Flextronics Human Resource Management - Case Study Example

Author’s name Instructors’ name Course Date Human Resource Management: Case Study Introduction Cultural diversity and management in cross-cultural environment provide a key challenge to business managers and owners across the globe. On the other hand, training of employees in different cultures, in line with organizational structures and policies is also challenging (Broyles, 2010).In this way, the following paper seeks to discuss the Flextronics case study and provide different ways of managing in diverse culture and offering training to employees in order to meet individual and organizational goals. Case Study: Flextronics Flextronics, which is headquartered in Singapore, is a leading electronic manufacturing service across the globe. The company was started in 1969 and it has more than 162,000 employees while its annual revenue is over US$ 30 billion since 2008. Accordingly, most of the manufacturing capacity of Flextronics is situated in low cost countries such as Hungary, Brazil, China, Ukraine, Malaysia, Mexico, India, and Poland (Broyles, 2010). Flextronics provides a wide range of manufacturing services including design and end to end vertically integrated services on supply chain. Notably, the company operates in seven different markets, which include computing such as handheld computers, manufacturing such as mobile communication devices, networking equipment, and computer digital devices such as cameras. Further, Flextronics offers services in marine, automotive, and aerospace such as bar code readers. In addition, the company provides medical devices such as telemedicine devices among others. On the other hand, through electronic designs, the company is able to not only build but also ship completely packaged goods for its organ equipment manufacturer clients such as Microsoft for the consumer electronic products such as X-box. Other clients provided with complete packaged products include Sony Ericson, Hewlett Packard for its inkjet storage and printer devices. Finally, Flextronics manufacturing also offers free and after sale services in order to support its end-to-end needs of customer supply chain (Foysk, 2015). Understandably, in early 2000, the operations of the Flextronics Central and East European were headquartered in Vienna Austria .the operations primarily cover Hungary and Austria but with expectation of expanding to other countries such as Ukraine. Notably, the operations in Austria consisted of well-trained workforce and functioning work routines. However, the services in the newly started operations in Hungary had some stat up problems such as less experienced workforce and high fluctuations (Foysk, 2015). At the same time, since the sales market was volatile, the company had to device ways of adapting to the high capacity needs of production. In reference to the above issues, the Human Resource Director of the CEE region decided to lobby internally for the establishment of the Flextronics Academy, which would later be implemented to solve these problems among others. The academy was launched with the aim of not only providing technical skills but also soft skills to the employees. Additionally, with the help of consultancy firms the company also started high potential programme that was aimed at providing training for the future cadre of line managers. In this programme, the company intended to provide selected individuals with leadership and other human resource management skills. After establishing the above program, it was felt that cultural diversity in the company had to bed addressed by providing cultural specifics as an important element in the programme. As one of the issues related to cultural diversity, it was observed that a Hungarian was unlikely to stay in the company or continue with the programme for some time. At the same time, the company was facing stiff competition from other players in the industry as well as high fluctuations even with little increase of compensation(Foysk, 2015). Notably, the cost of production would bed higher since some employees were leaving the company to work for other competing firms. In addition, communication and learning processes were different between Austrians and Hungarians. For example, it was observed that there was a significant difference in the directness and interpersonal behavior between these two cultures. Accordingly, Austrians preferred expressions that are more direct and keeping distance while communicating compared to their Hungarian counterparts. The difference in cultural behaviors made it challenging to have an integrated and effective learning process between Hungarians and Austrians. Understandably, the idea of coming up with the training programme for the line managers of Flextronics was influenced by the introduction of the corporate-wide Flextronics University. In its commencement, the program had started on a web-based platform as a learning and knowledge management tool for the Mexican and US operations. Notably, as e learning become more popular as a tool of training workforce and providing information about a company, the idea of using the platform for the entire corporation took hold (Hall, 2013). However, the management would later learn that the process was time consuming. Consequently, the management decided to integrate it with “Flextronics Factory” which played an instrumental role in the implementation of the idea. The success of the programme would be felt in 1990s when the company experienced high growth rate including acquisitions and establishment of factories within Flextronics. Despite registering growth, there was a high level of variance within factories in terms of quality standards, production processes and service orientations, which made customers start complaining of Flextronics not being reliable. Consequently, the “ONE Flextronics” was started with the intention of providing standardization of the perception process and ensure that the needs of customers were met, thus improving their perception towards Flextronics (Flagg 2006). The project was also aimed at