Liberalisation of the Global Labor Market - Coursework Example

Running Header: Liberalisation of the Global Labor Market Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction Liberalisattion of the labor market towards the end of the 20th century has come with numerous challenges which are both positive and negative to many companies. With liberalisation allowing companies to recruit their human resources from all walks of life, diversity has come into play in many working place. Liberalisation of global labor market is characterized with the existence of new and diverse skills as presented by individuals from different backgrounds. Further, liberalisation is associated with such factors as competition, different pricing strategies, highly dispersed decision making processes and different human resource management styles that have to take interests of the stakeholders into account (Flynn 1990). Liberalisation is therefore is expected to put more pressure on the management of various organisations to reconsider their strategies in order to align themselves with the competition and take full advantage of the existence of a variety of skills that will allow them survive. With liberalisation for instance different governments taking initiatives to work on designing different training curriculum especially in high learning institutions such as universities and colleges in order to produce the students who have appropriate skills to work in the global environment. Finally, liberalisation of labor worldwide has been as a result of trade liberalisation where different companies can venture into new markets across borders to exploit available opportunities. Thanks to the existence of the internet and modern modes of transport, people are now able to freely move, communicate, intermingle and transact business of the choice globally without any much difficult (Hood 1991). The primary aim of this article is therefore to critically evaluate the concept of liberalisation of labor and the various market-like arrangements, their purpose, how they work and how they influence the operations of different organisations. Finally, in relation to workplace, this essay will also discuss on ways in which different market arrangements have influenced the quality and value of services provided by different companies. a. Market-like arrangements Economic cooperation: In the amid of liberalisation of the global labor market, different economies are forming trading blocks in order to increase their bargain powers, enact policies that manage their markets and the flow of labor and the mechanisms that are used to decide on pricing of different commodities. This approach for many companies and economies help in working out policy guideline on how different members should behave in the era of liberalisation of the global labor market. In particular, this cooperation is aimed at improving the working ties among the members and therefore has an advantage over and above the foreigners. One such good example is the market arrangement between the government of Australia and New Zealand with regard to establishment of a single aviation market (OECD 1994). This arrangement is aimed at ensuring commitment of both members to the ties and allows free operation of the members in the prescribed market area. Further, this move is aimed at ensuring free flow of labor between the two member countries. This market-like arrangement is also important in ensuring that the two countries have got policies that guide the training standards for their staff in order to improve on their service delivery and remain on top of the competition in the world of aviation. Market cooperation is particularly preferred when the member states and organisations have their interest to protect. On the same line, this kind of market arrangements, have their own terms of work which take care of all stakeholders and interested partners such as the airline companies that operate in the region. With liberalisation of the labor market, regional or bilateral cooperation are used as strategy source to work on how to improve service delivery in the global market. At organizational level this kind of arrangements demands that organisation structure be reorganized for it to be relevant in the market. This further, explains the reason as to why the organisation need to focus on employee training and development in order to ensure that right skills and knowledge are required in the global market as illustrated by Fitzgerald et al (1991). Training can be either formal or informal. In the case of the formal training, the employees are expected to enroll in different courses in those institutions that are accredited and have the capacity to offer education on aviation. This is very necessary in the global environment where the different governments and institutions have introduced relevant courses for the industry and can empower one to work in Airline Company irrespective of the origin. On the other hand, informal training may involve using expertise to take the employees on short courses while on work. This is approach is also preferable since it’s cost effective and can cover specific areas as customer care and security concerns (Hood 1991). The purpose and intention: This market arrangement takes care of the global needs of the companies and addresses the necessary capabilities that the employees will be expected to have. The market cooperation is expected to create an opening for national institutions to go international through collaboration. Further, market cooperation is expected to promote specialization more especially among the member countries and organisations and thus creating a chance for them to be depended by making use of their own capabilities and resources to serve the customers. Also, this market arrangement is purposed to protect institutional advantages from global interference. According to Scott (2001), market cooperation is associated with its ability to promote and enhance quality performance of the member institutions ands countries. This is particularly important in enhancing the shareholder value and at the same respecting and upholding employees’ rights. Finally, the cooperation kind of the market arrangement is seen to be promoting development of the capital and labor markets and at the same time ensure well managed and coordinated trade unions. Currently the cooperation has managed to promote employee development, ushered in the use of new technology and enhanced its resource capacity something has helped the companies in the region dominate the aviation industry despite the competition from other foreign companies such as France airline and British Airways. This is because the countries and companies involved have got a long-term plan to work on developing their employees to have a global outlook. In general, stability