International HRM: Contemporary Issues in Europe - Essay Example

International HRM An Overview: We first have to look at the things and facts that are common in all the four places, that is USA, UK, France and Sweden, apart from USA other countries are facing more or less same difficulties that is people have different thinking styles and also they have different styles of management, even worsening the situation the training programs are not working effectively here, employees are just giving it lip service, therefore we all need to come up with some new business strategy that is international and can be suitable to all the subsidiaries, the best sentence that can be emphasized in such scenario is, “The subject matter of our project is that international organizations are faced with the problem of providing people from differing cultural contexts with a working framework that enables successful co-operation. On the basis of original research our intention is to extend the knowledge of the internal and external relationships of work groups in various cultural contexts. As co-operation processes play a central role in teams we focus on processes centered on co-operation in and between groups with teams understood as social systems which define themselves in relation to their organizational and social surroundings”(Brewster, Harris, 279: 1999). Recommendations: Culture So the culture needs to be considered here, culture means the norms, the traditions and the values, in the case of MPS we have to bring the same culture and ways of working that are being followed in USA to all the subsidiaries, this is the only way to survive and to have the same success that the USA based MPS achieved, another important thing that should be kept in mind prior to culture is the mentality of employees in subsidiaries, which should be similar to the employees of parent company. Recruitment and Selection No matter where you are from, no matter what are your preferences but you should be very much competitive in working and should be a hard worker, so from this point of view the company has to make slight adjustments in their recruitment and selection policies, more importantly the company is a very popular one and not an ordinary company which is having poor market every where, so they need to bring in the best talent of the Europe in their company, this is all possible by proper interviewing and keeping a selection criteria, where communication barriers are occurring the company needs to form a new policy, they can bring in the natives at the executive positions so that it would be very easy to give them incentives and through them communicating the union to work effectively. Training Program Also there is another policy that should be formed and that is instead of bringing in all the employees for the training program, the parent company should call the executives of the native countries to USA and than give them training and also instructions so that they can give the similar instructions to their employees in the native country, this would for sure help the employees to understand the rules and regulations in a better way because they would be taught and instructed by their own people (Executives) and it would be more easy for them to understand the objectives and goals of the organization they are working in, another good strategy is to use motivational theories on the employees, they should know their importance in the organization, as the main work takes place in the production unit, thus the employees should know that if they wouldn’t work than the organization can be damaged on the other hand it can also have negative consequences but positive chances are higher as other motivational concepts would also be applied. Employee Empowerment Now lets again put some emphasis on the recruitment and selection of the employees for other countries, the technology being used in USA is somewhat different than the other parts of the world, you can understand that every particular machine requires particular skills from the worker thus you need to understand the fact that the recruitment and selection of workers have a lot to do here, there must be specific criteria for employee selection, people who have experience of working on similar machines in USA should be given preference regardless of their qualification, people who have any diploma in working on such pharmaceutical production units should be recruited, this would make the job of trainers a lot more easier to help the employees understand the working operations and also this would result in less turn over rate and the better outcome in terms of quality and quantity, as employees would have very less chances of moving out of the organization, as they have only specialized in the particular field, though the increase in competition can cause the organization few of its remarkable employees, the entire idea is to recommend the company to use employee empowerment. “It might be assumed that an increase in the qualification levels associated with specific occupations would be of particular value to them. There are a number of reasons for this. First, hi-tech firms generally tend to employ a relatively large proportion of engineers and scientists in comparison with more traditional industries (Anderson and Kleingartner 1987). Second, there is a positive relationship between the competitiveness of ‘hi-tech’ science-based firms and the technical knowledge and expertise of their staff (Bosworth et al. 1992). This means that these employers not only have the opportunity, they also have the incentive to erode one of the key features of professional employment”(McGovern, 44: 1998). Employee Backup and Incentives Now lets have some discussion on the managerial authority, the managerial authority, which should be of the native country, as discussed previously, should consider the basics of that particular country, no matter if these people are having more holidays or not, no matter if they are having extra time off, there are specific rules that should be formed, “The first is the possibility of differences in the structure of managerial authority between those in high-discretion high-trust work roles (in this case engineers or chemists) and those