Influence of Policy Borrowing on a Nations Policies and Practises

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Introduction

Human Resource Management (HRM) is a function in an organization that centres on management, recruitment and offering guidelines to the workers in organization. It encompasses issues related to the workers such as recompensation, employment, performance management, corporate development, security, wellness, communication, employee training and inspiration (Pudelko& Harzing, 2008).

It is a comprehensive approach to controlling workers, the environment and the culture of the work place. Human Resource Development (HRD) is defined as a systematized learning experience imparted by employers within a specific period of time.It leads to individual growth and performance improvement. It is exemplified as planned rather than operational and concentrates on the organization rather than on the persons involved.

It is long term, cultural and is centered on change rather than conservation (Myloni, Harzing & Mirza, 2007). Policy transfer and borrowing refers to the adoption of policies, systems, activities and any other physical artefacts from one nation to another. It is thus the procedure through which policies diffuse within and across nations (Dicken, 1998). It is usually understood as a planned learning process.

It is voluntary though at the same time it can be coercive. One of the most significant practices in international business is the transfer of policies and practices all through the distinct national businesses. International transfer of these policies is a particularly complex process and is connected to the necessity of the transfer among international areas having distinct features.

It is very important to consider the fact that the practices come from a very unique institutional environment and are later integrated into a totally different domain. The transfer of human resource practices and policies is divided into five sub phases. These include configuration, decision-making, cooperation, execution and internalization (Myloni, Harzing & Mirza, 2004).

The U.S Multi national corporations are among the most highly centralized nations that actively participate in transferring HR practices and policies to their subordinates. They do this in a highly homogenized and formalized manner (Pudelko & Harzing, 2007). However, the execution of U.S. HRM and HRD practices and policies is not a blanket procedure. Managers in the subordinate nations do reject the transfer of several policies.

Globalization has created a forward motion to the borrowing of policies and transfer amongst nations. This is due to the increasing changes taking place all through the world. These have their foundation in the ever increasing internationalism of businesses, production and investment together with improvements in technology. The success of policy borrowing and transfer as well as the transfer of training practices is affected by obstacles occurring at a societal level.

Although policy transfer and borrowing may be beneficial, it often depends on broader changes and strategic needs. Policy borrowing and transfer encourages innovation and enhances collaboration between the involved nations. Analytical abstraction is an important aspect of successful policy borrowing or transfer and is in proportion to the level of institutional and contextual distinctions.

Power and consensus is also an important issue. Partners in one nation are free to reject the practices of other partners. Policy transfer also needs to be understood in terms of the degree at which it occurs and the level to which the chief actors influence it. Policy borrowing and transfer may occur between two advanced states or between a highly developed and a less developed nation.

However, highly developed nations may hinder transfer of practices to other nations to what they term as their key competencies and congregate to best practices in other fields. This paper will discuss the extent to which UK’s HRM and HRD policy and practices have been influenced by policy borrowing and transfer.

Discussion

Human Resource Management (HRM) and Human Resource Development (HRD) in the UK are in a state of change. This has been called for by the key changes in the workplace and in the nation itself. Work is becoming more concentrated on people’s knowledge and also more automatic.

Workers are becoming more flexible and persistent that their jobs be motivating and satisfying while providing room for personal growth (Hurst, 1975). Competitive strains to do more work with fewer employees have become almost unanimous for all the organizations in the nation. This nation has therefore made efforts to bring into line their HRM and HRD systems with the work place.

The prominent argument against this movement has been the idea of flexibility. This has made it possible for individual workers and agencies to less focus on a unified HRM management system and to focus more on the development of HRM policies and practices. The shift towards flexibility has revealed itself through a number of ways.

This majorly comprises the country’s effort to make use of policies and practices from the more developed nations. As UK searches for models for more accommodating and responsive human resource management including HRM and HRD policy and practices, interest has increased in policy borrowing and transfer from organizations operating outside its federal regulatory systems.

