Category: HRM

Background of the organisation

Brunt Corporation entails a group of hotels incorporated in the United Kingdom (UK), but the management has started investing in foreign countries. The corporation runs a chain of clean and reasonably priced hotels that provide budget accommodation to its clients. The corporation provides hotel services to leisure and business travellers, depending on the clients’ needs.

The management ensures that the hotels are located in the outskirts of the cities to facilitate transportation. The management intends to expand the corporation’s operations to Greece.

For the new hotels, the management will use an ethnocentric approach to manage subsidiaries in the host countries (HCs). The corporation’s policies allow the chief executive officer to send managers from the parent company to manage subsidiaries in the host countries across the world.

Reasons for expanding to Greece

The corporation wanted to increase its revenues through expanding its market to capture clients in Greece. Furthermore, the move would contribute additional income to the corporation; hence, improving the company’s profitability. Additionally, the management of Brunt Corporation wanted to control expenses through venturing into Greece.

The management would achieve low costs of operations through taking advantage of the HC‘s favourable structures of tax. Furthermore, in the future, the corporation would take advantage of the Greece’s low cost of labour by employing HC’s nationals.

The management of Brunt Corporation wanted to diversify the company’s services and products through spreading the risks to Greece. In Greece, Brunt Corporation would counter the challenge of recession periods in the UK and France. Furthermore, widening the corporation’s market would help the management to invent ways to counter the strategies of both existing and potential competitors.

Standardisation and localisation

As MNCs continue to venture into foreign markets, their HR managers experience various challenges in striking a balance between local responsiveness and global integration. For the standardisation, the parent company integrates the universal operations of its subsidiaries in a bid to achieve economies of scale. MNCs move toward standardisation to achieve efficiency across the globe.

As subsidiaries operate in foreign countries, the parent company’s CEO strives to align the management practices of the subsidiaries to the practices of the parent company (Dlabay & Scott, 2006). For localisation, HR managers of subsidiaries implement both operational and strategic decisions to respond to the domestic conditions within the host country.

Furthermore, in the case of localisation, the HR managers adopt management practices as implemented by the companies in the host country (Berry, Poortinga, Breugelmans, Chasiotis, & Sam, 2011).

In the case of Brunt Corporation, the management advocates the standardisation of the HR practices. By hiring employees from the parent company, it is evident that the organisation is reluctant to recognise the practices of the host country.

The failure to strike a balance between the objectives of the parent company and the conditions of the HC in which subsidiaries operate hinders the implementation of HR functions within an organisation.

IHRM Issues (challenges that HR managers of Brunt Corporation will encounter in Greece)

Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions

According to Piepenburg (2011), international businesses connect with different people across the world. Although the interaction among people contributes to cultural diversity, there is a need to comprehend cultural differences (Piepenburg, 2011). In the corporate sector, the differences in the national culture can hinder HR managers from implementing the parent company’s culture.

Culture-Hofstede’s power distance

According to Berry et al. (2011), the flow and acceptability of power within an organisation defines the concept of power distance. According to Hofstede, people view power relations depending on their culture. Furthermore, culture plays a significant role as people decide whether to accept power (Jackson, 2002).

However, power can either be large or small distance depending on the society from which an organisation originates. Power distance defines the form of leadership and style of management adopted by an organisation.

A comprehensive analysis of Brunt Corporation indicates that the firm subscribes to the concept of large power distance. Brunt Corporation has a large chain of command with the CEO heading the company.

The flow of command indicates inequalities among employees. Bartlett and Goshal (2002) state that in large power distance organisations, privileges signify acceptance of power amongst employees. For the Brunt Corporation, this is the case as the managers are entitled to privileges such as unlimited travel allowances.

The style of management among the Greeks entails the concentration of control and power in the management (Myloni, Harzing & Mirza, 2003). However, Greeks prefer the practice of small power distances as businesses are owned and controlled by families and their relatives.

On the contrary, in the United Kingdom, organisations are owned and operated by different investors (Weber, 2008). The Greeks’ concept of strong family bonds in businesses influence the management of organisations operating in the country (Myloni, Harzing & Mirza, 2003).

Employing expatriates makes it easy for the Greeks to alienate a corporation. Furthermore, the majority of firms in Greece are either medium or small-sized (Stavroulakis, 2009), as opposed to Brunt Hotels, which is a foreign corporation. In the formulation of decisions, the owner of the organisation in Greece formulates and implements decisions without consulting other employees.

Furthermore, owners hardly delegate power to their juniors for the fear of losing power (Kriemadis, Pelagidis & Kartakoullis, 2012). The practices by the Greeks rank the country higher in the index of power distance compared to the Brunt Corporation.

Individualism

Hofstede defined individualism as the strength of ties amongst people in society. Countries that have the culture of high individualism lack connections with foreigners.

In such countries, businesses share responsibilities among family members and close friends (Piepenburg, 2011). In Greece, family members and close relatives own and run businesses. Brunt Corporation falls in the category of a society with low individualism.

Masculinity

Masculinity defines the extent to which a society adheres to the traditional aspects of male and female roles. High levels of masculinity occur in countries in which women perform domestic chores, whereas men are the providers of their families (Piepenburg, 2011). In low masculinity countries, different genders are entitled to equality across different profession. In Greece and the United Kingdom, both countries depict low masculinity.

Uncertainty Avoidance Index

The concept of uncertainty entails the level of anxiety that the society experiences during uncertain circumstances (Piepenburg, 2011). In Greece, the society shows a high degree of uncertainty; hence, pushing businesses to make concise decisions prior to undertaking a venture. For the UK, the society depicts a low level of uncertainty.

Long-term Orientation

Societies that show long-term orientation hold on to their culture longer than flexible societies that change their traditions from time to time (Piepenburg, 2011). The UK does not value traditions as much as Greece. In such a situation, the HR manager of Brunt Corporation will experience oppositions as the Greek employees fail to implement innovations that contradict the culture of Greece.

Strategy

In the Greek market, Brunt is deemed to encounter opposing forces due to the opposing culture between the host country and the parent company. Perpetual conflicts arise as the corporation draws a balance between global practices and the local HR practices employed by the parent company (Samovar, Porter, McDaniel & Roy, 2013).

Brunt relies on the concept of localisation to operate its subsidiaries. The company ensures that the subsidiaries follow the HR practices outlined by the parent company. The trend has been successful for the company as it has most of its subsidiaries in the countries with similar culture with the UK. Extending operations to Greece posses various threats to the local practices of HR used by the parent company.

Recruitment-approach between the host and the parent country

In MNCs, HR managers can use a variety of methods of staffing to recruit workforce to work for the subsidiaries in the host countries. For ethnocentric staffing, HR managers recruit expatriates from the parent company in the home country. In such an instance, expatriates are expected to implement the interests of the parent company (Dlabay & Scott, 2006).

For the Brunt Corporation, the CEO prefers using ethnocentric staffing to get workers for the subsidiaries in Greece. Hiring expatriates proves to be expensive; thus, Brunt will not take advantage of the cheap labour in the Greek market. However, there are additional methods of staffing in the international market.

Polycentric staffing entails hiring nationals of the host country for all the operations of the subsidiary. Employees from the host country help to introduce the domestic conditions of the market and culture of the host country into the subsidiary (Dlabay & Scott, 2006).

Although labour will be cheap, nationals of the host country may implement the interests of the domestic market at the expense of the overall objectives of the corporation. For the region-centric staffing, the subsidiaries are equipped with employees from the region in which the subsidiary is located.

Although subsidiaries from a particular region can formulate their HR policies, the parent company controls most of the operations within the regional subsidiaries (Dlabay & Scott, 2006).

Research indicates that organisations in Greece use lower standardised methods of recruitment as compared to the foreign subsidiaries (Stavroulakis, 2009). In Greece, firms advocate the use of internal recruitment, which is characterised by the use of referrals from close friends and relatives.

The practice or recruitment aligns to the Greek culture of family involvement in the operations of firms (Myloni, Harzing & Mirza, 2003). Furthermore, the Greek firms rely on informal qualifications and internal recruitment to hire their employees (Kriemadis, Pelagidis & Kartakoullis, 2012).

In the United Kingdom, organisations use standardised methods of recruitment (Weber, 2008). Brunt Corporation follows the recruitment policies and practices of the United Kingdom. In the UK, firms recruit their employees through rigorous interviews and tests. In Greece, Brunt Corporation shall use ethnocentric method of staffing.

However, HR manager shall lack the taskforce to steer the subsidiaries toward incorporating the culture of the Greeks into the company. Furthermore, the company shall not take advantage of the low cost of labour in Greece due to the expensive labour rendered by the expatriates.

In the recruitment, the management of Brunt should embrace region-centric staffing. The management should group its subsidiaries according to the regions and recruit employees from the region in which a subsidiary is located. In such a way, the management shall eliminate the cost of employing expatriates (Dlabay & Scott, 2006).

Furthermore, HR manager shall have a diversified line of employees to integrate the culture of the region into the parent company. Diversity amongst employees shall eliminate the aspect of implementing the interests of the host country at the expense of the interests of the parent company (Dlabay & Scott, 2006)

Performance management

Greek firms do not provide written reports (Stavroulakis, 2009) as it is the case with Brunt, but they use interviews between employees and supervisors to appraise workforce. However, in Greece, performance management incorporates a subjective criterion in line with the Greek culture. Power distance and ranks within family ties affect the participation of an individual in the exercise of appraisal.

For Brunt, HR managers shall subject employees to formal evaluation that involves a review of individual output and processes used within the subsidiary. Furthermore, Greek firms consider output rather than both output and processes in performance appraisal (Stavroulakis, 2009).

Furthermore, the promotion of employees in Brunt will depend on the performance of an individual. Although performance counts in Greece, promotion also depends on the age and family ties of the persons involved.

Training/ Career Development

Similar to most MNCs, Brunt provides formal training to the employees (Bartlett & Goshal, 2002). However, the practice contradicts that of the HC in various aspects. For the Greek firms, training is informal as most employees rely on the skills acquired during their work tenure (Myloni, Harzing & Mirza, 2003).

The failure by Brunt to employ Greeks at the start of subsidiaries will hamper cross-cultural training in future. The CEO of Brunt should begin by teaching the expatriates Greek as a language. Such a move indicates that the CEO should hire a Greek to train expatriates.

Compensation

Greek companies rely on the government in the determination of the rate of basic salary for employees. The practice is quite different for the Brunt Corporation. The chief executive officer of the corporation determines the salaries of employees. In most cases, salaries are decided through consent between employee and the employer (Dowling, Festing, & Engle, 2013).

Brunt Corporation has a policy that advocates the payment of employees on a monthly basis. Both salaries and allowances are paid at the end of the month. Furthermore, the company uses the UK dollar as the standard unit of payment to counter the outcomes of currency differences across regions.

Recommendations

The management of Brunt Corporation should advocate the creation of a third culture to facilitate standardisation of human resource policies between the PC and subsidiaries in the host country (Dowling, Festing, & Engle, 2013). Moreover, standardisation will ensure the integration of both cultures (host and parent country) into the operations of the subsidiaries in the host country.

Furthermore, prior to venturing into Greece, Brunt should implement flexible policies that can be altered depending on the changes in the HC. Such a move entails localisation of some of the HR practices in the quest to appreciate the culture of the host country. Localising services such as advertising and training of expatriates ensures that HR managers incorporate the culture of the HC in line with the culture of the parent company.

Brunt Corporation should standardise the operations of its subsidiaries in line with the global standards of the international market. Furthermore, Brunt should engage its management in constant research to evaluate the parent company’s practices that suit the culture of the host country (Jackson, 2002).

Conclusion

The aim of this paper was to show how culture and the institutional frameworks of the host country influence HR practices of foreign subsidiaries. The case of Brunt Hotels Corporation highlights some of the challenges that foreign subsidiaries encounter as they operate in host countries.

The case study supports the argument that both localisation and standardisation are significant for the movement of human resource policies between the PC and subsidiaries in the host country.

References

Bartlett, C., & Goshal, S. (2002). Managing across borders: The Transnational Solution. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Berry, J., Poortinga, Y., Breugelmans, S., Chasiotis, A., & Sam, D. (2011). Cross-cultural psychology: Research and applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Dlabay, R., & Scott, J. (2006). International business. Mason, OH: South-western.

Dowling, J., Festing, M., & Engle, A. (2013). International Human Resource Management. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning

Jackson, T. (2002). The management of people across cultures: valuing people differently. Human Resource Management, 41(4), 110-121.

Kriemadis, T., Pelagidis, T., & Kartakoullis, N. (2012). The role of organisational culture in Greek businesses. EuroMed Journal of Business, 7(2), 129 – 141.

Myloni, B., Harzing, A., & Mirza, H. (2003). Human resource management in Greece Have the colours of culture faded away. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 4(1), 59-76.

Piepenburg, K. (2011). Critical analysis of Hofstede’s model of cultural dimensions: To what extent are his findings reliable, valid, and applicable to organisations in the 21st century? Norderstedt, Germany: GRIN Verlag.

Samovar, A., Porter, E., McDaniel, R., & Roy, C. (2013). Communication between cultures. Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

Stavroulakis, D. (2009). Practices in View of Internationalisation: Evidence from Business in Greece. MIBES Transactions, 3(1), 147-156.

Weber, M. (2008). The business case for corporate social responsibility: A company- level measurement approach for CSR. European Management Journal, 26(4), 247-261.

Abstract

Human resource management plays a significant role in ensuring that a firm realized its mission, goals, and objectives. To determine the importance of HRM within the insurance industry, this paper specifically focused on the WellPoint, one of the leading health insurance companies in the United States of America.

After critically analyzing the operations of the firm and supporting the findings with the arguments from the literature that was covered, it emerged that the WellPoint group takes into consideration several measures to ensure that its recruitment and selection process is effective and efficient.

First, the company undertakes a rigorous procedure to ensure that the jobs that have been designed specifically meet the needs and requirements of the firm and its clientele and most importantly, the job description attracts only qualified candidates to apply for the posts.

More stringent measures are also taken to ensure that the interviewing, selection, training, placement, and supervisory processes are conducted in a manner that is considered fair, transparent, and consistent with the values, rules, and regulations of the organization.

