Mongiello, and Harris (2006) indicated that with the combination of personnel skillsets drawn from diverse cultural heritages, gender differences, ages and lifestyle practices, a multinational can formulate policies aimed at enabling the employees to respond more swiftly to business opportunities; and innovatively to outdo rivals in the global market (Choy, 2007). However, staying competitive regardless of internal cultural conflicts normally presents immense challenges to HR managers, which must be factored in the organization’s priorities to keep and expand the assets. By contrast, HR managers whose organization’s internal mechanisms do not encourage cultural diversity risk forfeiting vital human resources to market rivals (Egan and Bendick, 2003; Brewster, Sparrow, and Vernon, 2007). Pitelis and Verbeke (2007) pointed out that this is normally the case for multinational corporations who have wide networks and a global reach and recruit employees from across the world. In light of this, a HR manager should be concerned with and may deploy the ‘Think Global, Act Local’ strategy to manage most of the internal challenges that crop up every day. The HR challenge of workplace diversity features prominently in Western multinationals such as Walmart and McDonald’s that have made debuts in the largely conservative Asian market (Mongiello, and Harris, 2006). This is especially true due to restricted use of the Internet in Asian countries such as China, which basically hinders web-based communications in organizations. In light of this, human resources from the country may not readily embrace high technology use in mobilising human resources toward a particular organizational cause (Pitelis, and Verbeke, 2007). As a result the realization of a knowledge-based economy may encounter challenges in the country or when an employee from the society is sent to work in another branch of the company situated abroad (Egan and Bendick 2003). In light of this, many HR managers are forced to undertake cultural-based training to enhance their capacities and gain from cultural diversity (Egan and Bendick 2003). By contrast, HR managers grapple with the challenge of recruiting locals in line with government policy as opposed to talent-based strategy which may attract foreigners to fill vacancies in a particular country. In most cases, a successful management of workplace diversity is driven by the skills and experience the HR manager who shows tolerance, nurtures talent, maintains regular and acts according to the prevailing laws. According to Egan and Bendick (2003) ineffective management of culturally diverse human resources in the workplace may lead to employee profiling based on their cultural values. By contrast, in the typical world of multinational business, Imbun (2006) noted that classifying diversity is practically impossible and HR managers who try to respond to the diversity of the organizational assets by weighing the local talent against foreign employees will be better placed to grow their organization’s customer base and profitability. Aligning HR practices to business goals Sumetzberger (2005) argued that unlike in not-for-profit organizations where HR management is perceived as a part of the organization that cannot be done away with, HR managers working in multinationals have a reason to act as a business drivers. But, despite the importance of a business-oriented HR manager, aligning the department’s best practices to multinational’s business goals in often hard to achieve. The challenge, therefore calls for the implementation of the five R’s to enable the workforce work well in environments where cultural diversity may prove hard to solve (Brewster, Sparrow, and Vernon, 2007). The HR team ought to act right from the initial phases of searching from employees in order to have a team-oriented workforce by aligning the business policy to Resourcing, Recruiting skilled employees, Retaining the skilled person, Retraining and Restructuring him or her according to the organizational needs. Almost all multinationals are increasingly adopting technologies to run their businesses (Imbun, 2006). As such, maintaining employee-machine interaction in the face of rapid evolution of technologies seems to be the most important aspect of a successful business, but is difficult to achieve. Information systems have turned out to be dynamic and subject to constant innovations and upgrading in the technologically changing world and evolving customer expectations (Imbun, 2006). The changing trends can be attributed to the culture of globalization, which tempts and may strain the capacity of HR on technology bases. Sumetzberger (2005) noted that the capacity and the readiness of a HR manager to transform the scope and category of jobs, and the business structure on a regular basis is an important strategy for recruitment and reduction of turnover rates in multinationals. These problems of controlling expectations and organizational change plans often strains HR managers. The challenge of managing human resources does not end with enlisting the right individual into the company, but with the manner in which the HR manager is going to organize the new recruits to become performance-oriented employees (Imbun, 2006). In most cases, HR managers often face challenges transforming the employees’ skillsets into efficient drivers of organizational culture and goals. Imbun (2006) pointed out that training and development of diverse workforces to work as a team in current multinational organizations is quite challenging. In light of this, Sumetzberger (2005) indicated that training programs for employees to remain competitive in the industry have evolved into an exercise that not only seeks the recognition of various training needs and imparting the needed skills, but entails predicting and antedating the market needs. This enables the HR managers to formulate appropriate training so that the workforce is well-armed to tackle most of the challenges that crop up in a competitive world of business (Imbun, 2006). Another key challenge facing multinational HR managers is how to properly integrate all the lower structures and subordinates to enable them realize high efficiency (Castrogiovanni, and Kidwell, 2010). The diverse cultures in which current multinationals