Policy borrowing and transfer in this nation has increased flexibility in overall human resource management and development and has enabled decentralization of HRM accountability to improve management responsibility. One of the key questions in policy borrowing in the UK is the degree to which the employees act and behave against the extent to which their activities bear.

A resemblance to those of developed and advanced nations or other international standards.HRM and HRD strategies are therefore evolving from being a simple support function in organizations to being of strategic importance.HRM policies and practices have become critical. Through policy transfer, this acts as instruments for coordination and management of global operations.

Policy Transfer and Staffing

In the UK, policy borrowing has affected staffing. Staffing processes in this nation have by tradition been recognized as time consuming and requiring manual labour. Few requirements are involved while hiring employees. However, through policy borrowing, the subject of staffing in this nation has completely changed and trained officials are selected to participate in the hiring process. Organisations now need employees who are modern and technology driven (Johanson, 1977).

Ways of advertising jobs have also changed with most organizations now using the internet. Targeted advertising is more commonly used so as to get a diverse employee pool. Management accountability for staffing decisions is in this nation are now well defined in the rank-in-person system where an employee is classified according to the achievements he has brought to the organisation. Automated systems adopted from other nations are used in recruitment.

Policy Transfer and Culture

A major issue for policy borrowing and transfer in the UK is the effect of national cultures on HRM and HRD policies and practices in the state. This is important to management for political, sociological and psychological reasons. Nations are political elements, embedded in history each having its own institutions. Different nations differ both formally and informally (Hofstede, 1980).

Sociological issues involved in management involve the fact that nationality has a representative value to citizens since it is from it where they derive their identity. Peoples’ thinking is to a certain extent conditioned by cultural factors. This is as a result of initial life experiences in one nation which may not be the same from border to border.

Policy transfer and borrowing shifts human resources away from their traditional ways of carrying out their activities. It involves moving away from customary personnel, management and transaction roles which are progressively outsourced. Through policy transfer, HRM increases the usefulness of strategic employee utilization. Employee programs thus influence the organization in a perceptible way (Trompenaars, 1993).

Despite the fact that current research has sought to make clear the connection between organizational structure and culture, culture nonetheless is considered as a significant determining aspect following the failure of many. Human Resource Management and Human Resource Development transfer practices from nation to nation.

On the contrary, most research considers culture as the paramount factor in determining HRM and HRD practices. A comparable research stream has also emphasized on the significance of institutional and structural differences (Hofstede, 1993).

Workforce Development

UK’s HRM and HRD policy and practices have been influenced by policy borrowing through workforce development. The employees are educated and trained for better corporation and employee performance (Todd, 1995). They are prepared for the larger demands of a highly technical and intelligent based workplace. The employee education and training in this case involves relating training more directly to the needs of the organization.

It also involves generating organizational education centers to increase employee and organizational capacities for the future. Workforce development through training and employee education is thus as a result of borrowing policies from advanced nations such as the US. The natives who are the employees in the UK have thus to be taught on this new policies.

Training

Policy borrowing and transfer affects UK’s HRM and HRD policies and practices through training. It influences how this is conducted both among nations and within the organization. It also affects the criteria through which workers are employed in an organization in the nation. Workers have to get used to learning from other peoples experiences even when situations might make the transfer of real practices easier said than done (Ashton, Green, James and Sung, 1999).

For instance, sometimes it may not be easy to pass on training practices without adaptations that are all embracing. It may also not be possible to apply the principles upon which the capabilities of doing certain activities were based. Policy borrowing constitutes a key constraint when the nations involved are executing global strategies due to the different institutional and cultural structures.

Policy transfer/ borrowing influences Continuing Vocational/ Occupational Training in the UK. The cross way transfer of training policies and practices in national systems has developed along the growing globalization of the economy of the world (Ashton and Turbin, 1995). Currently, high and less developed economies have cooperated with the objective of seeking to learn what they consider as more resourceful and successful practices of other nations.

