International Human Resource Managing: Preparing Expatriate Employees

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Challenges faced by expatriates in new environments
Human resource planning
Selection
Recruiting
Pre-departure
Ways of motivating and leading expatriate staff to gain a competitive advantage
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

The need to understand the particular processes that human resource managers in an international company have to follow in the transfer of some of their employees to a subsidiary of their organization that is located in a different country stems from the need to ensure efficient operations in all their subsidiaries.

This is done by reducing the conflicts that are often experienced where some of the expatriate employees may not know of the particular aspects of the new environment that they have to work in (Briscoe, Schuler and Claus, 107).

This is in regard to the new cultures and individual perceptions that are inherent in the new environment, which the expatriate employees most likely don’t have an idea of.

The need to ensure efficiency is mean to maintain or even increase the company’s profitability after the entrance of the expatriate employees especially where they are meant to take up management positions.

It is identified that the transfer of expatriate employees and more so the transfer of managers is meant to induce growth in the new subsidiary where the expatriate managers employ their previously successful talents to improve the company’s performance in the new market.

This paper seeks to explore the different steps that human resource managers can take in preparing expatriate employees in their transition from the company’s headquarters located in the UAE to another subsidiary located in another region in the world (Edwards and Rees, 246).

It is identified that organizational cultures as well as management strategies are often influenced by the inherent cultures in the particular environment that a company operates in (Harzing and Pinnington, 164).

With the disparities between the different cultures in different parts of the world there is a need to come up with a human resource program that prepares employees for the new environment that they may not be aware of.

It has been identified that the evaluation of the new environment is critical in understanding the new environment that the employees will be working in.

This helps in the formulation of a human resource strategy that is meant to take care of the challenges faced by expatriate employees while settling in a different country.

This plan should apply in all the company’s subsidiaries, but this should not mean that it should be rigid and specific to the company’s headquarters to a point where it does not accommodate the varied cultural differences that are prevailing in different parts of the world.

Challenges faced by expatriates in new environments

In the case of multinationals, both the local processes at the headquarters of the company and the processes in their national and global subsidiaries are often at work.

This is mainly after the identification by managers that some of the organizational cultures differentiate individuals as well as groups in their own unique way and can’t, therefore, be shared. In this case, expatriates have to be ready to change their thinking and quickly adapt to the new culture and organizational practice of the new country they are posted to (Harzing and Pinnington, 78).

They will obviously need some guidance from locals since some of the cultural characteristics may be too distinct and region specific.

For expatriate managers who always insist on the strict adherence to their home management structures in their new workplace, they often fall out with some of the loyal customers and employees who feel that they are too conservative and rigid to the different challenges that are involved with the different culture in a different country.

This means that organizations may lose their competitive advantage in the market if they are too rigid or conservative to change their thinking and the way they come up with solutions to common organizational challenges in the new setting.

The identification of the advantages or rather strengths of a particular cultural aspect is sometimes a challenge for foreign managers. The strength of a particular culture often translates to employee turnover and where a foreign manager may not understand the strength of the culture he may try to change it by bringing in his own foreign culture into the new organization.

This leads to employee dissatisfaction and increases their turn over as they no longer feel comfortable and some may have a hard time adjusting to the new organizational culture.

Human resource planning

It has been identified that for a company to have a successful international strategy it must incorporate international aspects of human resource management into their own human resource management structure.

This means that the management of personnel with the aim of making them efficient in any place in the world should serve to prepare them for any transfer of working positions to any country that the company owns subsidiaries.

It is common to have organizational structures that may be shared among the different subsidiaries, but this has been identified to offer some challenges where the individual cultural orientations of different workforces in different countries may differ.

Different regions of the world are identified to have different perceptions in regard to how people should behave and even communicate with others.

The need to evaluate the new culture should help expatriates understand the new environment that they have to work in and this should be encouraged by the human resource managers in the company.

The fact that the company has already done market research in the new country means that they are already aware of the different cultural orientations of the new market.

This means that they are in a position to train their expatriate employees on what is expected of them once they get to the new country. This should be done with the companies objectives in mind in regard to the satisfaction of their customers.

Human resource planning is critical in the formulation of management strategies that involve company subsidiaries in different environments.

