HR Practices and Hofstede’s Dimension
The role of the human resource management has a crucial role in the organization as it is a centre of corporate strategy. It is referred to as the quality to the fact in which it helps an organization to develop the situation of the company for the purpose of achieving the aims and developing the sustainable competitive advantages. Human resource practices are different from human resource activities as it helps in developing the business in an effective way. The importance of HRM is huge as it helps in encouraging employees towards accomplishment of tasks. However, the human resource management has different practices such as recruitment and selection, training and management and performance appraisal. It is apparent that the cultural difference can put an impact on HR practices. The paper will elaborate the HR practices for the purpose of describing the impact of them on the companies because the cultural difference influences the HR practices and their outcomes.
The main practices of the human resource management are recruitment and selection & training and development. The discussion will be made on these HR practices which will elaborate on the impact of cultural difference. Culture is the responsibility to influence relationship and the similar things go to organizational and national culture (Bratton & Gold, 2017). The companies that have the plan to operate its business in more countries in which they have to decide to what extent to focus their organizational culture and management practices for the purpose of increasing the productivity of the business.
- Recruitment and selection
Recruitment and selection issues have been leading describe in organizations. These are the major process of searching and connecting the people an organization needs. Recruitment is considered the major key factor that affects the growth and success of the business. The productivity of the business is entirely dependent on the quality of the employees. It has been found that the managing human resources are a critical task as there are a number of people in the company that belongs to another culture and comes from different environments. It is the responsibility of the human resource management to contain them in the single culture of the organization. According to Mutua& Kiruthu,2014). It is a tough task to manage the employee who comes from different cultures and backgrounds. Recruitment and selection is the strategy that can impact through different background culture. With respect to the significance of the enlightening distinction in forming HRM and policies, it is cleared that every culture has made through its own description. Human resource is considered as the most effective assets but there are few organizations that develop the real benefit out of this resource.
Recruitment and Selection in the USA
There is an example of US owned company and Singapore which shows that the recruitment and selection process in both countries are different from each other. It has been argued by Tiwari, (2013), that the aspects of dealing with employees and way of working are entirely different from each other. In case any company has planned to expand its business to a different country, it would be a difficult task for the human resource management to recruit employees who are coming from different cultural and background. Broad-ranging cultural differences from country to country demand matching differences in HR practices among foreign subsidiaries. Higher labor cost is required a high level of efficiency and it can be done with the help of following the right practice of recruitment and selection. For instance, the main aim of the HR practices to develop the performance of the employee. It has been evaluated that the compensation cost of employees in the US is around $25.56 in Germany to a low of $2.65 in Mexico (Toten, 2017). According to Hofstede’s model, the cultural background impacts the entire process of recruitment and selection. This model has five dimensions which is different from country to country as it is vital for the nation to evaluate this model before expanding their business to another country. There are five dimensions such as Power distance, Uncertainty avoidance, Femininity vs. masculinity, Individualism vs. collectivism, Confucianism or long-term orientation. It has been found that there are two kinds of characterized of culture that is short term and long term. Long term cultures are characterized by position of ranking based on status, high saving rates & high investment activity. Short term cultures are characterized by avoiding loss of face, expectations of quick profit and respect for traditions. The role of the cultures in recruitment and selection is huge as it put great impacts on the selection of the employees.
The recruitment and the selection procedure is the major function which is the major responsibility of the HR department in the Australian organization. The organizations of Australia are able to shape the pool of qualifications by the way they tend to fulfill their position. It is required for the top personnel management to be recruited, as they are included in the major decision-making processes along with the responsibility for human resource management. It has been found that the use of the internal and external labor markets that are searching for the suitable candidates within the organization ( Myloni, Harzing, and Mirza, 2007).