These considerations not only ensure that WellPoint comprises of the most qualified personnel who make up its workforce but also increases their level of motivation and productivity hence ensuring that the firm stands at a competitive edge over its rivals in the short run and in the long run.

Introduction

In the contemporary world, the level of competition among firms has increased as a result of globalization and easily availability of resources that are required to sustain normal operations. Due to this fact, firms are under constant pressure of operating in a more effective and efficient manner to respond to market demands, changes in legislation and so on. In the health care industry, firms usually strive to provide demand driven care services (Dessler, 2003).

It is the dream of every organization to achieve this goal. However, this can only be possible if the human resource management of a given organization is effective and efficient.

According to Dessler (2003), the manner in which employees are managed, motivated, and rewarded plays a significant role in determining whether the services of an organization will be of a high quality or a low quality. Thus, human resource management (HRM) is an essential factor within the service industry where the experience of the clients is highly dependent on the experiences, attitudes, and perceptions of the employees.

Human resource management is one of the key areas that most organizations, particularly health insurance companies focus on in the process of enhancing the quality of services that they offer to their clients. This paper will therefore focus on WellPoint which is one of the leading health insurance companies in the United States of America.

This paper will specifically focus on how various aspect of the HRM system of the organization are linked to one another to enhance productivity, boost employee morale, increase the operation efficiency of the firm and most importantly, to maintain a balance between the work and personal life of its employees.

Company Overview

WellPoint is the one of the leading health insurance companies in the USA. The WellPoint group provides health cover to over 34 million registered members within the major states of the USA (Ball, 2011). According to a survey that was conducted by (Ball, 2011), the WellPoint group had a market share of approximately 9.75% by the end of 2012.

To achieve this success and to maintain its consistency, the operations within the WellPoint group are guided by the set mission and goals. From a critical analysis of the company’s operations and organization culture, it is evident that this mission has specifically been designed to describe the values and aspirations of this organization. Furthermore, this mission statement has been designed based on the following core values (Ball, 2011):

1. Putting the consumer first
2. Integrity
3. Personal accountability for excellence
4. Teamwork
5. Continuous improvement of service quality

Thus, this mission statement gives the employees at the higher levels of management a sense of direction that will enable the WellPoint group to achieve its goals and objectives. These goals are usually designed to sustain short term operations and strategies that play a significant role in achieving the overall mission of the organization by middle and lower level employees.

These goals are usually designed by critically analyzing the internal environment of the organization to determine its strengths and weaknesses as well as exploring the external environment to determine the opportunities and threats that the organization is facing.

From this analysis, effective policies and strategies are usually developed to ensure that the operations at WellPoint are effective and efficient hence meeting the needs of its clients as well as ensuring that the group stands at a competitive edge over its rivals.

By critically analyzing the internal strengths and weaknesses of this firm and the external opportunities and threats that it is facing, it is evident that the operations at WellPoint highly rely on its employees. As Kundu and Vora (2004), an organization is as good as its workforce.

With this recognition, the WellPoint group has strived over the years to have a workforce that is highly qualified and dedicated towards achieving the mission and goals of the organization as well as achieving their career goals. Through its human resources, the WellPoint group has developed effective systems and strategies with regards to job design, selection approaches, recruitment, training of staff, performance appraisal, promotions, and supervisory techniques.

These systems and strategies are highly interlinked with one another to enhance the performance of the firm as well as boosting the morale of WellPoint employees. Consequently, the operations and strategies of the human resources at WellPoint are usually in accordance with the law especially with regards to OHSA, ERISA, EEOA, and so on.

Job Design, Recruitment, and Selection Approaches

The aim of any entity is to ensure that it provides its clients with high quality services to meet their needs. This is an essential process in the process of retaining existing clients and attracting new ones (Kundu and Vora, 2004). In an insurance company setting, the recruiting and selection process in any organization plays a significant role in achieving this goal.

At WellPoint, the recruitment process is consistent with the company’s rules and regulations especially with regards to its equal opportunity policy. In this respect, the recruitment and selection process at WellPoint aim at:

1. Ensuring that the process is carried out systematically in accordance to the agreed criteria as a means of eliminating bias that may affect the decision making process.
2. Ensuring the recording of all decision points to increase the transparency, accountability, and monitoring of the process.
3. Ensuring that the process is open especially to the clients as a means making them to understand the decisions that have been made and if necessary, the manner in which they can obtain feedback.

The recruitment and selection process is usually a challenging and tedious exercise especially in the course of designing favorable interview questions and finally deciding on which individual(s) to hire from the candidates that were involved in the process. However, as (Bartel, 2004) asserted, the selection process is critical since an organization requires to have qualified personnel who can put forth its positive image by conducting their rules and duties in an effective and efficient manner.

The study that was conducted by Bartel (2004) revealed that to review the background of employees, personalities, and professional ethics are essential considerations in deciding whether or not they fit the job descriptions and resultant operations. These considerations thus increase the amount of time and money that is required to ensure that the recruitment process is effective and efficient.

However, it is always advised that an organization takes considerable measures to ensure that the recruitment and selection process is effective since it will reduce the overall operational costs in the long run and will ultimately ensure that a firm avoids hiring individuals who will jeopardize its operations hence making it difficult to achieve the set goals and objectives. At WellPoint, the hiring process comprises of the following steps:

1. Posting of a job advertisement in the media. This includes the internet, newspaper, specific magazines and so on.
2. Evaluation of the information that has been received from the job applicants.
3. Screening the applicants to determine which ones qualified for the interview.
4. Verification of the details by contacting the referees.
5. Conducting the actual interviews on the shortlisted candidates
6. Deciding which candidates will be awarded the vacant position(s).

From a critical point of view, it is evident that the overall goal of this process is to ensure that the most appropriate candidates are selected to fill the positions that are present within the organization. Therefore, WellPoint takes immense measures in the job design process to ensure that the specific personnel needs of the organization are met.

This ensures that a job description contains a summary of the duties that are to be performed by the candidates that will be successful as well as the specific requirements and qualifications for the vacant post.

A job description is thus an effective tool in the recruitment and selection process regardless of whether the process will be internal or external since a job description not only alerts individuals that an organization has an opening but further elaborates on the specific skills and expertise (Bartel, 2004).

This consideration thus ensures that only the individuals who meet the set qualifications apply for the job and discourages the individuals who might not have met them qualifications that are required for the job from applying.

As it has been asserted in this paper, a lot of time is consumed in sorting out the applications that have been received for a given job opening. Therefore, by setting specific requirements for the job limits the number of applicants and ultimately, the time that is required to sort the applications. Furthermore, a job description acts as a guideline for the interviewing and selection process to ensure that the right candidate is selected for the task at hand.

These descriptions also give the candidate an idea of what the job entails, the duties that they are to perform, what is expected of him/her once hired and the goals and objectives that are to be accomplished.

The information that is contained in the job description is also used to design the training process that will be used to initiate the newly appointed candidates into the firm hence providing a benchmark to evaluate the progress that an employee will make with regards to career growth and development.

The duties and requirements that have been stipulated in the job description are useful especially on legal ground with regards to any grievances, lawsuits, or claims that might arise between the organization and its employees hence protecting their rights.

Well trained personnel who possess high levels of skills and experience are usually considered as valuable assets within any organization (Ball, 2011). After developing a detailed job description and advertising the vacant position, WellPoint usually uses a mix of approaches in selecting the correct candidates to occupy the respective posts that had been advertised. After the candidates apply for a job that has been advertised by the WellPoint group, a rigorous selection process is usually carried out.

To reduce the costs involved in the selection process, only the candidates who meet the requirements are invited for an interview. There are instances where the number of qualified candidates exceeds the expected number of individuals who are to be interviewed. In such an event, slots for the interviewed are usually awarded on a competitive basis where the candidates who were highly qualified with regards to the job description are selected.

WellPoint regards the interviewing process as an avenue of having an in-depth understanding of the qualifications, personality, and characters of the applicants. While conducting a strategic human resource management study in India Armstrong (2005) asserted that interviews are effective tools in the recruitment and selection process since it enables an employer to understand certain aspects of a candidate that cannot be detected even after critically analyzing the application forms and letters.

In this respect, the WellPoint group utilizes several interviewing strategies to ensure that the candidates that are selected in the course of a recruitment process are capable of handling the advertised posts with high levels of professionalism, diligence, effectiveness, and efficiency. Thus, to achieve this goal, the following interview approaches are used at WellPoint:

1. Telephone interviews
2. One on one interviews
3. Panel interviews

Depending on the job requirements, a telephone interview might be conducted.

This strategy is used at WellPoint as a screening exercise to determine several factors. First, it is used to determine whether a candidate has a genuine interest on the job that had been advertised or he/she requires the job to meet specific obligations such as paying their bills. To ensure that the firm has a dedicated workforce, the individuals who might be successful at this point of recruitment are usually the ones who show their passion in the posts that they have applied for.

Consequently, this strategy is considered as a quick but convenient way of determining whether a candidate has what it takes to effectively perfume the duties of the posts that they have applied for hence reducing the effort and time that would have been otherwise used for this process in a one-on-one interview. Most importantly, telephone interviews are considered to be one of the most effective means of interviewing a candidate over a long distance.

The WellPoint group is operational in almost every state in the United States of America. There have been situations whereby an applicant from California has been shortlisted for a position that is in New York. In such a situation, a phone interview is usually handy to save time and money for both the candidate and the organization.

One-on-one interviews are also used at WellPoint in the course of the selection process. This approach is mainly used to conduct interviews for entry level positions (Armstrong, 2005). A lot of candidates are usually under a lot of pressure when they are about to be interviewed. To averse this situation, the WellPoint group usually conducts one-on-one interviews to get the best from their candidates.

According to the survey that was conducted by Armstrong (2005), most individuals who apply for entry level jobs usually graduates from colleges and universities who do not have prior work experience. Such individuals usually have been in very few interviews before hence they stand a high chance of panicking and losing their confidence if they are interviewed by a group of individuals.

Therefore, a one-on-one interview will enable the interviewer to understand the character and personality of the interviewee and most importantly, the kind of employee he/she could be.

However, a one-on-one interview only considers the thoughts and perceptions of one interviewer. In some situations, the interviewer may fail to have the experience or expertise regarding the post that the candidate is being interviewed on. In such a case, the interviewer may fail to capture all the information that might be useful in deciding whether to hire the candidate or not (Armstrong, 2005). To averse such issues, panel interviews are always conducted.

Here, the candidate is interviewed by several people who hold various positions within an organization. At WellPoint, panel interviews comprise of the immediate manager of the vacant post, the director of the department/division, a representative from the human resources department, and in some instances, a manager from another department.

This composition ensures that almost all the aspects of the candidate are gathered with respect to the duties and responsibilities of the advertised post, performance of the candidate, the role that the candidate will play in ensuring the mission, goals, and objectives of the organization are achieved, and most importantly, the possibility of hiring the candidate.

The number of interviews that will be conducted usually depends on the technicality of the vacant position. At WellPoint, approximately two interviews are conducted for entry level positions. These interviews usually last for approximately 45 minutes. To ensure that the most qualified candidate is selected with regards to the job descriptions, all the candidates are usually asked similar questions. This makes it easy to compare their responses to determine which candidate is well suited for the job.

These responses are also effective indicators of the level of education of the candidates, their skill level, and the amount of training that they should be subjected to if they are selected. There have been instances where it has been difficult to select between two or more candidates for the job. In such a situation, WellPoint usually invites the candidates for an additional interview where the candidates battle out for the position.

However, more than three interviews can be conducted on more technical positions as one rises up the organization structure. The first interview is conducted to reduce the number of candidates based on their performance. Subsequent interviews are thus organized until the best candidates are arrived upon. It is from the results of these interviews that the decision of whether to hire a candidate or not is arrived at.

Training, Placement, and Performance Appraisal

In the contemporary world, organizations across the globe are facing challenges that originate from globalization. Initially, firms only competed with firms that were located within the same geographical region (Bartel, 2004). In the modern days however, firms are facing extensive competition even from rivals that are located overseas.

This fact has forced firms to come up with strategies that are effective and efficient as a means of responding to the market demands to ensure that they offer their clientele with high quality goods and services. One of the areas that WellPoint has strived to modify over the years to achieve this goal is the modification of its training and personnel management programs.

Through this strategy, WellPoint has been successful in developing a consumer-oriented workforce whose aim is to meet the needs and desires of its clientele. Studies that have been conducted reveal that training is an important aspect of ensuring that the workforce of a given organization performs the duties and roles that have been assigned to them in an effective and efficient manner.

Consequently, rigorous training is usually considered as a critical investment in ensuring the success of an organization in the long run (Ball, 2011). Through training, the gap between the employees of a given organization and the clients it serves.

Candidates usually undergo a vigorous training exercise once they have been selected to hold various positions within the WellPoint group. Responding on the annual associate survey findings that were conducted in 2003 and utilizing the company’s learning and management system, LearnPoint, WellPoint developed the Associate Career Development Program in 2004 (Ball, 2011).

Through this program, WellPoint has been training its personnel, especially new recruits to meet the goals and objectives of the firm as well as achieving their personal and career goals. This program specifically targeted associates who work in the customer service, membership and billing, and claims departments to ensure that they have a clear understanding of their demands of their positions and expectations of the firm.

Consequently, this program has been influential in enhancing the performance of employees as well as boosting their morale especially through various reward systems and balancing their work and personal lives hence increasing employee retention rates.

This training program uses job specific training models to ensure that employees develop and implement personal learning plans that will boost their performance.

As a result, the training program has been successful in meeting the responsibilities and specific competencies of every job description within the organization by offering the employees with opportunities such as internal instructor-led training and activities that enable an individual to gather the skills and experience of a given posts while working on that position.

Consequently, this training model offers shadowing and mentoring opportunities that greatly enhance the morale of the employees which plays a significant role in developing an organization culture that aims at meeting the needs and demands of its clients. Finally, this program is run by the DRIVE methodology that aims at:

1. Developing a learning plan
2. Reviewing the plan with a training supervisor to ensure it meets the requirements, goals, and objectives of the job
3. Implementation of new knowledge and skills
4. Validation of what has been learned in the training exercise
5. Evaluation of the employee’s development over time

Ball (2011) defined performance appraisal as a system that is used to evaluate the performance and career development of an employee. At WellPoint, performance appraisal system is used to measure the productivity and development of an individual employee with regards to the roles and duties that are required by the post he/she is holding within the organization.