satisfying the needs of suppliers as well as employees. Through “SixSigma”, different teams were tasked to collect best ideas and practices in the six areas, which included quality and resource management, production, programme management, finance, training and engineering. Soon, it was agreed that there was need to have a common platform where such collected ideas would be shared. The deliberations led to integration of Flextronics University and Flextronics Factory. The aim of Flextronics University was to provide relevant standardized technical knowledge that would be resourceful to the employees including the line managers. Specifically, employees would receive leadership and human management skills in order to prepare them in taking different roles related to management or leadership within the company. As the company continued offering different courses to the learners, the social cultural issues cropped up. Notably, it was expected as a global company with presence in over thirty countries across the globe, cultural idiosyncrasies were likely to come. True to this reality, the certification programme in the Flextronics was accepted and unaccepted with equal measures in different countries and regions (Flagg 2006). In the US and the Eastern Europe, awarding of certificates was welcome by the society. In these two regions, certificates were seen as signs of individual achievement. However, in Western Europe, certificates were taken as a way of appraising certificate holders with the possibility of being “boxed in”. Instead, employees from this region preferred striped down and sober feedback, which would not be seen as “artificial”. Therefore, certification of learners proved to be one of the challenges for Flextronics. On the same breath, controlling learning process in such a way would also be seen as the development of employees and as providing positive feedback. Cultural Diversity in International Management As noted in the cased study, behavioral and cultural diversity is one of the challenges that are faced by the Flextronics. Diversity management refers to the effective control and management of difference that prevails in an organization with the objective of meeting both individual and organizational goals. On the other hand, cultural diversity refers to the presence of different cultural practices and behavior among employees (Hall, 2013). Notably, cultural diversity in any organization should be taken as an asset rather than a liability. In this way, managers and other all stakeholders should learn ways and strategies of harnessing cultural diversity, which should be used as a platform of providing diverse talents and skills for achieving goals. Consequently, effective use of cross-cultural diversity in multinational companies or any other organizations can be instrumental tool in achieving the set goals (Flagg 2006). However, study shows that if such systems are not appropriately applied for the benefit of an organization, they can lead to the interference with successful completion of projects. In order to achieve the goals set under diversified culture in an international level, it would be prudent to avoid cultural misunderstandings, where managers need to be culturally sensitive and help in promoting creativity as well as motivation by offering flexible leadership (Brislin, 2008). Business leaders across today’s multicultural global business community often face cultural differences within organizations, which may interfere with the successful completion of a given project (Flagg 2006). Understandably, is evident there is need to understand cultural differences and values which are held by various individuals and groups in the society, which is even more critical in an organizational set up (Hall 2013). In most cases, it is challenging business managers to understand and provide the necessary leadership in an environment that is so diverse. Admittedly, cultural differences are based on what people attach closely in their lives and are manifested in the organizational environment in different ways. In this connection, workplaces employees come from different background thus making working environment to have varying values. The effect of such diversity in the performance of an organization can be adverse if necessary measures are not put in place to ensure all stakeholders know how to coexist with one another. Critically important to note is that strong organizational culture forms one of the most sustainable competitive advantages that a multinational company can have since it becomes difficult for other companies to copy (Williams 2012). However, it must be realized that the same company will have to ensure that all measures are put in place to avoid backlash from the diverse culture among individuals or groups in the organization. In the context of business organizations, culture is defined as a collection of shared values or norms that determine the operations and behavior of employees towards the achievement of organizational goals (Parvis 2007). Work cultures is described using different adjectives such as fun, positive, family-friendly, upbeat, negative, stressful, and demoralizing. The responsibility of managers and leaders in international business circles is to ensure that individual cultural behavior is integrated into organizational systems in order to achieve the long-term goals (Flagg 2006). In reference to cross-cultural differences among organizational workforces, different scholars have conducted researchers aimed at guiding and explaining the role of cultural diversity in business. Geert Hofstede and Fons Trompenaars are some of the well-known scholar who provided theoretical analysis of the cross –cultural management. In addition, there are many theories that explain the way management can be conducted in diverse environments. On its part, institutional theory asserts that the environment in an institution plays a critical role in the development of formal structures in a firm more profoundly than stresses in the market (Papadopoulos, 2013). Institutional theory examines the processes in which