Introduction
The covid-19 pandemic has caused a lot of changes and disruptions in organizations, such as working patterns and national economies globally. Since the pandemic, it seems like the changes are still going to remain in place even after effective vaccines have been found. However, many organizations are overwhelmed by the challenges of the pandemic, such as measuring the employee’s performance and solving the disruptions seen in the performance-based pay (Aguinis and Burgi-Tian, 2021). This has led to a reduction and even abandonment in the performance of human resource managers as a result of the complexity brought about by the pandemic. Human resource practitioners can use various strategies such as establishing a positive workplace culture, offering incentive programs, improving workplace communication, and using the available technology (Hamouche, 2021). The covid-19 pandemic has changed the human resource landscape, such as staffing, working pattern, and workplaces globally.
Work Place Changes
There are various ways in which the world’s response to the pandemic has resulted in a rapid transformation of the workplace. For instance, working from home has become the new normal. Moreover, digitization from firms to customers has transformed into digitizing the relationship between employees and employers (Nagel, 2020). A lot of employees have been forced to learn fast-tracking trends such as digitization and automation. However, those that have refused to change will find themselves at a high risk of layoffs and financial distress. Rapid reskilling is among the most prevailing changes in workplaces.
The fast adoption of new and advanced technology is the key catalyst to change which is also likely to create new opportunities. Changes in the workload are most likely to cause an imbalance in the allocation of resources. In addition, changes in the workplaces have resulted in a place where workers work in a more agile way. It is unprecedented to have a lot of staff working from home from all over the world (Matli, 2020). Many business leaders are finding the most affordable ways of operating. Having discussed the changes, below are ways in which multinational organizations have responded to changes.
Response to Changes by Multinational Organizations
A firm that has most of its operations in more than one country is referred to as a multinational organization. In order to operate correctly, it must have various employees, such as inpatriate, Flexpatriates, and expatriates (Maley, Moeller, and Ting, 2020). Flexpatriates are employees who the company sends on frequent but short-term international assignments. Inpatriates are employees from foreign countries who work in the country in which the headquarter is located. At the same time, expatriates are employees who work and temporarily reside in a foreign country. Multinational organizations are taking the appropriate measures to ensure that their employees are safeguarded as well as to respond to new challenges (Bailey and Breslin, 2021). However, organizations have identified strategies that can help them succeed in international assignments, which are discussed below.
How Organizations Can Achieve Success in International Assignments
International assignments are very fascinating for a wide range of reasons. However, there are also many reasons in which executing these assignments can be challenging for organizations. For instance, companies might lack culturally fit people to live in a certain country. To achieve success in the execution of these assignments, organizations should make sure they train all the employees on the challenges they are eligible to face (Chen, 2019). For instance, they should arrange for coaching and mentoring schemes before hiring employees from a country other than the host. Additionally, before sending employees to a different country, the company should provide relevant resources that help to understand the key aspects that usually cause cultural shock. This assignment can help reduce stress and ensure that the work is done efficiently (Rios, 2021). They should also prepare their employees for cultural immersion, educating them that they should manage their expectations to fit in any place.
Response to New Challenges by Multinational Organizations
There are various ways in which multinational organizations can respond to the new challenges posed by the pandemic. There are five functional areas of international human resource management: development and training, international staffing, remuneration and compensation for the international workforce, international labor relations, and development of managerial talent in a global business environment (Cooke et al., 2019). The first significant function, development, and training aim to offer sufficient training to the company’s staff to enable them to fulfill their goals. International staffing is a significant part of dealing with challenges since when the global market moves to a new market, they might require hiring local staff that can help efficiently with the growth.
Remuneration and benefits to the international workforce help keep the employees motivated and productive. Once the employees are appreciated, they can work effectively to achieve the company’s goals (Stone, Cox, and Gavin, 2020). This is one of the most effective ways that multinational organizations use to face the challenges within their daily operations. Lastly is the development of managerial talent in case there is a need for the advancement of skills (Cohen, 2018). For instance, since the pandemic, the structure of most organizations has changed, forcing managers to develop their skills so as to match the constant changes. Managers identified various approaches which are discussed below, that have helped them deal with continuous changes and challenges.
