INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCING
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Managing a workforce is challenging. It can be difficult to do this when the workforce is scattered over several countries with different employment laws and customs. Many international companies transfer 留学生论文网employees from one country to another and this involves preparation integration and re-integration issues.
The basis of this Topic is a presentation by Val Lockhart, the HR Manager of Partnership Aberdeen. Val was the local officer for Unison in Aberdeen and ran her own Employment consultancy prior to her current appointment with Partnership
Topic Content
INTERNATIONAL RESOURCING

AIMS:
• Examine the reasons why international resourcing takes place
• Review the types of policies adopted and types of overseas staff
• Review some research on international attitudes to work
• Consider the cycle for international resourcing
• Examine some of the factors affecting success or failure in the management of expatriates

WHY DOES INTERNATIONAL RESOURCING TAKE PLACE?

IMPACT OF INTERNATIONALISM ON EMPLOYEE RESOURCING

• Global operations – Businesses now operate in their home country, but have overseas operations where these offer cost efficiencies, strategic gains or market opportunities which the domestic market does not offer.

• International competition – As a consequence of global operations, competition is now global. Drives to improve profit margins by operating in a market where employment costs are lower or to bring in specialised knowledge of a particular market may move a company to employ foreign workers

• Managing a workforce across national boundaries – International resourcing seeks to put in place coherent and consistent employment strategies for all the countries in which a business operates

• Communication – communication of employment strategies is clearly important. This extends from the offer of employment, the contract, putting in place guidelines and policies to dealing with dismissals, terminations and redundancies where necessary.

REVIEW OF POLICIES

OPTIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS

• Exporting – As has been seen in earlier Topics, exporting is often the most cost efficient means of doing business overseas. The impact on employment terms is usually minimal since it is unusual for an overseas workforce to be recruited and most of the employment needs can be met from either the existing workforce or by recruitment in the domestic market.

• National operators who take-over foreign companies – This brings with it not only a new workforce, but also often new employment and Human Resource practices. It takes time to integrate these and there can be issues about interchangeability of workers. These issues will be touched on later. There can be considerable difficulties if the takeovers result, as they often do, in redundancies. There will be issues of employment protection legislation and how these impact on a business which has several overseas branches. It is not uncommon to find that local employment protection legislation can make it difficult or expensive to dismiss overseas workers.#p#分页标题#e#

• Strategic alliances/Joint Ventures – These often combine existing workforces and it is common for these to be staffed by workers who are seconded in from the parent companies. There are often issues to be addressed of integration of workforces and the alliance or joint venture often needs to develop its own standards and procedures.

• Foreign Subsidiaries – These are where the parent company sets up its own wholly owned subsidiary overseas. It is common for the senior management team to be seconded from the parent company. Even if they are employed directly by the subsidiary company, they are very often from the home country of the parent company. The middle management and shop floor are local. This arrangement requires the senior management to have an understanding of local customs and employment laws and to act with some sensitivity towards the locally sourced employees. Senior employees should be trained in the local language, but regrettably, this is not often the case.

APPROACHES TO INTERNATIONAL RESOURCING
• Ethnocentric
Where the basis of recruitment is the ethnic origin of the employees

• Polycentric
Where the basis of recruitment ignores ethnic origin.

• Geocentric
Where the basis of recruitment looks to the geographic location of the employees.

• Regiocentric
This is similar to the geocentric approach, but looks instead to the wider region – e.g. Europe, South Asia, and South America.

REVIEW OF ATTITUDES TO WORK

In this section we will look at the different attitudes to work in different countries.

Have a look at this table:

• Italy 75%
• Germany 46%
• France 42%
• US 32%
• UK 31%
• Sweden 22%

Can you suggest what proposition they might be agreeing with and which they might be disagreeing with?

• The main reason for hierarchical structure is so that everyone knows who has authority over them.

• In order to have efficient work relationships, it is often necessary to bypass the hierarchical line.

