Human Resource Practices and Strategies at IBM - Essay Example

Human Resource Management Human Resource Management Log Reflection before the Research One thing that has interested me for long is how multinationals function. Unlike small organizations that have to run on minimal staff hence making the work of the Human Resource department easy, multinationals usually have inflated staff and managing them is usually a challenge especially due to the diverse cultures that the multinationals operate in. Ever since I developed an interest on HR, I have never really thought much about how such multinationals handle the issue of culture and if it is that important. Before undertaking this study, I thought that culture was an issue that came naturally to organizations. This was because in my sociology studies I had learned that culture was something that occurred naturally and not necessarily a HRM practice. In reality, I did not think that organizational culture had anything to do with the success or failure of an organization and to me the insistence on culture was overrated. People from diverse cultures might understand the same situation in various ways. Productivity may rise in a multicultural work environment as each employee brings diverse talents and skills that can be used to solve challenges. One thing that I did not understand was how these differences could bring about conflict in the work place (Schizas, 2009). In order to understand exactly how culture is crucial to the success of an organization, I studied IBM. IBM is a multinational corporation that has over 400,000 employees and in various parts of the world. My major reason for choosing IBM is because the company has a big presence in Asia and this means that the business practices that are applied in the United States are not likely to be applicable in Asia or Africa and this call for a change in the organizational culture. My main reason for undertaking this study is to find out exactly if organizational culture is important to the organization in trying to achieve its financial goals. To achieve my objective, I will look at the existing literature on organizational culture and how it affects businesses. I will however pay close attention to IBM especially on the changes that they have made in their organizational culture with a view to establishing if this has borne any fruits or not. Along the way, I will also be looking at some of the changes that the company has undertaken in order to realign its HR practices and strategies to enable it to move away from its traditional methods and to adopt new approaches. In the research, I will also seek to establish some of the common errors that are brought about by differences in language and culture in the various localities where IBM has operations. By the end of this research, I believe that I will have established just how critical culture is and how multinationals such as IBM are using the issue of culture to produce continual success. I am excited about this study and I believe that I am going to learn many new things. Log 2: The Research IBM is not just merely a collection of individuals who function by themselves. The members in the various countries of where IBM operates are assembled or huddled into groups or teams. These groupings are critical since they can accomplish more than what an individual working alone can accomplish. Ideally, the various groups within IBM are the primary building blocks and they are therefore central to the organization’s success. The individuals are usually brought together in groupings to help the organization in achieving its goals and to acquire a competitive advantage (Davidson, 2011). In the last century, IBM experienced challenges with groups within the organization something that reduced productivity in nearly every area where the organization had its operations. This was mainly because managers did not have the right information on how to manage group behaviour. Ideally, group’s work in stages and it is therefore critical for managers in every country to understand the stage at which their group is to make it possible for them to better manage the groups to ensure enhanced production (Davidson, 2011). Upon realizing that groupings were critical to IBM’s success, the owners came up with a set of best practices to help their HR personnel in various countries to had better manage group behaviour. One of the HR best practices that were proposed was the use of the Bruce Tuckman five-stage model of group management. According to Tuckman, (2011), groups go through stages and it is critical to understand the stage that the group is in order to help the members to deal effectively deal with each stage. Tuckman calls the first stage forming, and this is where members get to know each other. The second is called the storming stage, which is a time contradictions and misunderstanding on several aspects of the group. Tuckman calls stage 3, normalizing, and it is the stage at which members begin feeling that they truly belong the group. Finally, stage four is referred to as the performing phase and in this case members gather together to ensure that they accomplish the goals of the group (Tuckman, 2011). When the IBM owners examined the current situation in different countries, it became obvious that most of these groups were still at the second stage of formation. This became evident after it became apparent that there was lack of teamwork and the constant debate of who was greater than the other. In order to improve on this, the HR managers were requested to conduct on an urgent basis a Meso organizational behaviour study in the organizations. This was meant to determine the mutual interactions and communications among the employees, team effectiveness, leadership, and conflicts (Lee, 2009). Just by going through this research so far, one thing that has become clear to me is that there are a few things that need to be changed within the group for greater efficiency. What has been happening is that there has not been diversity within the teams and this has brought about gaps in performance in areas where individual employees are weak. For these groups to be enhanced, the management in each country will have to recognize and then maximize the strengths and abilities of individual employees while minimizing their weakness (Lee, 2009). The above view is supported by HR experts who point out that there is need to encourage team building to encourage cohesiveness, which represents the strength of the feelings of oneness among group members. If an employee is not committed to the group, they will lack a strong relationship to the other group members or they will not be target oriented. On the other hand, working towards cohesion will ensure that all the employees are focused towards attaining the group targets (Adler, 2001). Given the diversity of IBM, it is obvious that the employees in each nation share values, visions, views and political processes that are different from each other. People from diverse cultures naturally understand the same situation in diverse ways. Culture pervades all aspects of an individual’s life and it is therefore a reference point from which these individuals analyse and judge situations. A person from a certain culture