This has been stimulated by the well understood link between ventures in Education Technology and financial expansion and success. Policy borrowing in this case has been taken to mean the maintenance of economic supremacy. Less advanced nations have sought through the intercession of supranational powers and agencies For instance the World Bank to introduce policies and practices hence imitating the Education and Training systems of highly developed nations.

This has hastened the economic development of this nation. The simulation of a specific training practice, the extensive importation of a training technique and transfer has led to the growth of training systems of nations. This has become a focal point for policy makers and practitioners in Human Resource development working with the Education and Training arena (Turbin, 1995).

Research Proliferation

The significance of policy borrowing and transfer is demonstrated by research increase on the skills acquirement systems of prosperous economies. For instance, copying of the Japanese Human Resource Management systems by the UK demonstrates how the growth of an economy is connected to the skill attainment systems. Current efforts to classify national techniques of educational and vocational training could be associated with the need of a policy to recognize victorious strategies for labour training and development.

Indeed, research in the domains of education, transfer of technology and human resource management should guide people to be careful on the effects of the transmission of training practices. Relatively, education provides a rich source of studies on the introduction of Education and Training programmes and policies in the UK.

Effect of Technology Transfer

Explorations in technology transfer have centered on the power relations implications within the process of transferring or borrowing policies. It also cautions on the principal dependency that technology transfer can produce to the economy. Human Resource Management and Human Resource Development have offered UK with a growing literature on the difficulties associated with the transfer of management and training activities.

Technology transfer as a policy has changed the HRM and HRD policies and practices in the UK. The organizations in this nation rely more on technology with little or completely no reliance on man power. The incorporation of policies related to technology has thus completely changed the policies and practices related to the management of human resources in this nation.

Employee Information Acquisition

Since policy transfer is basically about learning, forms of information acquisition is an important aspect in the UK. There is increased use of the communications through the internet due to the fact that policy transfer occurs at a very fast rate due to sufficient global communication.

HRM and HRD policies and practices did not in the past involve use of the internet but involved just learning organizational developments by watching how other organizations undertook their organizational activities. Through policy transfer, organizations learn how to apply policies used in other countries by reading pieces of information from the internet. This has thus changed the way employees acquire information concerning the adoption of new policies (Phillips, 1992).

Attraction and retainance of employee talents

Policy borrowing and transfer has affected HRM and HRD policies through the attraction and retainance of employee talents. Policy borrowing and transfer in this case helps an organization to cope with competitive markets globally. Nations that do not adopt policy borrowing and transfer may find themselves in awful consequences since their competitors may outshine them in the tactical deployment of human resources.

Due to the local and global increase of competition, organizations need to become more flexible, strong, and lively and customer focused so as to be successful. This can only be achieved through policy borrowing and transfer.

Management of Work place diversity

Policy transfer and borrowing enhances work place diversity. This is a change in terms of human resource management. It promotes the diversity of values, confidence and ethics between workers. Different workers are taught on different ways of doing things. The future achievements in any organization depend on its capacity to manage a varied body of talents that can yield inventive ideas and perceptions to the organization.

Policy borrowing turns the difficulties involved in an organization due to specialization into strategic organizational advantages. Policy borrowing and transfer allows for the combination of skills adopted from different cultural backgrounds, sexes, ages and ways of living hence enabling UK organizations to react to business opportunities more promptly and creatively particularly in the international arena. Diversity cannot however be classified easily and organizations need to react to this by gauging the talents of a wide work force.

Employee participation in Production

HRM and HRD policy and practices in the UK have been influenced by policy borrowing through enabling the employees to participate in the production process more efficiently and successfully. The employees through policy transfer learn new and better ways of carrying out things and this leads to the achievement of the corporations goals and objectives.

Through policy borrowing all employees are given equal chances to participate in the production process which is almost relative to their managers.

