Discuss about the International HRM Function and Organizational Strategy.
International Human Resource Management is a set of activities which aims in managing organizational human resources for achieving the organizational objectives at an international level to gain a competitive advantage over other competitors. It basically means to manage human resource of Multinational Companies. The HRM functions are recruitment, training and development, selection and performance appraisal. It is a process of procuring and effectively utilizing the human resource in a corporation. The human resource managers in this context have to integrate the human resource policies and practices across many subsidiaries spread in various countries as to achieve organizational goals. Human Resource policies aims to manage the geographical dispersed forces to leverage the HR resource so achieve both local and international competitive advantage (Briscoe, D, Schuler, R & Claus, L, 2008).
The main objective of international human resource management is to create a local appeal by not compromising with its global identity, to generate awareness regarding the cross cultural issues among the global managers and to hire staffs in all the geographical boundaries. The role of human resource management is to ensure HRM policies to support the strategy, control and structure of the firm. IHRM objects to reduce the risk associated with international human resource, to avoid regional disparities, to handle diversified human capital and to avoid cultural risk. The main complexity faced while integrating international human resource in an organization is that the main operations of the MNC units has diversified national contexts (Harzing, A & Pinnington, A, 2014).
Human resource experts have become generalist as the companies are becoming more international. Much attention is given to achieve common goals of the organization rather than focusing in the day to day activities related to the business. The company aims at achieving competitive advantage over their competitors by increasing profitability and economic growth. It is the duty of the HR Manager to hire skilled and experienced employees, to maintain discipline, to control health related issues and resolve employee conflicts.
Business ethics should be given a due consideration and it is usually a job of business owner or manager to maintain ethical standards in a workplace (Ingram, D, 2016). The human resource management has to deal with such ethical issues in the department; they have numerous pitfalls which can influence the financial sustainability and reputation of the company. Whether it is a local start-up or a global powerhouse it is important to maintain ethical standards and values in business practices and policies by the managers and employees.
When breach of ethics takes place it often results into a terrible situation and causes legal problems in the organization. In current business situation, legal trouble can cause an additional challenge for the company (Rowley, C & Warner, M, 2013). It is totally wrong to design unfair employment policies that can directly cause harm to the reputation of the company. When the company is able to gain reputation for maintaining ethical values, employees will start feeling motivated and a good business relationship can be followed between the employees and employers. Treating employees ethically will generate trust and loyalty towards the company by the employees. Hence this to increase in productivity and ultimately will increase the profitability of the business. Having loyal employees is a competitive advantage that a company can enjoy as it is very difficult to receive loyalty and trust from the employees working in a company. Loyal employees act as champions for the product of the company, they purchase a product from the company and spread its benefits to the world by making word of mouth advertising to family and acquaintances. Maintaining ethics is not sufficient it should also be promoted. A solid reputation does not occur on its own, business owners organize comprehensive ethics programs and make commitments to ethics in each area and activities concerning business. Mutual respect and dignity among the employees will help the company to accomplish common goals of the concerned business.
The main challenge in IHRM is the high failure rates of expatriation and repatriation. An expatriate is a person, who is living in a country and has a citizenship of another country, temporarily or for some work reason. Repatriation is a process in which the person returns to his place of origin, voluntarily or forcibly. The difficulty of repatriation is often faced by the HR Manager and; are not always allowed to act on this context. Time constraints and shortfall in budget are the main reason that it becomes difficult to resolve this problem. It is often said that the solutions to solve the problem of repatriation should not be expensive so that it can result to be a great benefit for the company. This problem can be solved if the expatriate and his family feel protected and understood by the company.
Another problem is that women have to face many barriers while working overseas (Ozbilgin, M, Groutsis, D & Harvey, W, 2014). It becomes very difficult for women employee to make an entry in an international market; women employees are given chance only when there is scarcity of male candidates. Cultural, economic, political, and social factors can also influence the personality traits of women in an organization. Women are in need of air-miles to bring improvement in their global career prospects, by getting a task in the very first place. Women graduates should show interest in international carrier to show their managerial capacity. The adjustment problems faced by women in global corporate has to be self solved by learning how to adjust in such environment.
To expand the global market place the businesses are hiring employees from different cultural and geographical background by complying with the labour and tax laws pertaining to that region or country. Like for example in carrying out business activities in Europe it is essential to pay value added tax (Bradley, J, 2016). It is a major issue to comply with the International Laws for the under educated business owners and HR staffs as these laws are usually very complex and difficult to implement them in the business activities. Hence the HR manager should be capable enough to keep updates regarding the variations in the international laws and policies to reduce the complexity in IHRM.
A salient issue involved in IHRM is to understand and maintain cultural diversity (Bono, S & Van der, H, 2011). It is essential to adapt new ideas and work style of different working people and various locations coming from different background to facilitate easy communication and familiar social practices. If suppose an employee has been hired and he belongs to some other country having new ideas and cultural practices, it is beneficial to connect with his ideas to bring change and advancement in technology and experience.
We know that benefits and compensation are essential for any HR strategic plan but in case if IHRM these benefits and compensation has superior significance to keep focus on the life and work of employees (Sitkin, A & Bowen, N, 2013). Work life balance is important to increase the living standard of the employees and also to balance their personal and professional lives. Now days it is considered as a part of IHR, so that multinational companies can implement programs such as paternity leave, flexible working time, extended holidays and sick leaves. In some countries such laws are mandatory and has applied it on local scale to avoid such complication and challenges in global corporate.
