Discuss about the Understanding the Business Environment for Globalisation.
Introduction of globalisation and technology has been changing organisational culture and individual behaviour in the workplace environment and as a consequence of this; HR executives of companies have to face a lot of issues and opportunities to cope with changing business environment. The study aims to evaluate the issues faced by the human resource management for changing workforce and nature of work itself for the advent of globalisation and information technology. For making the study a specific one, the researcher entails the impact of globalisation and technological revolution on the environment and corporate culture and individual behaviour and organisation. It is worth mentioning here that, HR executives need to adopt new competencies to support employees within the contemporary business environment and hence, the study will evaluate main competencies that, the human resource executives need to escalate to support employee behaviour in the business context.
The era has moved from Fordism to Post-Fordism and from industrialism to Post-industrialism and thus, new marketplace that prevails under Globalisation brings changes to nature of work and organisations (Shhehan et al. 2016, p.162). Thus, it is worth mentioning that, globalisation has brought changes in the corporate culture and changes in work practices and requirement of employees in the workplace environment. The changes in corporate culture due to globalisation are mentioned in the following section.
Diversity brings flexibility: In the age of globalisation, organisations are going global and hire employees from different regions as well as from different background. With the help of practice, people can solve problems differently and provide different opinion to heighten organisational growth and hence, an organisation becomes able to manoeuvre around successfully.
Changes in morality: The diverse workforce changes the morality of people. As the organisations are starting to hire people from different regions irrespective of caste, race, religion and socio-economic position, the workplace conflict arises (Boussebaa, 2015, 1218). This is because acceptable responses varied while having social interaction.
Employment condition: Pattern of specialisation in the organisations in terms of labour costs, economic location is induced by technological progress and economic globalisation. Lower safety requirements, ban on trade unions and longer working hours are attracting multinational enterprises and it may spur offshoring. This, in turn, changes employment condition in the source counties and this has recently been observed in some of the European Union countries as regards of working hours. Further, the change in working hours and lower safety makes the employees demotivated.
Migration: A great number of people are now moving between country and continents because organisations are going global and employees have to perform on a shift basis working culture. As opined by Stone & Deadrick (2015, p.140), for OECD counties, it can be estimated that around 30% of migration is linked to labour. By the development of multinational organisations, key personnel have to move from, to and between foreign affiliates. As stated by Bartram et al. (2015, p.140), in the developing countries, migrations may ease labour shortages and it leads to organisational development in the developing countries. However, in the developed countries, the situation is somewhat different. Migration may result in brain drain and organisations may lower productivity.
This section deals with changing work culture and nature of workforce because of the revolution of technology and this advent of technology is reshaping the workplace environment in terms of benefits and pitfalls. The technological revolution has entirely been changing work culture and the nature of the workforce and as a consequence, organisations are heightening business growth in terms of financial growth but sometimes they have to a lot of issues as well. Small and medium-size business are getting help from the accounting and marketing software and they become able to track clients and documents with the help of technology. It is worth noting that, organisations are now able to mitigate the impact of the communication barrier, management barrier, task-performing barrier or the outsourcing barrier by the advent of technology (Al Ariss & Sidani, 2016, p.140). Internet and different types of software and applications have made it possible for the business enterprises to stay focused on their objectives with no or negligible disruption in the day-to-day operational procedures.
Technologies changing way of business communication: Technology has been changing the way people usually communicate in the workplace. The advent of Smartphone (video conference, send emails), chat apps and different social media sites (such as WhatsApp, Skype) bring business communication in a new level. Communication between management to subordinates employees to employees and management to management has become instantaneous, fast, collaborative, deliberate and unified.
Improving efficiency of employees: With the advent of technology, employees are becoming efficient towards their job responsibilities. As such, technology has been reducing the amount of time spent on daily activities and they can minimise the amount of effort (that previously had to be spent without technology) on their daily activities (Bartram et al. 2015, p.128). Employees become able to spend more time on innovation and creativity because of reducing amount of time on daily activities.