This should advise the human resource managers on how to deal with the varied work environments that their employees often have to be exposed to.

The fact that almost all international companies have individual human resource departments in the different countries where they operate in means that they may be in a position to put in place different human resource management strategies that serve the particular needs of the markets that they operate in.

This is in regard to the different organizational as well as individual cultures that exist in the different countries that they operate in.

Selection

The process of selection in a company that adopts a culture that has a high power distance and a high level of masculinity has to incorporate a structure that will complement the formulated strategy that is meant to increase competitive advantage (Bauernberger, 132).

Among the components to be identified are clear rules and procedures since the organizational structures as well as culture in the new country may have a high preference for bureaucratic structures.

This has been identified to increase employee loyalty which in turn increases productivity. The recognition that employees are assets is also vital in the boosting of employee morale and this is transferred to the employees who identify with the customers in the same way. The result is a highly aware customer who is loyal to the business and this increases the business’ competitive advantage.

The selection of managers who can motivate the other employees is crucial especially if the new subsidiary that the manager is meant to join has a culture that strongly identifies with achievement.

This requires that the selected manager has to be flexible and a fast learner for him or her to quickly adapt to the new environment.

The reduction of conflict is also important for managers since some of the new environments that they may have to work in, such as China or Japan identify conflicts as offences against efficiency.

The threat to efficiency has a direct impact on the productivity of employees and the general productivity and profitability of the business.

It has been identified that having a team in the new organization that orients the new employees often works to smoothen the placement process.

The human resource structures in the subsidiary will obviously have some level of similarity with the parent company, which means that all of the company’s subsidiaries share some particular aspects of organizational culture between them.

This should ensure that the expatriates have at least some basic knowledge on the prevailing organizational culture of the new organization.

The transition process will have prepared the expatriate managers for the particular aspects of the new environment that they may not have previously identified (Edwards and Rees, 109).

The fact that international companies have international organizational cultures means that their employees are used to thinking with a global mindset and this should eliminate the conservative nature of managers who have only been exposed to one particular organizational environment.

This may, however, not a ply in a company that is just starting to adopt an international organizational strategy as the organizational structures and culture has not been exposed to external environmental forces that are unique from those that they are used to in their home country.

This may require that the company evaluates and overhaul’s its entire human resource management as well as training strategies to incorporate flexibility in regard to foreign cultures.

Recruiting

The process of recruiting expatriate employees has to be consistent with the chosen or the existing organizational strategy for it to be successful.

This has to incorporate a shift in culture from the original culture of the already selected employees to that of the new country or organization.

The culture in Asia for instance requires that businesses instill superior differentiation structures in their recruitment programs, where division of labor and leadership structures that complement the inherent bureaucracy are put in place.

The structures are supposed to increase efficiency and output which in turn gives the business a competitive edge in the market. This has to take place in an environment where the new employees can recognize with the new culture for it to have a quick and efficient success rate (Dowling, Festing and Engle, 135).

The identification of employees who may already be conversant with the new organizational structure or rather the new organizational environment in the new country then nurturing them to train the others increases cooperation and team work in the workplace.

This ensures a higher success of the recruiting process as new employees who have moved into a totally different culture are able to comfortably adapt to the new culture.

It has been identified that employees respond better to organizational changes when there are walked through the different aspects of the new organizational structures by their peers in the same organization.

This is after it was identified that employees do not always respond positively if the organizational change seems like an order from top managers.

The recruiting process should ensure that the managers are able to identify the particular aspects of the new culture that they can combine with their own with creating conflicts that may lead to both employee and customer dissatisfaction.

The identification of the strong aspects of culture that can be exploited further is important especially in an environment where competition is stiff and business practices are almost similar, either due to standardization or similarity in cultural preferences (Bauernberger, 62).

This is because it allows managers to introduce new practices that are unique in the market and increase their competitive advantage in the market.

The recruitment process is also supposed to take care of the language barriers that may exist between the home country of the expatriate employee and the new country that he or she is meant to work in.

This often dictates the length of the recruitment period with more time being spent on understanding the new language as well as the culture of the people in the new market (Dowling, Festing and Engle, 127).

