Challenges Facing Human Resource Practitioners in Multinationals - Essay Example

Name: Course: Lecturer: Task: Semester: Date: Table of contents 1.0…Introduction……………………………………………………………3 2.0 …Human-resource challenges…………………………………………..3 2.1...Human resourcing- recruitment and selection……………………….3 2.1.1.. Hiring the right talent………………………………………………….4 2.1.2.. Family issues…………………………………………………..………4 2.1.3.. Age and recruitment………………………………………………..…5 2.1.4.. Where to recruit from…………………………………………………5 2.2…Employee learning, training and skills development………………..6 2.2.1.. high cost of training……………………………………………………7 2.2.2.. Talent poaching………………………………………………………..7 2.2.3.. Implementation………………………………………………………..8 2.2.4.. training in soft skills…………………………………………………..9 2.3…Performance management-reward and appraisal………………….9 2.3.1.. Setting targets……………………………………………………….10 2.3.2..Rewards………………………………………………………………10 2.3.3.. Appraisal……………………………………………………………..11 3.0…Conclusion……………………………………………………………11 References ………………………………………………………………….12 Challenges facing human resource practitioners in multinationals in the quest to achieve individual and organizational performance 1.0 Introduction Due to they being in a multiplicity of environments and regions, multinationals have very unique problems to do with the human resource and thus should be having robust human resource management that is able to respond top the particular problems facing the organization (DuBrin, 2008). This paper attempts to bring in light issues relating to three particular problems facing human resource managers in multinationals and how the manager should respond to the problems. The issues are expounded on under the headlines; human resourcing, employee learning, training and skills development, and performance management- reward and appraisal. 2.0 Human resource challenges 2.1 Human resourcing – recruitment and selection Multinational firms have their presence around multiple countries in the world or states within a large country like the US or Australia. They have to occasionally fill top management positions in some countries or stations as they expand their reach or if they want to effect some changes into the branches due to low performance of the current management (Dowling & Festing , Engle, 2008). 2.1.1 Hiring the right talent A study by Anderson (2005) points out that one of the challenges is getting somebody with a mix of competency and interpersonal skills to consider for the assignment. While it is easy to get a competent person in terms of the technical skills that the management is looking for, it is difficult to find that the same competent person has the desired interpersonal skills that will enable him relate well with new people who might not necessarily subscribe to his culture and work ethic (Anderson, 2005). However as a human resource manager I can successfully overcome this by looking within the company to identify competent individuals for the position, those who understand our operations as a company and our way of doing things not forgetting the protocols. The individuals must also have the right technical skills. I can asses his/her profile in the company to review his/her interpersonal skills. Huo, Huang & Napier (2002) in their research suggest that the candidate should be a person who is proven to work along well with others in the company and has excellent organizational skills. 2.1.2 Family issues Another challenge that is most common and probably the biggest concern for the expatriates are the family concerns. Anderson (2005) research indicates that 94% of failed expatriate missions could be attributed or related to dissatisfied spouse and children. As a matter of fact the missions have to disrupt the normal family life of the individual to be considered as he/she has to either relocate with the spouse or be left behind and cope with the new state of affairs. Both options have their own set of challenges. Study by Huo et al (2002) indicates that spouses who leave their partner behind are prone to having low motivation in their job if the other spouse is unable to cope with the separation. As a human resource manager this is a major concern which I can assess by informal or formal interview of the candidate to know how they can cope with that reality. I can have an informal session with the other spouse to understand their concerns since including them is not usually advisable due to the legal implications involved: it is viewed as discriminatory in nature (Anderson, 2005). 2.1.3 Age and recruitment During recruitment, age is another factor that has to be put into consideration. The law is against any form of discrimination based on age, sex, race and other identities. It is therefore illegal to discriminate on age (CIPD, 2007). To a human resource manager it is a major challenge to package an advertisement in a way that he will reach his targeted recruits while at the same time staying within the law so as not to damage the image of the company and probably risk the company being sued for discrimination. The key is that advertisements should be made in manner that does not seem discriminative on the basis of age and also should give clear instructions to the recruiting agency so that they do abide by the discrimination laws and don’t plunge the company into court cases and negative publicity (CIPD 2007). 2.1.4 Where to recruit from Another challenge is choosing whether to recruit from within the company or from outside. Both of these have their advantages and disadvantages. As a human resource manager the most appropriate thing to do is to analyze the benefits that the company stands to gain from either of the two. If the benefit in one outweighs the benefits other then the latter has to be avoided (Alistair McKinnon, 2003). Recruiting from within the company is cheap as the company will not go through the advertising and hiring of professional agencies in the recruitment process another advantage is that the persons you get will be conversant with the company and how it operates as such they will not incur high expenses in training and will take less time adapting. Also it will serve to boost the morale of the employees and encourage healthy competition amongst them. However it is highly probable that fresh ideas will not be introduced in the company since no new talent joins the workforce (Rothwell, Starvros & Sullivan, 2009). Still it is likely to cause discomfort and feelings of inequality in those not selected. Recruiting from outside provides a large pool of talent to choose from and is very beneficial whenever the company is ready to make a radical change in its operations, however it can be costly and may as well result in hiring of incapable people who will need a lot of resources to train. In light of these realities the human resource manager has to decide which source is the best for the benefit of the company both in the short run and in the long run (Locke & Latham, 2004). 2.2 Employee learning, training and skills development Employing the best and the most qualified employees in the market is not enough, a company has to invest in training and developing their employees in order to achieve maximum productivity in their company (Randolf, 2000). One of the major reasons why companies have to train their employees is because they may have not been in an environment like theirs before and as such they only have a theory of what they are supposed to do. This is as a result of mismatch between what the market is demanding and what the training institutions like the universities are supplying (Reilly & Williams, 2012). Poorly designed curriculums in schools often don’t give a student what he/ she is expected to produce outside there in the market. It is a challenge to the human resource mangers to settle on a potential employee who will incur fewer expenses in training. It is for this reason that many advertisements to job position have a certain minimum working experience in a similar position (Assenmacher. 