Classification and compensation

Policy borrowing and transfer has altered the HRM and HRD policies and practices in the UK. It has led to an adaptable, competitive and sufficient classification and compensation techniques in the work environment. This has provided the organization with the capability to congregate competitive needs and to move from superiority based pay systems to those based on performance.

The organizations are also able to use pay systems that are more flexible and those that fit their exceptional surroundings and organizational wants. Copying classification and compensation systems in an organization is simpler than when the organization has to establish its own systems.

Performance Management

Policy borrowing has influenced performance management in this nation. Policy borrowing has given organizations in this nation the capability to devise performance appraisal and remuneration systems that accommodate the needs of the employees. There is widespread use of performance factors in determining the employees pay in companies which have adopted policies from other countries.

Traditional approaches to performance management are no longer used and the performance management criteria used is connected to organizational goals. Increases to pay are related to employee performance.

Monetary awards and non-monetary recognition systems

Policy borrowing and transfer has laid strong emphasis on monetary and non monetary awards. This involves adoption of programs such as individual and group recognition techniques and commodity awards. Such practices are borrowed from other nations to enable proper organizational management.

Benefits and family friendly policies

This is another example of a human resource management and development practice that is as a result of policy borrowing. Benefits offered to the employees include insurance both life and health, leaves both sick and annual and retirement benefits.

Family friendly policies which arise as a result of policy borrowing and transfer include a right of entry to fitness centers in the organization, provision of facilities for child care and care for the elders, financial backing in relation to transportation and provision of health screenings.

Employee Protections and Labour Relations

Policy borrowing and transfer enables companies to be protected from unnecessary political influence and random, unpredictable and discriminatory management actions. The employees through policy transfer are protected from any harm that may affect them while undertaking their activities.

The nations from which the organization has adopted its organizational policies from may be in a status to compensate for any harm which takes place during the policy execution. Labour relations are also promoted during policy adoption.

Employees Oversight and Accountability

Policy borrowing and transfer has influenced UK’s HRM and HRD policy and practices. It has influenced UK’s employees by increasing their adaptability to oversight and accountability. The managers need to ensure that the employees are accountable for any activities in the organization.

The employees should adhere to the HRM and HRD policies and practices and all the other organizational values. The managers should be HRM accountable in the sense that they should show that they are making effective use of the borrowed policies to manage the human resources.

The employees should have an overall HRM and HRD external oversight of all the programmes in the organisation.HRM and HRD representatives in this nation should constantly evaluate management practices under delegated HRM authority. This has caused a change in UKs HRM and HRD policies and practices since both the managers and employees have the responsibility for managing their human resources.

Effect on Recruitment

Policy borrowing has influenced UK’s HRM and HRD policies and practices by ensuring that recruitment of new employees is done in such a way that it is from individuals with the necessary qualifications (Jeremy, 1999). This is done in an endeavour to obtain a work force from all sections of the society. Selection and promotion is exclusively determined based on relative capability, knowledge and talents.

Adaptability of productive organizations

Policy borrowing has made it possible for organizations to increase their productivity. The organizations that adapt fast to new policies borrowed from other nations are able to be successful in production (Martin and Beaumont, 1999).

The ability of workers to move from one job to another

Policy borrowing and transfer has changed the HRM and HRD policies and practices in the UK. It has increased the rate at which employees move from one job to another. Through learning, the employees learn new ways of doing things. Once the employees get used to this new ways, then they are reallocated new jobs in that organization depending on what duties they can perform better.

Human Resource Management and Development Practices in the UK as a result of Policy Transfer and Borrowing.

All organizations in the UK have integrated merit and system principles. In the past before UK adopted the principle of policy borrowing and transfer, there were no differences in the way staff were recruited in the organization whether specialized or not. However as a result of policy transfer, this practice has completely changed. High staffing flexibilities are the key factors in this nation’s organizations.