Pre-departure

For new managers to adapt to a new environment effectively, they have to be briefed on the particular aspects of the new environment before leaving.

This gives them the opportunity to prepare themselves adequately for the new workplace. In this case, role orientation would be of great help to any such managers since it gives them a firsthand idea of the capacity they will have to work at and what is expected of them after they join the new workplace.

This is supposed to give them a basic idea of not only the inherent cultures in the new environment, but also personal identities of the particular customers that the company’s subsidiary serves.

This is not only meant to expose the expatriate employees to the new organizational culture as well as market culture, but also to ensure that the new employees are aware of the particular mission, goals and objectives of the new company as well as those of their particular job positions so as to efficiently serve the market in the company’s quest to increase its revenues (Bauernberger, 37).

It is also important for the new employees to be conversant with cross-cultural communication especially if the diversity is high. This is meant to reduce the effects of culture shock as the new employees identify channels of communication that they are conversant with and have had some experience with.

It also increases their efficiency as communication is critical in the productivity of the employees (Briscoe, Schuler and Claus, 63). With increased efficiency and output, the manager can increase the competitive advantage of the business in the new market with ease.

Ways of motivating and leading expatriate staff to gain a competitive advantage

Expatriate managers could motivate the new staff by first understanding the cultural practices that are inherent in the new country and in the new organizational subsidiary and try to incorporate those new practices in their relationship with the new staff.

This is meant to identify the potential of the staff that the manager manages and especially their cultural potential. With the full exploitation of this potential the managers will be able to gain a competitive advantage over the company’s competitors in that particular market (Harzing and Pinnington, 68).

This also increases harmony in the workplace as employees complement each other’s potential as they are culturally predisposed and this increases their output.

They may also have to allow the new staff to take a leading responsibility is dealing with the new challenges that are unique to their particular position especially where the foreign manager may have a problem adjusting or understanding the particular cultural practices and market needs (Dowling, Festing and Engle, 78).

This will obviously require the expatriate managers to be flexible and recognize that cultures do change.

This should, however, not mean that they should drop all the practices that are in place in their own home country, but rather, incorporate them into the practices of the new organization by balancing some of the new cultures to fit into it.

Since they have to deal with unique market needs and patters that they may not have been used to in their home country, expatriate managers have to identify the particular successful aspects of the new employees’ culture that have a higher success rate in giving the business a competitive advantage (Briscoe, Schuler and Claus, 43).

They should then substitute the strong strategies that have led to successes in their home country with the weaker aspects of the new market.

Conclusion

The ease at which expatriate employees adapt into a new environment is identified as critical in increasing the productivity of the employee as well as any other employees that he or she manages and this has a direct effect on the competitive advantage that the business enjoys in the market particular international market that it operates in.

This can only be achieved if the new manager is conversant with the new culture in the new environment before moving.

An efficient selection, recruitment and placement process ensures that the expatriate employee is not only capable to adapt in the new environment, but is also prepared for the different challenges that he may come across due to cross-cultural differences (Edwards and Rees, 52).

An international organization culture has been identified to be quite effective in aiding expatriate employees with their move into new countries, but there still remain some elements that are only unique to the new environment and this may be quite challenging for the expatriate employees.

It has also been identified that the need to have shared internal structures may not resonate well with an autonomous international strategy where subsidiaries are allowed to make their own unique decisions based on the particular needs of the markets that they serve.

This is especially due to the varied cultural orientations that individuals have, which often makes them reluctant to absorb anything foreign or even modify their own culture.

Works Cited

Bauernberger, Johannes. Human Resources in the Global Market. New York: GRIN Verlag. 2007. Print.

Briscoe, Dennis, Schuler, Randall and Claus, Lisbeth. International Human Resource Management. New York: Taylor & Francis. 2008. Print.

Dowling, Peter, Festing, Marion and Engle, Allen. International human resource management: managing people in a multinational context. Upper Saddle River: Cengage Learning. 2008. Print.

Edwards, Tony and Rees, Chris. International human resource management: globalization, national systems and multinational companies. New York: Financial Times Prentice Hall. 2006. Print.

Harzing, Anne-Wil and Pinnington, Ashly. International Human Resource Management. New York: SAGE Publications. 2010. Print.

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