The internationalizing staffing strategies of the BMW group - Essay Example

Executive summary BMW is one of the leading companies in the manufacture of luxurious automobiles. The company has a global operation hence the need to diversify its human resources. Currently, BMW used geocentric, polycentric, and ethnocentric human resources approach to staffing. They approach makes it overcome cultural as well as political barriers associated with global human resource management. The company also has alternative staffing approaches such as gender and cultural diversification to fill the gap. Similarly, the organization needs to conduct graduate trainee programs to nurture talent and organizational culture. Introduction Organizations adapt their human resource management practices for successful strategies execution to survive and grow in the international markets. International human resource field has been a focus of all business organizations, and its significance will grow in the subsequent years. International organizations use three strategies types for transfer of practices of human resource across different countries. The first strategy is the ethnocentric strategy, which uses similar practices of human resources of the parent company in its host nations. Secondly, they use polycentric strategy that employ local people as labor force and adapts the human resource practices of host nation. The third one is geocentric strategy, which only focuses on talents of the employee and adopts human resource practices, which are operational and resourceful irrespective of the nationality. All strategies have their weaknesses and strengths that are applied as per the business type, the strategy of the organization, the leadership, and the experiences of the organization regarding diverse strategies. The international groups can use traditionally sensitive and adaptive practices of human resource management for generating modest advantage in foreign tasks. In an effort to discover novel markets and prospects, international corporations are adapting to practices of human resource management across diverse borders. Theories and studies on firms’ internalization have received significant attention from many researchers and intellectuals. To some key scholars, internationalization is the process by which organizations gradually increase their involvement in international activities of the business. It is also a process where transactions are established and conducted in other countries beyond their national jurisdiction. This paper will analyze and describe the internationalizing staffing strategies of the BMW group. Staffing strategies employed by BMW when internationalizing their business The world is changing at a quick pace because of different factors among them technology and globalization. Personnel mobility is still a focus of political regulation and nation industrial policy in most countries (BMW Group 2012). Society shift needs novel mobility solutions to cope with the speedy changes taking place. Instability has become persistent in day-to-day business hence calling for drastic measures. Both markets and consumers are still uneasy in this era of economic improbability. To meet these challenges, BMW formulated the first strategy that aligns the organization into two targets. To be profitable and to augment long term value in changing times. This applies to structural, technological as well as the cultural aspects of the company. The company has been implementing numerous strategies in keeping up with four pillars of the strategy since 2001. The four pillars include shaping the future, growth, profitability and access to consumers and technologies (BMW Group 2012). The company’s activities will remain firmly dedicated on the premium fragments. Primarily, the company has earned trust and respect of its consumers internationally. The reason for this is its consistent focus on delivering high quality in all activities it does (Smith 2012). Moreover, the key drivers of the organization have proved fruitful in meeting the goals. The drivers include skills development and training, education scheme, and attraction and retention (BMW 2015). The BMW Company has a department responsible for international human resource marketing and recruiting that holds a number of responsibilities. The department supports the global, local markets in employer branding and recruitment requirements. It also plans long term strategic initiatives to aid the company in its objectives to internationalize the workforce. However, there are a number of challenges that faces the international human resource marketing department. For instance, 70% of the workforces originate from Bavaria and other regions of Germany. This is an unbelievable figure when looks at the company’s presence internationally. The company has production, sales and fiscal entities in over 130 states (BMW Group 2012). Its biggest markets in addition to Germany are China and the US. The BMW group has acknowledged the need to internationalize its workforce. Nonetheless, it cannot do so at the expense of a very Bavarian brand and product. The BMW Group has a strategic partner intern initiative that is involved in identifying BMW departments in Munich that would be willing to take on an international intern. It should also be willing to create positions for internship within these departments and advertising these new positions to students from MIT, Clemson and Georgia (Cibulcis 2013). Additionally, BMW has a strong connection with prestige values and power; thus, it has a greater possibility of being linked with the self-concept of an individual who has salient personality and prestige values. Second strategy that the company is using is ethnocentrism, which is a significant determinant of the attitude of consumer’s formation in international advertising (Tiwari 2013). This method of staffing strategy offers the chance to transfer the BMW Group's value to a foreign country. Personnel who have worked in the parent company has the knowledge how the organization perceives work ethic, service of customers and other related issues. The workforce from the parent BMW Company can bring the values of the company to bear on the foreign branch building. As an international company, BMW operates in many different locations making it essential to have its employees deployed in different nations to give their best. Through this approach, organization benefits from retaining its top talents and transfers human resources depending on the needs. Through this, the organization can transfer the manpower from the mother nation to somewhere far or to a host nation. The BMW group gives its management staff international exposure when it sends them overseas. Additionally, sending them in a foreign land broadens their thinking. This can assist them to rise to greater levels of the organization, as it goes international and permit them to bring their international sensitivity to novel positions. In addition, when an