Enabling remote working: New technology, teleconferencing and co-working space has entirely changed the workplace and enable remote working. As stated by (Boussebaa, 2015, p.1219), cloud technology and mobile are allowing instant and remote access that enables effective internet-based service models. As a result of this, organisations become able to broaden their workplaces and thereby, interconnected workplaces are not tied to one location but a range of places. Employees belong to one organisation can hinge together through virtual conferencing and complete portability and connect.
The rise of freelancing: The advent of cloud technology and improved IM system (instant messaging) enables the organisations to support the concept of freelancing. Employees from other locations are allowed to work with just a click of a mouse. As stated by Turner (2018), video conferencing makes the process more effective by coordinating management with the best employees no matter where they are and without being tethered to one particular place. This kind of practice has some disadvantages also. Employees have to available all the time long and because of this, they are unable to maintain work-life balance.
Time boundary is blurring: Time boundaries at the present time are blurring due to the advent of smart devices that connect pervasive social connections and communities into single working environments. Further, it brings continued connectivity of office activity beyond countries. As a result of this, employees are connected 24*7 hours and thus, past traditional office hours had gone. Because of this, people are losing work-life balance and these practices make them demotivated.
Improved employee engagement: Work is morphing into an activity from just a traditional workplace. People can work with less rigidity in the structure and workflow becomes more natural and spontaneous. According to Davidson et al. (2017, p.32), BOYD (Bring Your Own Device) concept is emerging into the workplace as people have their own habits and preferences. With the help of this,, people can enjoy working in their own devices of choice and this assists or enhances employee productivity and creativity.
Thus, technology enhances workplace collaboration by employing cloud technology, video conferring and other facilities. Based on this above study, it is worth noting that, technology introduces a lot of benefits such as employee efficiency, flexible workings, broaden workplace and like. Apart from this, there are some of the other issues faced by the employee’s such workload, work-life imbalance and others.
The advent of globalisation and technology has been introducing a lot of issues that have to be faced by the HR professionals to cope with the changing mode of business practices. One of the most significant challenges for human resource management is to adopt hiring and retention strategies in order to prepare for tomorrow’s changing individual behaviour. Due to a diverse workforce, the HR professionals have to provide flexible work schedules and shifting responsibilities for showing openness to all culture irrespective of race and religion. However, for HR professionals, it is really difficult to manage all the work schedules and advent new retention strategies for diverse workforce in the workplace environment. In terms of hiring, HR professionals need to go far to take the lead in building initiatives and strategies to have the best talent mix out of the diverse range of workforce in the organisations. Further, it is worth noting that, organisations are going to recruit a range of women employees and hence, the rate of sexual harassment issues and inappropriate behaviour are increasing. As a result of this, the HR department has to find a more strategic way and educate employees about the legal consequences of sexual harassment (Almeida & Fernando, 2017, p.880). Apart from this, HR professionals have to face issues while motivating the workforce for improving productivity.
The advent of technology has been changing the work-life balance of the employees and hence, employees are becoming demotivated. Further, one of the pitfalls of globalisation is migration. Hence, HR professionals have to mitigate country to continents for handling different workforces belong to same organisation and hence, it is a challenging situation for HR professionals to motivate employees and keeping themselves up-to-date with the ever-changing and complex labour laws in each country. Further, it is worth noting that, workforces are now performing freelancing and organisations are supporting remote working due to the advent of technology and hence, it becomes difficult for the HR department to practice collaboration over the ‘silos’ mentality (working in isolation). Additionally, the most significance challenge faced by the HR professionals is the existence of the human resource management. According to Karikari et al. (2015, p.424), HR professionals will soon be witness of more customised HR technology due to increased competition between technology vendors heats up. Organisations are now considering programs and apps based on HR goals. For instance, team collaboration app can be effective and useful for the purpose of communication and enact subsystem changes quickly.
