Managing People in a Multinational Context - Assignment Example

International Assignments al affiliation: Question In human resource management, international duties are a medium for both training and development. Consequently, international duties assigned to workers play a key role in international business operations (Rao, 2008). Pre-training components that will be required include: cultural awareness programs, preliminary visits, language skills training, relocation assistance and training of the trainers. 1. Cultural awareness programs: this involves equipping the workers with the knowledge of the cultures that they expect to find in their new international business environment. International business success requires that employees should exhibit cross-cultural differences in order to communicate successfully. The understanding of various cultural interactions and business systems enables team cohesiveness and efficiency of all corporate functions. 2. Preliminary visits: this is important in ensuring that the workers are introduced and made well conversant with the business situation in the host country. It helps expose the expatriate community to the new system that is different from the one they are used to in their original nation. 3. Language skills training: this ensures that the employees learn a few words and phrases in the language of the host nation as this will become central in enabling communication in their new business environment. It also acknowledges English as the international language of world business. 4. Re-location assistance: this involves the equipping of employees with domestic information in the host country. This involves factors of accommodation, medical care, social services and shopping facilities, issues related to vehicles, customs and insurance issues. This is important since different countries have different operational procedures, and one needs to be equipped to avoid going against the law. 5. Training of trainers: this is more of management training and includes informing the expatriates of the organizational structure, communication structure, boundaries of control and reporting relationships. Question 2 Since the expatriates will be working abroad away from their normal workplace, it is important for the management to device criteria by which they will assess their performances. These will include: 1. Completion of the foreign assignment: it is one of the most basic elements of success assessment. It is expected of any expatriate to remain in the host country for the complete duration of his assignment. Therefore, premature termination of assignments can be viewed as a failure on the part of the expatriate however sometimes they may terminate their stay prematurely due to external factors like when an organization withdraws interest in the foreign market. The utilization of an effective assessment of expatriates desires to stay in their assignments, therefore, would improve their performance. 2. Cross-cultural adjustment: this forms a key component in the success of assignment completion by expatriates. It defines the degree of comfort for which the expatriates are psychologically prepared to live abroad. This is caused by the fact that they get into a new environment which exhibits new cultural norms, behaviours and roles, and some find it difficult to cope with such. Those who manage to integrate the new lifestyle into their usual beliefs and customs are considered as successful. Sometimes this fails to happen, for example, a section of expatriates may find foods from their home country more appealing than those in the host nation and thus may be affected thus experience culture shock. 3. Performance during the foreign assignment: sit is the wish of any multinational company that their employees perform extraordinarily well both in the home country and while abroad. However, achieving this would involve the assessment of work performance to critically bring out the effectiveness. Question 3 Recruitment basically refers to searching for and obtaining a group of prospective candidates with the preferred knowledge, skills and experience to allow a firm to choose the most desired persons to fill up job vacancies against defined position specifications. Prior to developing the job description, as a hiring manager, it is important to recognize general information, essential functions, least requirements and preferred qualifications. Effective recruitment would involve a competitive process that will ensure that the most qualified candidate is selected for the job and thus increased productivity. Once a team of candidates has been recognized through the recruitment procedure then the most suitable candidates are recognized through a selection process that involves interviewing, reference examination and testing. An effective recruitment and selection strategy is mandatory for ensuring success of any firm by ensuring that supply meets the demand. It also ensures that the firm has the essential skills, knowledge and attributes to meet both current and future strategic and operational necessities. The adoption of these procedures without any doubt will result in an efficient composition of candidates who are best suitable for the expatriate job. They will demonstrate what they are capable of doing during these grilling processes and will make a commitment to the job awaiting. Successful firms usually need to employ qualified individuals for the job in question and thus a rigorous selection process is mandatory for the intended success of any company. Question 4 There are various staffing alternatives that can be employed for foreign operations. In this case two of them are discussed as below: 1. Ethnocentric staffing approach: in this approach, parent country nationals are employed to fill key managerial positions since they are familiar with the goals, technology, policies, procedures, and products of the parent company. Consequently, they are in a greater position to report to the company, particularly in cases of inadequacy of managerial qualities at the local level. This method is preferred in a centralized approach to globalization. 2. Polycentric staffing approach: in this approach, host country nationals are hired to fill key positions. It is more effective in a multinational approach when a firm wants to act ‘local.’ Those within and outside the subsidiary will mostly accept this approach since it provides a role model for upwardly mobile human resources. Its advantage is that it is less expensive to hire locals who become more influential in dealing with tribulations as they happen. For this situation, I will adopt the ethnocentric approach since it incorporates the credibility of home country nationals who have the advantage of being well conversant with the company operations. They understand the company more and hence will enhance a faster jumpstarting of the company’s activities in the new environment. It, therefore, centralizes activities and makes it easy for it to coordinate with the head office concerning daily operations (Shen, Chanda, DNetto & Monga, 2009). This approach ensures that the company picks up its operations first enough in the new environment since those in the managerial level are well equipped with the company’s operations as compared to employing new people. In this approach, moreover, the skilled managers picked from parent countries can provide mentorship programs to new recruits especially those from the host nation since they possess versed knowledge of the company. Question 5 Mentoring refers to a process that involves informal transmission of information and the psychosocial support perceived by the beneficiary as significant to work or professional progress. It involves more of face-to-face information communication during a considerable period of time between persons. An effective mentoring system for international assignees is mandatory for success of the company abroad. The duty of the mentors is to ensure that the assignees are kept up to date with any structural changes, promotional opportunities and common company knowledge. The mentorship program should strive to guarantee commitment from senior management, create a flexible program that does not have too much formality and be one that fits in with senior employees’ workloads (Dowling, Festing & Engle, 2008). Successful implementation of a mentoring program, therefore, important for the development of the assignees, growth of the mentors and achievements of the company, in general. An example of a high-quality program for mentorship would involve the use of a more credible and influential mentor who understands the job environment and will enhance the employees’ performance for increased company profit. Question 6 Return on Investment refers to the incremental gain from a company operation divided by its cost. It measures the effectiveness with which company is using its available resources. There are various ways of measuring return on investment (ROI) involving both financial and non-financial measures. Financial measures include; assessment of revenues and profits and evaluation of overall business growth. However, non-financial ROI measures are the consideration of management and leadership capabilities, operational excellence for instance customer contentment and network growth. Moreover, staffing forms another key measure of ROI; involving issues of career development, establishments of relationships, grooming of a successor and general management of the people. With all these in hand, it will be worth considering all without isolation to ensure that no factor is overlooked during the process of measuring ROI non-international assignees. Since they are foreign based and still subject to the operations of their parent company, they ought to make a component of the returns that the company carries out in the stipulated period of time. A more critical way of carrying out ROI on such individuals would be to look at the financial measures and the extent to which they themselves are contributing to firm progress. The ideal reason behind carrying out a ROI is to inform the manager whether the company is getting anticipated results without which a quick course change can be implemented if things are not moving the right way. References Dowling, P., Festing, M., & Engle, A. D. (2008). International human resource management: Managing people in a multinational context. London: Thomson Learning. Rao, P. L. (2008). International human resource management: Text and cases. New Delhi: Excel Books. Shen, J., Chanda, A., DNetto B., & Monga M. (2009). Managing diversity through human resource management: an international perspective and conceptual framework. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 20(2), 235-251 Read More