Preparing Senior Executives For Overseas Assignment In India

Hofstede National Cultural Dimensions

In this particular, report a team of five senior level executives is formed and it has been decided that they going to handle an overseas assignment for a period of one year and each one of them are going to perform different roles in the project. Being, the human resource director of a team, it is necessary to equip the team members with the necessary knowledge and information about the country. The country chosen here is India. India is the country, which occupies the major part of the south Asia. It is a constitutional republic, which consists of 29 states and each of them, have a substantial degree of affairs over its own affairs. New Delhi is India’s capital. It is the second most populous country after China representing one-sixth of the total world’s population (Central Intellegence Agency, 2017). Human resource management is a part of management, which is mainly concerned with the people and at work and the relationship, which they share with the organization. It brings men and women together in an enterprise together and enables them to make their contribution for the success of both as a member of the group in which it works and as an individual (Beardwell, 2014) .

Geert hofsede’s is a legendary national culture researcher. Originally, his theory talked only about the four dimensions which are power distance, masculinity verses femininity, uncertainty avoidance and individualism verses collectivism. However, after he had conducted some independent research at Hong Kong, hofstede introduced the fifth dimension, which is long-term verses the short-term orientation. The sixth dimension was introduced by hofsede in 2010, which was indulgence verses self-restraint (Mazanec, 2015). Hofstede’s theory is very useful in studying the various aspects of the international business and communications. It even highlights the value of diverse cultures. These values will not only have an impact upon how the people having different backgrounds behave but also the have the potential to behave when they are placed in work associated context.

Power distance: this is the dimension, which stands for the inequality, and it describes the extent to which the organizations and the societies will accept the power differentials.

Uncertainty avoidance- this dimension highlights the extent up to which the members the members of a particular society are capable of copying the future uncertainty without going through major stress.

Individualism verses collectivism- here focus is upon the preference of the people whether they want to be left alone so that they can look after themselves or they want to remain  in a closely knitted network.

Masculinity verses femininity- masculinity would imply the society’s preference for heroism, material reward for the attainment of success (Hofstede, 2016). On the other hand femininity will represent a gesture of quality of life, modesty and cooperation.

Long-term verses short-team orientation- long-term orientation would describe the inclination of the society towards the search of virtue and the short-term will pertain to that society that has a strong inclination for the establishment of the absolute truth.

Indulgence verses restraint- this dimension mainly focuses on the happiness. It revolves around the degree in which the society can exercise their control over the person’s desires and impulses (refer Appendix 2).

The six cultural dimensions discussed below:

Index	India	World Average
Power distance	77	56.5
Long-term orientation	61	48
masculinity	56	51
individualism	48	40
Uncertainty avoidance	40	65

Table 1: cultural dimension scores for India

(Source: (Going local in India., 2017))

The staff Recruitment selection and the hire checklist is a guide for the search committees and the hiring managers for filling the position.  Since this is an oversea assignment, it would be preferable to choose the candidates from the host country, which is India because people over there would have more knowledge about the culture and traditions of their country. The three-selection process that is used is:

Employee referral is the employer’s policy or the program that will encourage the current employees to refer the job candidates as an integral part of the employer’s recruiting procedure. This technique is used when the unemployment rate is low for example during the periods of high economic growth.  Referred employee has more chance of getting employed and they perform better and last for a longer time in the job (Dowling, 2013). This is the reason why the companies whether small or large invest in the referral programs. If the Employee referral takes place in India it would be the best way for getting jobs in a foreign land because use of online networking sites like Linkedln would make it easier to get contacts of various people.

Job fair- participating in a job fair increases the job opportunities of the employees. If the employer conducts the job fair in an effective manner there are chances that a huge number of people get attracted towards it. It can be termed as a free space where the job seekers and the employees get an opportunity to interact with each other. Apart from this there various companies which participate in the job fair so the job seeker has various options open for him. On the other the employer will also have an opportunity to interact with people having diverse backgrounds and qualifications enabling them to find the most appropriate candidate for the vacant post. Conducting of job fair in home country would be better because the organization will have an option to choose the best candidates who would fit the criteria (Mukkelli, 2015). This is very useful for both the employers and the job seekers because it gives a great opportunity to gain knowledge and make new friends having different thoughts and cultures.

Face-to-face interview- face-to-face interview is the most appropriate method for recruiting candidates. It gives a better sense of understanding the candidates’ character, his skills, attitude and his overall personality. Pre-screening of candidates is very much time efficient if the interview is scheduled properly, questions are prepared and blocking the time out to actually meet the candidates. When we hire through the pre-screening process it is important to focus whether the candidates meet the job requirements and also poses skills which the other candidates do not posses. The recruiting process sometimes takes weeks or months but pre-screening tool can help to cut down the time significantly.  Since here the organization do not have much time it is suggested that pre-screening should be encouraged as it will be helpful because a deeper understanding of the candidate can be obtained.