structures, rules, schemas, and routines are established as authoritative guidelines that determine social behavior. Understandably, after reaching levels of legitimization, the failure to meet innovative structures is considered as not only “negligent” but also “irrational. In this way, an organization has the responsibility of establishing structures that meet the needs of the firm as well as the corporate social responsibility, which helps in sustainability. Finally, in ensuring that sustainability in production and meeting of customer needs is achieved, organizations should understand the importance of cultural diversity, thus integrate it in their structures and policies. The above case study highlights some of the core challenges faced by managers and owners of international and multinational companies as they try to balance cultural diversity and integrate companies’ policies with a new culture. The example provided by Flextronics offers some of the solutions to this problem, which is the introduction of specific elements that caters for different societies or groups within a company (Hall, 2013). Training and Development in Diverse Culture Continuous training of employees is prudent for the continued and sustained production of quality products and services. As indicated in the case study, one of the problems and challenges met by international companies is ensuring that new workforce in a new country or region is able to deliver and understand the companies’ policies and structures (Hall, 2013). At Flextronics, the leaning process of both Austrians and Hungarians is compromised due to their different cultures and practices. Training employees on how to embrace cultural diversity is critical. Training is one of the core values that any organization should embrace. It helps in making an organization strong in all fronts. However, many organizational concentrate on training their employees on how to work hard for the benefit of an organization and forget to do the same on how to coexist with one another. The failure to recognize the role cultural diversity plays in organizational performance is unhealthy. There is need for managers of any business to ensure that all employees are taught basic aspects of how to coexist with their colleagues. Collective responsibility is critical in achieving goals of an organization (Hall & Hall, 2013). The acceptance of these diversity means that colleagues in workplaces are able to bring their efforts together and take an organization to the next level. The training programs should be carried out on regular basis and be inclusive of all workers in an organization. However, international companies and institutions need to incorporate all the needs of learners or workers for their future career or roles, which includes accreditation of their certificates as observed in Flextronics Further, communication skills are critical in ensuring that cultural differences and values are dealt with in an organization (Hopkins, 2009). Communication, in this respect, should involve both the top and bottom levels of management. At the same time, this can be done at an individual or group level. It is important to apply this strategy as many organizations have individuals with personal problems in interacting with their counterparts. In such cases, it is important for mangers to invite such people and try to understand them and have beneficial coexistence together with the rest. International performance management in cross-cultural working environments The objective of having qualified workforce in an organization is to ensure that they are able to meet the expectations of the company in terms of service delivery. Managing performance in international companies such as Flextronics has always been one of the main challenges. Notably, there are several conventional strategies applied in measurement of performance such as linking the plans with the control measures, use of non-financial performance measures, as well as analyzing both motivational and behavioral parameters (Bianchi 2012). However, it should be noted that some variables are difficult to measure. These include attitudes of employees towards the management system, motivational levels, research and development, innovativeness and creativity of employees and so on. To some extent, an organization can assess the attitudes of employees within the institution by the use of surveys such as questionnaires. Connectively, this can give the management clue on the levels of reception of the new changes. As noted in the cast study, the management of an international company such as Flextronics should be innovative enough to compete with other competitors by providing alternative ways of offering unique services or products. Conclusion, In reference to the above analysis, cultural differences exist in every organization. The issue is knowing how to embrace this reality and coexist for the benefit of both individual and the entire organization or business (Parvis, 2007).At the same time, diversity in cultural values should be taken as an advantage for an organization and thus utilized positively since individuals have various abilities. However, it requires certain measures to be taken by international business managers such as training the workforce, ensure flow of communication especially among employees, formulation of company policies and showing good leadership qualities to be emulated by all stakeholders. References Armstrong, T. (2010). Leadership Principle and management. Shippensburg: Destiny Image Publishers. Broyles, E. A. (2010). Resistance to change: a guide to harnessing its positive power. Lanham, Md, Rowman & Littlefield Education. Brislin, R. W. (2008). Working with cultural differences: Dealing effectively with diversity in the workplace. Westport, Conn: Praeger. Flagg, A. 2006. 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S. (2012). Organizational change and innovation processes theory and methods for research. Oxford, Oxford Univ. Press. Parvis, L. (2007). Understanding cultural diversity in today's complex world. Morrisville, NC: Lulu Press. Read More