Human resources are considered to be the key success factors (KSFs) for a business and a group of motivated employs and staffs significantly contribute towards the corporate goal of sustainability in most optimum manner. With the development of technology and impact of globalization, the corporate operations have not been global and hence, the need of international HRM has arisen which primarily deals with the HRM issues and challenges and related strategies formulation and implementation planning with respect to the global portfolio. Cross border employees movement on account of expatriation has now been common and the HR managers may need to consider several aspects of HRM in order to make such process smooth. The instant report deals with the analysis of IHRM strategies for Apple and Samsung in the context of expatriation on deputation.
Models on a foreign assignment of expatriates
The foreign assignments of expatriates would be evaluated with the support of 5P’s model of IHRM (International Human Resource Management).
Purpose
In this case, the management of every organization is supposed to communicate the mission, vision and purpose behind its brand expansion into a certain market. As per Farndale et al. (2017), the HRM department of Samsung enables to meet this factor, where the leader follows a participative culture where employees are communicated with the organizational purpose and objectives. On the other hand, Apple does not meet this aspect as it believes in secrecy; hence, employees assigned with any given project are not disclosed about the purpose and objectives.
Principle
In this case, both organizations are efficient in meeting the principal aspect. Both Samsung and Apple are efficient to maintain its internal ethnicity and organizational culture. Hence, expatriates are instructed accordingly.
Processes
The process lines of both the organization vary as per the primary focus. According to Ehnert et al. (2016), the foremost objective of both Samsung and Apple is profit maximization. Yet, Samsung explicitly emphasizes on people management and satisfaction, however, Apple relies on confidentiality where the internal projects and their plans are kept the secret under strong protective measures.
People
The people management process in Samsung I much better than Apple, where the expatriates across all the regions are supported with effective training and development measures to enhance their knowledge about the market (Chiang, Lema?ski and Birtch, 2017). Whereas, Apple takes its employees for gated and hardly invest time on their evolvement rather expect them always to advance their creative sides.
Performance
The performance criteria of Samsung are comparatively better than in Apple. Since expatriates are given all kinds of support to frame their understandings and they are also shared with the organizational purpose and objectives, hence, all the resources share a common goal (Reiche, Harzing and Tenzer, 2018). However, Apple never discloses its purpose and expatriates are not even backed with required support. Thus, the performance figure in Apple is lower than Samsung.
Impact of international HR practices
The international HR practices followed by Apple have not created but positive impact on its people management action. The expatriates are not given the right HRM support in apple, which obstructs them to execute their best potential in the allocated assignments and also comprehending the expectations of the foreign market. On the other hand, Samsung is efficient in terms of framing its global HRM lines (Cooke, Wood, Wang and Veen, 2019). Based on the requirements of each nation, the training modules are designed that can extract the apt skills and competencies from its resources. Hence, expatriates get the exact idea of the purpose behind the expansion and apply the required skills to bring a positive outcome.
Factors of international HR practices
Uncertainties, fear of job loss, cultural and social criteria and adaptation are the factors of international HR practices. According to Guerci et al. (2016), the moment an organization plans for market expansion, the HR unit needs to focus effectively on the above-mentioned factors to make sure that every employee is trained well to cope up with power distance and cultural gaps of the foreign markets. Inadequate training can lead employees to execute unrequired skills that might bring discrepancies. Expatriated are often stay confused due to the fear of the unknown, therefore, it is the sole accountability of the management to design their HRM functions in effect that can prepare their expatriated with exact requirements.