in operations, employment relationships and working relations has been realized and therefore employee diversity has been well taken care of and their specific capabilities used in the delivery of quality of services and addition of value (Harrold 1998) Performance management: Performance management in the amid of global liberalization of the labor market is seen as an approach in which organizations ensure it pays exceptional attention to those aspects that affect production and delivery of services. This is considered a major competitive approach in the global market. Performance management is based on the ability of the available resource to serve adequately on the needs of the customers. While considering working on performance management, taking into account the structure of the organization and the skills and competencies that are available is very critical. To ascertain if there are appropriate skills to support the overall performance of the organizations especially those that are expected to manage public resources, benchmarking is very necessary. This is because it’s through benchmarking that the government will tell if it has in place the right skills to support public performance. This is what has necessitated many governments to invest more in educational programs that are strategic and global and that can move the public management and performance into the next level by Barrow (1996). Learning programs in higher institutions ensure that right graduates, with the right attitudes, behaviors and skills are produced. Liberalization of global labor market is working wonders in the motivating many governments to re-evaluate the performance level and how diversity of skills will affect their performance in the global level. These concerns have sprinkled down to individual organizations which are now facing tough competition from other companies especially those who are considered to have superior manpower and human resource management strategies that ensure employee commitment and motivation to do their duties and responsibilities. Performance management is a market-related arrangement whereby individual companies and governments engage in developing and designing performance standards to determine whether they are globally competitive (Hood 1991). With liberalization of the global labor market, performance management is used by many companies to determine what is to be done to improve the performance of public and more especially from the labor perspective. In the process of enacting various tools to measure performance creating a condusive working place is very critical. This is to ensure that not only skills and competencies are used to determine performance but also how the working environment, employments terms and rewarding systems are used to motivate performance. In the organizational level, it has been found out since the introduction of liberalization of the labor market that work relations are very critical in the overall performance of companies and service delivery to the public (Hood 1991). Given the employee awareness and management of diversity at workplace, employment relationships have come to the spotlight as one such factor that greatly influences the performance of the organizations. Many countries have witnessed major industrial actions in the recent past and therefore compromised the performance of public facilities. In the era of liberalization this may not be so good. This is because with high level of awareness, companies are always subject to industrial actions and this therefore may have long-term effect in organizational performance if not well managed. Further, performance management is also used at organizational level to determine those aspects of labor that can be used to sustainability in growth and have global competitive advantage by Barrow (1996). Purpose and intention performance management: At workplace, performance management is used to ensure that all important aspects of production such as labor, finances and cost are taken care of especially in the contemporary society where labor market has been liberalized. This is to make sure that as organization seeks to expand their productivity and value in service production. Traditionally, performance management has not been given less attention. Perhaps this is because competition was relatively manageable and the cost of production was not much. However, with liberalization of the labor market, the companies are now becoming very cautious with performance as the cost of production has continued to escalate as labor has become very expensive following high global inflation. In general, liberalization of the labor market has triggered the organizational managements of many companies to come up with competitive labor strategies that reduce operational costs and ensure high level of productivity and consequently allow for competitive advantage in the global markets Barrow (1996). Current operations: The performance management in many global companies especially those that have a global outlook has become a key aspect of the labor market. This is because the organizations are interested in acquiring skills and competencies that are worthy to enhance the company performance. Cost has also been taken into account to ensure that the companies break-even and ensure that sustainability in the competitive environment is achieved. Finally, through performance management, different governments and organizations, are working on policies that will be used to manage and administer different reward programs that the company can manage and that are relevant in the general global market (Industry Commission 1997). b. Quality and value of goods produced at workplace At Qantas Airline, a lot of improvement in service delivery has been witnessed despite the challenge from other global companies mentioned earlier in this discussion. Despite the existence of the different market-like arrangements, such as economic cooperation and performance management both in the public and private sector, the company has taken the advantage to work on standardizing and enhancing the quality of goods and services that it offers to the market. The existence of the two market-like arrangements has been well integrated with the Six Sigma approach to ensure quality in the production and delivery of services and value addition the shareholder value (Industry Commission 1997). In the contemporary management society where the customers have become absolutely aware of what they expect from the producers, pressure has continued to mount on several companies to work on improving their qualities in order to satisfy the customer needs and at the same time ensure high level of efficiency in the utilization of the company resources. This challenge is more drastic in companies that do not have good financial base