HR assignment on: Expansion of Business
1. ABSTRACT
In the era of globalisation, organisations would be compelled to expand their business abroad. It is a necessity for an organisation to spread & widen their scope for growth & survival. For HR managers today, there would be more challenges in order to manage the complexities of transformation. HR managers play a very important role in an organisation & are upgrading themselves to face the challenges.
This research paper discus the challenges the organisation would face when deploying expatriates overseas. It also focuses on human resource management skills that could be utilised to handle the situation.
2. INTRODUCTION
2.1 About the company
HCL Technologies is a $5.5 billion & one of the leading IT service company, working within the areas that redefines their core businesses. HCL focuses on ‘transformational outsourcing’, featured by value creation & innovation and provides accumulated portfolio of services including software-led IT solutions, engineering and R&D services, remote infrastructure management & BPO. Established in the year 1976, it is India’s prime IT setups.
HCL has a team of over 77,000 professionals of varied nationalities & has a wide network amongst 29 countries providing comprehensive, multi-service delivery in verticals comprising of Consumer Services, Financial Services, Consumer Services, Manufacturing, Consumer Services and Healthcare. HCL has affiliation with leading overseas 1000 companies.
At HCL, there has been an individual Enhancement Programme. This assures Support, Transformation, Recognition, Empowerment and Knowledge. In spite of this program, there have been various hurdles faced by the HR personnel’s while deploying expatriates overseas.
An expatriate refers to a person permanently or temporarily residing in a country, having culture other than the person’s upbringing. An expatriate is a person living in another country from where he/she is a citizen. The term is sometimes used in regard to the professionals sent abroad by their companies. (Pucik and Saba, 1999)
2.2 Challenges while deployment of expatriates
Indian Multi National Companies face various challenges while deploying the employees overseas. There is a need to maintain synergy between fair employment process and enterprise justice, and high performance for global competitiveness & effectiveness.
Some of the challenges that would be faced by the HCL while deploying the employees are enumerated as under:
- Expensive Undertaking
One of the major challenges the organisation would face in deploying expatriates overseas, would be Financial Failure. Most of the expatriates would not be interested to relocate as cost of living abroad is very expensive & hence, they would return back home.
Therefore, the organisation must consider all the expenses well before moving abroad. The organisation should to be on top of your finances before you even pick the nation you’re moving to. Failure to get your finances in good order could well see you struggle or fail to fulfil the expatriate dream lifestyle abroad. (Beverley, 2009)
- Language Barriers
The other major challenge organisation would face deploying an employee would be because of language barriers. Man is a social animal & in order to communicate one must be aware of the regional language. This would create hindrance. The expatriates would struggle if they are not aware of the local language.
It would also create an isolating atmosphere for the employees & lead to loneliness & home sickness.
- Cultural Barriers
Another challenge organisation would face while transferring the employee abroad would be because of the cultural barriers. It would not be easy for any organisation to adopt the culture of some other country soon. The employees would face many problems working in such an environment. Cross-Cultural barrier would also lower down the morale of the employee. The employee would not be at ease & would feel left alone.
For example, in case of Procter & Gamble, employees with their families are sent to spend 3 months in Beijing for cultural familiarization and language training.
- Technical Expertise
Further, the employees would not be able to cope with the technology used in the host country. The staff would take time to adjust with the way of accomplishing things.
Unless and until the staffs would be well versed with the technology, he/she would not be able to contribute anything towards the enterprise. Proper training sessions would be required in order to train the personnel.
- High Cost involvement
The other challenge HCL would face while transferring the employees overseas would be due to the high cost involvement. An organisation invests huge amount of money while transferring an employee from home country to the host country. If an employee wants to expatriate with its family huge cost would be involved. The organisation would be required to calculate the total cost of living, including cost of schools, etc.
- Personal Motives
HCL would also face many problems as employees would not be willing to deploy from home country to abroad due to some personal reasons. They would not be ready to leave their families alone.
- Flexibility & Adaptability
HCL employees would find it very difficult to adapt themselves to a new culture. This would mark another challenge for the organisation. The employees would not be able to adjust with the day to day regime & will find it very difficult to adapt the new culture.