Success rate of Apple and Samsung
In the opinion of Naeem et al. (2019), in the global context, both Samsung and Apple are the tech giants, therefore, both the organizations have adopted explicit international HRM conducts to retain its potential employees. As per the records of reliable sources, in the year 2018, the management of Apple has managed to reach a figure above 132 thousands of resources across the nations (Statista, 2019). On the other hand, information received from similar sources highlights that Samsung with its existing HRM practices has enabled to reach a figure of 320,670 employees by the end of 2017 (Statista, 2019). Hence, it can be stated from the above comparison that the international HRM practices followed in Samsung are more effective and satisfactory to fit the expectations of its employees. Therefore, the success rate in terms of recruitment and employee retention is more in Samsung as compared to Apple’s. Moreover, relative information received from LinkedIn reflects that Samsung’s international network involves approximately 310,000 resources across its 79 nations (Statista, 2019). On top of that across the US network, the brand has enabled to generate its employee base with 18,500 people across its 46 states. On the other side, Apple has only managed to generate a global headcount of 123,000 resources as compared to Samsung. Although, the brand has managed to expand its engineers and IT headcounts by 8% and 4% by 2017 respective, yet, it still requires incorporating better HRM conducts that can help it to lower its employee turnover figure (Roth, 2019). Hence, it can be identified from the prior evaluation that the success rate in terms of HRM practices is more in Samsung than Apple.
International HR practices used by Apple and Samsung
In the consideration of Malik et al. (2019), it can be stated that Apple never opens its HRM strategies, which in the majority of time becomes difficult for its resources to understand the purpose and objectives behind tasks they are assigned upon. According to Mira et al. (2019), recruitment and selection are the factors driving key success to the company, however, it fails to ensure the same for its employee retention. The management of the brand demands candidates who are hard working by nature and getting every precise detail accurate. Conversely, the management fails to impose effective HRM solutions that can bring him high retention figure as well (Management, 2019). Instead of ensuring proper work and life balance, Apple focuses only on employee hard works. The concept of the brand for its expatriates is to own their career and the career path of its resources are not entirely supported by the management, which calls from the high turnover rate as well. Moreover, instead of offering suitable training and development programs, the management makes its expatriates to do it on themselves. Herein, training is available; yet, the management merely offers or develops any learning plan for its resources. On the other hand, Valeau et al. (2019) defined that Samsung’s HRM initiatives towards its resources are quite effective to experience high retention rate. The management of the brand place high value to its people whether they are its employees or customers. Unlike Apple, The management of the brand conducts strong and effective training programs from its expatriates in which they are offered with effective learning and developmental modules to enhance their product and service related knowledge regarding the foreign market (Hernaus et al. 2019). The expatriates are also assisted with suitable compensation support and other benefits programs that tend to enhance their level of motivation. Hence, it becomes easy for the expatriates to identify and get accustomed to the new cultures of the foreign markets.
Comparison of HR practices
It has already been discussed in the previous section that the international HRM practices of Samsung are much more effective than Apple. As per the claim of Guerci et al. (2016), the management of Apple always directs its employees to apply their creative inputs in their assigned tasks to maintain product differentiation in the market. However, it just contains a traditional training module which every employee is given. Conversely, the skills and potentials of every employee or expatriates are not the same that require one on one session with the trainers or supervisors to nurture their talent to execute effectively on the new market. However, expatriates are only instructed to brainstorm their skills and apply them accordingly and learning while working. This had been the major loopholes, where inadequate training and knowledge lead the expatriates to fail drastically on the foreign markets, which rigorously lead to high employee dissatisfaction. According to Mira et al. (2019), innovation has been the centre of attraction for Apple, thus, instead of developing a strong team to work on the new foreign market, the brand assigns different teams to work on a single project. All teams compete against one another to create something fresh full of innovation. The competing nature enforces the expatriates to lack in team unity, which result in the final outcome as well. On the other hand, Samsung conducts total opposite actions, where team unity and innovation is their focal point. Herein, employee and the expatriates are offered with correct training programs and they are asked to execute demo actions in a team to strengthen their team bonds. Hence, the culture at Samsung is much more positive than apple, where the team members are sympathetic towards one another and project respect for the organization as well.