To increase its efficiency, the appraisal system should be designed using pre-determined criteria as well as the mission and objectives of an organization. Some of the issues that are usually taken into consideration include:

1. Adherence to the organization culture
2. Employee accomplishment
3. Future potential of the employee
4. Strengths and weaknesses

The above data can be collected either through objective production approach or the judgmental evaluation approach. WellPoint considers performance appraisal as an essential strategy of aligning the resources that it has to increase its operation efficiency hence boosting its overall performance. From practice, the WellPoint group has realized that the manner in which an organization is managed plays a significant role in determining its long term success.

As a result, it has been a priority of the firm to monitor and evaluate the performance of its employees. Other than focusing on enhancing the performance of its employees, performance appraisals are also effective tools that facilitate communication among the employees and between the employees and the management. Communication plays a significant role in increasing the level of motivation within an employee.

The study that was conducted by Bartel (2004) revealed that enhanced communication played a significant role in eliminating job uncertainty in an employee. Consequently, the feedback that an employer receives from his employees in the course of communication can be influential in enhancing the overall performance of the organization.

Communication also creates trust and promotes the development of positive behaviors that aim at developing a strong organization culture that is goal oriented. Through performance appraisals, the strengths and weaknesses of the employees are usually determined hence playing a significant role in the design and development of an effective training program.

The recruitment and selection process has to be conducted in accordance to the set rules and regulations of a given state. This consideration ensures that the rights of the employer and the employee are respected. For instance, WellPoint strives to maintain the privacy of its employees. To avoid any dispute, the firm has expressly alerted its employees of its monitoring activities. For instance, the firm usually monitors the internet usage of its employees.

Therefore, employees are not expected to use the internet for personal reasons (e.g. storing personal files on the company’s email address). Consequently, WellPoint uses video and photographic surveillance equipments to monitor the performance of its employees. However, the surveillance technique is only applied for business purposes since the employees might sue the firm if they are used for other purposes.

Consequently, WellPoint is in compliance with the Occupation Health and Safety Act (OHSA). In this respect, the firm has strived to provide a conducive working environment to its employees. In this respect, employees work in properly ventilated environments that have ample lighting and free from toxic or any other hazardous substance that might affect their health.

Conclusion

Human resource management has become an essential aspect in the management of organizations in the contemporary world. From the literature that has been covered in this paper, it is evident that the WellPoint group has taken into consideration the importance of having a workforce that is effective and efficient in the provision of services to meet the needs and requirements of its clients as well as ensuring the long term sustainability of the firm.

In this respect, the firm has developed a rigorous recruitment and selection process in ensuring that the most qualified individuals become part of the workforce. Consequently, the firm has come up with measures that aim at retaining its employees as well as enhancing their performance. To achieve this goal, I would recommend that the firm should modify its recruitment process by liaising with institutions of higher education such as universities and colleges and independent recruitment agencies.

This partnership will ensure that the individuals who are considered for various posts within the firm are highly qualified. Consequently, liaising with recruitment agencies will greatly reduce the cost and time that is consumed in the recruitment and selection process.

Furthermore, the firm can also increase the frequency for conducting its performance appraisal. Despite the fact that this process can be tedious and expensive, it will ultimately enhance the overall performance of its employees hence ensuring that the firm realizes its mission, goals, and objectives.

References

Armstrong, M. A. (2005). Handbook of human resource management practice. New Delhi: Kogan Page India.

Ball, K. S. (2011). ‘The use of human resource information systems: A survey.’ Personnel Review, 30 (6): 677–93.

Bartel, A. P. (1994). ‘Productivity gains from the implementation of employee training programs.’ Industrial Relations, 33 (4): 441–5.

Dessler, G. 2003. Human resource management. Delhi: Pearson Education Asia.

Kundu, S. C., and Vora, J. A. (2004). ‘Creating a talented workforce for delivering service quality.’ Human Resource Planning, 27 (2): 40–51.

Summary

The report has been formulated after investigating the importance of joining a professional human resource association. The report has highlighted the importance of being in a local or an international human resource professional association.

There are various advantages associated with joining such associations which include increasing the trading partners and networking. The report will focus on the benefits of joining such a professional association.

It will put into detail the requirements for joining such a human resource professional association and the benefits that come with joining them. These include career development, networking as well as material benefits like grants and scholarships.

In the introduction, the report will highlight the aspects that will be of main concern to the report while explaining the aims and objectives of this particular report.

In this case the point of concern will particularly be the importance of joining a human resources professional association and the implications to the person joining.

It will also focus on the methodology used while obtaining this particular information as well as the limitations. The report has highlighted the results, discussions of the findings and finally the conclusion (Lundy 2006, p. 33).

Introduction

There are numerous advantages that are associated with joining a human resources professional association. They include ensuring that one remains updated on the developments that occur in this particular field.

This is made possible with the help of the newsletters, journals and website updates that are done by these associations. They also organize conferences that inform members about the current developments in the various fields.

There are many networking opportunities that are made available by joining such associations hence helping an individual to get new opportunities (Noe 2010, p. 65). These points have been elaborated in detain in the findings/results as well as the discussion.

The methodology used in the gathering of the information for this report was mainly the secondary sources which include books, journals, newsletters and internet sources. The report also highlights the limitations that were encountered in the process of getting the relevant information.

The report is aimed at finding the advantages that are associated with joining a human resources professional association whether at local or at the international level. The findings/results have then been discussed and a conclusion drawn.

Methodology

Secondary sources have been used in this research. Some of the materials used include; books, journals, newsletters and online sources. The secondary sources have been used as the method is economical and there are no much expenses to be incurred. It is less cumbersome when compared to the use of primary data.

It is also less time consuming when compared to the use of primary sources of data like direct interviews. It was also preferred due to the ease in comparison between the different sources.

It was for instance easier to compare the advantages of joining the human resource professional association from internet sources as well as those found in newsletters and journal articles.

The method enhanced the understanding of the issue at hand as in-depth explanations are given.

Limitations

A number of limitations were encountered in this particular research. For instance, some of the sources accessed were outdated and hence could not factor in advantages that are associated with the current technological world, hence rendering some sources irrelevant.

Some of the information particularly the online sources could not be relied upon as their origin was questionable. The author and the methodology used in gathering and analyzing the information could not be determined.

In addition, some of the sources could not meet the research needs as they were not specific. Some of them for instance focused on the benefits of joining any professional association rather than focusing on the human resources professional associations. In some cases, the information found was insufficient.

In addition, some of the online sources could not be accessed as they required subscription fees in order to be accessed.

Results

Various human resource associations were studies in this particular case and the benefits as well as shortfalls determined. They include the following;

Society for Human Resource Management

This is the largest human resources association composed of 250,000 members spread in 140 countries across the world. The association has been quite instrumental in equipping its members with the appropriate human resources skills and benefiting the human resource profession.

It has various chapters in the United States of America as well as China and India. Such an association is therefore vital in ensuring that its members are updated on the current developments in their respective professions both at local and international level.

The members are able to get career or business deals in other countries as opposed to the mother country. For such an association however, it might be difficult to decide on a standard payment for its members given that they are under different conditions in the various countries.

Chattered Institute of Personnel management

This is a human resource professional association that received the chattered status in 2000. The association has 135,000 members and it is highly respected and recognized in the United Kingdom.

Its main purpose is to enhance human resources development and equip its members and their colleagues to adhere to the required standards of human resource practices. It also helps to serve the professional interests of those in the association.

It ensures that ideal human resources development and management standards are upheld. The association however has its own limitations. For instance, it was recently chattered, which implies that it might not be equipped with all the human resources development skills needed for the training of its members.

It is based in the United Kingdom. This might simply imply that it concentrates on the human resources practices that are mainly relevant to those countries in the United Kingdom and hence ignoring other regions like Africa and Asia.

The Australian Human Resource Institute

This association represents human resources management professionals. It has a membership of about 12,000 people and has been operational for over 60 years. The organization has been pivotal in ensuring that its members are trained and equipped on the most effective human resource development skills.

The large membership therefore enhances networking which in the long run increases the chances of its members to get information on the current job openings available, as well as acquire new business deals.

The training that is done is quite crucial in ensuring that the members are updated on the most current human resources development strategies. It has been operational for 60 years and hence has enough experience in ensuring that its members get up to date information concerning be best human resources strategies.

The association actively participates in setting standards for human resources management, offers training and ensures that its members are recognized professionally. The association also ensures that its members remain updated on the current trends in the Australian business and workforce.

Through such, effective training is done and this ensures that its members remain relevant to the ever changing job markets. The association offers training on two human resource courses hence providing the qualified human resources professionals at some affordable fees which is cost effective to its members.

Arabian Society for Human Resource Management

The association was started with the aim of enhancing human resources management and development in the region. It helps in meeting the needs of human resources professionals within the region. This is made possible by sharing the relevant information and resources with its members within the region.

This ensures that their respective organizations adhere to the required standard of performance. The membership of this association is open to students taking human resource courses as well as human resource development professionals and any person with similar objectives to those of the association.

The association however has its own shortfalls, for instance, due to the fact that it is regional, it only serves the human resources interests of members within the Arab world hence not factoring in people from other regions or continent.

Dubai Human Resources Forum

This association was started by Human Resources Managers with the core purpose of ensuring continuous human resource development, networking as well as sharing their experiences. It targets those people with the intention of furthering their human resources development.

It has a membership of 300 members who represent their respective companies across the Emirates region. It helps its members in attaining professional standard in the human resources management. It was registered as a professional body in 2002.

The small number of its members however hinders it from achieving its goals as this offers limited networking and a smaller base for sharing experiences. It mainly targets the human resource managers and hence restricting its membership.

The other people some of whom might be students are not allowed to join this association. It is however recognized in the United Kingdom hence offering its services beyond the region.

Discussion

According to the findings, there are a number of benefits that come with being a member of a human resources professional association. Members of such associations are advantaged since employers look for those individuals who have more than just their academic qualifications.

They therefore stand a better chance of getting the available jobs unlike their counterparts who have not joined the associations. They also get firsthand information on any job opportunities in the various fields. This is made possible through the interaction that the members of these associations have.

In some cases, the advertisers of the job openings are members of the associations as well. They are more likely to give priority to the members rather than the nonmembers. In some cases, the available opportunities are for members only, and this puts them at an advantage.

The findings also show that such associations are quite vital in shaping a person’s career. Members are likely to identify their areas of interest and specialize. This can be attributed to the fact that the association enable an individual to increase his/her knowledge base and stays updated on the current trends in the various fields.

The findings also show that the members are well networked due to the fact that they mingle with members from various fields and specialties.

The findings also pointed out that managers, marketers and other influential members of multinational companies that had joined these associations played very significant roles in ensuring that their companies expanded not just locally but internationally as well.

Such companies quite easily complied with the international requirements due to the exposure that these members get. Those companies or business that had their key employees in such associations were found to esteem transparency as well as high levels of accountability.

According to the findings, it was also quite evident that both local and international human resource professional associations played a significant role in ensuring the harmonization of salaries and wages to the employees in deferent countries and regions hence minimizing the disparities in the salaries and wages paid to members of the same job group.

These associations have also been vital in enhancing business outsourcing. Such associations help the staff of any company or organization to know where to outsource their vital services from.

Joining such associations also help the members to be informed on the new business and trading deals hence availing new opportunities for expansion.

Such members can effectively manage their organizations due to the training and skills that they acquire while attending the various sessions. They are, therefore, well placed to resolve any problems encountered in these (Boxall 2007, p. 77).

From the above findings it is quite evident that both local and international human resources professional association are very significant in making sure that there members are updated on the current trends in the market.

The associations are quite vital in ensuring that the members share their experiences and hence find the best ways to overcome the various challenges at the local and at the international level.

They invest in employee development by training their members on the best human resources practices and this helps in ensuring that the members are well versed with the existing standards for human resources practice.

Members who join some of these associations also benefit from grants and scholarships which are quite vital in equipping the members with the appropriate human resources knowledge. The associations are quite important for networking.

Members from various companies, organizations and different countries come together. This makes it easier for job seekers to be linked up with their potential employers. For those interested in new business deals these associations help them to find new business contacts which are vital for the expansion of their businesses.

The associations play a big role in updating their members concerning the new human resources development standards and hence help in ensuring their compliance.

The members are informed on the existing market needs. This is made possible through the various conferences that are held, the newsletters and journals that are produced by these associations.

Members, therefore, get the relevant information concerning the cheaper as well as demanding labor markets. Managers in such associations can use these information to determine the best places to open new branches or where to source there labor from.

The associations help the different firms adhere to the different performance benchmarks. This is made possible by these firms sourcing qualified personnel and keeping to the required standards of human resources management (Noe 2010, p. 55).

Conclusion

Among the various human resources professional associations given above, the preferred association is the Society for Human Resource Management. This is because the association has a larger membership. This is quite vital for effective networking for job seekers as well as those looking for business deals.

The large membership also implies that the members gain a lot when it comes to the aspect of sharing their different experiences. The association was started in 1948, which implies that it has a better experience when it comes to aspects of human resources across the years.

It is also represented in 140 countries which ensure that members across the countries share the relevant information and experiences concerning the labor markets, business deals and laws in the various countries.

Joining the various human resources professional associations is quite important in many aspects. For instance, the associations help in ensuring that the members from the various organizations adhere to the standard labor laws both at the local as well as at the international level.

These associations also train their members in relation to their human resources development and hence helping them ensure that they advance their careers. They are very important in enhancing relationships and networks. This might be at the local as well as international levels.

Members of such organizations easily access new markets hence expanding their businesses not just at the local level but at the international level as well, especially those in international associations.

The human resources professional associations are very significant in training their members to be efficient in their service delivery. The associations also help in ensuring the multinational firms not only comply with the local laws but also adhere to the international standards.

This is made possible by training the members on the local as well international laws that govern such firms. The HR staffs are taught on the significance of focusing on the development of human resources rather than just the financial control in order to experience significant prosperity.

These associations are quite critical in ensuring that the members are well informed on the current political situation in various regions and countries. This is quite vital for those members that are seeking new opportunities.

