International Human Resource Management - Managing People in a Multinational Context - Essay Example

Student’s Name Instructor’s Name Course Date Global Human Resource Management Introduction Human Resource Management biggest role in any organization is to ensure that there is proper control and conducive working environment. This mostly falls in the hands of a human resource manager whose major role is to see to it that there is a proper work design and that the staff and any other person visiting the organization are well handled. It also ensures employees play their respective roles accordingly. Human Resource Management is designed to make sure that there is a maximum performance by the employees in the providence of services so as to meet the company’s set objectives. The departments in the Human Resource section include; recruitment, training, and development, rewarding, etc. Global HRM is a term that entails all aspects of an organization's Human Resource operating in an international/global scale (Menezes 63). With the current rampant growth of technological innovations, the global expansion is gradually becoming a great reality and a huge necessity for organizations. Strategic human resource management previously emerged as one of the most dominant approaches to human resource management policy in the last thirty years. Nonetheless, in the last decade, a new HRM approach has been founded. It is commonly referred to as sustainable human resource management (Shen Ji et al. 251). Diversity management and culture Diversity management practices which entail a given set of formalized practices is designed, implemented, and developed by companies so as to effectively manage diversity amongst any given organizational stakeholders (Yang and Alison 33). A workforce diversity acknowledges that people in any given organization will always differ in multiple both visible and invisible ways (Zanoni 12). People in an organization may vary in sexual orientation, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, culture, lifestyle, disability, just to name a few. These differences, however, may be of very many different nature in specific countries (Zanoni 19). Nonetheless, gender inequality and is one of the most common one worldwide. A diverse workforce entails people of different understandings, beliefs, values and even unique information. Currently, a multi and cross-cultural workforce has become a very common thread in the main corporations globally. As such, reasoning to making diversity quite an issue especially in various political, legal and even corporate arenas (Downing 20). This has brought both positive and negative attitudes towards a diverse workforce. These attitudes range from being intolerable to tolerable and have resulted in the appreciation of diversity. A diverse workforce has beyond reasonable doubt proven to provide value in service delivery with a better-quality solution to the execution of tasks, effectiveness, the efficiency of an organization and even profitability. Therefore, effective management of diversity in any organization contributes to an ultimate huge success of the organization by enabling a change in the marketplace due to the increase in diverse markets (Shen Ji et al. 240). The most effective way of managing different diversity would be building an inclusive atmosphere and committing the organization to valuing diversity. The secret to diversity management is taking a specific approach that revolves around the staff and coming up with people- oriented policies and strategic thinking. The Human Resource Management and the management of diversity mainly have to deal with the issue of HR functions to developing business strategy. In the given case, the French multinational severally tried to implement Total Quality Management (TQM) in its Moroccan Subsidiary with no success; however, it later proved to be a success after the Human Resource Management department decided to adopt an exemplary leadership attitude. This shows that the ability to relate TQM in a way which is culturally meaningful, helps the employees make sense of implementing a TQM with the anemic concept. The employees clearly drew a semantic parallel between their community, its religious connotations and their exemplary leader, and this French organization (their employer) which now included an excellent leader, TQM principles which associated with moral guidance and their community of employees. Studies have concluded that to boost an equal opportunity to employment to all the stakeholders in an organization; the Human Resource Management has to ensure that the company is very inclusive and that it promotes creativity (Harzing 19). Hiring the minority, the disadvantaged or relatively more females in the board also resulted in a higher diversity in recruitment according to the research. Historically, an effective management has assisted in the provision of a legally defensible position against any discrimination charges against a company (Harzing 23) A firm once used their workforce demographics to suggest that they innocent of discrimination charges against them since they had a well diverse workforce. This, however, may fail to end the debate of managing diversity and equal opportunities case. Culture, on the other hand, is the most proper way to think, behave and act within any given organization. Human Resource Management plays a very vital role in organizational culture since the people who work for the organization are the persons who embrace and enable development of a particular culture within a given organization. Any change to the culture of the organization is culminated by the people. However, people who work in accordance with the culture of an organization, last longer than those who fail to (Zanoni 15). If an organization is an institution whose competition entails of innovation, the management will have no choice but to create a culture where creativity is considered the most appropriate way of thinking acting and behaving. This is because; this culture at the end of the day, assists the organization to adapt to the external environment and at the same time push for an internal integration. Organizational culture can be of great help in the provision of an opportunity and even enhance broadening of structure for the ultimate development of HR’s behavioral and technical skills within an organization. Good behavior is apparently driven by ethical values. There are three main views of culture; the positivist, interpretive and critical views. The main differences in these types of views are that in the positivist view, there is an empirical evidence and the researchers mainly focus on the laws of the