IMT – 74: MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCE IN GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

PART – A

Q1. Why do HRM personnel need to be more involved with the personal lives of the employees?

Q2. Explain hierarchical approach in building MNCs.

Q3. Outline the reasons for using international assignments.

Q4. Discuss the selection methods followed in acquiring talent for international operations. 

Q5. List out the purpose of diversity training. 

PART – B

Q1. Discuss hardship allowances.

Q2. How does mentoring helps in repatriation?

Q3. What are the challenges, the HR professionals encounter in retaining staff both in the parent country as well as in the host country?

Q4. Mention two strategies used by trade unions to be effective.

Q5. What are the trends in international division of labour?

PART – C

Q1. How can the home office perception of performance be problematic?

Q2. What are the criteria for evaluating the performance of top management personnel? 

Q3. What are the sources of cross cultural misinterpretation?

Q4. Give the dimensions that are used by Hofstede in differentiating cultures.

Q5. Mention the ways in which e-enablement of HR processes are advantageous.

CASE STUDY – I

Japanese managers appear to be more concerned with the long term implications of their decisions and actions and more willing to make current sacrifices for future benefits.

They are more likely to encourage subordinates to participate in decision making and acknowledge suggestions from them. Partly because of this participation, they are not likely to make quick, unilateral decisions. Communication between managers and subordinates is more indirect and subtle than in the USA. Managers try hard to avoid embarrassing co-workers in private or in public. They get to know their co-workers well as individuals and show concern for their welfare outside the workplace. In the West everything is relatively segmented; in the East it is holistic. Life and work are not seen as two entirely separate dimensions.

Question:

1.    If you are transferred to Japan as a manager of a group of 18 Japanese people what precautions will you take in communicating with them?

CASE STUDY - II

Does absence make the heart grow fonder or is it a question of out of sight, out of mind? Companies say that international experience is essential for future leaders because business is global now. Expatriates say that service abroad has limited their opportunities for promotion. So what is a career minded manager to do? For personnel managers , the question is how to persuade people to accept foreign postings. In search of answers, a hundred or so attended a conference on managing expatriates at the Center for International Briefings.

John Bueno, a country manager for BG International accepts that less seniority is the price of the expatriate life he loves. Bueno has been away from England since the summer of 1986, when he took his family to Houston, Texas. Today he is nearly a year into an assignment in Bangkok and there have been many in between. “If you want to make a career out of working overseas you’ve got to realize that there will be opportunities for promotion back home you’ll miss out on, and a slower progression within the company.” He says. “If that’s going to upset you, stay back. You’ve got to be pragmatic about it.” Three years in Houston were followed by four years in Kuala Lumpur. “During the last year there I was asked to help in Bulgaria, and I must have been the only guy on the planet, commuting from Kuala Lumpur to Sofia – two weeks on, two weeks off,” he says. The next move was to Bangkok for eighteen months; then came three wonderful years in Argentina before returning to Thailand. “It’s very difficult leaving kids but we have been able to send them to schools we could not have dreamt of affording.” Many of today’s first-time expatriates accept only short-time assignments because they will not be parted from their children.

“The company pays for four return flights for us and the kids to meet up. But the compensation package is not as lucrative as it was many years ago,” he says, “and doesn’t make up for one of the pair having to give up a job.” Bueno keeps his name in the frame during his visits home, by constant telephone contact and by inviting his colleagues to visit.

Bueno spent his early childhood in Bolivia and always wanted an international career. He says,” I find it fascinating working in different environments. I like changing jobs, getting to run my own show. The name of the game is to manage ever-larger assets, which brings more challenges and opportunities. I see the world and the way different people do business. The variety is wonderful and the experience is a privilege. Communication is the biggest problem; in some places it is excruciatingly difficult. You kid yourself if you think you’ll get to know the locals, but everywhere I have worked there’s an international community within the industry.

“You’ve to have a high tolerance level and a lot of patience otherwise it’ll drive you round the bend. But however daunting and difficult it may seem, I’ll recommend it.” BG has more than 130 expatriates. Most are on three-year assignments, mainly in South America and Middle East. Susie, a personnel adviser says: ”Expats are high maintenance. It’s the remoteness, absence from family, lack of infrastructure, frustrations with local bureaucracy, and unreliable telecommunications. We give them a lot of handholding because they cost us so much.” The typical cost of an assignment is three times the salary, so mistakes are expensive.

And yet a fair number of mistakes are made. According to the report of one research, ”One quarter of a sample of 125 European expatriate managers said they were unhappy. They said they had been given a ‘rosetinted view’ of their assignments, that important promises had not been kept and that as a consequence their commitment and performance had suffered.”

The Institute of Personnel and Development says that companies often chose the wrong people as expats – “can-do, thrusting executives, who are not good at adapting to different cultures.”

SmithKline Beecham ensures that its expats are ‘in the pot’ for consideration when senior jobs are filled, by means of its succession-planning system.

Colin Davie, senior vice-president, human resources, Africa Business group, Unilever, says:” The nature of expatriation is changing. We need to internationalise our business so it’s as important for us to move our people from Ghana to South Africa as it was in the past to move them from Holland to Indonesia. Moving people is something we will always have to do well.

“People now demand much more transparency and openness about the whole deal. We have a manager in each region to help with all aspects of culture change, and a senior person back home acts as a counseling contact and helps the individual to progress in his or her career.”

Questions

1. What are the hardships of a foreign posing?

2. What kind of a person you should recruit for international assignments?

3. You can send your best people for international assignments only if you ensure that their career does not suffer. What steps you’ll take to ensure that?

4. What can happen if a multinational does not take care of its expatriates?