Human Resource Strategy Formulation - Implementation and Impact

Question: Discuss about the Human Resource Strategy for Formulation, Implementation and Impact. Answer: Introduction The international human resource management comprises of numerous activities which are aimed at management of the employees at international level so that the organizational objectives can be achieved (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). This activity is common for multinational organizations where the human resource managers need to take care of the employee bas spanning across several countries. The individuals who have either temporarily or permanently migrated to a foreign location other than the home country are known as expatriates (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). There are several issues that are faced by them when they start working in another country. One of the most prominent of them is the cultural differences. This report would discuss about three international human resource issues which are faced by the expatriates. The concluding part of the report would also give suitable recommendations for addressing the issue. Discussion A typical international human resources management would include the management of three kinds of employees such as host country employees, home country employees and the third country (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). There are several issues faced by the expatriate when they visit a foreign land (Harzing and Zhang 2016). There are three main issues which would be discussed in this report- cultural issues, training and development and recruitment/selection. Factors affecting international HRM The multinational organization that is engaged in multiple businesses is not always associated with homogeneity of the human resources. The following factors are associated with management of the human resources such as Cultural factors- The wide cultural differences across the countries pose a challenge to the HR managers (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). In some parts of the world, there is dominance of the patriarchal system, however, in some parts of the world, people disrespect such attitudes. Economic factors- The individual differences between countries create an impact on the human resource management (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). The value of productivity, economic parameters and others affect the HR practices. Labor cost factors- The high labor expenses need focus on the efficiency of the human resources policies such as Pay for Performance (Lazarova McNulty and Semeniuk 2015). There is disparity of the labor costs, number of working hours and others. Industrial relations factors- The relationship between the labor unions, workers and the employer can have significant impact on the international HRM practices (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). Issues of international human resource management Cultural Issues The cultural forces are one of the strongest determinants in international human resources management (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). The national culture of one country is different with that of other country. The cultural forces are affected by the societal forces which determine the actions, beliefs and values of a group of people (Bamberger Biron and Meshoulam 2014). The culture of India and Australia are different and hence the expatriate who would be visiting the country would be facing cultural differences. For example, Indians have a conservative culture whereas Australia possesses an open culture. The corporate culture in the foreign country is unknown to the expatriate. It is true that the company information is available on the website of the company, however, the real culture cannot be felt from a foreign location (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). The culture of a country is multifaceted (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). The customs as well as ideas are some of the usual manifestation s of culture. It affects the understanding of the people as well as the identity of an individual. The corporate culture is influenced by beliefs, practices and the values of the company. The employees induct the culture through the process of observation as well as training (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). However, the expatriate employees are unable to absorb the culture of the foreign country immediately after joining the new workplace. They would be unable to understand the organizational practices of frugality, integrity and corporate social responsibility. The organizational values are usually unspoken and hence the expatriates find it difficult to understand them (Ravu and Parker 2015). The organizational culture is usually influenced by internal reward policies, behavior of the employees and the national culture of the country (Scott 2013). There are difficulties with the cultural integration especially in a diverse organization. The human resource manager may find it difficult to attract, retain as well motivate the best employees of the organization (Bamberger Biron and Meshoulam 2014). They may also find it difficult to do employee engagement activities. Experts opine that around 31% of the new employee integration causes due to the cultural mismatch (Ravu and Parker 2015). There would be cultural differences between the employees and the company management. The cultural differences would become a serious problem for the new employee who has recently joined Australian organizations (Oyewobi Abiola-Falemu and Ibironke 2016). The employee would not be able to engage in clear communication with the team members. He would not be able to engage in non-verbal business