The Role of the International HR Manager
For many people international HR management (IHRM) is synonymous with expatriate management. IHRM, however, covers a far broader spectrum than just the management of expatriates. It involves the worldwide management of people. Although International HR (IHR) managers undertake the same activities as their domestically-based colleagues, the scope and complexity of these tasks will depend on the extent of internationalisation of the organisation. In this article, Dr Hilary Harris, Director of the Centre for Research into the Management of Expatriation (CReME), examines the factors influencing the role of the IHR manager and how this affects choices in terms of IHR policy and practice.
Differences between Domestic and International HRM
In any organisation, the primary objective of the HRM function is to ensure that the most effective use is made of its human resources. To achieve this, HR professionals undertake a range of activities around sourcing, development, reward and performance management, HR planning, employee involvement and communications. If the organisation has a strategic HR function, these activities will support and inform organisational strategy. HR professionals are also used extensively in organisational change and development initiatives.
The IHR manager will also be working to the same objectives, however, the scope and complexity of their role is increased as a result of working across borders. A useful model of the nature of international HRM is presented below:
Source: Adapted from P.V. Morgan 1986. International human resource management: Fact or Fiction, Personnel Administrator, vol. 31, no.9, p44.
Figure 1. Model of International H...
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...c partner, the IHR manager should equally advise senior management of any mismatch between stated organisation internationalisation goals and actual IHR practice. One major European airline found that although they had a stated business objective of being a global organisation, their actual HR policies and practices were almost completely ethnocentric!
The Centre for Research into the Management of Expatriation (CReME) is a joint collaboration between Cranfield School of Management and Organization Resources Counselors Inc. (ORC). CReME is based at Cranfield University School of Management in Bedfordshire, Telephone 01234 751122
References
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Trompenaars, F and Hampden-Turner, C. (1997) Riding the Waves of Culture. Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London.
“Hr is shifting from focusing on the organisation of the business to focusing on the business of the organisation” (Zulmohd 2011). David Ulrich points out four distinctive roles of HR which makes the organisation most effective and produce competitive advantage. He planned to change the structure of HR function and build HR around roles. The four key HR roles identified by Ulrich, one HR business partner/strategic partner – aligning HR and business strategy which plays an important role in setting strategic direction. It builds strategic relationship with clients and strategically manages the development of the workforce. The second key role is administrative expert which creates and must deliver effective HR processes made to tailor business needs. It also involves managing people and HR related costs. To continue to the third key role, change agent which understands the organisations culture, and takes the responsibility to communicate those changes internally and gain its employees trust. The final key role identified by Ulrich is employee advocate which is a core in HR role represents employees and helps to improve their experience, protect employees’ interests and confirm strategic initiatives are well balanced. Employee advocates must also “ensure fair, ethical and equitable people processes and practices.” “David Ulrich’s HR Model is about defining the HR roles and
Paul, S. 2010. The role of the corporate HR function in global talent management. UK: Elsevier
Research differentiates the domestic human resource management strategy as, “simpler and easier for manager structure because the business is done on a particular territory, inside specific national culture and business environment,” (Slavić, Berber, & Leković, 2014). On the other hand, globalized companies have trouble with such things as observing the host country’s national cultures, their local regulations, and working around the impact of any new technologies that are required to do the job. Both strategies require effective communication, implementation, and performance
In an increasingly globalized world economy, the aggravation of global competition, the most important factor of national competitiveness are highly qualified and motivated employees (Storey 2007). Gubman (1996) pointed out the three challenges for the organizations that will never change: first, the major mission of human resources is to gain, develop, retain talent; second, adjust the workforces with the business; lastly, a superlative contributor to the business. Moreover, human resource management is characterized by the fact that the staff seen as an important strategic resource for the organization, which requires investment, modernization, planning, staffing, training, etc. This paper will introduce an overall review of the International Human Resource Management (IHRM) theories and studies. The analyzed concepts and approaches will be applied to the case study about Yarden Mex chain of Mexican Grill Restaurants and its Subsidiaries. The paper will include definitions of Global Talent Management (GTM) and Global Diversity Management (GDM). In
What are the HR Strategies that management must undertake and support to create a successful global presence to insure the success of an organization in meeting its goals and mission?