at the intermediate level (technicians). In this context it is important to ask whether management are still dependent on these orientations in the context of certain HRM practices. If, as some suggest, the employment relationship of those in the service class is characterized by formalized management controls then it remains to be seen if these have indeed altered the underlying social relations of authority”(McGovern, 84: 1998). So the management has to keep in mind the back ups of employees, and also the incentives on for which the employees would work, such as extra time pays, it should be put in their mind that whenever some holiday would appear they would be paid extra, of course it is in relation to the cost effectiveness but yet the company has no other way to ask employees to work, on second thought the company can also form a policy of not following all the holidays except those ones that are appearing on the weekends, the company can trust on its employees as they would be hired specifically on the diploma they would be having so there are less chances of turnover unless the competition takes place. “The various responsibilities of international Human Resource management links them to the pursuit of international business strategies. The strategic decision to "go international" is one of the most important components of the IHRM environment. IHRM must understand these strategic choices and should contribute input to them in order to contribute to their successful achievement”(Briscoe, Schular, 3: 2004). This point brings us to the entire management and the business strategies in accordance to the human resources, “Among all the things managers do, nothing affects a company's ultimate success or failure more fundamentally than how well its management team charts the company's long-term direction, develops competitively effective strategic moves and business approaches, and implements what needs to be done internally to produce good day-in/day-out strategy execution. Indeed, good strategy and good strategy execution are the most trustworthy signs of good management”(Briscoe, Schular, 37: 2004). So the entire responsibility is on the shoulders of the parent company, it has to make few decisions regarding the recruitment and selection of the executives of the foreign country organizations, such as it should be a policy that the executives would be people who have previously worked in America or who understand American culture and their devotion to work, also hired executives should be people of high profile such as retired armed forces personal etc. Outcome of Implementation Plan: The entire planning that is done previously can be implemented locally and also globally responsive in terms that USA MPS can have a much better track record and perhaps it would also increase in their production, also people working in the organization would find it easy to work as they would be given the same incentives and yet there would be specific requirements that the company would follow, they would have the courage as their competition would be less and thus the word “redundancy” would not get into their mind, the employees would identify their importance and would keep hearing motivational sentence which would again bring in their strength, outside USA it would be a handy option to implement the same strategy as employees would now be very sure that they are few of the lucky people to be a part of such US based organization and again brings in a lot of courage to work more effectively. The executives would get training from the same place where USA MPS executives would be getting it, and this can bring in the views of both of these different people together which would also keep on expanding as the executives would go back to their native countries and implement the similar techniques on their employees that they learnt from the parent company, this can also fill so many gaps in the minds of the people working n USA, UK, France and Sweden. Equalizing the recruitment and selection process would also fill the gaps between the two of different classes of people, employees from USA and other three countries would all be treated equally and would have same goal and also the similar interests in the company’s favor, all of them would have the courage to work for the betterment of both, themselves and the organization, this would bring the entire organization as a unit. This entire scenario can also be used in joint ventures across the borders, which is not much different except the cost effective thing, which is relatively very high when an organization seeks opportunities in the other countries and get out to achieve them on self-basis as in the case of MPS. “International joint ventures between culturally diverse partners offer unique opportunities for learning at the organizational level. The partners may potentially gain information and skills related to each other's management practices or culture. In the realm of HRM, new policies and practices can be created in a way that matches the needs and requirements of JV groups. Alternately, culturally diverse joint ventures can pose overwhelming challenges to managers who fail to embrace a philosophy of synergy rising from diversity. For many employees, cultural diversity compounded by language difficulties is threatening. There is less certainty about how work is to be accomplished”(Cyr, 149: 1995). Work Cited and Other Sources Brewster C, H Harris, “International HRM: Contemporary Issues in Europe”, New York: Routledge, 1999. McGovern P, “HRM, Technical Workers & Multinationals”, London: Routledge, 1998. Briscoe D, R Schuler, “International HRM: Policies and practices”, New York: Routledge, 2004. Cyr D, “The Human Resource Challenge of International Joint Ventures”, Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1995. Werther W.B, Keith D, “Human Resources and Personnel Management”, (n.p.): McGraw-Hill, 2000. Brewster C, Hilary H, Paul S, “Globalizing Human Resource Management”, New York: Routledge, 2004. Budhwar P, “Human Resource Management in developing Countries”, London: Routledge, 2001. Gupta, M.L, “Business led HR strategies”, New Delhi: (n.p), 1998. Martin M, “Encyclopedia of HR Development”, (n.p), 2000. Read More