etiquettes that are essential for engaging in successful business practices (Ravu and Parker 2015). He would not be able to interact with the international teams nor would he be able to engage in negotiations with the foreign organizations. He would not be able to adjust to the new organizational culture which is a representative of the national culture (Jaques 2013). For example, the expatriate would know that being polite is a norm in the workplace, however, he would not be aware of the degree of politeness that must be ideally displayed in the organization. Politeness can be perceived in a di fferent way in a new geographical domain (Spencer-Oatey and Kdr 2016). There can also be differences in the expectations as well as norms in the workplace. The religion is known to have intense impact on the personal identity of the professionals. In Australia, majority of the religions are Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Christian and Anglican (Dunn and Piracha 2015). The Indian person would not be able to understand the religious sentiments of this group of people. The leadership style of the individuals varies from one country to the other (Spencer-Oatey and Kdr 2016). The Australian style of leadership would not be same as the Indian style of leadership. The Indians tend to prefer a paternalistic leadership style and they tend to respect the skills of the superiors (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). The juniors in the Indian corporate environment expect attention and the leaders display top down communication approach. This is not common in the Australian workplaces. The Australian workplaces are able to align themselves quickly with the company objectives and they are usually less satisfied (Mawer 2014). This may create issues for the expatr iates where they might not be able to cope up with the new corporate culture. Training and Development Issues The international human resource management faces a constant issue with the training and the development function which is most prevalent in the multinational organizations. The training programs usually comprise of in house seminars, classroom training, e-learning and the meetings that are designed to impart job related skills to the employees (McArdle 2015). One of the most crucial issues in this regard is the language barriers. The Indian employee who has started working in Australia would find it difficult to understand fluent English language (McArdle 2015). The organization has to invest more in the language classes, which would often be not so successful, if the concerned employee has severe language issues (Benson and Voller 2014). He may take a long time in conversing with the Australian counterparts in their native language. This would hamper the productivity of the organization in the long run. This is because the employee would not be able to perform to his fullest potent ial. The identification of the current skills as well as expertise of the expatriate needs to be done by the human resource department (McArdle 2015). However, there can be instances, when the human resource department would be unable to do so. This creates shortage in the skills training of the new candidates which would make them unable to perform the job duties (McArdle 2015). There are other problems associated with the training program such as the nature of the job. The temporary nature of most of the jobs does not allow the human resource managers to allocate budget for the training purposes (Ulrich 2013). Hence, there is lack of expertise of the training experts which makes the training process not so effective. There may be lack of training experts which may impart appropriate training to the expatriates. There may also be a conservative mindset which would compel the human resource managers to give less importance to the training process (Ulrich 2013). The effectiveness of training an expatriate may be a matter of concern for the human resource team of the Australian organization. There may be absence of an interpreter who would interpret the local language of India to Australian language, so that it can be well understood by the Australian counterparts (Nicholas and Starks 2014). The components of the training program may not be designed in an appro priate manner. An ideal training process may include the field experiences and the sensitivity training which is essential for the overall development of an individual (Kolb 2014). The training is often concerned with the lack of understanding of the intuition as well as unsystematic methods of training the expatriates. An expatriate individual would be unable to cope up with the new environment and may also find it difficult to concentrate on the training schedules (Nicholas and Starks 2014). The expatriates are considered as foreigners in the host country and their needs are often not addressed by the training managers (Kolb 2014). The inadequate training process would lead to a decrease in the self confidence of the employees. The training should commence a year before the expatriate starts to live in the foreign country (Nicholas and Starks 2014). However, in a majority of the situations, the training commences when the person migrates to a foreign land. This makes the person un comfortable and unprepared when he actually commences his professional journey in a foreign country (Kolb 2014). This affects the productivity of the concerned employees, especially in the first few months of his overseas career. Recruitment and Selection The recruitment and selection process is an important area in the international human resource management. The recruiting efforts in the home country are different from that in the foreign countries. The human resource professionals should take care of the regulations, cultural