Mortimer, D. and Leece, P 2002, Search for a Theoretical Focus: Human Resource Management or Employment Relations: International Employment Relations Review, Vol. 8 (2), Australia
While there are many various global issues that affect the International Human Resource Management to run efficiently, there are two key concepts that play a major role in understanding how to approach them with cohesive and a well coherent strategy; they are the International Human Recourse Management Strategy and Understanding the Cultural Environment. In the International Resource Management strategy, many companies will do their research in finding companies that offer the following:
Tayeb, M. H. (2005). International human resource management: A multinational company perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.
Now this has become critical due to increasing number of international assignments. Yet, this has placed a great challenge for international firms HR practitioners. In order to minimize these, they are coming up with different HRM functions that will help employees, which are from different cultural backgrounds to work together. One of these critical function is expatriate’s pre-departure training
Throughout the previous 20 years or longer, Multinational Corporation and partnership have changed remarkably. Most importantly, for business to compete successfully and remain competitive, employers must have competent supervisors international to differentiate their business’ strategy. Employers operating abroad must first understand the correlation among their Human Resource leaders, their company’s strategy and their firm’s performance; therefore, the owners should trust its Human Resource leaders to select and recruit chief executives and the type of staffing policy. Multinational firms have a choice among three staffing strategy that have its pros and cons, such as ethnocentric, polycentric and geocentric.
High turnover rate of expatriate: expatriate managers are frustrated with the performance and practices of local employees. And they do not have enough international experience and cross-cultural communication and sensitivity training.
Fundamentally, the company should engage in the practice of International Human Resources Management (IHRM) as a strategic approach over and above technological change management. Undeniably, such results in some advantages for the firm. For instance, diversity at the workplace leads to the formation of stronger teams of workers, with diverse ideas and capabilities of input into the company. Also, other MNCs like Ford and McDonalds engage in such practices that promote globalization of their business approach. Other advantages of the globalization strategy involve the aspect of low cost of business operation, numerous tech-savvy professionals that are well versed in the English language, a 12 hour difference in time from the United States- facilitating provision of 24/7 services, and capability of handling numerous kinds of services from customer support to research and
Not only does these assumptions are bases of society, but also people’s preferred modes of conducts. In HRM, managers in multinational workplaces need to be someone who is adaptive to different preferences at work. Specifically, expatriate, because he/she has more possibilities for exposure to cultural differences. The reason is, many firms send expatriate to overseas subsidiaries for flows of information and administration. Also, headquarters can achieve control through both socialization and formal report provided by the expatriate (Schneider, 1988). Every national expatriate has his or her own way of doing things. For example, in USA, managers would adopt a more formal and impersonal
The internationalisation of the organizations has made the International human resource management function (HRM) complex. The IHRM has many functions that are the same as that of HRM. However, due to the internationalisation of the companies these IHRM functions must be accommodated to manoeuvre on the large scale while keeping in view, the more complicated and diverse business goals of the respective MNC (Dowling et al., 2009).This essay gives an insight into different roles of the IHRM in the multi-national companies (MNCs) and how these roles differ between the MNCs. Although IHRM performs significant activities in the (MNCs), the jobs performed by IHRM vary in different MNCs depending upon the strategy and structure of the respective MNC that is the degree of integration and centralisation. Also, the IHRM’s role differs between the MNCs on the basis of the size, nature of the business and the institutional and cultural context of the MNC. First, the essay briefly describes the terms that would be relevant to the essay. Second, it
However, repatriation is one aspect of international assignments that has been somehow overlooked. Most literature on international human resource management (IHRM) for the most part focuses on expatriate settlement in the host country of assignment. Not as much of the required concentration has been focused on preparing expatriates for homecoming, notwithstanding the facts regarding the complexity of settling back at home and reports that nearly all expatriates are unhappy with the repatriation process. In view of the fact that the world is becoming more integrated leading to more global deployment of employees, the repatriation process calls for added attention (Furuya et al 2007).