In order to cope up with the aforementioned challenges due to the advent of technology and globalisation, HR professionals have to consider more competencies in the workplace. It is essential for the HR managers to maintain a comprehensive understanding regarding workplace regulations and hiring laws (Podger 2017). Further, the HR professionals need to adopt credible activist competency to develop practices for promoting collaborative work culture among the diverse workers and communicating policies and values of ethnicities for driving success in the organisations. Further, it is a challenge for the HR professionals to deal with the new employees especially with those who are engaged through crowdsourcing and remote workers (Davis et al. 2016, p.90). Hence, HR professionals need to be technology proponent to develop knowledge regarding cloud technology for escalating programs to assist executives when they move from one region to another with different societal and cultural norms. Additionally, at an organisational level, one of the essential competencies of effective HR managers is the ability to innovate and integrate human resource practices around critical business issues. As mentioned by McDowell et al. (2016, p.166), high-performing HR professional must ensure that all the expected outcomes are precisely and clearly prioritised. It is worth noting that, finding effective way for enabling teams to perform better across physical and organisational boundaries is the key to success of HR professional in this context. A major competency of today’s HR professional is to change champion and hence, effective HR managers need to develop their companies’ capacity towards change and then transform the capacity into changing structure and process.
Conclusion
Therefore, based on the aforementioned study, it can be concluded that the practices of HR professionals are changing effectively due to the advent of globalisation and technology as these factors change corporate culture in terms of individual behaviour and changed work practices. Thus, it is essential for the HR professionals to adopt a few competencies such as credible activist, capability builder, technology proponent and others to cope up with the changing business environment and heighten business growth in terms of financial profitability.
Reference List
Al Ariss, A. & Sidani, Y., 2016. Comparative international human resource management: Future research directions. Human Resource Management Review, 26(4), pp.352-358.
Almeida, S. & Fernando, M., 2017. Making the cut: occupation-specific factors influencing employers in their recruitment and selection of immigrant professionals in the information technology and accounting occupations in regional Australia. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 28(6), pp.880-912.
Bartram, T., Boyle, B., Stanton, P., Burgess, J. & McDonnell, A., 2015. Multinational enterprises and industrial relations: A research agenda for the 21st century. Journal of Industrial Relations, 57(2), pp.127-145.
Boussebaa, M., 2015. Professional service firms, globalisation and the new imperialism. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 28(8), pp.1217-1233.
Davidson, P., Tsakissiris, J. & Guo, Y., 2017. A systems model comparing Australian and Chinese HRM education. Journal of Learning Design, 10(1), pp.31-40.
Davis, P.J., Frolova, Y. & Callahan, W., 2016. Workplace diversity management in Australia: what do managers think and what are organisations doing?. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 35(2), pp.81-98.
Karikari, A.F., Boateng, P.A. & Ocansey, E.O., 2015. The Role of Human Resource Information System in the Process of Manpower Activities. American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 5(06), p.424.
McDonnell, A., Boyle, B., Stanton, P., Bartram, T. & Burgess, J., 2016. Delineating human resource management practice in domestic and foreign?owned multinational enterprises in Australia. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 54(2), pp.165-187.
Podger, A., 2017. Enduring Challenges and New Developments in Public Human Resource Management: Australia as an Example of International Experience. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 37(1), pp.108-128.
Sheehan, C., De Cieri, H., Cooper, B.K. & Brooks, R., 2016. The impact of HR political skill in the HRM and organisational performance relationship. Australian Journal of Management, 41(1), pp.161-181.
Stone, D.L. & Deadrick, D.L., 2015. Challenges and opportunities affecting the future of human resource management. Human Resource Management Review, 25(2), pp.139-145.
Turner, P., 2018. The Role of the Board, the Executive Team, Line Managers and HR Professionals in Talent Management. In Talent Management in Healthcare (pp. 315-338). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
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