to enact quality service delivery programs. In this regard therefore, it has become imperative for all organizations to identify the shortcoming they face and the ways in which to overcome and effectively manage the world challenges that have come as a result of liberalization of the global labor market. The implementation of the six sigma has been carefully implemented and enacted to the companies that operate within the region together with other quality programs and have greatly influenced the production of quality services in the company and therefore has continued to attract more revues for the company and thereby ensuring good returns to the investors amid tough operating conditions in the global market (Ho and Chen-Chia 2006). The economic cooperation in the global market has played a very major role in transforming the labor relations in the company and ways in which the employees should be supported to increase their commitment to their work. In particular, the economic cooperation in the global labor market has helped Qantas Airline Company to establish the policies which will ensure that all people who work in the cooperation are treated fairly and according to the standards that have been agreed upon by the members of the economic cooperation. This has become of one of the values of the company leadership where integrity, transparency and organizational ethics are upheld. As a matter of fact, labor practices have received much recognition and employees have the voice and they can speak on issues that affect them and how their rights can be protected by use of the trade unions. What is meant by this trend is that, sustainability of workplace policies and practices have been encouraged and adhered to by all the member countries and more especially those airline companies that operate with the economic market. Finally, the globalization of the labor market in the economic cooperation has encouraged commitment both the employee and the employers to work relations. This is especially important as the company seeks to enhance its productivity and delivery of quality services has it has managed to pay attention the employees needs which as a result ensured that the employees have part of the production and aware of the role in delivering quality services to the customers according to the Industry Commission (1997). On the other hand, performance management in the global market has become one of the sensitive issues in the era of liberalization of the global labor markets. Performance management in the company has provided a clear guideline on the process of sourcing for employees and the diversity of skills that should be made available for the company operations. In the contemporary society, managers and business owners are seen to fear that reducing employees’ stress is directly associated with reduction in productivity. However, in the current global economy this has become very fatal since employees are increasing becoming aware of their rights at workplace (Productivity Commission 1996). In those situations where companies pay more focus on productivity and forget about employee needs, the challenge has been high employee turnover high employment costs to replace the leaving workers. With the advent of liberalization of global labor market, as quality and value has become of subject in many companies, performance management has come into play in order to ensure balance between the company and employee needs. Use of performance management has been welcomed in Qantas Airline and has helped create an environment where workers’ needs are recognized and whatever job is assigned to them is made relative what they put into the company. This is has made sure that the company employees are highly motivated and ready to work as they know that the end of the day, their effort will be rewarded. Further, performance management in the company has been used a criteria to determine what kind of skills that the company needs that are necessary in boosting the company productivity. Finally, performance management has enabled many companies to ascertain the training needs. In aviation industry for example, a variety of skills are required in order to offer high quality services to the market (Industry Commission 1997). Conclusion The emergence of liberalization of the global markets has been a wakening alarm for those companies that are used to norms and contented with the trends in the domestic markets. With liberalization, companies are now aware that they have to compete globally. This is follows the easier of people to migrate and work in foreign companies where opportunities may be existing or where there are attractive working terms. This review has established that in the global market competition is very eminent and that every company is using different strategies as pricing, decision making and rewarding to attract the most qualified staff from the market. The objective of doing this is to ensure production of high quality services and products for the market and ensure sustained growth. On the other hand, different governments are very cautious on the kind of graduates they produce and if they meet the international standards and therefore are investing heavily in research programs where different skills and knowledge can be acquired. All this is done in the name of competition in the global market. Retrogressive commentary My enrolment in this course has created an opportunity for me to come to understand the world of globalization and how the liberalization of global labor market has come to create both benefits and challenges in different companies and organisations. This unit is particularly important for the student who wants to get a clear picture of what happens in the global market and how they can affect an individual in the global market (Ho and Chen-Chia 2006). This unit therefore is not only important in ensuring the course requirements are met but also prepares individual students to becoming global employees. This is because the course contains very vital information on how various economic trends in the global market affect the organizational structures and how they help deliver quality services to the customers and at the same help create value for the shareholders. One of the most important aspects that I have to come to learn about is the existence of stiff competition in the global market as now companies are able to source for their workers from all over the world as long as they have the capacity to do so. This has come as a surprise to me since with my little knowledge in globalization I might not have been able to focus on entire world market but regionally. This has now helped me to understand that becoming an all round student is particularly important as this will raise my stakes of landing on a good job in the global market. The implication