Ethnocentric Approach
One of the approaches to international human resource management is the ethnocentric approach. In this approach, all the positions that are found in the host countries are filled by the nationals of the parent company all over the world (Jiang and Yahiaoui, 2019). This is significant as it helps the parent company in managing all the operations in an efficient way. For instance, an organization would relocate one of its existing employees to the host country to work effectively. It also helps in dealing with challenges during the pandemic, such as retaining competent talents in their organizations (Dobrowolski and Sułkowski, 2020). During the pandemic it became easier to implements an approach as organizations did not have to spend a lot of money on additional trainings for workers with different backgrounds. This is the best approach as it helps better coordinate the operations in the host and those in the parent company.
Polycentric Approach
The polycentric approach is the method in which the international subsidiary of a country hires team members from the host country instead of the parent’s homeland. It is significant because it helps the subsidiary country better understand the host company’s local needs. It also maintains low hiring costs since once staff is employed, they are ready to start right away, therefore, minimizing the relocation costs. It also helps in facing challenges during the pandemic since cross-border restrictions made it hard for people to work in foreign countries. Decreasing revenues caused many bankruptcies during the pandemic and this approach has become effective in dealing with the expansion challenge. With the help of the polycentric approach, international organizations were able to manage relationships with their existing clients without facing a lot of issues (Vetráková and Smerek, 2019). Therefore, their operation could continue smoothly without any hardships since the employees in the organization are all related through their geographical locations.
Geocentric Approach
The geocentric approach is a technique of international recruitment where multinational cooperations hire the best candidate for the job despite their nationality. The MNCs have their presence in the country of operation, which also means they have the resources to do so. This approach assists international organizations in dealing with challenges during the pandemic since experts always have ideas for dealing with an issue that is presented to them. One of the challenges they are able to deal with is the inevitable changes brought about by the pandemic. Experts always have new ideas that help in encountering constant changes. The reasoning behind this approach is that the world is full of talented people, and the most qualified candidate should be appointed for the job despite his nationality as they are eligible to help with a lot of issues that might arise (Tayali and Sakyi, 2020). Pandemic problem helped many businesses to understand the value of employees from different cultures and maintain their performance by working with professionals who are located in distant locations.
Regiocentric Approach
The regiocentric approach is an international recruitment method where managers are picked from various countries within the same geographic region. In simpler words, staff is selected from the regions that closely resemble the host country. The managers are.0able to be productive in the neighboring countries since they are within the same geographic region of the business (Muthamia, 2019). Some multinational organizations prefer this form of approach since the nationals of the host are in a better position to encounter challenges that are posed to them in that region. For instance, the staffs in that region are at a better position to understand the problems that might arise in the market than the staff from foreign counterparts during the pandemic. When some businesses were in the first stages of moving to other countries at the beginning of the pandemic, switching to geographically similar locations helped to survive in new markets.
International Human Resource Theories
Human resource theories are a general term for tactics and strategies used by international organizations to address the new challenges posed by the recent pandemic. Some of the theories include strategic contingency theory, general systems theory, organizational theory, and transactional theory. For example, the strategic contingency theory is based on two concepts: strategic and contingency (Niemand et al., 2021). According to this theory, a leader becomes a significant part of the organization due to their skills. With such skills, leaders will be able to solve the biggest challenges that others might be unable to solve. During the pandemic, leaders with an increased problem-solving skill became multitasking and had to follow the performance of the organization and how well the staff is trained.
General systems theory is the other concept that is primarily applied in international human resource systems. A system is a cohesive conglomerate of interdependent parts that are either human-made or natural. The main aim of the systems theory is to model a structure’s constraints, dynamics, and conditions, and to elucidate principles that can be applied to other systems to achieve optimized equality (Jackson., 2019). Some systems support other systems, enabling them to prevent failure and even encounter challenges. Such systems have helped international organizations select the appropriate candidate for the job during the pandemic as the search has expanded globally.