A stable political environment is quite vital for the establishment of firms and hence ensuring the booming of various businesses. This in the end translates to huge profits for these firms. An unstable political climate on the other hand might not be the best for the establishment of firms.

The members of these associations share there experiences and are therefore better placed to face any challenges that come with their various positions.

Members who have joined such association can easily access business mergers as opposed to their colleagues who haven’t joined yet. Members of these associations also gain from grants as well as scholarships in human resources development.

Some of these associations even allow students to register as members and in some cases those members that are still students are offered scholarships. In some cases there are job opportunities that are advertised and only those who are members of there associations are considered.

These associations however have their own shortfalls. For instance some have a small membership and therefore members do not get much experience as well as effective networking. Others are just based within particular regions and not others hence serving just a few members within those regions.

In some cases however, the membership to such associations is restricted and students might not be allowed. The requirement for joining for instance might be that the person joining must be a human resources manager.

This acts as a barrier to those members that are interested in joining associations but do not hold such positions.

List of References

Boxall, P. 2007, Strategy and Human Resource Management, London, Macmillan.

Lundy, O. 2006, strategic human resources management , London, Routledge.

Noe, R. 2010, ‘Employee Training and Development.’ Careers and Career Management , vol. 5, no. 11, pp. 55-65.

Introduction

Outsourcing is an accepted tool of management that helps an organization in doing business through restructuring its business ways. By using outsourcing, an organization gets the challenge of building a more flexible institution whose core business is centered on competency.

The main purpose of outsourcing is to help an organization concentrate on its core activities, which provide better value for money. In essence, outsourcing is an organizations development policy since an organizations non-core aspects are outsourced to a third party. The organization transfers some of its in-house functions to a qualified third party for a given period at a negotiated fee (Weatherly, 2011).

HR outsourcing issues

HR outsourcing is a process whereby an organization sub-contracts its human resource functions to an external third party provider. Outsourcing human resources can be done in several ways. One way is through a business process where an external provider gives an organization management services on the HR activities like recruitment or payroll administration.

Secondly, it can be through a shared service HR outsourcing. This is where an organization only subcontracts the administrative elements of HR activities. Lastly, it can be through application service outsourcing. This majorly deals with the technological infrastructure that supports human resource functions.

Strategic

A strategic point in outsourcing is by getting a strategic solution that will help cut cost that will seek to unburden shrinking HR resources. Strategically, an organization will tend to concentrate its own resources on core competencies where it can get definable preeminence and provide unique value for customers.

This has varied benefits that it gives to an organization such as, a well-developed core competency provide formidable barriers against present and future competitors that seek to expand into the organizations areas of interest, thus facilitating and protecting the strategic advantages of market share.

Performance

Outsourcing HR lays specific concern to employee satisfaction while still ensuring improved performance. Another performance issue that is important in outsourcing HR is getting to know what standard of service level the service provider offers.

Ethical

In outsourcing HR, an organization should ensure that all employees act in a professional manner and service delivery is fair and is in an impartial way. An organization should also ensure that all employees observe set code of conduct.

Social responsibility issues

A socially responsible outsourcing helps in creating a positive social impact by generating jobs in low-income areas, which has high unemployment rates for the various skilled workers. Another impact the social issues brings in outsourcing is that it reduces brain drain through reducing emigration of skilled-labor from the low-income areas (Smith, 2006).

Addressing HR outsourcing issues

As an HR director, one needs to know how to communicate to his/her employees through a proper communication channel. This is achievable by engaging the employees in the decision-making on how to outsource. Another approach that an HR director can put in use is learning how to manage expectations.

It should not be an assumption that one knows how people feel instead; they can employ use of focus groups to survey how employees feel about certain issues. Another approach is how well one sets the transition after outsourcing. HR director should be able to sell the benefits of outsourcing to the employees so that they have correct information about the whole issue (Enlow & Ertel, 2006).

Strategic benefits of HR outsourcing to organizations growth

HR outsourcing forms an integral part in an organizations strategic growth. HR outsourcing gives HR professionals time for devoting to more strategic roles that are vital to the support and performance of an organization.

Subsequently, HR outsourcing helps an organization in getting access to HR expertise that does not exist within the organization. Another benefit HR outsourcing gives to an organization is that it reduces cost of doing business hence increasing the organizations efficiency. Lastly, HR outsourcing saves time and money in that the organization does not carry out any paper related work (Quinn & Hillmer, 1995).

Cost savings associated with HR outsourcing

HR outsourcing is associated with payroll and human resource information systems costs. The payroll costs is divided into two categories, one being the payroll systems costs and costs associated with non-payment department that are attributed to time collection. The costs associated with human resource information systems include system upgrade costs and maintenance costs (Anonymous, 2007).

Potential areas for outsourcing

Compensation management

Compensation management in outsourcing is a practice that seeks to balance employee work relation by substituting it with monetary or non-monetary benefits. Compensation management helps an organization in motivating employees and improves business efficiency of the organization. In essence, compensation management forms a potential area in outsourcing since a good compensation package will attract the best talents and sustain them for as long as possible.

Benefits management

This is an important part of change management, which is vital in the delivery of successful benefits to an organization. Its main idea is to center on how change will benefit an organization and gives a layout of how to manage the benefits. Benefits management is an important potential area in outsourcing since it provides frameworks that deliver measurable outcomes to an organization (Smith, 2006).

Ethical and corporate social responsibility considerations of HR outsourcing

Ethics are codes of conduct or moral standards that guide people. In outsourcing HR, the ethical considerations an organization should ensure include performance of functions in a professional manner by the employees. Another ethical consideration is ensuring that affected employees of an outsourcing decision are fairly treated. On the other hand, corporate social responsibility is an organizational concept that tries to connect the exclusive worlds of the corporate and the society, which are stakeholders in the firm.

A coherent corporate social responsibility strategy based on sound values offers an organization strong business benefits and helps in achieving extensive reach. Outsourcing HR plays a key role since HR key responsibilities are to promote corporate ethics and helps in building a human capital team. Key competencies of corporate social responsibility are capacity building, enable understanding of a society and evaluate the relationships that exist with the stakeholders (HRM Guide, 2011).

Offshore Outsourcing and inside the US

Offshore outsourcing is whereby a country hires an external organization that is not part of the country, which manufactures a product in order to perform a given business function. Existing organizations often resort to offshore outsourcing since it is an essential revenue and growth strategy avenue.

Offshore outsourcing has some strategic advantages associated with it. One is that it offers flexibility in terms of work off load. This helps an organization in ensuring that the available resources are utilized optimally. Another strategic advantage of offshore outsourcing is that it ensures strategic re-deployment of resources. Successful implementation of offshore outsourcing frees an organization from unnecessary jobs and lets concentration be on personal strategic issues of the organization.

Outsourcing inside the US, although it differs with the meaning of outsourcing, it is an option that an organization might wish to consider. It also refers to in-house; where the organization seeks to perform a service themselves instead of outsourcing to an outside vendor. In-house HR gives organization-varied benefits such as reducing costs associated with HR operations, improved risk management and compliance rate and reduced cycle time for transactions (HRM Guide, 2011).

Other areas relevant to HR outsourcing

One area that is relevant in HR outsourcing is in business process outsourcing (BPO). This involves outsourcing specific business activities to a third party that includes, the operations and responsibilities of the business process. BPO is both back office and front office outsourcing.

Conclusion

In conclusion, an organization should be able to consider the cost benefits related in doing in-house and outsourcing before settling on the idea to outsource its services. Even though outsourcing expands the business market niche it is vital to weigh out the benefits that it brings along (Quinn & Hillmer, 1995).

References

Anonymous, (2007). Outsourcing and Shared Services Star in Cost Savings, Expertise, and More Time for Strategic HR. HR Focus, 84(4).

Enlow, S., & Ertel, D. (2006). Achieving Outsourcing Success: Effective Relationship Management. Compensation and Benefits Review, 38(3), 50-55.

HRM Guide, (2011). HR Outsourcing. Web.

Quinn, J. B. & Hillmer, F. G. (1995). Strategic Outsourcing. The McKinsey Quarterly, 1. Web.

Smith, A. (2006). United States: Key Issues in HR Outsourcing. Web.

Weatherly, L. A. (2011). Research quarterly; HR outsourcing: reaping strategic value for your organization. Web.

Introduction

International corporations need to have an effective international human resources management team that is able to make sound decisions on the right way to develop their human capital; generally there are three ways that they can develop the work force.

The ways are localization approach, expatriates approach and third country approach. Whichever the method, it should ensure they maintain quality and quantity workforce; the department of human resources in multinationals can be central point, head office, or/and at the foreign country level (Hollinshead and Leat, 1995).

The approach of expertise involves the foreign company sending people from the country with knowledge and experience to manage and operate a foreign investments; human resources are the driving force of an organisation, thus they need to be well managed to develop an orchestrate team and tap their intellectual knowledge effectively.

When expatriates are deployed, there is physical relocation of the expatriate, probably his or her family, and if the expatriate has a team of operation, they may go together. The relocation destabilizes the psychological comfort of the expatriate and exposes him or her to another life and cultural setting different from what he or she is used to; the instability may reduce the efficiency of the manager.

To ensure that the expatriate adjust effectively and fast, there are some human resources management strategic functions that need to be undertaken (Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars, 2000). This paper analyzes human resources actions multinational corporations (MNCs) should take to facilitate expatriates adjustment.

The theory of Expatriates

MNCs have the role of maintaining qualified and efficient human capital; when they decide that they are going to human resources finances with expatriates, they should ensure they offer the expatriates assistance that facilitates quick and effective adjustment.

The rate at which they adjust to new environment will determine how well their intellectual knowledge will be tapped and how they will be able to attain their objectives and mission in the foreign company.

The cost of deploying experts is high thus their failure is detrimental to an organisation thus they need to be given the right tools and supports to effectively perform. Failure can occur in two main ways; when he underperforms or returns home without having completed the task or when he takes a long time before adjusting and producing results for the company.

There are cases that MNC have expatriates in their foreign mission only or they may have as holding a certain office as others are occupied by the operating countries locals; in whichever version adjustment or the so called cost of orientation or familiarization has to be incurred. When sending expatriates, there are three main ways of approach, they are, flexpatriates and impetrates (Bamber and Lansbury, 1998).

MNCs can be divided into multi-domestic, global, transnational or international; they all have different features and characteristics however when it comes to development of staffs and facilitation of expatriates adjustments, there is no difference.

There are some basic functions that should be looked in when managing expatriates; they start from preparation to orienting an expert back to country of origin. In general, expatriates adjustment is influenced by three main factors: individual adjustment factors, environmental issues factors, and position-related issues.

All the areas must be well addressed early enough before the expert has messed up with the assignment given (Hoogvelt, 2001). The actions to facilitate fast adjustments are:

Foreign mission preparing and Planning

MNCs operates a chain of business establishments in foreign countries; when they are developing them, they should know the best approach they are going to use for human resources and enact such appropriate measures to have the work force on board.

When determining the individual or individuals to send for a foreign mission; the company is limited to certain factors like the level of knowledge, education, foreign experience, and work experience of the person to get the post.

When selecting the particular person to engage, the initial action is to determine the task that he is going to undertake in the foreign country; for instance when an engineer is needed, the search will be limited to engineers in the company or the MNC will seek someone with an engineering experience from the holding country’s labour force.

MNCs prefer to use the staffs they have for such assignments as they are aware of their potential, however they may outsource some expatriates in some areas. In the case that task to be undertaken needs an existing team, then the MNC has no option other that sending the team (Triandis, 2006).

With the tasks and the kind of employees needed, the MNC adopts at least two methods of outsourcing for these people; internal recruitment (focus on people who have been working in the company and have such required skills and experience) and external recruitments (this is where the company seeks to use people whom have never worked for the company but have a proven record of high performance).

In whichever the approach, the IHRM team should ensure they get the most qualified people for the mission; this stage is crucial since if a point or step is missed, then the company stand to suffer (Trudel ,2009)

Under internal recruitment, it can take the form of direct appointment of people whom the management think they can perform the task or it can be through application after the offer has been placed in the MNCs job advertising board.

In direct appointment, IHRM teams should objectively analyze the performance, experience and exposure that a candidate has, approaches a potential expatriate or team of expatriates. When using direct appointment, care should be taken not to force or dictate terms on the expatriate; free will should be allowed as well as time to rethink the decision by the appointed party.

One mistake that MNCs when appointing an expatriate is to deny them their free mind and free thought; when they appoint a certain party, they pose as if they are glorying and promoting the party which may result to negative perception and attitude that results to issues of adjustments.

When appointed, the appointee should be allowed to consult his immediate family members, friends and colleagues. The offer should define all aspects of the assignment like benefits, functions, family, the duration of the assignment, and what next after the accomplishment of the assignment (Shaffer, Harrison and Gilley, 1999).

When the exercise involves choosing an external person whom the company has not had a working experience with, the right approach is to handle the process as any other recruitment but some special attributes placed on the expatriate like any foreign experience, the nationality and the existence of proven track record.

The company should understand that the expatriate will have to consume company resources by virtual of his employment over and above the agreed salary or contact fee, thus there is need to ensure that the best candidate has been chosen.

At the preparing and planning stage, there is one thing that is outstanding and a fact, the expatriate must be willing to be deployed in the foreign mission; the psychological preparedness starts with the acceptance and embracing of the task. When an expatriate moves at his own free will, then ensuring that he adjusts is fast and more effective.

Mentoring, Coaching, preparing, and psychological preparation

Candidates chosen should be mentored, Coached, and prepared by the company; the process is wide and depends with the mission, experience of the candidate, and the country of venture.

In the case the candidate has an experience in the country of venture (return expatriates), the preparation may not be so intense since he is aware of what to expect; when preparing the candidates, those people close to the person should be involved, they include people like the family, close friends, personal mentors, and colleagues.

Psychological preparedness involves touching almost all corners of someone’s life to ensure they adjust effectively; they may involve the services of a counsellor to work on the mind part of the expatriates as well as friends to support the person, and the family.

The main subject to learn in this stage is cross-cultural differences that the expert is likely to face in his assignment. If there are people who have similar experiences, they should be consulted to give in-depth and informed information to the potential assignee.