of this course to me therefore, is that competition in the labor market is inevitable and therefore there is need for to diversify my skills so as to measure up with the world standards. This means that as a student I am expected to enroll in various courses so us to acquire more knowledge and skills that will make me competitive in the global market. Above all is the importance of trying to focus on how the theory learned in class can be actualized at workplace. On the other hand, it has come to my notice that the demand and supply of labor in the global market, is triggered by knowledge-based economies where companies are looking for more knowledgeable workers who have a global view and who understand the global market trends. This practice is witnessed in almost all sectors of the economy and they continue to press more on companies to look for their workers even across borders. The shortage of labor in the global market is defined by the existing demand and supply demands that prevail in a given market at a particular time. A given labor market can be defined as a grouping that is confined as one by geographical location, the occupation of individuals, the sector or even the existence of a certain skill (Ho and Chen-Chia 2006). It has therefore come to my notice that shortage is also possible in any particular market and is characterized by inadequacy of certain skills. To my understanding therefore, searching for job in the labor market should not be limited to one market environment but rather be opened to other global markets as long one has the appropriate skills to work in the global market. Further, this course has helped me to appreciate the role played by the government in developing different skills by investing heavily in research and development (R&D). This has been particularly used as an approached by the government to ensure that those fields that still have demand such as engineering and medicine. This is to ensure that no single time there is shortage of labor from these fields. According to the OECD countries investment in R&D, is used to ensure that there is equilibrium in the supply and demand for human resources in the science related fields. In addition, investment in R&D is not only used to assure constant flow of human resources but also develop certain skills that will ensure that graduates from different research institutions measure up to the global stands (OECD 1993). It is also through this unit that I have to come to realize that in the near future, the development of certain skills will be accelerated by the stiff competition from the low-cost countries, emergence of new markets, and existence of complexities in the labor supply chain as well as the production processes used. It is now clear to me that these challenges will require different companies to be on top of the competition and will need to have good combination of different skills which are inclusive of soft skills. This has come to explain the need to have quite elaborated training programs in the company in order to develop a group of employees who have specific skills that are relevant to the company operations. On the same regard, looking at various tasks individual are expected to perform are used to determine the knowledge specific workers need to have in their possession. This will guide the company in defining the needs individuals have and how they can be handled independently from other qualifications (OECD 1993). Understanding the coexistence of both traditional and modern competencies is what has come to be very clear to me. Before taking this unit, my perception was that, development of new competencies such as using new technologies to perform different functions was to replace the traditional competencies developed from different educational backgrounds. However, now this is not the case. The traditional competencies still hold even in the current global markets and therefore the new competencies should be used to improve on the competencies of different workers. With this regard acquisition of basic knowledge in the field of science and technology are therefore critical in understanding the diversity of workforce in the company irrespective of the skills and knowledge to posses. In other words, it is important for workers to have skills and basic knowledge from different fields in order to understand the relative importance of each skill to the overall performance of the business (Evenett and Hoekman 2004) Finally, it has come to my understanding existence of different market-like economies such as competition, pricing, existence of a variety of decision-making processes and introduction of different rewarding systems in the company in order to integrate different market-like arrangements such as economic cooperation and performance management to support increased quality of service production and enhanced investor value through high returns from investments. References Barrow, C. (1996). The strategy of selective excellence: Redesigning higher education for global competition in a postindustrial society. In: Higher Education, 41, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands, pp. 447-469. Evenett, S & Hoekman, B (2004). International Cooperation and the Reform of Public Procurement Policies. Retrieved 17th May 2012,   http://www.evenett.com/working/EvenettHoekmanProcurementCEPRAugust05.pdf Fitzgerald, L. et al. (1991). Performance Measurement in Service Businesses, Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, Cambridge, Ch 1. (Dixson 338.455/P438) Flynn, N. (1990). Public Sector Management. New York: Harvester Wheatshear. Harrold, R.I. (1998). Resources in Education. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research. Ho, L. & Chen-Chia, C. (2006). 'A Study of Implementing Six-Sigma Quality Management System in Government Agencies for Raising Service Quality,' Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 167-173. Hood, C. (1991). 'A Public Management for all Seasons?' Public Administration, vol. 69, no. 1, Spring, pp. 3–19. OECD (1993). Public Management Developments: Survey 1993, Paris, OECD. OECD (1994). Public Management Developments: Update 1994, OECD, Paris. OECD (1993). Managing with Market-Type Mechanisms, OECD, Paris. Industry Commission (1997). Report on Government Service Provision: Steering Committee for the Review of Commonwealth/State Service Provision. Melbourne: Commonwealth of Australia. Productivity Commission (1996). Stocktake of Progress in Microeconomic Reform, Belconnen, Industry Commission, June, (ISBN 0642253218), http://www.finance.gov.au/ Scott, G. (2001). 'Getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop: the problems with devolved budgets in further education colleges', The International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 15, No. 4/5, pp. 252-257. Read More