organization opens an operation overseas, it is in the stage of growth (Tiwari 2013). Making use of ethnocentric staffing can avert expanding interests into the region that the company does not want to invest in. The BMW company has attained continuity by placing its management staff in its host country since they possess a working knowledge of the parent company’s long-range goals. BMW has deliberately developed an international strategy in addition to its domestic strategy (Fill & Baines 2014). Thirdly, BMW uses polycentric approach as a staffing strategy (Tiwari 2013). BMW use a polycentric approach to aid its recruitment as it involves hiring and promoting citizens of host nations. Just as said earlier, BMW operates in nearly every market and has showrooms in nearly every corner of the world making it easier to reach its customers or clients. In order to reach the goals of bringing services closer to the people or clients, the organization recruits the locals who understand the dynamics of the market as well as cultural influences to the business (Sims 2015). For instance, BMW recruits and promotes the workforce in US with little manpower transfer from its mother nation or its headquarters in Germany. This implies that it uses the local manpower in the locations or nations it operates. Because of this, the company can increase its productivity because it aligns itself to the labor law, cultural sensitivity and traps the local workforce to aid its acquisition of market share. The approach is effective in alleviating cultural myopia and very cheap to implement. Despite the benefits the organizations gets from this strategy; it has some limitations, which makes it inappropriate in some cases. For instance, it limits career mobility and isolates the company’s headquarters from the foreign subsidiaries. This makes them distinct from each other, which might not be fruitful, in the long run. BMW is one of the leading automobile manufacturers and ranks among the best in the world. Therefore, it is necessary for the company to tap the best manpower around to challenge the market and acquire a competitive advantage. The company understands that this is only possible when it has enough and skilled human resource personnel. Therefore, the company resorts to geocentric staffing approach that entail outsourcing human capital from different parts of the world or all over the world (Tiwari 2013). This strategy allows the organization to attract personnel who have skills and experience from all over the world to help in the course towards maintaining its leads in the manufacture of luxurious vehicles. Moreover, it helps the organization in building a strong culture and informal management networks, which benefits the company (Spatrtanburg 2011). Additionally, geocentric approach enables the organization to use its human resources efficiently. However, this approach has many challenges in relation to national immigration policies, which in many cases limits its implementation. Similarly, its implementation is too expensive since the organization has to accommodate and provides all the necessary including coping with the culture of the host nation. Alternative staffing strategies that may be more appropriate if BMW used One of the alternative staffing strategies is graduate trainee programs. Recruiting fresh graduates from all over the world or regionally is very effective in making staffs grow up the corporate ladder. Fresh graduates are determined, energetic, and likely to make the organization realize its goals. They are also resourceful and full of innovation, which works towards supporting the organization in achieving its mission and goals. Recruiting fresh graduates will enable the organization embark on a competitive process and nurture the successful candidates that will intern help overcome other challenges. Moreover, graduates recruitment is less expensive compared to hiring experienced personnel who will demand larger salary. The BMW group should support in recruiting and employer branding (Ahmad & Kitchen 2008). The company can do this specifically at its strategic collaborating with universities. This move has a higher possibility of creating a number of employer profiles on the career website of the universities. After creating the accounts, the group can regularly post positions and promotes the BMW image of the employer on the online career portals, for which the students are searching for employment. Thirdly, BMW needs to diversify its staffing to encompass people or workforce from different social backgrounds (European Commission 2006). Multicultural work environment or staffing from different demographics is very fruitful since the company has personnel who are rich with information from different social backgrounds. It also limits the perception from one point or using a single perspective. Diverse Staffing enables the organization meets the goals since different employees from diverse social background have more to offer (Smith 2012). This is also important because it allows employees to learn from one another hence overcoming the weaknesses they have. Employees get humble time to interact and learn from each one's background hence improving productivity. Fourthly, some nations such as China are experiencing disparity in age gapping. This means that the workforce is made of people who are of old age, and this is a time bomb yet to explode. Therefore, it is necessary for the organization to recruit the young aged who will take the positions of the elderly when they retire. Similarly, gender balancing is key to a recruitment strategy because different cultures across the world are sensitive to gender (Kim & Mauborgne 2013). In some nation such as Saudi Arabia, the role of women is subordinated hence do not recognize their input calling for more diversity and a strategy to recruit more men. Conclusion and Recommendation BMW has diversified staffing strategies that have made it continue thriving from its workforce. The organization operates across nations hence the need to diversify its operations. Currently, the organization has diversified its staffing approaches where it recruits the locals and international staffs depending upon the need and experiences required. Similarly, the organization sends its staffs to oversee operations where there is the need to have more staffs. Because of these strategies, the company has remained competitive in the automobile industry. However, there are more that the organization can do including adopting different staffing strategies to stay ahead of competitors. For instance, resorting to graduate trainees will benefit the organization because it will help nurture and build on the culture it wants to influence. Moreover, diversification of recruitment to entail people from all social backgrounds will help the organization bank and acquire skills across the globe. This will be effective in resolving daily, and misunderstandings experienced. 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