Staff process for the overseas assignment

The following steps has to be taken into consideration before over-sees training of the human resource management (Burmeister, 2016):

Assessment and exploration- before employing any new member it is important to assess the employees family background, his experience, understanding India’s culture and other specific goals. Use of cultural intelligence tool enables the family members to assess their personal tendencies against that of the cultural tendencies of India.

Family training program- this will help the employer to test the employees knowledge about India’s business culture, its values, society and the day-to-day living. It would reduce the risk of misunderstanding in relation with culture and will also improve the cross-cultural experience.

Host manager and briefing of the team culture- in the next step focus would be on India’s manager and the team which would be headed by the international assignee. There could be differences in communication and the management style as well as difference in the expectations.

Project alignment meeting- after the host organization has received any critical information it would be time to exchange the information either through telephone or person or via videoconference. A meeting should be held between the assignee and the host manager regarding the difference in culture that might affect the success of the assignment, various sorts of tools and techniques should be adopted in order to prevent the misunderstandings. This meeting should be held with an aim to discuss about the timelines, reporting the strategies and set up a milestone.

In-country coaching- after arriving to India it is important for the assignee to receive a telephonic or a face-to-face coaching. In some of the cases the coach has to observe the assignee’s various activities like the staff and virtual meetings and the interactions between the team members and the assignee. The coaching session varies on the basis of the participant’s needs and the given assignment’s duration.

Knowledge management process- the systematic and the ongoing capture of the relevant lessons and documentation is invaluable for the assignee, future employees and the organization as a whole. It helps to avoid the repetitive occurrence of the known issues and over the time effective study and the best practices is developed.

The balance sheet approach is regarded as the most common approach. The home countries salary is determined in the same manner as that of the domestic position that includes job evaluation, survey of the markets and various merits and incentive. The salary has to be broken into four broad categories including goods and services, housing, taxes and reserve. The employee will have to use his or her salary to pay the amount incurred in the mentioned four categories. The amount mentioned will reflect the consumption pattern in India from the various sorts of consulting firms as been determined by the survey (Gagnon, 2014). Organization even provides certain relocation incentive in addition to the salary because there are certain assignments, which would require more pay for motivating an employee in taking foreign assignments. The balance sheet has been the most appropriate for mid to senior level expatriates. This approach will allow easy movement of assignments between the foreign and the home country ( refer to Appendix 4).

Conclusion

It is seen that international human resource management provides with a global framework in the field of development, management and controlling the personnel in a multinational organization. However, every organization face a challenge in the international human resource management because of difference in culture and the convergence issues. If the mentioned organization involves itself in various activities like administration and personnel training, management of skills and planning of the workforce it can help the organization to overcome all the issues related to its operations. Human resource management will enable the business to achieve the short term and long term objectives. Its main aim is to handle the business affairs effectively and ensure that the business operations run smoothly. Thus, the given report highlights how the human resource management team should build up its strategies regarding how to handle the team of five senior level executives and identify the various aspects of team spirit.

References

Central Intellegence Agency. 2017. Cia.Gov. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html.

Mazanec, J. A., Crotts, J. C., Gursoy, D., & Lu, L. (2015). Homogeneity versus heterogeneity of cultural values: An item-response theoretical approach applying Hofstede’s cultural dimensions in a single nation. Tourism Management, 48, 299-304.

Going local in India. (2017). mkp.com. Retrieved 7 July 2017, from https://booksite.mkp.com/barnum/testingessentials/pdfs/06_Going_Local_in_India.

Association for talent development. (2014). td.org. Retrieved 7 July 2017, from https://www.td.org/Publications/Newsletters/Links/2014/02/Six-Steps-for-Successful-Expatriate-Training

Dowling, P. J. (2013). The Strategic adaptation process in international human resource management: a case study. Human Resource Planning: Solutions to Key Business Issues Selected Articles, 14(1), 137.

Burmeister, A., & Deller, J. (2016). A practical perspective on repatriate knowledge transfer: The influence of organizational support practices. Journal of Global Mobility, 4(1), 68-87.

Gagnon, J. M., Gagnon, D., & Khoury, N. (2014). Determinants of Households Saving and Financing of Assets , a Balance Sheet Approach.

Mukkelli, V. (2015). The changing role of human resource management in twenty first century challenges and opportunities. International Journal of Management Research and Reviews, 5(3), 170.

Beardwell, J., & Thompson, A. (2014). Human resource management: a contemporary approach. Pearson Education.

Hofstede, G. (2016). Masculinity at the national cultural level.