land and required regularities. In an interpretive way, the researchers focus on meanings and how people can cope with their situations. The critical view on culture takes a neutral approach to reveal the hidden truths. An organization can direct the conduct of its staff by making sure that each one within the organization embeds to the ethical values in the company’s culture. However, organizational excellences could differ, the reason being that cultural trait could probably be a source of competitive advantage through casual ambiguity (Marks et al. 871). Advancements in technology have, however, greatly impacted by changes in levels of the organization. Moreover, different organizations could differ in people’s cultural content regarding the relative ordering of values, faiths and even assumptions. In the critical view of Culture in Human resource management, where a study of Ybema and Byun studied two Japanese and Dutch counteractions in organizations, there was a very clear revelation (Marks et al. 871). It was discovered that there is an unequal power relation between the Dutch and the Japanese staff which clearly shows an impact of distinct cultural differences in an organization (Marks et al. 871). This proves the theory which states that the more powerful culture will always try to strengthen their position in an organization, whereas the lesser powerful attempts to challenge and even renegotiate this setting (Marks et al. 871). Therefore, this culture talk in any organization is essential to present an identity, defend an interest and even establish truth. Internal Human resource management must be multi-cultural, hence resonating to making culture one of the most frequent component of issues. Human resource managers have to deal with on their day to day undertakings. Per the interpretive way, the culture will always remain a way that people make sense of their situation, hence causing people; the employees, in this case, get attached to it. International performance management, Training, and Development Performance management is an important process set by an organization in the Human Resource Management department to make sure that the employees are conversant with the expected level of performance, their individual objectives and what would be expected of them. (Aguinis et al. 451). It is done as a way of ensuring that the overall organizational objectives are met. When employees get fully involved in their day to day, the company gives a relatively competitive advantage; which includes better productivity, relatively greater customer service and even a definite lower turnover. HR needs to build a committed, productive workforce and take advantage to build increased employee engagement and reduce cynicism (Noe et al. 12). Performance management is quite Sa critical process of HRM, especially now where the international market is in the scope of research; it happens to be the base for all business practices that are related to Human Resource Management (Menezes 64). It entails the need for new recruitments in a company, career development, the need for staff training, rewarding. A huge number of studies have proven that Human Resource management can be a have relatively better competitive advantage of an organization and creates a positive impact on the relationship on the company’s performance. Performance management, hence, is a crucial process of HRM in relation to the understanding of people as the key factor contributing to competitiveness. Performance management is the base for multiple business practices related to Human Resource Management that entails assessing the previous and current performance or results of the employees and the whole organization. Looking at multinational companies in international levels, there is a rampant increase in complexity of HRM, and as a result, there are a relatively enormous number of challenges (Menezes 66). For example, coming across new cultures, uncertainty due to new entrants and unknown markets, legal regulations, new technologies, just to name a few. Hence HRM has become of great importance in the functioning of both national and international organizations. Legislation of performance management systems in the leading economies, especially in the US, is quite specific and very clear and corporations are conversant of what should be done and what ought not to be done. This is the most case in the developed countries, though the laws and regulations may differ depending on the nation. Performance management and evaluation are somehow very challenging for any given company. At the global level, the complexity of this particular challenges is way greater because the organization must ensure that they evaluate different employees from different nations working in different subsidiaries (Theriou 188). The constituencies along these nations have obligations across the different subsidiaries to compare performances, and this brings in conflict with a higher need for consideration for the employee's cultural backgrounds so as to make the evaluation of importance. Mexico employees, for example, really treasure the public image of each and every individual and in that case, any criticism of an employee which happens to be public might be an enough reason for them to leave a company. In some other cases, the balanced performance review balance, consisting of the weaknesses and strengths, requires a carefully drafted tact. The approach of performance evaluation largely depends on an organization's overall HR strategy; hence an organization with an ethnocentric approach is most definitely likely to be the same performance appraisal offered at the subsidiaries‘ headquarters (Aguinis et al. 460). Others tend to try out this assessment forms in their dialects and languages in their different locations. An organization that decides to use geocentric approach uses a similar performance appraisal internationally, though with an applicability which is universal.The most challenging part, however, would be to develop a global system. Training and Development, which is the process of either acquiring or transferring of skills, abilities, and knowledge needed to enable carry out a task, greatly brings out ultimate benefits to both the employer and employee (Aguinis et al. 452). To meet challenges in organizations, it has a vast range of learning actions which range from training the employees in an organization for their current tasks and more so, sharing of knowledge to improve the customer's service and the organization's horizon. Most of the previous studies provide the evidence that there is a strong positive relationship between human resource management practices and