- Business Practices
Another critical challenge that would be faced by HCL would be due to the difference amongst the business practices. Each & every country has different ways of completing their tasks. The employees would take time to be a part of such schedule. The employees would be dissatisfied; this would lead to loss of man hours. (Beverley, 2009)
3. RECOMMENDATIONS
In order to overcome the challenges listed above some recommendations to HCL are listed as follows:
- Training & Development
¨ Culture Specifics
¨ General Culture
- Learn to adapt
- Motivation
- More incentives
- Promotions & Rewards
Before expatriating a person abroad, the HR managers would be required to see whether the person would be able to cope up with the change or not. After analysing the same, the challenges mentioned above would be taken into consideration & certain ways/steps would be used in order to overcome with the challenges. (Wright, 2001)
The first & the foremost recommendation to the company would be proper training & development programmes should be organised by the organisation before sending the employee abroad. The basic objective of training would be to help the enterprise achieve its purpose by adding value to the people it employs. Training refers to the investment in people to perform better & make the best use of their abilities.
The HR manager should take into consideration the cultural barriers as well as the language barriers. Organisations derive a competitive edge from training and development. Thus, in order to eliminate the deficiencies in an employee appropriate training & development should be granted. (Evoy, et al 2005)
HR managers should keep the employees motivated by providing them with various incentive schemes. The HR managers should convince the employees to move abroad as they would get an opportunity to explore the ideas & learn new things. This would help the employees to enhance its carrier & take up greater responsibilities which would also give them a sense of recognition. (Brock, Shenkar & Siscovick, 2008)
Money is the biggest motivator & HR managers should use it in order to motivate & encourage them in order to work sincerely. While deploying the employees, their income should also be revised. Their income shall be at par the cost of living in the host country. The employees should have adequate amount of money in their hand in order to live their livelihood at ease. (Ulrich & Brockbank, W 2005)
Regular incentives should be awarded so that they feel motivated & are ready to relocate.
The HR staff should also give the employees promotions at regular intervals. This would give the employees motivation & encouragement to work hard, adapt the culture & be flexible. Performance of the employees should be measured & rewards to be distributed for the same.
HR managers should be accustomed with & understand other cultural patterns to promote organization distinctiveness. While competing in a foreign market, employees from different backgrounds should possess language skills and should also understand of other cultures.
HR personnel should also be made responsible to train the staff regarding cultural sensitivity. The HR professionals should guide the employees to be flexible & adapt the culture.
Time to time motivating the staff by either providing them with the incentives, promotions, etc would help the organisation to sustain in the global market. Unless and until the employees would be satisfied, they would not contribute towards the accomplishment of the goal of the organisation. (Schleifer, 2004)
Sometimes, the employees would not be able to adapt with the new surroundings, place colleagues, & superiors, therefore, the employee should not be disheartened but, give himself sometime to learn & get habitual to it. (Kochanski & Ruse, 1996)
4. CONCLUSION
Ingenious HR professionals are constantly adapting & investigating leading practices that might help the organisation to have an edge, and learn how to reinvent and use these norms in their own enterprise. (Cardy, 2007)
Like Cisco systems, they would look for creative & new ways to motivate, retain attract people. HR professionals are excellent at benchmarking. This helps them to hook up with whatever the leaders are doing.
Most of organisations are becoming multinationals. They are expanding their businesses into other countries & becoming global. Human Resource Management is becoming an important element in today’s world that helps to deploy talent in firms.
Human Resource Management policies & practices for deploying expatriate employees is becoming a very important issue. A lot of research on IHRM is being conducted.
For example- how to remunerate, select, organisationally & culturally integrate expatriate staff into the host country.
Moving to stay abroad, settling into a new nation, making new friends, learning a new language & meeting new faces, are positive but realistic challenges that expatriates have to face ahead.
Over the last 20 years, there has been an increase in technology; globalization & innovation HR professionals all over the world are bound to be more efficient, more competitive & more effective.
They should respond to the requirements of global competitiveness by being more accustomed with language skills, diversity promotion & cultural awareness.
Furthermore, HR managers must be committed to rigorous learning, being familiar with cultural as well as the cutting edge communication. If the HR professionals won’t pay much attention to their changing roles, serious effect could result, which includes the degradation or even elimination of the HR division.
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