differences and the language considerations (Moran Abramson and Moran 2014). However, the cross border human resource managers often omit these minute details while designing the recruitment policy. There are issues with the recruitment policy of the multinational companies such as cooperation, demographic beliefs, culture, racism and legal factors. It is hard to determine the recruitment sources for filling up the overseas vacancies (Moran Abramson and Moran 2014). This makes it difficult to find the right candidates for filling up the vacancies. It is also important to determine the demographic composition of the candidates to be interviewed. This makes them unaware of the different skills of the employees ( Moran Abramson and Moran 2014). The recruiter is unable to understand the job competence, relational traits, personality traits and the environmental variables of the new candidates (Cocchiara Bell and Casper 2014). The job competencies such as technical skills include the knowledge of the host country and job operations, which may be unknown to the candidate. It is not possible for the Indian candidate to know about the traditions and corporate culture in Australia. The candidate may not be able to display sufficient social skills such as ability to tolerate ambiguity and the art of courtesy (Moran Abramson and Moran 2014). The human resource manager would be unable to tackle issues such as family concerns, ability to adjust, right selection of the candidates and the experience level of the candidates (Stredwick 2013). The human resource manager would be unable to analyze the educational backgrounds and the experience level of the candidates. This makes them unsure about the suitability of the candidates to the organizational vacancies. There are instances when the candidate faces racism when venturing into a foreign land (Moran Abramson and Moran 2014). The selection process may not serve the purpose in a correct manner. The human resource managers may not be able to apply all the criteria for selecting the right candidate. The candidate s must be evaluated on the basis of personal characteristics, communication skills, cultural adjustments, personal factors and the ability to satisfy the organizational requirements (Zakarevi?ius and Ã… ½uperkien? 2015). The human resource managers are unable to screen the background of the applicants on the basis of parameters such as work experience, earlier overseas assignment experience, foreign language fluency and the overall job performance of the concerned person (Aswathappa 2013). The primary mode of interview is through the online telecommunications such as Skype, which makes it difficult for the recruiter to analyze the behavioral aspects of the candidates (Zakarevi?ius and Ã… ½uperkien? 2015). This would make incorrect recruiting decisions by selecting the misfit candidate. The human resource recruiters often fail to understand the local needs of the organizations (Aswathappa 2013). They are increasingly becoming unable to find the right skills for the organization that would be successful in achieving the organizational objectives. These reasons are responsible for the lack of success of the recruitment as well as selection initiatives. Methodology The study was conducted in the Sydney business area of Australia. The sample size was 100 and it comprised of the Indians who have migrated in Australia in the last 5 years. A structured questionnaire was formulated and distributed among the participants. The face to face interview was conducted to know the exact responses of the participants. The questionnaires were also sent to the sample population through emails. The Google forms were used to collect data from the participants. The forms allowed the researchers to gather, compile and interpret the data. The method used for data analysis was qualitative data analysis is narrative analysis and content analysis. In narrative analysis, the transcribed experience is used to display the experiences of the expatriates. In the case of content analysis, the behavioral data is being categorized so that is easy to classify, summarize and tabulate the findings. Recommendation The cultural issues may be addressed with proper attention. The constant communication is a key to address the issues of cultural diversity. A relationship of trust should be created and the expatriate should be interacted personally for determining their challenges. The training and development issues should be solved by designing suitable training packages for the expatriates. They should be exposed to the training process even before the candidates actually join the overseas job opportunities. The human resource department should impart language training to the foreign nationals. The presence of an interpreter is also desirable which would also increase the organizational efficiency. The human resource recruiter should try to look for alternate sources of recruitment such as attending conferences, international job fairs, local online jib portals and others. The organizational policies should focus on the preferences as well as needs of the expatriates. Conclusion The international human resource management is one of the most crucial aspects of the management. The cross cultural managers often face the issue of international human resource management. There are several issues that are associated when an expatriate start to work in a foreign country. There are several factors associated with the international HRM such as cultural factors, economic factors, industrial relations factors and labor cost factors. There are three issues discussed in this report such as cultural issues, training as well as development and recruitment as well as selection. 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