Training and Development in Multinational Organizations
It is required to manage a diverse workforce effectively that is why it is essential for the organization to hire and promote the capable candidate for a job. The situational interview is being taken by the 35% multinational companies of Australia. it has been analyzed that around 100% Australian companies used interviews to analyze applicants, on the other hand, 58% companies used psychometric tests and around 48% used intelligence tests (ANAO, 2017). Structured interview with psychometric tests is considered in the organization. Since unstructured selected method got bad reviews because it does not encompass the ability and aptitude tests. The cultural background has great impact over the selection method because it is hard to crack the interview of the overseas company because the norms and policies of every country are different and it is necessary for the parent company to adopt the strategy of the host country while selecting the candidate.
- Training and development
The program of training is the major practice of the HRM and it is vital for the international human resource management to provide a high quality of the training and development program so that the new employees get encouraged. Multinational organizations are usually facing multiple issues at the time of conducting their business in developing countries because of the huge cultural differences. As perSusaeta& Pin, (2008), multinational companies functioning in many countries with diverse cultural orientations that face typical challenges in executing Western HRM practices in the countries that are developed. It has been found that the cultural variables have a significant role in deciding no matter what is the condition of the HRM policy (Miliki?, 2009). It has been found that the effective execution of HRM practices entirely relies on the degree to which the practices of the human resource management to be sophisticated by managers and their subordinates. It is necessary for the human resource managers to have a systematic understanding of all the values of the culture before executing a strategy so that they can enhance the output of their human resource (Reiche, Stahl, Mendenhall &Oddou, 2016).
It has been found that the employees of the company are usually trained for the educational factors when the business is demeanour worldwide. The main reason of the training is to facilitate employees to connect with the new culture at the time of when they are overseas on tasks. The training is a major factor that can fill the encouragement in the employees towards fulfilling the tasks. It has been found that the major aspects of the training are language, cultural setting, handling the stress of family and management. The role of the cultural training is vital for the growth of the company, however cultural issues are not described explicitly but in case of not having awareness of the cultural norms then they can lead into an adverse situation (Stone &Deadrick, 2015). There is an example of Revlon in which the company expanded its business in the country of Brazil, at that time the company has launched a perfume in which the Camellia flower is being used for the fragrances. The manager of the company was not aware of the history of the flower because this flower was used in funerals in Brazil and the product unsuccessful badly. It has apparent that intercultural training is required for the growth of the business as it helps employees to understand their responsibility in more clear way. It provides the opportunity to develop and feel encouraged. It is required for the employees of the company to develop listening skills while working with people from different culture. Intercultural training has the ability to teach employee to interpret conversation in more clear way.
The assignment and the way of working in the overseas department are quite different from that of domestic assignments. The culture of the overseas employees is different so because of the cultural difference, the home country or third country’s employees are selected as per the experience of working globally, their knowledge in speaking different languages, the degree to which they can manage conflicts, their experience in adaption of the different cultures and their personality (Brewster, Houldsworth, Sparrow & Vernon, 2016).
The responsibilities of the organization are not limited up to hiring and selecting the employees. It is required for the management of the company to provide high extent training to the employees who come from a different country (Taylor, Doherty & McGraw, 2015). The different cultural background can influence the working environment and it has been analyzed that the flexible workforce is vital for any organization as the common level of education and specialization in one subject is required for the growth of the business. The legislation and the policies of the government are liable to shape the training and development program in each country. The government of each country has taken a step to achieve an educated and skilled employee in order to ensure the effective functioning of the nation (Brewster, 2017).
There are various looms to international human resource management that can impact the entire functions of the organization. These approaches are the ethnocentric approach, polycentric approach, regiocentric approach and geocentric approach. These approaches are different from each other as the motto of the ethnocentric approach is that this works in my country, so the availability of this work should be another country. The main reasons for this approach are to maintain good communication and unified corporate culture connected with a corporate headquarter. The polycentric approach is entirely different as the motto of this approach is to think global act local strategy that provides advantages of eliminates language barriers and avoids adjustment problems. Geocentric approach is able to lead the company in to a higher position in which the employees of the company are ready to transfer from one country to another. Regiocentric approach is considered as the regional oriented approach which is able to maintain the comfortability for the employees of the company (Tortorella, Marodin, Fogliatto&Miorando, 2015).
