Introduction
Focusing on global human resource management is essential in the era of globalization and continuous company expansion. It offers a myriad of principles and practices that help ensure the efficiency and flexibility of corporate culture and visions, which might be challenging to some businesses. Establishing expectations and values and matching the desired culture with HR practices, such as performance management and compensation plans, is critical to optimizing the outcome of a culture change endeavor.
Chapter Summary
Chapter 16 is dedicated to global human resource management and how various stakeholders are affected in such a context. It intuitively gives an overview of the situation to facilitate readers’ understanding. In many nations, changes in migration and population trends affect the availability of labor (Valentine et al., 2020). Companies expand globally to reach clients, partners, and staff (Valentine et al., 2020).
As a result, an organization can broaden its global reach through outsourcing and offshoring (Valentine et al., 2020). Using nationals of home countries, parent countries, and third countries is part of staffing global businesses (Valentine et al., 2020). Furthermore, it is mentioned that there are behavioral, emotional, and cognitive components to intercultural competency (Valentine et al., 2020). Overall, the chapter allows one to see the intricacies of HR practices in times of globalization and corporate expansion.
Case Study Summary
Carlsberg Group’s case facilitates readers’ understanding of the importance of HR practices. Since its establishment in the late 1800s, Danish brewer Carlsberg has expanded through acquisitions to rank fourth globally in beer production (Valentine et al., 2020). Carlsberg Group endeavors to maintain a mix of conventional, corporate-driven processes and bespoke practices tailored to each local context, such as many other multinational enterprises (MNEs) (Valentine et al., 2020).
The business’s leadership team launched an organizational culture program called Winning Behaviors to foster a culture that would encourage employees to lead the industry continuously (Valentine et al., 2020). A planning session was arranged to find a shared culture that all business leaders could support (Valentine et al., 2020). The output of this varied group’s labor was a collection of five Winning Behaviors that would respect regional needs while still applicable across the organization (Valentine et al., 2020). Overall, the Winning Behaviors cultural program has yielded positive results.
Leadership Questions
Establishing the Preferred Culture
Leaders are essential in creating the ideal culture for a company with many locations and subsidiaries. To guarantee consistency across all locations, the responsibility of leaders is to define and promote the company’s principles, vision, and intended culture. For example, leaders at headquarters can contribute to setting direction in the workplace (Valentine et al., 2020). Their responsibility in such circumstances is to communicate the values and ensure an understanding of the overall offered corporate strategy. Moreover, the role of leaders at headquarters is to provide guidance (Valentine et al., 2020).
In other words, such leaders must support local executives when implementing cultural initiatives. Here, resources, tools, and practices are the responsibility’s foundation. Finally, leaders have to monitor the progress and assess the overall strengths and weaknesses of the implemented initiatives (Valentine et al., 2020). Various metrics and feedback mechanisms can be applied in this case. Therefore, leaders at the headquarters establish the culture appropriate for the organization and its subsidiaries.
Meanwhile, local HR professionals are responsible for following the directions and guidance provided by the executives. For example, human resources professionals must focus on the localization of the initiatives and adjust the culture to suit the local needs (Valentine et al., 2020). Additionally, their role lies in implementing the policies and practices to align with the local culture (Valentine et al., 2020). In this context, recruiting, performance management, and employee engagement are the main focus areas. As a result, while headquarters and local HR professionals have the same goals, they have different responsibilities.
Cultural Tenets
A company’s performance management and compensation strategies should consider cultural values for several reasons. For example, employee behaviors, aims, and performance align more closely with the intended culture when performance management and reward plans consider cultural norms. Whenever team members are rewarded for the behavior and results that align with the culture, it reinforces the importance of cultural alignment in daily work (Valentine et al., 2020).
Moreover, when cultural tenets are considered in the performance and compensation programs, a message about the company’s commitment to the desired culture emerges (Valentine et al., 2020). In other words, the organization sets specific employee expectations, encompassing their behaviors and preferred results. Finally, cultural tenets enable businesses to establish a structured framework for measuring and evaluating employee performance (Valentine et al., 2020). Thus, without attention to such an area, allowing both employees and divisions to grow will be challenging.
Delving deeper into the consequences of neglecting to update the corporate culture, one can see how the success of a culture change initiative may be compromised. For instance, there might be a misalignment of values and principles. If employees do not receive a clear message about what is appropriate and praised, mixed signals can confuse the team. Additionally, inconsistent standards will be evident since they will create inconsistencies in how employees are evaluated and rewarded. Overall, improper updates of the corporate culture will lead to inequality, eroding trust and morale of the team.
Actions of the Carlsberg Group
After considering the role of leadership and alignment of compensation and performance programs with the corporate culture, it is necessary to review the actions of the Carlsberg Group. The corporate leadership team launched a corporate culture program to foster a culture that would encourage employees (Valentine et al., 2020). The first step to success is to find a shared culture that all of the company’s leaders could support, so a planning session was arranged (Valentine et al., 2020). The second step was to allow the HR department to lead the program’s implementation and integrate it into hiring performance management and training procedures (Valentine et al., 2020). Therefore, successful outcomes were possible by delegating and collaborating on the initiative.
Conclusion
In summary, to maximize the results of a culture change initiative, it is imperative to set objectives and values and align the intended culture with HR procedures, such as performance and remuneration strategies. Leaders must establish and advance the organization’s guiding values, vision, and desired culture to ensure uniformity among all sites. Eventually, it will be difficult to permit divisions and personnel to grow without considering cultural norms.
Reference
Valentine, S. R., Meglich, P., Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. (2020). Chapter 16: Global human resource management. In Human resource management (pp.568-622). Cengage Learning.