Preparing involves offering the expatriate and the family with cultural intelligence skills to be able to live in harmony in the foreign country and adjust effectively, if the country uses a different language than the language that the expert understands, measures should be put in place to ensure that the expert and the team learn the language.

When training such things like language, those people whom the expatriates’ will move with should also be a party to the training, the people may involve spouse and children (Shaffer, Harrison and Gilley, 1999).

Mentorship, pilot survey and initial orientation

This stage only happens after the company has been satisfied that the candidate and the parties involved have been psychologically prepared; then a mentor should be looked for to facilitate in preparing the concerned party.

A mentor should be a person who have had an experience with a foreign mission successfully if possible in the country of the mission; the role of the mentor is to discuss and share his experience in the foreign country or mission in the efforts of widening the thinking capacity of the person and offering a different experience.

In the case the company has an establishment already running in the foreign country, it is crucial for the company to plan the sending of a mentor to the expatriate, the mentor may be a person in the management of the company or someone with a pool of knowledge that he can prepare the expatriate effectively.

After spending some time and bonding with the mentor, they are then supposed to visit the country of assignment; this may be the first visit if the expatriate has never had an experience with the country of mission (Tayeb, 2005).

The visit is crucial and plays an important role in the entire adjustment; when in the visit, the expert get to learn, feel and experience some of the things that he had been trained and advised on; he is able to create a certain perception, attitude and feeling about the county and the people in general.

It should be noted that the report from the visit (informal), will go a long was in creating a certain perception to his children, spouse, friends and people who matters in the mission. There are sometimes that after the mission the expatriate may wish to withdraw from the mission, he should be listened to (Harzing, 1999).

Physical relocation stage

After all plans have been made, the final second final stage of the process of relocation; MNCs should take the responsibility of relocating the expatriate with the family if they are going together; they should be guaranteed that all things are in order.

The first few days may be time to orient oneself with the new environment, thus the company should not expect the expatriate to be working, and some finances should be provided for basic social things like shopping, clubbing and exercise. If there are kids, they should be mentored to develop new friends and mix with the new environment (Briscoe and Schuler, 2004).

In the case that there was a foreign company; the management in the company should be encouraging and supportive of the expert, they should give him well welcome and guide him on how the country operates and the way he should conduct himself.

Social function and team building are important in orienting and relaxing the environment that the expert is working. Maintain a mentor is important since he is likely to be free with the expatriate so he or she can be able to keep the expatriate company all through.

There are times that an expatriate may have issues to express or feels that the set targets are far from being attained as he had expected.

These situations require the intervention of top management; when operating in the international arena, a company has to manage a diverse work force; managing diverse human capital has continued to be a challenge to human resources managers (Scullion and Starkey, 2000).

Effective training and performance evaluation

One major role that strategic international human management (SIHM) plays is to manage diverse human capital performance; performance management is a continuous process through which the output of human capital is gauged to ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner.

After the expatriate have settled and started working, there is need for an effective appraisal and evaluation method to ensure that his performance level can be gauged irrespective of the operating environment.

There is the possibility that the adjustment was not effective thus during appraisal, areas of future training and mentoring will be established. The outcome after a certain period and the strategies set by the expatriate and team should be effectively evaluated to ensure they are in course.

The appraisal takes the same way like in normal employees appraisal, however there may be some problems encountered by the team, which they had not anticipated (Brewster, Sparrow and Vernon, 2007).

When evaluating expatriate performance, there is need to involve some social factors like culture shocks, loneliness, and hangovers and homesick, to ensure that the appraisal result can be effective and offer such sound information that can result to improvement of the expatriates roles.

When appraising an expatriate, management have the role of ensuring that issues that he has brought are address appropriately, training should be continuous and areas that the expatriate needs self improvement addressed.

There are high chances of stressing moments in the working life of the expatriate, policies to psychologically support the expatriate, his or her spouse and offspring should be enacted, in some cases, it may involve the foreign mission of the country (Edwards and Ferner, 2002).

Motivational measures should be put in place to ensure that employees are loyal to the organization and they work efficiently. This ranges from attractive salaries or/and benefits, to developing a good working environment. This ensures that employees are retained as assets in the organization (Bratton and Gold, 1999).

Conclusion

International human resources management should ensure they have the right number of employees in foreign companies; there are three method of deploying in foreign outlets, use of expatriates, localization, and use of third country employees.

When using expatriates, the company should enact policies that facilitate quick and effective adjustments or the expatriates; when they adjust fast, they become an asset to the company with ease.

An effective expatriate deployment strategy has five main stages as preparing and planning, coaching and mentorship, pilot survey and initial orientation, relocation and orientation, and effective performance management.

An effective adjustment program should focus on the expatriate, the family, close friends, colleagues and any other person who will be affected by the relocation; they should be prepared psychologically using experts like counsellors and mentors.

References

Bamber, G. and Lansbury, R. D., 1998. International and Comparative Employment Relations; A study of industrialised market economies. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

Bratton J., and Gold. J. ,1999 Human Resource Management; Theory and Practice. New York: Macmillan Business.

Brewster, C., Sparrow, P., and Vernon, G. ,2007. International Human Resource Management. New York: CIPD.

Briscoe D., and Schuler, R. ,2004. International Human Resource Management. New Jersey: Routledge.

Edwards, T. and Ferner, A., 2002. The renewed American challenge.: A Review of Employment Practice in US multinationals. Industrial Relations Journal, 33(2), pp. 94-111.

Hampden-Turner, C. and Trompenaars, A., 2000. Building cross-cultural competence: How to create wealth from conflicting values. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Harzing, A.W.,1999. Managing the Multinationals: An International Study of Control Mechanisms in Multinational Companies. Massachusetts: Edward Elgar.

Hollinshead, G., and Leat, M., 1995. Human Resource Management; An International and Comparative Perspective. New York: FT Pitman.

Hoogvelt, A., 2001. Globalization and the Postcolonial world; The new political economy of development. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Scullion, H. and Starkey, K., 2000. The changing role of the corporate human resource function in the international firm. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(6), pp.1061-1081.

Shaffer, M.A., Harrison, D.A. and Gilley, K.M.,1999. Dimensions, determinants and differences in the expatriate adjustment process. Journal of International Business Studies, 30(3), pp. 557-581.

Tayeb, M.H., 2005. International Human Resource Management, a Multinational Company Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Triandis, H.C., 2006. Cultural Intelligence in Organizations. Group and Organization Management, 31(1), pp. 20-26.

Trudel, J. M., 2009. International Human Resources Management: A New Challenge. Portuguese Journal of Management Studies, 14(2), pp. 149-161.

Introduction

Human Resource Management (HRM) and Industrial Relations (IR) play a significant role in the management of employees-employers relationship. However, nowadays, industrial relationship has become very sensitive and complex to manage.

Progress in industrial relations is difficult because of lack of cooperation and harmonious relationships between important parties. The term industrial relations define the association that exist between employees and management, which results from the prevailing union-employer relationship.

Initially, industrial relationship entailed all the existing relationships, as well as interactions between employees and employers. It represented all elements of employment relationships that entailed HRM, employees’ relationship, as well as union-management relations.

Currently, the great development of HRM and its proliferation has made industrial relations to specialize in studying and practicing trade unionism, collective bargaining, as well as labor-management relations.

Whereas industrial relations use unions in the management of people within organizations, human resource management is a nonunion employment approach that engages in the recruitment, management and development of policies in the workplace. Human resource management is an upcoming field that is highly effective in hiring, performance management, employees’ motivation and training of personnel.

It is a very effective approach in managing people, as well as workplace culture and environment. An effective human resource management involves use of comprehensive and strategic methods for managing employees to effectively contributing in efficient production process. Effective and efficient productivity is important in enhancing a company’s overall production, as well as enhancing achievement of its goals and objectives.

Industrial relations were more instrumental in the past and especially in ensuring collective bargaining and in disputes and grievances settlements.

However, with the current great development and propagation of human resource management that encompass hiring, training, performance management and employees’ motivation, many organizations prefer to embrace HRM, rather than industrial relations for managing employees-employer relationships (Ackers, 2002).

Whereas writers like Daver (2001), Carpenter & Raphael (2012), see this shift like a response to the rising international competition, others like Bech (2005) see it as an incidence of the privatization and deregulation in the management of workforce.

Different Theoretical Perspective Underpinning Employment Relationships

Employee relationship refers to all the elements such as industrial relations, management and resolution of employees’ grievances and conflicts, as well as management of employees’ cooperation and communication.

Formerly, the term industrial relations was employed in referring to the management of employees relations, but nowadays employee relations is the currently used term. Mitchell (2012) posits that employment relationship is dependent on individuals’ perception of the world of work.

Katz & Darbishire (2002) claim existence of significant political, academic and philosophical theoretical perspectives that highly influence peoples understanding of employees’ relations.

In line with Katz & Darbishire (2002) claim, Kaufman (2004) identifies some important theoretical perspectives that influence individuals’ perception, which entail economic explanation, philosophical perspective, and Employment relationship.

Tripathi (2003) argue the economic perspective as a labor market consisting of demand for labor from companies and supplies of labor by persons. He argues that Companies aim in maximizing profits to enhance shareholders wealth.

Consequently, Mitchell (2012) considers neo-classical economics as an approach where economists perceive a company’s demand for labor as a function of the demand for its products/services. In this case, a firm will tend to hire more employees until the point where the revenue realized by hiring more employees approaches the costs of hiring those employees.

When this scenario occurs, the firm stops hiring more workers, as it does not deem it profitable. However, this situation does not always happen because of other underlying factors that influence the market. Whilst the economic theory is imperative in explaining how demand and supply of labor is determined, it fails to account for other important factors in the chain.

For instance, it fails to explain the organization structure and the party responsible for setting the wages. Similarly, it does not put into account the differential of wages between workers because of varied skills, as well as qualification requirements of jobs.

In addition, economic theory does not show the employment relationship in the workplace or illustrate how management handles the human relations. According to the economic theory, the foundation of the relationship is purely the exchange of labor in return for wages.

This means that if there is need for more labor, more wages is paid. The theory does not factor in the role of human resource management in work scenario.

As per the perspective on the employment relationship, a philosophical approach regarding unitary and pluralistic is considered. The unitary method considers firms as a harmonious, integrated team with employees and managers sharing common goals and objectives.

Mitchell (2012) claim that employees and management share common values that tie them together preventing any potential source of conflict. The approach perceives royalty and adoption of leadership characterize the workplace and managers oversee the employees in becoming involved as well as committed in pursuit of the firms’ goals and objectives.

Budd (2004) considers unitary approach as the best approach for a proper workplace. Unitary approach considers applicants values and ideas during selection and recruitment exercise for qualification purposes. Consensus of ideas and values is paramount in unitary approach and new recruits learn appropriate values and ideas involuntary from management, which they use for socialization purposes, as well as for consensus building.

Unitary approach advocates involuntary learning process, where employees involuntarily pursue corporate induction courses and other essential training programs. Mitchell (2012) argues that unitary is the best approach as it requires the management to manage the workers as a team to enhance effectiveness and efficiency in the workplace.

Occurrence of a discord in unitary approach is an aberration and persistence existence of conflict may result to dismissal for those acting against the management. The approach does not give room for differing views and regards different opinions as contravention of the organization values and culture.

Conversely, Jayne (2012) regards pluralistic approach as the best approach for workplace management as it enhance performance and innovation because of the presence of competing sub-groups in pursuit of their goals and objectives.

Pluralistic approach embrace different opinions from competing factions, which are important in enhancing efficiency through subsequent inventions of more efficient processes of accomplishing objective. The conflicts that accompany the competition against the existing sub-groups are essential in the development and evolution of the firm, personnel and policies.

Pluralist approach uses policies designed in managing these different groups, rather than unifying them. Thus, this approach advocates for the democracy where there is embracing of divergent views.

Jayne (2012) posits that in instances of persistence conflicts, the management engages in negotiations and bargaining mechanisms to address diverging views, rather than using dismissal tactics as the case in unitary approach as posited by Kaufman (2004).

The radical approach explains the employment relationship as one of exploitation where the employer exploits the workers. Mitchell (2012) argues that commercial and industrial harmony is not possible unless the management control the means of production to benefit in the relationship.

Radicalism is the basis of trade unions and socialists associations; it facilitated development of trade unions to strengthen individual workers. According to Mitchell (2012), radicalism takes and sells labor like any other commodity.

Whereas pluralists embrace competition and democracy, radicalism is founded on the superiority of the employer that results to the employer undermining the trade union and influencing the working conditions to suite them.

Marxism views the exploitation to result from the employer setting the wages lower than the selling value of the products to enhance profits. Workers have limited bargaining power and must accept the market rate offered by the seller (Mitchell, 2012).

The introduction of scientific management by F.W Taylor enabled the breaking of tasks in simpler parts to help the managers understand and control the work process better. This approach made the surveillance and monitoring of employees more achievable.

In addition, it helped redesigning and combination of tasks to maximize efficiency. However, the approach resulted to more conflicts, as well as opposition to management. The process improved by incorporating employees in decision making, which resulted in increased employees’ satisfactions.

Other subsequent important improvements entail job redesign, rotation, enrichment and enlargement. Despite, all the above improvements there is a concern of whether all the measures undertaken has adequately addressed the quality of working life to enhance employees-employers relationships (Kaufman, 2004).

Industrial Relations in Managing Employment Relationship

The aforementioned theoretical perspectives explained the various theoretical underpinning employees-employers relationship. Effective and efficient management of employees-employers relationship is imperative in enhancing productivity and profit maximization. Industrial relations involve the use of unions to manage employees-employers relations.

One important aspect of industrial relations is the formation of trade unions. Industrial relations started during the industrial era where employees used the trade unions for collective bargaining and resolution of grievances and disputes.

Industrial relations mainly entail the formation of trade unions, which is an association of wage earners for the aim of ensuring favorable working conditions in their workplace (Tripathi, 2003).

Human Resource Management in Managing Employment Relationship

Human resource management is a method for managing people in a thorough and structured manner. It includes recruitment, training, motivation and preparing policies to manage employees-employer relationship.

Human resource management involves a move from collective employee relations that emphasize on use of union in the bargaining and dispute managements towards personalized –based negotiations, where managers use contract and performance –pay systems for reinforcement (Bech, 2005).