Training and professional development is related to an idea of benefits and compensation in IHRM (Kavanagh, M, Thite, M & Johnson, R, 2013). Training programmes means conducting seminars and meetings to impart knowledge and skills to the employees. Language classes are also conducted to avoid language barrier in conducting international business. Extra training is allowed to employees, they are allowed to attend conferences and meetings to bring confidence and a willingness to work more effectively and efficiently. Professional development helps to enhance skills of the employees and they can do well in the global market. Human resource training plays an important role in handling the health related issues. Employees in factories lift objects repetitively and do work with hazardous chemicals that can cause a severe damage to the health of employees. Human resource manager should provide safety measures to deals with such issues. If proper safety procedure is not followed, company can be fined or can be sued.
It is the responsibility of the human resource professionals to resolve the conflicts that takes place in the organization (Suttle, R, 2016). For example, if a conflict takes place between two employees that who should clean the spilled chemical. Both think that it is not their fault, so it is the duty of manager to solve such complications and conflicts (Crawley, E, Swailes, S & Walsh, D, 2013).
There are a number of challenges in International Human Resource Management and there are number of ways to manage these growing challenges. An effective strategic plan should be implemented by the concerned organization to resolve human resource issues. The HR Leadership Council should implement some of the following policies (Dowling, P, Festing, M & Engle, A, 2008). It is advisable to implement strategic corporate change to increase productivity, quality and employee satisfaction. To motivate the employees, design and implement a compensation system (Harris, M, 2012). Develop benefit packages to measure the success, and make use of data and statistics that are appropriate to make good business decisions. To increase the contribution of human resource function, leverage of technology is important. Identification of principles to develop, conserve and utilize human resource can be very helpful in resolving human resource issues. Financial Management and budgetary skills should be developed to work towards the attainment of organizational goals (Torrington, D, 1994).
Organizing People, Projects and Teams in an organization can bring a change in the present working activities and can be a competitive advantage over its rival as many organizations are unaware of such strategic plans (Sparrow, P, 2010). Organization of people is a key area for management and this can be done by implementing a formal organizational chart. It will provide a defined documentation of the structure that will show the company’s hierarchy, and in what ways the various departments are supposed to follow this chain of command. Effective organization of people will bring improvement in management and organizational techniques (Richards, L, 2016). The projects of an organization should be managed and organized in a proper way because the technique that will be used will define how productive it is and their impact on the cost of goods and services delivery. A deep understanding of business goals and identification of resources are essential to accomplish the job and for an effective communication. Effective coordinated teams will ultimately help in organizing projects and plans in a desired manner. Therefore a single individual cannot complete the task alone. There goals and desires of the organization should be well communicated to the entire team and the selection of staff participating in the team should be according to their experience and knowledge. We can conclude by saying that if a company wants to manage their challenges and issues that occur in their human resource management it can be done through effective way of organizing their team, project and plan.
Adopting Human Resource strategy which is highly concerned to achieve multiple advantages for the company and to accomplish larger missions and goals is important. The creation and evaluation of human resource policies has power to influence the strategic vision of the company. Strategic plan is mostly dependent upon the cooperation and support from the employees. There should be a direct connection between the human resource management and strategy so as to facilitate the company’s executives to monitor consistently the progress and tweaking processes adopted by the company for the benefit of its employees and the company as a whole. The company should always try to keep their policies relating to salary, insurance and management according to the laws prescribed by the government for the business context to avoid issues related to illegal circumstances (Bradely, J, 2016). Company should try to develop healthy relationship with their employees to avoid government interference and control. Once the government starts controlling a corporation, it becomes difficult to escape from its strict governance.
References
Bradley, J. (2016). International HR Issues. Viewed 28 September 2016 from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/international-hr-issues-61937.html
Suttle, R. (2016). Importance of Human Resource Training. Viewed 28 September 2016 from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-human-resource-training-2551.html
Richards, L. (2016). Management & Organization Techniques. Viewed 28 September 2016 from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/management-organization-techniques-2890.html
Bradely, J. (2016). The Advantages of the Human Resource Management Strategy. Viewed 28 September 2016 from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-human-resource-management-strategy-66417.html
Dowling, P, Festing, M & Engle, A. (2008). International Human Resource Management: Managing People in a Multinational Context. Cengage Learning EMEA.
Harzing, A & Pinnington, A. (2014). International Human Resource Management. SAGE.
Briscoe, D, Schuler, R & Claus, L. (2008). International Human Resource Management. Taylor & Francis.
Ozbilgin, M, Groutsis, D & Harvey, W. (2014). International Human Resource Management. Cambridge University Press.
Bono, S & Van der, H. (2011). Managing Cultural Diversity. Meyer & Meyer Verlag.
Rowley, C & Warner, M. (2013). Globalizing International Human Resource Management. Routledge.
Kavanagh, M, Thite, M & Johnson, R. (2013). Human Resource Information Systems: Basics, Applications, and Future Directions. SAGE Publications.
Sitkin, A & Bowen, N. (2013). International Business: Challenges and Choices. OUP Oxford.
Crawley, E, Swailes, S & Walsh, D. (2013). Introduction to International Human Resource Management. OUP Oxford.
Sparrow, P. (2010). Handbook of International Human Resource Management: Integrating People, Process, and Context. John Wiley & Sons.
Harris, M. (2012). Handbook of Research in International Human Resource Management. Psychology Press.
Torrington, D. (1994). International human resource management: think globally, act locally. Prentice Hall.
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