Effect of international HRM practices
It has been identified that the management of Apple has enabled to position effective financial rewards ad befits for its employees. However, the employee lacks motivation in terms of recognition, emotional support and appreciation in the workplace, which calls for a high turnover rate as well. Information gathered from relevant sources underscores that Apple seems to b the most unproductive place to work in the global context (Management, 2019). The approach of the management towards its expatriates seems to be arrogant and supercilious. Apple only pushes its resources and expatriates to a certain limit without helping them with any necessary requirements. Hence, as per Guerci et al. (2016), Apple can be just a short term job solution and therefore, employees seek a switchover after spending a certain tenure in the organization. On the other hand, Samsung is perfect for its employees, which effectively offers both financial and non-financial rewards to keep its employees of every nation motivated. The work environments of this organization are often regarded s a platform in which employees of every region are allowed to display their competencies. It has been identified that Samsung has an operating a three-layer training module involving the factors like core leadership and expertise programs to increase employee abilities and to encourage foundation talent by offering effective and lucrative training programs as per the self-assessment outcome (Samsung, 2019). Hence, it can be stated that the expatriates of Samsung enjoy working in the organization and the positive HRM support also influence the expatriates to align their career plans with the organizational objectives.
Evaluating the above discussion, it has been observed that the employee turnover rate in Apple is relatively greater than Samsung. The management of Samsung enabled to identify the internal needs of its employees across the globe and based on which the HRM conducts are implemented to ensure high employee retention and satisfaction rate. On the other hand, Apple takes its employees and expatriates for granted and push them to invest their time and energies on overtime works and several amendments. Although, Apple till date has managed to retain the tag of the most innovative brand, however, changing market dynamics are transforming the mindset of the customers (Mira et al. 2019). Hence, there is a high probability for the potential leads of Apple to try the innovation lines of its competitors. Thus, employee support would be relatively required to sustain the pressure of the global market. According to Guerci et al. (2016), Apple requires establishing a culture where every resource can display individual district talents and personalities in a free and creative manner. The HRM department also needs to introduce some in-house club activities and mental fitness program that can act as an employee stress buster. Moreover, the expatriates shall also be offered with a consistent training program that can help them to get over the fear of uncertainties or unknown market. The training strategies shall be designed so that every expatriate can feel free to communicate their queries and they can be supported with aprecise guided actions to understand the policies of the new foreign market. Moreover, the management also needs to boost team motivation and unity rather than enhancing the competition amongst team members (Mira et al. 2019). The members shall be encouraged to be supportive of one another by cutting down the un-useful competitive spirit. This can efficiently help the HRM department of Apple to develop a positive working culture, where the employee would feel free to execute their talents and creative inputs to bring a productive outcome. Hence, employee satisfaction would also help the management of Apple to reduce the employee switch over tendency and experience greater retention figure as well.
Conclusion
Based on the discussion and analysis performed in the preceding sections of the report, it may be concluded that a transfer on account of expatriation or foreign assignment has nowadays become a common day’s phenomena for a multinational company. Number of staffs each year has been on expatriation and therefore, it becomes crucial duties of the HR managers to formulate relevant HR strategies for the purpose of successful accomplishment of such assignment. There have been several challenges as well to strategize such transfer as the same involves lots of externalities as well. However, it may be concluded that a well-designed IHRM strategies supported by the strong leadership with control and feedback mechanism in place will help the management to achieve the corporate goal of sustainability in the foreign operations in the long-run in most time and cost efficient manner.
References
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Cooke, F.L., Wood, G., Wang, M. and Veen, A., (2019). How far has international HRM travelled? A systematic review of the literature on multinational corporations (2000–2014). Human Resource Management Review, 29(1), pp.59-75.
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Guerci, M., Longoni, A. and Luzzini, D., (2016). Translating stakeholder pressures into environmental performance–the mediating role of green HRM practices. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(2), pp.262-289.
Hernaus, T., Pavlovic, D. and Klindzic, M., (2019). Organizational career management practices: The role of the relationship between HRM and trade unions. Employee Relations, 41(1), pp.84-100.
Malik, A., Froese, F.J. and Sharma, P., (2019). Role of HRM in knowledge integration: Towards a conceptual framework. Journal of Business Research.
Management ((2019)). HR Strategy at Apple Make Their Employees Creative and Innovative | HR Strategy Tools. [online] Management-training-guru.com. Available at: https://management-training-guru.com/2013/12/hr-strategy-at-apple-make-their-employees-creative-and-innovative/ [Accessed 31 Mar. (2019)].
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