Rise of HRM verse decline of Industrial relation

The industrial relations entail the use of collective bargaining for employment relations. It uses the concept of unions and socio-emotions rather than contractual arrangements and performance-based remuneration. Industrial relations use rules and regulations to govern relations concerning work, workplace and working community.

The main aim of industrial relations is to sustain harmonious working relationship between the employers and employees. They ensure harmonious working relationship by using collective bargaining and grievance solving techniques to solve arising disputes. For instance, industrial relations use labor unions to force for better working conditions or wages increases through strikes and demonstrations.

However, with the continuous evolvement and propagation of human resource management, firms are moving from industrial relations to embrace HRM in ensuring harmonious relationship between the management and other employees.

The reason why firms tend to embrace the use of human resource management in management of workforce relationship is the effectiveness of HRM in managing employees’ relationship. HRM is not a reactive system as the industrial relation that focuses on solving emerging grievances, but a proactive approach that attempt to address underlying causes of grievances.

Industrial relation uses the outdated philosophy of Marxism of radical approach where every party to exploit the resulting relationship in the workplace. The radical approach considers the workplace relationship as the one where the employers exploit the employees.

The radical approach posits that employers sell their products at high prices but they pay their employees very little money. This is the reason why they regard the association as one of exploitation. The continuous exploitation of the employees by their bosses has caused dissatisfactions to many employees, an issue that has called for a better strategy to solve the low performance that accompanies unsatisfied workforce.

This has given rise to the evolvement of human resource management to incorporate better strategies for introducing and sustaining favorable working relationship between the management and other employees. The human resource management has introduced payment packages, which are performance-based.

This has been a very effective strategy in solving the remuneration grievances, which often affects existence of good relationship between the management and employees. Thus, instead of the employees using the concept of collective bargaining to bargain for better pay, the human resource management institutes a system that links individual performance with the pay one receives.

The differential of the pay based on performance has greatly embraced by many employees, which has resulted to an enhanced customer satisfaction that was difficult to realize by using industrial relations (Legge, 2004).

Apart from introducing performance-based pay, human resource management has incorporated motivation in the workplace as a strategy of enhancing relations in the workplace. The use of motivation has greatly boosted working relations between the various stakeholders interacting in the day-to-day working process and particularly ensuring harmonious relationship between employees and the management.

Human resource management is now using various strategies to motivate the employees. For instance, employees who meet their targets get rewards to reinforce their spirit for sustaining their high performance. Similarly, highly competent human resource staffs give the employees the opportunity to set their targets and the freedom to appraise their performance.

This strategy has been instrumental in enhancing intrinsic motivation, where employees own the responsibility for setting high standards for themselves and pursuing them with vigor. This method has helped in enhancing performance because employees who have the freedom to set their goals and assess their performance pursue their goals with passion and are highly satisfied with undertakings.

In the past, the management used to set very high targets for their employees that were unrealistic to accomplish. This method resulted in building tension between the management and the employees, as the employees contemplated the setting of high targets as a means for the management to exploit them.

The lack of trust between employers and employees resulted to employees having low morale and lack of job satisfaction; the job turn up was very high. However, with adoption of human resource management that is proactive rather than reactive, the introduction of motivation strategies such as actively engaging the workers in decision making process has greatly boosted job satisfaction and enhanced performance.

Therefore, instead of firms relaying on industrial relations, which are reactive, many firms are nowadays embracing human resource management in establishing proactive measures to facilitate harmonious working relationship between management and workers (Jayne, 2012).

Industrial relation engage employer, employees, government and trade union in collectively resolving any dispute that erupt in the workplace. Industrial relation mainly use confrontation approaches such as boycotting duty, strike and demonstration in negotiating for proper working conditions or terms.

This method is an outdated approach in conflict resolution. It is not a good strategy for solving work related issues, as the engaging parties do not carry good memories of resulting confrontations that may hinder effective performance in future business endeavors.

In other times, industrial relations use the trade union to pursue for better working conditions for member employees through lawsuits, which sometimes stay for a long period without being determined.

In addition, the legal proceeding that the trade union use to seek for justice are very expensive, which require members to pay higher commissions to cater for the salaries of the trade union employees, as well as pay for the high legal fees.

In some cases, the trade union uses alternative dispute resolutions to solve arising disputes between the employers and workers. Some of the methods used such as mediation and negotiation are very effective in solving any arising disputes amicably. However, because they are mainly not enforceable, the employers are likely not to honor the promise made.

This leaves the conflict unresolved, which may crop up in future at a higher magnitude. Other alternative dispute resolution such as litigation and arbitration although are enforceable, they are not the best option for solving disputes because they are time consuming and expensive because of the costs associated with the process.

Thus, the poor conditions that accompany the use of industrial relations in solving conflicts arising from poor working conditions or poor terms of employment makes it less preferred approach than human resource management (Daver, 2001).

Human resource management being a proactive approach tries to suppress factors that underpin poor working relationship. For instance, human resource management has been very instrumental in the recruitment, placement training and promotion processes to ensure that competence in the recruitment and placement process to enhance job satisfaction.

Human resource management stresses the importance of ensuring job satisfaction in minimizing cropping conflicts in the workplace. The human resource management engages in a thorough exercise during the hiring process to make sure that it recruits only highly competent employees.

The recruited employees receive appropriate training before placement to equip them with appropriate skills to ensure they fit in to their new environment. Proper recruitment and training is important in making sure that management identifies the strengths and weaknesses for the recruited personnel and assisted accordingly.

In addition, knowing their strengths and passions is essential to make sure they take it in consideration during the placement exercise. During the training process they are get to know the culture of the firm they will be working to adjust accordingly.

Proper training is important in helping employees overcome subsequent conflicts that may arise because of poor training and orientation that may hinder proper relationship between the management and the employees (Carpenter & Raphael, 2012).

Scholars who focus on industrial relation have a perception that the labor market is not competitive, which opposes the claim of economic theory. industrial relations gives the employers an upper hand over the employees in the negotiation process of better terms and better working conditions.

Industrial relations is characterized by a conflict of interests between workers and the management where the workers demand higher pays, while the management crave for higher profits , which give rise to an inherent conflict of interest in employers-employees relations.

The perceived inherit conflict of interest makes it difficult for the laborers to contemplate that management can pursue laborers interest for better pay to bring to an end exploitation. In this respect, industrial relations aspire to improve the strained relationship between employers and the management by fighting for an improvement of workers right and employment relationships.

Industrial relations are biased and underline on employees’ conflict of interests by supporting employees mechanisms such as collective bargaining, labor union and labor management partnership. The policies endorsed by industrial relations through pluralists approach aim in ensuring a balance in the employment relationship to achieve economic efficiency and employment equity.

Industrial relations have failed to bring the desired employment relationships. The reason why it has failed to achieve its objective is the approach of its formation. Its foundation was in a form of a problem solving to bring using the radicalism method.

For example, instead of employers having proactive strategies to enhance customer satisfaction, they failed to employ appropriate strategies that are employed by HRM such as motivational methods to enhance employees’ job satisfaction.

Many scholars nowadays perceive industrial relations to be in crisis. This is because the industrial relations get pressure on one side by the dominant economic theory and prevailing institutional behaviors. On the other side, they receive an equally pressure by the postmodern views.

In the formulation of policies, the emerging neoliberal perspective that advocate fort a free and fair market overruns the industrial relations tradition view of industrial relations on institution intervention. Moreover, many firms are nowadays adopting labor unions for solving employment disputes.

In response to the demising in industrial relations, many firms are nowadays embracing human resource management. They prefer to adopt human resource management because of its ability to effectively ensure strong employment relationship that bring efficiency in economy and employee equity (Budd, 2004).

Human resource management uses various models to bring and sustain harmonious employment relationships. One of the models it uses is the normative model of HRM that is oriented towards unitary perspective that identifies goals that are common to employers and employees.

Normative model emphasize the importance of aligning business and individual needs through instruments of selection, development, assessment and rewards. This makes human resource management to appear a proactive business strategy, rather than a reactive approach like it is the case with industrial relations.

Business integration of HRM within the overall business decision making makes it more efficient in establishing health employment relationship than industrial relations. Thus, many firms are adopting HRM for management of employment relationships because of its integrated series in the creation of personnel policies to underpin organization strategy of harmonious employment relationship.

Similarly, the human resource management is becoming more preferred than industrial relations for its ability to use descriptive-functional perspective model that emphasize on the importance of partnership between employer and employee.

This approach is engraved in the pluralist approach where there is acknowledgement that consensus cannot be taken for granted and thus, the management has to take into consideration the competing priorities that prevail within the firm.

In response of the economic theory, human resource management view labor as soft or hard. Soft HRM consider employees as valuable assets that should be developed and reinvested in, on the other hand hard HRM consider labor as another factor of production such that a firm should recruit the right number of workers, with appropriate skills and into the right jobs to cut down on unwanted expenses (Befort & Budd, 2009).

McDonald’s is one of the Companies that have disowned industrial relations and embraced HRM. The firm uses strategic HRM tactics to establish a competitive edge over its rival brands.

For instance, McDonald’s selects, recruits competent personnel and then takes them through a thorough program to orientate them to the firm’s culture. In addition, the company adopts significant HRM skills such as employees’ motivation through increased wages. In McDonald’s, there is extensive job differential and the management considers the passion and interest of its employees during placement process.

Thus, McDonald’s uses pluralist approach where Employees have the freedom to air their views. In addition, McDonald’s employees get a chance to experiment new methods to foster innovations and inventions.

However, all departments in the firm are required to operate in harmony as depicted by unitary approach and work for a common objective. Nonetheless, McDonald’s does not inhibit any characteristics of radicalism, where the management exploits employees (Gutterman, 2005).

Conclusion

Proper management of the human capita is important in ensuring high performance in organization. Firms that use strategic approaches for effectively managing their workforce have employees who are highly satisfied with their jobs.

They tend to record low turnover rates and high productivity. Industrial relation is a common traditional approach for managing employers-employees relationship through collective bargaining, use of unions and collective dispute resolutions.

However, because of the emergence of modern methods, which are more efficient in managing employment relationship such as HRM, many companies are moving from the use of industrial relations to adoption of HRM in ensuring strong employment relationships.

Human resource management is more success in ensuring health employment relationship because it is a proactive business strategy rather than a reactive approach like industrial relations.

Human resource management uses tolls such as selection, development, appraisal and rewards to enhance employment relationship between the employer and the employee.

In addition, human resource management stresses the importance for management to recognize that an organization consists of groups with competing interest, which should be listened and assisted accordingly. This approach in solving the conflict of interests between the employer and employees has greatly helped in the success of HRM in ensuring strong employment relationships.

Reference List

Ackers, P. (2002).Reframing Employment Relations: The Case for Neo-Pluralism. Industrial Relations Journal. 6, 7, 34-40.

Bech, S. (2005). Managing Human Resources: Personnel Management in Transition. Oxford: Blackwell.

Befort, S. & Budd, J. (2009). Invisible Hands, Invisible Objectives: Bringing Workplace Law and Public Policy into Focus. California: Stanford University Press.

Budd, J. (2004). Employment with a Human Face: Balancing Efficiency, Equity, and Voice. New York: Cornell University Press.

Carpenter, C. & Raphael, S. (2012).Industrial Relations: A journal of Economy and Society. 51, 4, 143-145.

Daver R.S. (2001). Personnel Management and Industrial Relations. New Delhi: Vikash Publications.

Gutterman, A. (2005). Effective Employees Management: A Case Study of McDonald’s New York: Prentice Hall.

Jayne. (2012).Industrial Relations Practice – Employment Relationship. Web.

Katz, H.C. & Darbishire, O. (2002). Converging Divergence: Worldwide Changes in Employment Systems. New York: Cornell University Press.

Kaufman, B. (2004). The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations. New York: Prentice Hall.

Legge, K. (2004). Human Resource Management: Rhetoric and Realities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Mitchell, D. (2012). Industrial Relation. Employment and Labor Relations Journal. 6, 8,123-126.

Tripathi P.C. (2003).Personnel Management and Industrial Relations. New Delhi: Sultan Chand and Sons.

Introduction

This essay explores the relevance of the saying “when in Rome do as the Romans Do” with regard to human resource management in multinational firms. Multinational firms are organizations that operate in more than one nation. Necessarily, cultures differ from nation to nation or country to country. The import of ‘when in Rome do as Romans do’ resonates with human resource management practices in multinational firms.

In their operations, multinational firms have to conform to the diversity of cultures and beliefs in the host countries in order to avoid conflicts thus guaranteeing good working relations. Some multinationals have had challenges, even stopped operations in some countries, due to not being responsive to cultural differences. For multinationals, appreciating and understanding cultural differences is a necessary obligation towards profit maximization.

When a firm engages or rides on cultural diversity well enough, it is able to create a formidable organization. Diversity should empower and spur an organization to greater heights rather cause problems or disparage operations. When the human resource management function works on cultural differences to its advantage it helps towards minimization of loses while maximizing profit (Harris, 2007, p. 164).

HRM Approaches to Cross-national differences

Human resource management refers to efforts aimed at optimal utilization of manpower contribution in a workplace. HRM aims are optimizing personnel efforts geared at production of goods or services. For a multinational firm, it’s important to have regulations that will ensure that the working environment is conducive to the entire array of multicultural employees. Accommodation of difference is critical for maximization of productivity in a firm.

Tjosvold and Kwok (2003, p. 6) believe that respect and tolerance are a vital ingredient in dealing with individuals from other cultures. Additionally, they point out that accepting other people’s differences should be treated as a moral obligation. They point out that interaction between different cultures must be encouraged to reduce culture shocks. Harris (2007) concurs that interaction helps reduce culture related prejudices and stigmas.

He further advices that this could be achieved by organizing training programs for the employees in the host countries in order to integrate them into the work system (Harris, 2007, p. 164). Cultural immersion or induction helps improve employee’s personal skills and helps them towards appreciating other peoples’ values.

Apart from training, rewarding employees who support diversity can be a good way of encouraging people to move from their cultural safety zones. Managers have to highlight all the contributions achieved due to the diversity of the employees so as to help all realize how beneficial diversity can be (Harris, 2007, p. 165).

Cultural difference affects the way employees handle their respective duties. African Americans have their unique way of interacting that would baffle the Japanese. Therefore, cultural flexibility is an important factor to consider when hiring employees.