Organizational lifecycle theory is the approach that observe that any organization have a life cycle. This theory recognizes that organizations are born, grow, develop, attain maturity, and then begin to decline, eventually dying in many cases (Mosca, Gianecchini, and Campagnolo, 2021). These help an organization understand the stages of a lifecycle that they are in so that they can face challenges appropriately. The ways in which a company is organized can help in determining the controls it has over transactions (Adam, 2019). This theory has helped international organizations deal with challenges such as minimizing employees to maximize profits. Because some businesses experienced decreased sales, managers had to fire some workers to ensure that the organization would survive. A clear understanding of the business lifecycle allowed professional leaders to find the right approaches to workers and ensure that firing can work.
Challenges Faced by International Assignees and IHR Managers
There are a lot of challenges that international human resource managers encounter as they execute international assignments. Most of them are work-related since the expatriate employees encounter cultural indifferences, legal risks, and ineffective recruitment as well as a selection of employees. Many expatriates are forced to learn the culture in that region to fit in, which helps them increase their productivity (Jawad, 2021). The culture shock most of them face affects their productivity since they encounter language barriers as they try to fit into that culture. Moreover, they might be faced with legal risks since they are employees in a new country with new rules.
Individual challenges such as self-esteem, pressure to perform in a new region, and individual personality are some of the things that international assignee face. Most employees find it hard to adjust to the host countries as they are also faced with the pressure to perform (San Jose, 2022). This might affect their self-esteem and self-efficacy, hence affecting their work performance even if they are the right candidate for the job. In addition, poor selection of workers and partner unhappiness can also affect the employees while executing their international assignments (Caligiuri et al., 2020). A lot of people are qualified at faking skills so that they can get a job.
However, when they are given the job, they face the challenges of executing it due to a lack of skills. Retention of an international employee in the host country is a significant challenge to employers. This is because, upon completion of the work, retaining an employee is very challenging and costly (Majid, 2020). Once they are taken back home, most employees encounter career direction loss since their careers developed according to a foreign country.
Recommendations to Avoid International Assignments Failure
Human resource managers can help minimize the rate of international assignment failures through cultural analysis development. Cultural analysis is the study of other cultures so that a person can fit appropriately in that culture and avoid culture shock. Companies should teach their employees about various cultures, such as languages, foods, tools used in that region, and their way of living (Azizi et al., 2021). They can also use managerial mentoring or coaching to avoid international assignments failure. Coaching focuses on short-term skills, whereas mentoring focuses on long-term methods. Coaching focuses on naturing specific skills and is more task-oriented and operational. It takes a lot more time and input than just giving instructions to the team members (Stahl et al., 2020). This is because the new members must go through the though-process to understand the unique perspectives and the conclusions reached.
Argumentative Approach
The covid-19 pandemic has shaken all companies, enforcing a complex and challenging environment for the human resource managers. The HRM have been forced to find solutions which enhance the continuity of the company and to also help their companies cope with the constant changes. Moreover, multinational organizations have employed theories and strategies which helps them in dealing with the challenges. Financial problems have touched many businesses; it might take a lot of time to return to the previous performance level.
Counter-argumentative Approach
However, the pandemic helped a lot of companies in embracing the new and advanced technology. Change is painful and for people and companies to experience change, they must go through challenging stages. Human resource managers are adapting well to the constant changes brought by the pandemic. Even though the pandemic caused more disadvantages than advantages, survived companies have set more straightforward goals using advanced technologies.
Conclusion
Since the pandemic outbreak, the role of human resource managers has changed and become dynamic. The pandemic disrupted a lot of organizations and forced administrations to rethink their ways of facing the challenges posed to them. Even though the human resource assignees have encountered a lot of hardships before, the rapid global spread of the virus has brought in a new struggle. For instance, international HR have to develop new ways, such as the five functional areas, which help them respond to new challenges. HR’s job has changed significantly as workers should pay attention to both argumentative and counter-argumentative aspects of the problem to apply relevant solutions. Even though covid-19 has decreased performance, it is important to find positive elements in the situation, like switching to technology.
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