2012). 2.2.1 High cost of training In highly capitalized manufacturing concerns the human resource managers are tasked with ensuring that their employees are technically capable of handling advanced machinery (Flanagan, 2006). In many instances the company might not be in a capacity to train the employees and have to send their employees to specialized laboratories so that they can gain the required skills that they need to perform the complex tasks. It can be very costly to train and develop- a single individual in the company in terms of financial and other resources (Thomson, 2011). 2.2.2 Talent poaching While training and developing of your employees is a beneficial move that will benefit the company in the long run, a particular down side of this is that once you have trained and developed an individual it does not mean that you own them (Cummings & Christopher, 2009) . They are free to go and work wherever they please for as long as they are not breaching the contractual agreement they have with the company that trained them. This is very rampant nowadays; of big multinational companies loosing highly talented managers and CEOs to rivals and big players in various industries. To prevent this, companies have devised clever ways of retaining talent like having clauses in their contracts that ensure the individuals who are trained stay with the company for a certain period of time when the company hopes to have recovered their cost of training and also to have reaped the benefits of training and developing the individuals. The human resource manager especially in the multinationals are expected to draft this contractual agreements and explain them to their employees when they training them. 2.2.3 Implementation Another challenge is the implementation and follow-up of training programs within a company. A well intended training program cannot only be achieved by the theory part. The managers have to create programs whereby the employees who are to be trained are assigned supervisors or line managers that follow up on their progress and guide them on the training program (Becker & Huselid, 2006) . Getting these trainers can be challenging and the dilemma is always whether to look for the trainers from within the company or from outside the company. The latter only comes to inspect the progress while the former is always with the trainee and follows up on them. Each one of them has its pros and cons however it is better to have the internal trainers as they are dedicated and responsible for anything that goes wrong in their watch (Siders, George & Dharwadkar, 2001). 2.2.4 Training in soft skills In the 21st century the focus is changing from the training in the technical aspect of a job to even accommodate previously negligible aspects as interpersonal skills, stress management and team spirit. Big multinationals are investing a lot of money to train their staff on these so called soft skills. This is in response to problems and challenges of achieving individual and organizational productivity (Hawkins, 2011). Workers in multinationals are diverse and have to develop excellent interpersonal skills that will enable them interact with fellow colleagues in a productive manner. Also the companies ensure that their employees are motivated and have a strong team spirit through team building activities so that they can work hand in hand towards achieving the company’s goals and ambitions (Simons. 2011). It is essential that a human resource manger knows that he/ she can be able to tackle major problems like poor performance through training the work force on these skills especially stress management. A challenge is finding the right person for the training job. However there are specialists in this field who can be attached with the company for a certain period to train the staff members (Hawkins, 2011). 2.3 Performance management – reward and appraisal It is important that a company gets to know who amongst their employees is performing and who is contributing the least to the company and reward each accordingly. This is what creates the need for performance management (Greenberg & Baron, 2002). Performance is measured against the targets set by the company for individuals and for teams in the organization. Reaching the appropriate targets can be challenging however a human resource manager can easily reach at the targets by involving objective members of the staff who can come up with the expected targets to be set (Macleod & Clarke, 2009). Organizational performance is measured against the general objectives of the company especially in the short run which cumulatively contribute to the long run performance. 2.3.1 Setting targets Getting to know the required targets is one step. But maintaining the desired organizational performance is a big challenge to many human resource managers however it is the line manger that are responsible to ensure that performance is maintained and that it is measured at every particular level to analyze the workers to know the workers that are contributing positively to the organization. The line mangers have been overlooked but they are the answer to the challenge of having to tracking performance amongst employees (Purcell and Hutchison, 2007). 2.3.2 Rewards Rewarding employees is highly encouraged as a method of motivating them and encouraged as a way of encouraging staff members to work better (Kakabadse, Bank & Vinnicombe, 2004),. The major challenge in this field has been that some employees feel they deserve but were not rewarded or the reward they got was too small to be a reflection of what they achieved. They feel short changed and in some cases they may allege biasness and unfair treatment (Darling & Foglioso, 2004). Balancing between rewarding hard workers in the company and having the whole work force motivated is a great task that takes the effort and prudence of an experienced human resource practitioner. 2.3.3 Appraisal Appraisal is another method of recognizing personal effort of an individual by having them promoted to senior or a privileged position as a way of rewarding them for a good job they have done to the company. This can only be achieved through an efficient method of measuring performance and comparing all the individuals in the company. This can be problematic if it is handled by the wrong person. Thus the human resource manager has to have a team to do appraisals and give recommendations on how performing individuals ought to be rewarded (Nohria, Groysberg, 2012). 3.0 Conclusion While it is a fact that human resource managers and practitioners have a lot of challenges in their dockets, human resource mangers in multinationals are faced with a little different challenges that call for advanced techniques and knowledge. As evidenced in the paper above the challenges range from very minute ones to complex ones but they all have affect the performance of the company. References Alistair McKinnon, (2003), Decision Making in Organizations, [PDF] accessed online on 11/Oct/2012 from http://homepages.inspire.net.nz/~jamckinnon/business/Decision-Making%20in%20Organisations.pdf Anderson A.B, (4 April 2005) “Expatriate selection: good management or good luck?”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Routledge Assenmacher. K. 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