organizational performance (Elnaga 140). Training and development mainly take focus on developing the different careers of the employees and therefore the expansion of individual, the team, and even the organizational effectiveness. A comprehensive training and development program sees to it that there is a deliberation of the skills and knowledge which are essential for achieving objectives of the company and creating the much needed competitive advantage (Noe et. al 12). These contemporary trends and business challenges have resulted in creating an approach which is specific for training and development (Aguinis et al. 490). The HRM department, therefore, needs to have the ability to make the training and development formal and make it align with the strategy of the business and at the same time ensure that its implementation and evaluation greatly enhance the performance of any given organization (Elnaga 138). This is healthy for competition against foreign companies. Training and development take place within specific contexts since most of the research carried out indicate that there is a huge need for understanding the behaviors of the humans (Aguinis et al. 492). Any given organization has an obligation to understand that culture, value and even the workforce diversity are some of the major features which significantly affect the relationship between training and development and an organization’s performance (Zanoni 16). Size, Ownership, technology and organizational structure also influence HRM activities and organizational performance. In a global organization, staffing and managing approach affect the types of firms employees an organization prefers. By use of an ethnocentric approach, the parent, country, national staff members get important positions at headquarters and subsidiaries whereas, with a polycentric approach, host country nationals work in foreign subsidiaries while parent country nationals manage office positions. One with the geocentric approach, selects the most suitable person for any given position, regardless of the type, considering both practices at any given headquarters and those of its subsidiary counties. Local culture on the hand will always be influential in selecting of practices and even worMexico companies, For example, processing and manufacturing facilities, often recruit by putting a sign of the vacancy outside of the facility or even by employees contacting their families about the vacancies (Noe et. al 17). In Hungary, on the other hand,.the sitting government requires that any given organization is seeking to recruit an expatriate, then it has to ask for permission from the country's ministry of labor (Dowling 40). An alliance between sensitivity practices by the local labor and internal corporate consistency is a huge objective for companies.People of different cultures insist on very different attributes when in the process of selection of employees. During the decision-making process on who to hire in the organization, people who have an ambition of achieving their goals, consider talents, the skills one possesses and even the knowledge (Dowling 46). After comprehensive interviews, a person who is the most suitable for the position is picked. Conclusion As a result of the changing times, especially technological revolution, there is an ultimate need for the Human Resource Department to focus on the organizations’ long-term objectives and have future-oriented goals. The approach needs to be broader, due to the global inclusiveness of HRM. The HR departments, especially for global companies need to assemble all data and factors, including employees, gender, culture, diversity and have them loaded into their data warehouses. Advanced analytical techniques for data, will help the organization get the insight, make predictions for the changes and hence come up with decisions which are informed at both strategic and operational levels. The Culture and diversity issues must be well addressed in any Global Human Resource Management docket since they are some of the most crucial factors that determine the success of the organization. The HR must also focus on performance management, training, and development of the employees to enable them to become highly motivated and more skilled. Lastly, HRM helps them grow both professionally and even personally within the organization and so as to have a competitive advantage in the market. Works cited Aguinis, Herman, and Kurt Kraiger. "Benefits of training and development for individuals and teams, organizations, and society." Annual review of psychology 60 (2009): 451-474 Dowling, Peter. "International human resource management: managing people in a multinational context." Cengage Learning (2008) Elnaga, Amir, and Imran. "The effect of training on employee performance." European Journal of Business and Management 5.4 (2013): 137-147 Harzing, Anne-Wil and Ashly Pinnington"International human resource management" Sage, 2010 Huselid, Mark A., and Brian E. Becker "Bridging micro and macro domains workforce differentiation and strategic human resource management." Journal of Management (2010) Marks, Mitchell Lee, and Philip H. Mirvis. "A framework for the human resources role in managing culture in mergers and acquisitions." Human Resource Management 50.6 (2011): 859-877. Menezes, Cynthia. "Managing Culture Components in International Business." Adarsh Journal of Management Research 4.1 (2011): 63-68 Noe, Raymond A., et al. "Human Resource Management: Gaining a competitive advantage." (2007). Saks, Alan Michael, Robert R. Haccoun, and Monica Belcourt. Managing performance through training and development. Cengage Learning, 2010. Shen, Jie, et al. "Managing diversity through human resource management: An international perspective and conceptual framework." The International Journal of Human Resource Management 20.2 (2009): 235-251 Theriou, Georgios N., and Prodromos D. Chatzoglou. "Enhancing performance through best HRM practices, organizational learning and knowledge management: A conceptual framework." European Business Review 20.3 (2008): 185-207. Van De Voorde, Karina, Jaap Paauwe, and Marc Van Veldhoven. "Employee well‐being and the HRM–organizational performance relationship: a review of quantitative studies." International Journal of Management Reviews 14.4 (2012): 391-407. Yang, and Alison M. Konrad. "Understanding diversity management practices: Implications of institutional theory and resource-based theory." Group & Organization Management 36.1 (2011): 6-38. Zanoni, Patrizia, et al. "Guest Editorial: Unpacking diversity, grasping Inequality: Rethinking difference through critical perspectives." Organization 17.1 (2010): 9-29. Read More