INTERNATIONAL DIMENSIONS

Some work related values appear to be nationally-determined

One of the challenges which Human Resources face is integrating different work cultures. Even within Europe, these differ a lot, for instance consider the following:

EUROPE – GERMANY

• rules and regulations oriented
• strong decisive leadership
• conservative towards organisational change
• formal in work relationships

EUROPE – FRANCE

• centralised organisational systems
• autocratic, a need for rules and regulations
• competitive approach to decisions and actions
• managers expected to ‘know the answers’

EUROPE – ITALY

• personal ties, family and patronage important in business/management#p#分页标题#e#
• authoritarian – but informal, based on personal relationships
• employer-employee relationships based on personal criteria
• meetings are sounding boards to gain consensus rather than decision-making bodies

EUROPE – SWEDEN

• employee involvement emphasised
• democratic style of management
• greater emphasis on equalities issues
• greater involvement of HRM in development of corporate strategy

Other countries also have widely differing attitudes, even within industrialised countries.

UNITED STATES
• HR Management – born in the USA, most of the underlying theories and practice originated in the USA
• More emphasis on strategy than elsewhere, strong organisational culture, employee involvement, performance orientated approach, reduction of union power, few employment rights individually or collectively.

JAPAN

• Lifetime employment
• Seniority wages system
• Quality and flexibility, the concept of ‘continuous improvement’
• ‘just-in-time’, quality circles

Consider the following question and the results in the table below.
‘It is important for a manager to have at hand precise answers to most of the questions that his subordinates may raise about their work.’
• Japan 78%
• Italy 66%
• France 53%
• Germany 46%
• UK 27%
• US 18%
• Sweden 10%

Do you agree or disagree with this question? What do you think it shows about the different cultures?

Do any of the responses surprise you? If so, why?
• HR solutions which work in one country may not be acceptable in another, even if the employer is the same

CATEGORIES OF OVERSEAS STAFF
Human Resource professionals tend to divide overseas staff into three categories:
• Expatriates

These are employees from outside the country, employed full time.
• Occasional parachutists
These are also employees from outside the country, but they are seconded in or contracted in for short periods, eg when a company takes over a foreign company and creates a subsidiary it is common for employees from head office to be sent over on short term contracts to review the business systems of the new acquisition and to try to bring them in line with those of head office.
• Cosmopolitans
Many companies employ personnel who move from one country to another and from contract to contract.

We will refer to all of these as expatriates for simplicity and this reflects industry's usage.

DIFFICULTIES WITH EXPATRIATES

• High failure rates
There are high failure rates for expatriates and we will look at reasons for this in the next section.

• UK better than US?
The UK has traditionally been successful at sending expatriates abroad. During the past 200 years, the UK has built up a tradition of working abroad, be it Scots in Canada, Irish in America or English in India. Today, many Scots still work abroad and the advent of the oil industry has continued this tradition. It is not uncommon to find Scots in Houston, Texas, Rio de Janeiro, Jakarta, Azerbaijan and Nigeria all working in the oil industry.#p#分页标题#e#

• Is it increasingly harder to get willing expatriates?
The following section may address some of the reasons why it can be difficult to find willing expatriates.

INTERNATIONAL RESOURCING CYCLE

• Phase 1 - Recruitment and selection
• Phase 2 – The assignment period abroad
• Phase 3 – Repatriation

PHASE 1 – RECRUITMENT & SELECTION
• Being clear about the competencies and behaviours necessary to succeed
• Language skills, previous experience
• Personal circumstances conducive to working overseas
• Awareness of overseas cultures, ability to adapt to different values and norms
• Technical competence in the job

PHASE 2 – THE ASSIGNMENT PERIOD
• Preparation – cultural familiarisation, team-working skills development
• Management development and support – NB culture shock
• communication

PHASE 3 – REPATRIATION
• The greatest problem – reintegration (Johnston, 1991)
• Good planning
• Problems of readjustment, post allocation, lifestyle change, competence changes

SUCCESS OR FAILURE?

SOME SOLUTIONS

• Selecting the right people

• Importance of preparation and training

• Setting criteria for success

• Establishing career development plans

• Support in post and domestic arrangements

• Properly planned repatriation

Topic Activities

SELF REQUIRED AND DISCUSSION GROUP
Draw up a list of Scottish characteristics or cultural traits, and then a list of US characteristics or cultural traits. Write these down so that you can feedback to the class.

1. Which traits are similar and which are different?

2. Choose two traits which are essentially Scottish and two which are essentially American – how could these traits affect styles of recruitment, selection, reward and communication?

3.留学生毕业论文网 Do the same but instead consider characteristics or cultural traits from your own country and compare them with what you think are those of Scotland and with those of the USA.

[30 mins]
Further Reading
Schmitthoff Part Three