operate underscore the need to groom the workforce to become acquainted with a productive culture and work towards the cause. The setting up of an enabling atmosphere where the development of skills and its continued existence across all structures can be attained is a tremendous challenge for multinationals (Kramar, and Syed, 2012). These challenges experienced by HR managers call for a more proactive approach to not only keep multinationals in various markets across the world, but enable them to turnaround their returns on investment in the face of the unpredictable global economy (Imbun, 2006). Managing workplace diversity is the most important strategy that if handled properly, can enable a multinational to operate more effectively in any environment (Yueh-shian, 2011). Solutions to HR challenges Workplace diversity can make or break the success of a multinational’s HR strategy, depending on its handling (Castrogiovanni, and Kidwell, 2010). Doz and Prahalad (1986) argued that the wide network of most multinationals shown dawn on an HR manager to transform his or her approach to management from an ethnocentric standpoint to one that is culturally relative. This paradigm shift would enable the organization to be accommodative and allow for employee innovativeness. This transformation of managerial strategy should be captured in the managerial goals of the company in order to allow the leaders to deploy better planning and organization of the assets through a more effective leadership (Imbun, 2006). To that end, several methods can be used to ensure that the management of human resources is effective and responsive to the customers, employees and suppliers across the globe. These include; organizing a mentoring program, managing employee skillsets in a strategic manner, implementing performance matrix, and motivating the human resources (Kramar, and Syed, 2012). Mentoring Program Mentoring is one of the most appropriate ways to manage issues related with workplace diversity (Yueh-shian, 2011). The program may involve bringing on board various departmental executives to take part in a mentoring program with the aim of passing the values to the lower ranking employees who are from different cultural backgrounds. A multinational should consider involving experts to help with imparting more skills in a practical way, because by doing so, various employees will be more encouraged to voice their opinion and obtain vital skills to handle conflicts that might arise from their diversity. Such mentoring programs encourage employees from different cultures to embrace one another for the sake of the organization’s success. Organizing Talents Strategic organization of talents enables multinationals to appreciate the advantages of cross cultural interaction in the workplace (Guest, and Woodrow, 2012). As many more companies go global in their market scope through online platforms or physical facilities, the company have more access to a wide range of talent that if properly deployed, could turnaround the revenues of the particular organizations. By contrast, a mere appreciation of diversity does not turn the fortunes the organization’s way, but a strategic HR Manager will, by considering ways in which a diverse workplace can be transformed into a vehicle for the organization to infiltrate new markets and achieve important organizational objectives. Performance matrix An effective HR manager of a multinational should apply controls and measure the outcomes of each employee’s productivity (Sumetzberger, 2005). Such a manager ought to carry out organizational appraisals on issues like remuneration, benefits, and condition of the workplace environment among other issues on a regular basis to evaluate the status of the organization for long-term planning initiatives (Briscoe, Schuler, and Claus, 2008). Additionally, there is need to implement performance matrix for gauging the effects of cultural diversity programs on the business operations through feedbacks. Kramar, and Syed (2012) indicated that without adequate control and assessment, most of the programs aimed at improving unity in diversity within the organization may fail to materialize, and eventually cripple the search for better solution to cultural conflicts in multinationals. Eventually, organizational teamwork and employee productivity may be hurt, a development that often translates into loss of profits. Motivational Approaches Multinational HR managers need to develop an effective reward system for their organization as a way to improving the morale of the workforce and stimulate their productivity in the face of cultural conflicts and the challenging responsibilities (Sumetzberger, 2005). This can improve the level of employee satisfaction on the job. The reward system improves the employee comfort when on the job and yields higher productivity. Kramar and Syed (2012) indicated that the issuing of rewards influences employee motivation for the better mainly through the implied value of the prizes and their exigency on productivity. To be effective, a multinational’s reward system should be tailored to meet the cultural needs of the cultural environment where the company operates. For example, some societies prefer monetary rewards, but others do not. Conclusion The mandate of a HR manager should be tailored to suit the changing requirements of the organization in relation to the dynamic global market. An effective HR manager transforms his organization into a more adaptable, strong, and consumer-oriented business. Within such an environment, the leader must learn and deploy effective management strategies such as being able to plan, organize, lead and manage the human assets in an evolving and competitive market environment. To manage the challenges that couple the enforcement of various HR initiatives in multinational corporations, organizations should promote cross-cultural communication among the diverse workforce to achieve teamwork. It is important to also embrace technology as a way of improving better interaction with customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders. References Brewster, C., Sparrow, P., and Vernon, G. 2007. International Human Resource Management 2nd edition. London, CIPD Publishing. 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