Currently, in UK’s organizations, there is high reliability on automation and simple HRM systems and practices are widely ignored. In the past before the adoption of policy borrowing and transfer in this nation, more duties were delegated to the managers as compared to the other workers so as to reduce the amount of time required in production and also to lower resource requirements.

However, through policy transfer, the nation has learned the importance of incorporating all the employees in the production process. This has changed the nation’s organizational policies and practices in relation to the allegation of duties.

HRM and HRD policies and practices in the UK were in the past incorporated into the organizations internal responsibility. Through policy borrowing, this has become a part of an external HRM authority. Policy borrowing serves as a base for these organizations as they continue seeking for other ways of enhancing their HRM systems and services.

Through policy borrowing and transfer, UK has moved to compensations that are market based and it now pays its employees based on performance. In this case, pay systems are linked to the achievement of organizational goals. Policy borrowing has led to the introduction of organizations particular benefits package in the UK. This concerns issues related to retreats, health and life insurances of the employees in an organization.

Before UK adopted policy borrowing, there was very low focus on employee development. Minimal attempts were establish to guarantee that the workers were in a position to suit organizational needs. This has however changed with time and managers have become highly concerned with their employees competent abilities. There were very little concerns on employee protection with greater concentrations on internal consultation procedures, negotiation and processes of peer review (McCaughey and De Cieri,1999).

It is therefore clear that several organizations in the UK have adopted policy borrowing so as to currently strive with the ever changing business environment. Competitive markets in this nation are thus renovating themselves to be able to deal with these challenges through the adoption of better HRM and HRD systems.

Policy borrowing has led to an integrated human resource management system change in the UK. Most organizations in this nation have realized that a well built and integrated human resource management system is very important so as to achieve the mission accomplishments successfully. Changes have been made concerning all the functional areas of human resource management and development. Organizations have thus redesigned their overall HRM and HRD systems.

Policy borrowing has affected the HRM and HRD development through enabling nationalization of human resources. It has reduced the problems of demographic unevenness which originates from a high proportion of emigrants in the region. Policy borrowing has also reduced the difficulties involved in public and private sector employment.

Human Resource Management and Development Policies in the UK as a result of Policy Transfer and Borrowing

All workers and employment applicants have the right to receive just and reasonable treatment in all features of personnel management. There should be no issues of political differences, race, gender, religion, nationality, marital status, disability or age. The employee constitutional rights and confidentiality should be properly regarded (Raffe and Rumberger, 1992).

Equal payments should be offered for works of equal value and suitable incentives should be provided for performance excellences. All employees are expected to maintain high levels of integrity, behaviour and show concern for issues concerning public interest.

The UK workforce should be used sufficiently and successfully. Employees should be retained depending on their performance adequacies. Derisory performance should be rectified. Employees are supposed to be provided with efficient education and training especially in situations where such could lead to better organizational and personal performance.

Conclusion

The transfer and borrowing of policies from one nation to another is also known as cultural borrowing. However, apart from the advantages resulting from this adoption, it is also associated with some great difficulties. Lack of understanding of the situation of the institution may lead to unsuitable policy borrowing and transfer with destructive consequences.

Research studies have warned nations against this policy borrowing though developing nations still have an acceptance that there is still a lot to learn from developed nations (Rhodes, 1997). It is therefore clear that with the absence or presence of success in these fields, policy transfers will always continue. In occasions where policy transfer occurs and generates some success, it normally undergoes a process of adaptation and execution.

This involves tailoring the primary principles to the receiving organization, examination of the process and appropriate interceding. The organizational environment should be in such a way that it broadly enhances diversity which comes together with policy borrowing. Organizations that have gotten engaged in policy borrowing and transfer involve their staff in research and execution of better HRM policies and practices.

However, the acquisition of new HRM and HRD systems and practices can be complicated and hazardous. Cultural, organizational and institutional factors influence the transfer of HRM and HRD practices across nations (Powell, 1999).

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