may have pure objectives when articulating him/herself through words or actions. However, an individual from another culture might understand these expressions to mean something else, and most possibly negative. These disparities in tastes, values, and perception have the ability of bringing conflict in a big organization such as IBM. Consequently, this leads to a decline in productivity since the workers are unable to function as a team or because they fail to function to their full capacity (Adler, 2001). Another challenge in the workplace comes when workers do not speak English as their first language. This situation encompasses a wide range of possibilities, from those who cannot communicate in the most basic terms in English, to those who are bilingual. For IBM managers, failure to master the host language brings challenges in the workplace since there are some foreign words that do not have appropriate translations in English while in addition, idiomatic expressions cannot be translated literally. If the non-native speaker of English would attempt to achieve this, there would be serious communication interruptions and misinterpretations, leading to a decline in productivity (Hansen, & Kahnweiler, 2007). In most cases, societies are constituted of institutions and organizations that replicate the overriding values of their culture. Once cultural behaviours are learned, they give rise to outlooks of belonging and personality. Any interruption in this system might bring about an inception of culture tremor, which brings itself in the form of uneasiness, feelings of lack of identity, and sickness (Hansen, & Kahnweiler, 2007). There has been a misguided belief that a good manager in the United States would be a good manager elsewhere, and that efficient American management practices would be ideal elsewhere. However, IBM has realized that organizations and management mirror the social values of the society in which they are created. To achieve enhanced performance, IBM adapted its practices to local cultural conditions since organizations and management mirror the values of the society in which they are formed. This came from the realization that for managerial practices to be effective there is need to put them in harmony with the local culture. By encouraging managers to adjust their practices to the cultural values of the host country there will definitely be increased returns on assets and sales (Hewstone, & Brown, 2006). Given the above analysis, IBM has realized that for it to continue posting success, the management has to be committed to the right business practices especially on the area of managing groups within the organization. This has led the company to redefine its mission from business machines to global connection and ensuring interactive human networks. What IBM has learned is that there is need for organizations working in diverse cultural backgrounds to overcome the differences in cultural traditions, languages, work ethics, as well as the prevailing political systems for them to be able to ensure that projects are done efficiently. Loosely translated, the HR departments at IBM have realized that organizations are like playing in a band and one has to always ensure that spaces are left for other people to fill. If any individual tries to step in to the role of their colleague, the band will definitely experience disharmony (Hewstone, & Brown, 2006). Log 3: Reflection after the Research Undertaking this study on Human Resource Management at IBM has opened my eyes to a world of new things that I never knew were important in the running of an organization. For a long time, I thought that specialization was the only thing that was necessary for a business to increase productivity. By specialization, I mean assigning each individual to work in the area that they are best suited. In my naivety, the thing that I failed to realize was that specialization might itself be an avenue for discord in an organization if the workers are not encouraged to work together for the common good of the organization. Before I began to undertake this study, the world organizational culture did not have much meaning to me but now I actually understand that most organizations fail because they do not encourage the right culture in their organizations. Another thing that I did not know before I embarked on the study was that the management is solely responsible for setting the right culture within the organization. By looking at the case of IBM, one thing that I have realized is that there is so much HR best practices that the company has put in place for them to attain their current level of success. Actually, this research has answered a question that I have had for long on why the owners of IBM do not have expatriates managing their companies outside of the U.S. Through this study, I have realized that a manager needs to be someone who is conversant with the culture of the particular region of his or her operation (Hofstede, 2000). While going through newspapers in the past, I have come through instances where employees in American multinationals operating in Africa revolted against their expatriate managers. During these moments, I have found myself thinking that such workers were resistant to change and that their behaviour was uncalled for especially since these organizations had offered them an employment opportunity in an era where employment opportunities in Africa were hard to come by. However, after undertaking this research I now fully understand why these workers reacted in this manner. Through this research, I now understand why so many businesses with operations in foreign countries fail to attain their objectives (Hofstede, 2000). The lessons that I have obtained from this research are invaluable especially since I intend to set up an organization with presence all over the world. Even if I did not have such a business in operation, I now fully understand some of the pitfalls to avoid if I became a HR professional. This research has also offered me the right knowledge that I can use to advise an entrepreneur who has such kind of a business in operation. The research has also motivated me to study more on managing groups since this will make me a better leader in any group that I get a chance to lead. References Adler, N. (2001). International dimensions of organizational behavior. Boston: PWS-Kent Publishing Company. Davidson, C. (2011). How IBM is Changing its HR Game. Available at: http://blogs.hbr.org/2011/08/how-ibm-is-changing-its-hr-gam/ Hansen, C., & Kahnweiler, W. (2007). Executive managers: Cultural expectations through stories about work. Journal of Applied Management Studies, 117-139. Hewstone, M., & Brown, R. (Eds.). (2006). Contact and Conflict in Intergroup Encounters. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd. Hofstede, G. (2000). Motivation, leadership, and organization: Do American theories apply abroad? Organizational Dynamics, 9 (1), 42-63. Lee, E. (2009). Culture and management – A study of a small Chinese family business in Singapore. Journal of Small Business Management, 63-67. Schizas, C. (2009). Capitalizing on a generation gap. Management Review, (June), 62-63. Tuckman, B. (2011). Stages of Small Group Management. Pearson Books, Ed. Read More