It has been recommended to the international companies to focus on the training and development program because it is the main procedure to retain the employees. It is obvious that employee gets uncomfortable when they connect with different background of culture, in such case; their role of the training and development is not only to provide training about the working style but also provide them comfort to live in such different cultural background. It is found that the Australian and New Zealand companies were focused towards the local innovators and less expected to be global innovators. These countries are benefitted from language proximity with UK and US organizations which offset the distance of the geographical to a great degree as informal communication linked as the key concern in this assignment. the human resource practices are major part of the international human resource management and the recruitment and selection is the major activities of that practise. It is necessary for the IHRM to keep the focus on the recruitment and selection method with taking consideration of the cultural background.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discussion that the role of the international human resource management in the international companies are important. The major practices of IHRM have been emphasized under this assignment in which the recruitment and selection process has been entailed. The importance of training and development program has been identified and the role of them in encouraging employee has been elaborated. IHRM has stimulated not by an opportunistic expansion, but by the sequential improvement of thinking that has attained the consecutive development of thinking that has captured the sequential development of thinking that has grabbed the consecutively developing geographic and cultural challenges which are faced by a number of the international organization. Training and development recognize the major similarities and trends at country level in terms of the system of the training. It identifies that the on-job training and effective working environment. Ultimately, attentiveness is given to manage growth and comparative experiences of this.
References
ANAO, (2017).Managing Underperformance in the Australian Public Service.Retrieved from: https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/managing-underperformance-aps.
Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2017).Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Brewster, C. (2017). The integration of human resource management and corporate strategy. In Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 22-35). Routledge.
Brewster, C., Houldsworth, E., Sparrow, P., & Vernon, G. (2016).International human resource management.Kogan Page Publishers.
Miliki?, B. B. (2009). The influence of culture on human resource management processes and practices: the propositions for Serbia. Economic Annals, Volume LIV, No. 181, April – June 2009 UDC: 3.33 ISSN: 0013-3264.
Mutua, J. O. H. N., &Kiruthu, M. Z. (2014).Quality Management Practices and financial Performance of Cement Manufacturing Firms in Kenya.Unpublished MBA project report UON.
Myloni, B., Harzing, A.W. and Mirza, H., (2007). The effect of corporate-level organizational factors on the transfer of human resource management practices: European and US MNCs and their Greek subsidiaries, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18(12), pp.2057-2074.
Reiche, B. S., Stahl, G. K., Mendenhall, M. E., &Oddou, G. R. (Eds.).(2016). Readings and cases in international human resource management.Taylor & Francis.
Stone, D. L., &Deadrick, D. L. (2015). Challenges and opportunities affecting the future of human resource management.Human Resource Management Review, 25(2), 139-145.
Susaeta, L., & Pin, J., (2008). The five phases in the transfer of HR policies and practices within MNCs. Working Paper No, 724, IESE Business School.
Taylor, T., Doherty, A., & McGraw, P. (2015).Managing people in sport organizations: A strategic human resource management perspective. Routledge.
Tiwari, N., (2013). Managing Human Resources in International Organizations, Global Journal of Management and Business Studies. ISSN 2248-9878 Volume 3, Number 4 (2013), pp. 355-360.
Tortorella, G. L., Marodin, G. A., Fogliatto, F. S., &Miorando, R. (2015).Learning organisation and human resources management practices: An exploratory research in medium-sized enterprises undergoing a lean implementation.International Journal of Production Research, 53(13), 3989-4000.
Toten, M. (2017). One in three workers disengaged: what can you do? Retrieved from: https://workplaceinfo.com.au/hr-management/hr-strategy/analysis/one-in-three-workers-disengaged-what-can-you-do#.W2wUktUzbIV