Recruiters have to look into finding employees that can do what roman’s do when they get to Rome. It would be pointless getting someone who is too prejudiced against Africans as head of marketing in an African country. Their prejudices will most likely come into the way of their job and affect the organization in a big way.

Another consideration human resource managers in a multinational corporation have to take seriously is homogenizing guiding principles in all the firm’s operational countries. Homogenizing procedures and principles ensures an all inclusive and unique culture is created in the organization. Any employee joining the organization from wherever meets the culture of the organization. By so doing, cultural differences only enrich the working culture in the organization as opposed to becoming an impediment.

Human resource managers have to address themselves to the issue of stereotypes. When dealing with multinational related matters, stereotypes often guide individual’s instinctual reactions. However, stereotypes only become an impediment to organizational operations if an organization has not addressed itself to them. Human resource managers have to institute systematic research and from findings implement guidelines that help workers live interact well with others from different backgrounds.

Similarity in Diversity

Warner (2005) notes that for effective running of multinational firms; human resource managers must address themselves to the psychological, financial and technological perspectives of the firms operations. He argues that the type of technology adopted in an organization determines the firms’ level of production in conformance to the local context. Not all countries are at the same level of development.

Therefore, human resource managers have to be aware of the business environment in different countries. For example, if there is a subsidiary in an African country, the kind of technology available or applicable may not be as sophisticated as what is applicable in the US. Therefore, the human resource department has to address itself to the peculiar characteristics as per business environment and get deserved employees (Warner, 2005, p. 31).

On the other hand, Warner (2005, p. 32) notes, some technical operations remain the same despite place or culture. Therefore, if an organization uses given plants, since the procedures of running such plants are the same, employees to engage in those operations can only be sourced on the basis of competence. Warner also notes that psychology also presents a certain similarity or point of integration.

Psychology is basically depended on nature of humanity; Irrespective of their cultural differences, human beings share similar requirements or needs. They are driven with the desire to fulfill individual goals. Therefore when it comes to employee motivation, the basic assumptions should apply to all employees despite cultural background. In concurrence, Moran et al (2007, p. 31), asserts that the human person will always have a drive to be successful irrespective of his or her cultural beliefs.

Based on the noted similarities, a cross cultural work force should not hamper productivity in an organization. In actual sense, diversity in the work place should add value to operations. Diversity should be a source of unconventional views that offers answers to challenges that arise as a result of assumptions or oversights. Diversity, therefore, becomes a fertile ground for quality judgment and thus strengthens loyalty (Tjosvold et al, 2003, p. 6).

Diversity does not just exist in terms of cultural differences but also in terms of skill level. There are skill differences between experts and non skilled employees in every organization, which could easily lead to a sense of rivalry. However, with proper HRM practices that lead to appreciation of difference or contribution of every individual member in organization, difference becomes asset as opposed to liability.

HR Challenges to Multinational companies in the global economy

Due to technological changes especially in the communication and transport sector, the world has become one integrated market. Most organizations are keen on becoming global players. Globalization of an organization is the process of linking an organization to the worldwide market.

With the emergence of multinational trading, the issue of sending employees to different destinations for assignments has risen. The expatriates should be well versed with the new culture they are bound to encounter in host countries.

Acquainting with the cultures in host countries enables them to be prepared in all perspective for challenges such as adjusting to new laws in the country, learning foreign language and the cultural shock associated with intermingling with the natives. If not appropriately addressed, there may arise the challenge of coping. If the expatriate cannot cope with host country culture it may cost the organization dearly either in terms of poor relations or employee replacement costs.

Even with proper prior preparations, sometimes an employee may not be able to adjust and as a result execute work poorly. Harzing and Ruysseveldt (2004) argue that such an employee becomes a liability to the parent company due to loss of business prospects and damage to company reputation. The employee may also suffer from psychological problems such as low self esteem which further affects her total output (Harzing & Ruysseveldt, 2004, p. 283).

Dickmann et al (2008) narrates that often employees who go abroad face the challenge of establishing prerequisite trust before they can work healthily with locals. He or she is treated with suspicion thus creating tension in the work place (Dickmann et al., 2008, p.20). Such issues have to be looked into by the human resource managers as it may cause poor performance and became costly to the organization.

No matter how well organizations try, it is impractical for a company to conform to all cultures. There often arise certain instances where the organizational culture clashes the culture of the people in the host country.

It is in such instances when the saying ‘when in Rome do as Romans do’ may come in handy. It is upon the human resource management to enhance assimilation of the two opposing factors (Torrington, 1994, 123). Through processes such as market research and aligning organizational objectives to market characteristics, a compromise can be reached.

Multinational companies also have to contend with the challenge of transition, because changes are the order of the day in the global market. For successful transition of any kind to take place, the concerned personnel must have the ability to multi task.

The ability to mobilize other employees, create and enhance opportunity for those with potentials and keep the firm running is of great importance. It requires the personnel to take total responsibility with minimum power in order to effect the transition in a humane manner (Harzing & Ruysseveldt, 2004, p.105).

In a multinational setting, companies are also faced with the challenge of risking misjudging their customers taste as well as being cultural insensitive. For example producing a product that the targeted consumers fail to relate with is a big disaster. Such a grave mistake causes unnecessary costs to a firm (Sparrow et al, 2004, p. 4).

The human resource function can help avert such mistakes from happening. This it accomplishes through getting employees that are familiar with host country characteristics. Apart from hiring measures, the human resource department comes in handy in keeping employees in the know and upgrading their knowledge and skills. Training and development is an excellent way of making employees responsive to host country (Brewster et al, 2000, p.21).

Resolving HR Problems in Multinational Corporations

Each multinational company needs ways of confronting and resolving HR related problems. However, from the foregoing discussions, it is clear that only context responsive programs or strategies can work.

A number of firms are confronting new challenges on a daily basis. No matter the challenge, customer needs and expectations must always be the central focus of a firm thus all strategies have to be customer orientated. Most organizations divulge focus from customer need due to pressure to utilize opportunities for expansion, harsher competitive levels and the need to conform to environmental changes.

Companies strive at keeping highly trained personnel only due to desire to keep inputs that are critical to the vision and mission of the company. Diversity of skills increases the total output of an organization. The management of most organizations, therefore, has capitalized on this factor by strategically turning it to an asset for the organization through taping into unique talents from the available variety (Mendenhall & Oddou, 1998, p. 51).

Multinational organizations incorporate the input of multifunctional personnel to secure the growth of their companies especially when breaking into new grounds. Corporate entities have also ensured that their employees are result oriented through signing of performance based contracts and giving them motivational packages for exemplary performance. Such strategies, not only boosts the morale of the employees, it also enhances their performance and the company gains through high quality end products.

Employees get appraised based on their contribution to the company. Those who perform exceptionally and show leadership potential are noted early and molded by the organization into the desired level (Armstrong, 2000, p. 234). This acts as security against employee turnover in the organization.

HR officers have the task of ensuring that the top management and work force as a whole focuses on the long term business challenges by creating tactical goals and defining the way forward for both the local and overseas subsidiaries (Certo, 2003, p.382).

Consequently, human resource managers have to aptly gather information that is specific to each part of the organization and deal with each part as per its characteristics i.e. doing what Roman’s do when in Rome. When dealing with HR issues for a subsidiary in China, the solutions have to be responsive to the characteristics of the Chinese market.

The human resource officers have to put in place a computer system that tracks the organization’s vital statistical information promptly (Storey, 1989, p. 78). They often tend to embrace the use of collective computer hardware and software that tracks the vital information of the day to day operations of the company (Tayeb, 2005, p. 98). Networking is critical towards ensuring system integration. System Integration is vital for easy generation of reports from centralized data bases.

Centralized data bases, facilitated by adoption of technological tools such as ERP packages, helps HR officers respond to issues promptly. ERP systems enable the organization to detect any anomalies at an early stage and hence act on them on time before they cause unnecessary costs to the company.

Many organizations are now adopting this system of information control to plan ahead. The system is good because it ensures that the correct information is directed to the right personnel who are then able to act upon it with speed. This smooth flow of information allows the company to evaluate the output of its employees, establish their financial status, and ensures the management makes decisions based on precise information. It is such precise information that will facilitate appropriate response to issues on a case to case basis.

Conclusion

The saying “when in Rome do as the Romans do” is sound advice when it comes to human resource management in multinational organizations. Any organization going multinational has to consider the issue of cultural diversity. The companies must be sensitive to the cultures in the host countries.

Understanding the way of life in host countries helps human resource managers to work out and establish a viable working environment for a multicultural mix of employees. If human resource management practices are not responsive to the different cultures, failure is the only possibility.

References

Armstrong, M 2000, Strategic Human Resource Management: a Guide to Action, Kogan Page Publishers, London

Brewster, C., Mayrhofer, W., & Morley, M 2000, New Challenges for European Human Resource Management, McMillan Press Ltd, London

Cengage Learning EMEA, New York.

Certo, S., C 2003, Modern Management: a Digital Focus .Prentice Hall, India

Dickmann, M., Brewster, C., Sparrow, P 2008, International Human Resource Management: A European Perspective, 2nd Ed., Routledge, Canada

Harris, M., M 2007, Handbook of International Human Resource Management, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New York

Harzing, A., W., & Ruysseveldt, J., V 2004, International Human Resource Management, 2^nd Ed., Sage Publication Inc, California

Mendenhall, M., A., & Oddou, G., R 1998, Cases In International Organizational Behavior, Blackwell publishers Ltd, Massachusetts

Moran, R., T., Harris, P., R., & Moran, S., V 2007, Managing Cultural Differences: Global Leadership Strategies for the 21st Century, 7^th Ed., Butterworth- Heinemann, Oxford

Sparrow, P., Brewster, C., & Harris, H 2004, Globalizing Human Resource Management, 1^st Ed., Routledge, New York

Storey, J 1989, New Perspectives on Human Resource Management, Cengage Learning, New York

Tayeb, M., H 2005, International Human Resource Management: a Multinational Company Perspective, Oxford University Press, Oxford

Tjosvold, D., & Leung, K 2003, Cross Cultural Management: Foundations and future, Ashgate Published Limited, Hampshire

Torrington, D 1994, International Human Resource Management: Think Globally, Act Locally, Prentice Hall, New Jersey

Warner, M 2005, Human Resource Management In China Revisited, Routledge, New York

Introduction

In the ABC Inc. case study, some problems have occurred relating to human resource management practices. Therefore, to get a clear understanding of the situation and the way to resolve the issues, ABC has hired my consulting company. After completing the evaluation, the firm is expected to spot the problems and recommend ways of improving the hiring practices of ABC. In the recent hiring conducted by Carl Robins, a number of issues became evident. According to the analysis, the problems are associated with poor time management and planning skills of the newly hired recruiter and, more specifically, the recruiter’s inability to conduct the orientations at the desired time. In as much as ABC is determined to solve the issues arising in the case study, it is required to equip the human resource staff with a comprehensive outline of the hiring process as well as the components of the process.

Background

Carl Robins is a newly employed staff at ABC Inc. within the human resource department. He was assigned to oversee the recruitment of fifteen new campus hires to work with Monica Carrolls, the operations supervisor. The initial phase of hiring was successful in which the recruiter identified the new trainees. The task that followed was to train them. Objectively, Carl scheduled the orientation to occur on June 15, which was more than a month after the new trainees were recruited. He hoped that the new hires would be working for the operations supervisor by July as he did not perceive any challenge during the training process.

As time passed by, Monica noticed that some important items for the orientation were omitted. It appeared that Carl had either not received them or had simply ignored them. As a result, she contacted the recruiter to discuss the training process on May 15. As expected, the recruiter confirmed to Monica that the process would be a success as every problem would be taken care of on time.

In the meantime, Carl decided to resolve the issues Monica had suggested to him. The real situation unfolded when he perused through the files where information from the new hires was stored. It was apparent that the recruiter had many workers to do before the orientation. Indeed, some of the applications from the hires were incomplete, transcripts were missing, and none of the hires had undergone a drug test. On top of these, there were insufficient orientation handbooks, yet the three available were incomplete.

As many people would expect, Carl started to check each and every component of the orientation exercise. He went to check on the training room where the orientation was scheduled to take place. Adding to his frustration, he found Joe, the technician from technology services arranging computers in preparation for another activity that was to occupy the whole month of June. To his realization, the problem of not having a room for the orientation was too much.

Key problems

One big issue is ABC Inc. The company made a big mistake when it assigned Carl the responsibility of the hiring project. The recruiter had been in the company for just six months, which reflects his lack of experience not only with the company policies but the recruitment tasks as well. It is apparent that an inexperienced individual will not be in a position to identify the qualities that make up the desired employee. To heighten the situation, the company assigned this new recruiter a task that was pressured by insufficient time to guarantee success. In essence, the expectation of the recruiter training fifteen new hires and completing the process successfully in that short time is arguably ridiculous.

Another issue that emerges from the case study is the lack of proper planning. Even though Carl accepted the task the company assigned to him despite limited experience in this field, he should have demonstrated better planning skills. He should have set an action plan and identified the staff who could give a hand in regard to information and management. Contrastingly, Carl is not even bothered to look for assistance when he is stuck but seems overwhelmed. He also lacks the proper communication skills that facilitate planning as it is portrayed when he fails to update Monica about the training process.

Another issue also evident in this study is training. This issue covers both the training of Carl and the training policies of the company. It is apparent that Carl was not fully trained in the position of a recruiter. This is because he fails to observe the basic requirements of the training process, such as aligning the process with the department the new hires will work. In addition, the training policy of ABC has proved to be inefficient. It can be argued that the lack of necessary items resulted either from Carl’s ignorance or are not included in the training guidelines of the company. Furthermore, the company does not communicate effectively about its activities as Carl was supposed to be aware of the computer training seminar that Joe was to conduct in June.

These wider deficiencies have resulted in the following problems evident in the case study: missing applications and transcripts, lack of drug testing, incomplete and insufficient orientation booklets, and double-booking with the training room.

Alternatives

In order to correct the situation, several actions must be planned and implemented on time. Apparently, Carl has much work to do, and within a short period of time. This can only be accomplished if he is determined and very careful, ensuring every exercise is moving on smoothly. The recruiter must put extra effort into this endeavor. First and most important, Carlo needs to establish an action plan that must be completed within the remaining weeks before orientation commences. Within the next few days, he should contact the medical clinic and make a date in order for the new hires to get the drug test soon.

After agreeing on the date, he should contact the hires and notify them of the compulsory test and the date set for the exercise. The recruiter should also have the hires complete the applications and ensure their transcripts are filed. This could take several days, but the recruiter must put some pressure to ensure that the hires provide the necessary items on time. He can achieve this by setting a deadline and consequences thereof if the hires fail to abide by the rule. Indeed, these efforts would solve half of the problems.

About the issues of the booklets, Carlo can solely use his ingenuity to solve them. Being a kind of manual, he needs to have just one booklet to complete the orientation. He can use Monica to acquire a complete booklet or complete one booklet by getting the pages from the others, hoping that the missing pages are not similar among the three books. If either of these options is not viable, Carl should contact his superiors and report the matter on time. Indeed, this should also serve as an opportunity to update the relevant personnel on the process.

One big problem that remains unresolved is to do with the room for orientation. This problem reflects the communication weaknesses between the departments as well as poor time management of Carl. However, it is not a big problem as many people will tend to think considering the number of new trainees that will be oriented. There are many options that Carl can use to resolve this issue. First, he can discuss it out with Joe and see how computer training can be postponed. Together, they can also influence the management to adjust the dates of the training processes. In addition to this alternative, Joe or Carl can find another room to conduct their training activities. Finally, Carl can discuss with Joe to see how they can coordinate times to allow the training to take place in the same room.

Proposed solution

The best solution would be that which corrects the current situation and eliminates the possibility of such circumstances recurring. ABC as a whole should consider revisiting the entire recruitment policy to include all relevant components of a training program. Training policy is demanding and requires the definition of roles and responsibilities as the recruiters completely understand the components of the process when conducting training. The good policy describes the duties and limits for effective recruitment as well as setting the expectations of the company of the recruitment process.

In correcting this situation, the most vital thing Carl should do is to make a temporal schedule that he can follow. A schedule that enables him to address the tasks and ensure he is on time with the tasks. This will enable him to resolve the issues and keep up with his work. After revising all the necessary requirements, he needs to keep in touch with the new hires until they satisfy all the needs. Regarding the orientation booklets, he can consult with Monica and maybe get a complete one. To solve the issue of an orientation room, Carl can just find another room that can accommodate his fifteen trainees. There is no need to seek compromise with Joe as the remaining time must be utilized efficiently in order to meet the June 15 deadline. Finally, Carl is advised to seek help and enhance communication with other personnel who can help.

Recommendations

It is Apparent that ABC needs to take up appropriate measures regarding recruitment. For the sake of future processes, I have several recommendations to make. First, the company should never assign the task of recruiting new trainees to a person who is inexperienced, especially when the recruitment involves more than five trainees. It is true that a new recruiter must oversee some recruitment tasks, but this should be done under the assistance of an experienced one. Second, if the company is determined to assign a new recruiter to a task, he/she should be equipped with the guidelines too, requirements of, and expectations from the recruitment process. Third, it would be good to have someone following up on the recruitment process to ensure that the task is proceeding well and the person responsible has no problems. If ABC executes these recommendations, it will be able to avoid any other problem related to the recruitment and training process in the future.

Introduction

Mercy’s is one of the leading departmental stores in the United States of America. This firm has experienced growth over the years due to its effective market strategies. However, the management has recently been faced with the problem of maintaining a team of highly motivated employees. The human resource management unit recently came up with a new project called Total Rewards in order to motivate its employees. The program is meant to offer the employees a number of benefits that will make them feel valued by the management. The program seeks to offer monetary, non-monetary, and work environment benefits to help maintain employees’ morale at this firm. In this term paper, the researcher seeks to develop a timeline for the implementation of the recommendations for the total rewards program.

Timeline for the Program

The stakeholders at Mercy’s have recommended the implementation of three categories of rewards when implementing the Total Reward Program. The first category will be the monetary rewards. The second category will be the non-financial rewards, while the third category will be the work environment reward. It will be important to identify the steps involved when implementing this program, individuals responsible in each of the steps, the overall supervisors, funding sources, metrics used to measure the success, and problems encountered in the process (Moreen and Gross 93). The Gantt chart below identifies the steps necessary when implementing the program.

Table 1: Timeline for the Program Activities

The Gantt chart above identifies the timeline for the implementation of the recommendations given in this program. In order to understand the stakeholders responsible for each step, sources of funding, metrics to measure the success rates, and the problems encountered when implementing each of the recommendations, it will be necessary to look at each of the steps individually.

Awareness creation

According to Gross and Friedman (45), before initiating any project, it is always important to inform all the relevant stakeholders about its relevance and their roles in making it successful. In this project, it will be necessary to inform all the employees, management, and shareholders about the intended program. These three categories of stakeholders will be directly involved in the project, but in different ways. Funding for this activity will come from Mercy’s resources. The success metrics will be how well the stakeholders understand and approve of the new project. Some of the possible challenges expected would be slow acceptance of the new plans among the stakeholders. The head of communication at this firm will be responsible for this process.

Non-financial rewards

The first category of rewards as per the recommendation is the non-financial rewards. These are nonmonetary benefits such as regular employee trainings, annual retreats and get-together parties meant to relieve the employees of the constant pressure at work. The metrics in this case will be the level of happiness of employees at work measured in a scale of 1-5. The stakeholders responsible for this process will be the management and employees of this firm. The head of human resource department will supervise the entire program. This program will be funded by Mercy’s, and to measure its success rate, the appropriate metrics will be the employees’ satisfaction and output rates. The possible challenges that may be met in the process include lack of corporations or proper coordination among the key stakeholders involved.

Work-environment rewards

The work environment matters a lot when determining the level of employee morale. Highly stressful workplace environment may lower their output. This program seeks to address issues such as the employee-employer relationships, work hours, flexible jobs, and peer relations. The main stakeholders involved will be the management and employees. The metrics will be the level of employees’ satisfaction measured in a scale of 1-5. The head of human resource will be the supervisor. This program may not need funding because it only involves a change in the management strategy. Lack of appreciation of the new efforts is one of the biggest challenges when using this program.

Financial rewards

Financial reward is one of the widely used incentives when planning to motivate the employees (Manas 114). It may involve giving bonuses, increased salaries and allowances, or financial rewards to the best performers. The metrics in this case will be the percentage increase in employee’s remuneration. The stakeholders will be the shareholders, management, and employees. The head of finance will responsible for this process. Finances for the project will be obtained from the accounts of Mercy’s and the productivity of the employees will be the appropriate metric. Limited financial resources at the firm may a problem when implementing the strategy.

Project assessment

The last stage in this program will be to evaluate the overall success rates of the entire project to determine if the overall objective was achieved. The shareholders, managers, and employees will be the main stakeholders, with the managing director being the overall supervisor. The program may need to be funded by Mercy’s because it may involve bringing of the external auditors. Misinformation and integrity issues may affect this stage of the project.

Works Cited

Gross, Steven and Helen Friedman. “Creating an Effective Total Reward Strategy.” Holistic Approach Better Supports Business Success 20.1 (2004): 45. Print.

Manas, Todd. Creating a Total Rewards Strategy: A Toolkit for Designing Business-Based Plans. New York: American Management Association, 2002. Print.

Moreen, Bob and Steven Gross. Striking the Right Balance: Total Rewards that Work. New York: Cengage, 2014. Print.

Broadbanding

• In broadbanding, the job grades verses spot salary is used in making the decision.
• Broadbanding is critical in managing human resources since it accounts for the value of every unit of labor given in line with job group.
• Implementation of broadbanding is very easy and economical.
• In broadbanding, it is easier to identify exemplary performance from employees.
• Broadbanding has created a very flexible means of managing the labor force.
• Broadbanding is associated with limited internal pay relatively, especially due to the fact that the system has little control in the progression of salaries.
• Broadbanding is not suitable for properly structured organizations with clear hierarchical order and defined roles for the different groups of employees.
• Broadbanding suits organizations that are flat (flexible and tolerant to lateral movement.
• Highly structured organizations should adopt the traditional multi-grade structure in salary verses role determination.

Factors to Consider When Applying Broadbanding

• Pay satisfaction is a central element of employee attraction and retention.
• Pay adequacy and equity are the determinants of pay satisfaction.
• Equity theory requires employees to be evaluated through comparison of the ratio of their inputs and outputs with the ratio of input and output of other employees.
• The inputs take different forms. For instance, what the job contributes, the extra role behavior exhibited by the employee and personal contributions.

How to distribute the pay rise

• In most cases, the management distributes annual pay rise uniformly to all employees. In such cases, it is computed as a percentage increase of current salaries of the employees.
• However, the hard working employees might feel unmotivated since non hard working employees also receive the same share.
• As an alternative, management often distributes the pay rise based on the performance of the employees. This ensures equitable distribution of the pay rise. There are steps that the manager needs to follow to achieve this equitable distribution.

What Will Make Broadbanding a Success

• Training and development form part of organizational strategy mostly because organizations are characterized by numerous expansions without and within the region. Consequently, there is a need to merge organizational skills, knowledge, and culture with the new challenges and demands of broadbanding (Heathfield 2011).
• Organizations need to use broadbanding largely because they operate in a highly competitive sector. Broadbanding ensures that the company remains ahead of the competition.
• Management ought to realize that there is no better way to achieve this rather than through the use of broadbanding, training, and development.
• Further, the management should evaluate the effectiveness of broadbanding in realizing the goals and objectives of the company. Finally, the management of the company should use the outcomes of broadbanding system in decision making that relate promotions and transfers within the organization.

The Scope of Broadbanding

• Broadbanding involves jobs grouping depending on responsibilities, duties and accountability level.
• Broadband can be aligned to the stature of an organization.
• Broadbanding widens ranges of salary in the organization to ensure that there is dependable and reliable career development, flexibility, and competitiveness.
• Broadbanding is critical in classification of jobs against pay expected.
• Broadbanding ensures an up-to-date description of jobs in an organization.
• Broadband application is critical in eliminating any possible bureaucracy involved in responsibility placement.
• Classification in broadbanding is as broad as the name suggests. It classifies managers, assistants, and other workers in groups that form part of a triangular hierarchy of control.

Advantages of Broadbanding

• Broadbanding is a critical tool for updating the job descriptions in an organization in the form of systemized language that can be applied across the organization departments.
• Broadbanding eliminates bureaucracy and unnecessary barriers that exist in the responsibility placement and compensation system in the decision to decide on the payment plan at the departmental level of management.
• The process ensures competitiveness in the market. As a result, aspect is likely to contribute towards employee retention and attraction, especially those with special skills that are in constant demand.
• Broadbanding is flexible to organizational changes and can also adopt or maintain the required threshold in change management.
• Broadbanding is critical in supporting sustainable career development endeavors among employees as the departmental management may be in a position to implement career planning designs.
• Broadbanding provides a comprehensive integration mechanism for the remuneration-related policies and values of an organization.

Disadvantages of Broadbanding

• Broadbanding does not accommodate external market rates in defining salary structures of an organization. If a manager goes ahead and offer the market rates, he or she may remain at a fix since broadbanding has no midpoint. Thus, broadbanding limits the use of compa-ratio management tool.
• Broadbanding is likely to lead to series of inequalities in the labor segment of an organization. The sole trust in management and its flexibility may culminate into inequalities in salaries. For instance, it is very easy to identify a duo within the same broadbanding responsibilities but have a substantial earnings variance. Therefore, broadbanding in this view is likely to weaken the skill development against salary growth determinant in an organization.
• Broadbanding is subject to manipulation by reckless managers who might over pay a worker within the same band and neglect others doing the same responsibility. This is likely to kill the morale of the employees and lead to discrimination.
• Broadbanding lowers the opportunities that are often available for promotions in the organization. In fact, the organization must be careful not to lose its talent as employees who have stayed for long in a position may opt to exit for other organizations that have enough room for promotion.

Alternative to Broadbanding

• The traditional multi-grade structure is also an important tool in grouping jobs in an organization.
• This method works best in a highly structured organization with a well organized bureaucratic system of management.
• For this method to work best, the organization must have its rules that must be followed even by the managers in remuneration decisions that must be supported by scientific explanation.
• Under the traditional multi-grade structure, the current market rates are periodically reported to management to align the salaries to the prevailing market rates.
• Besides, it has very many and distinct job classifications with different salary options.
• However, the system does not respond so well to market swings and organization change programs that are designed to cut costs.
• In traditional systems, promotion automatically results in progression of pay in line with the new position.
• In addition, this system is fair to employees since it controls the discrepancies between salaries paid to different staff depending on their job description, roles, and responsibilities that are often harmonized.

Recommendation

• Efficiency and strategic implementation of broadbanding creates value for the organization. Efficiency stage aims at designing the system.
• It views a human resource system as a means to higher productivity and efficiency.
• In addition, the phase views labor environmental management as a foundation of preventable costs for the organization.
• The phase emphasizes on reporting, risk avoidance, systematic human resource management, improved efficiency, and engagements (Hallman 2000).
• A company should endeavor to mitigate risks surrounding its business so as to have a favorable report that meets the requirement of Triple Bottom Line reporting framework.
• A suitable approach is the balance between broadbanding and the traditional system. The balance should be well structured and aimed creating a motivational work environment.

Conclusion

• HR management deals with management of labor in an organization.
• Operations function is central to any business because it deals with merchandise.
• As a whole, operations management contributes to the organizational strategy through employee satisfaction, reduction of risks resulting from operational failures, reduction of the amount of investment, and providing a basis for future innovation among staff members.
• Employees are useful determinants of success of an organization. They need to be adequately motivated to ensure execution dates in the organization’s strategic plan.
• Broadbanding is necessary in achieving this since it provides for flexibility and has defined responsibilities and roles for each job group description. Broadbanding functions best in flat organizations with little or no comprehensive hierarchical order of management.
• However, the organization may also opt for the traditional system since it gives room for promotion and salary increments that are the main factors that determine employee ‘retainability’.

References

Hallman, G. (2000). Broadbanding. Web.

Heathfield, S. (2011). Human Resources: Broadbanding. Web.