Introduction
The increasing rate of globalization and growth of local and international markets have prompted companies to venture and conduct their business operations across the borders. The firms are taking advantages such as a stable political atmosphere, advancement of economies, and other related factors to pursue the markets in the host countries. To enhance the efficacy and proper performance of the entities overseas, the respective corporation’s human resource management (HRM) department assigns staff members to work and manage the business activities in the international market. To ensure the personnel delivers their best to the companies interest, firms are forced to ensure the individual has a good working environment to enhance their commitment. HRM of the parent firm has to consider several factors before sending employees and maybe their family members to take responsibilities outside their home country (Guo, Jasovska, Rammal, and Rose, 2018). When making global mobility policies, business organizations should consider relocation logistics, cultural differences, labor standards, Health and Welfare, and other important aspects (Ruggie, 2018). Taking into account these factors would enable the business entity to experience great performance in the host country’s economy.
Relocation Logistics
An organization should ensure the person taking the international assignment is provided with the necessary support needed for relocating to the host country. The company has to implement a procedure by which, after the intended purpose is completed, the employee is brought back to the home country (Krifors, 2021). In most cases, workers tend to move with their family members to the foreign nation, so it is upon the management to devise a policy that would guarantee them their safety and security when the staff member is undertaking the corporation’s duties. It is necessary for the firm to implement ways by which it will offer care and needs for the assignee that are essential for their stay in the host country.
Training Employees on Societal Culture
During the formulation of global mobility policies, a company should incorporate the need for cultural training to the personnel ready to take the assignments. Working in foreign markets can be challenging following variations in the societal norms and values in those countries (Sageder and Feldbauer-Durstmüller, 2019). Therefore, to ensure mobile workers adapt effectively in the host country, the firm must develop an effective program that would enable the assignee to obtain necessary and adequate training on the people’s values. When the employees familiarize themselves with the locals’ way of life, they find it easier to blend effectively in the foreign country and thus are able to conduct a successful operation (Tsourvakas and Yfantidou, 2018). The process would ensure the company does not suffer failure in the emerging economy due to culture shocks on its staff members.
Convergence and Divergence Issue in HRM
The management of an organization should include ways of handling the variations that can exist between the HRM practices of the host country and those of the business setting. In most cases, the general activities converge across the globe in areas such as managing and using the available resources. Similarity or dissimilarity must be considered so that employees in the foreign market can apply the relevant practices in the market (Zhu, 2019). Therefore, it requires the organization to have deep insight into the roles of HRM that might diverge from parent nations so that assignees are updated accordingly in what is expected of them. The firm should then develop a converging point or formulate criteria of achieving a common converging point in the international HRM to accommodate the activities conducted abroad by the department.
Employee Resourcing
Employee resourcing is a critical process that should be incorporated in the mobility policy of employees. The main aim of an organization venturing abroad is to take advantage of the booming emerging economies in other countries and be effective and efficient; the company should ensure workers’ capabilities match the need of operations (Serafini and Szamosi, 2021). There should be a proper procedure for recruiting and selecting staff members to take and manage the overseas responsibilities of the organization. The company should verify the qualification of the personnel to enable the selection of the individuals with the right competencies to secure the positions. Competent workers would ensure all the activities are performed accordingly and achieve the firm’s success and performance. The policy should include viable HRM processes allocating qualified people to their areas of specialization to facilitate productivity and increase outcomes.
Labor Standards
International labor standards are key considerations that a company should include in its policies of global mobility. The firm’s guidelines should incorporate the agreements by players in the foreign market. A business organization must ensure it set forward essential values that provide employees’ rights, their job security and compensation are measured and valued based on the international scale. Putting into consideration these factors would ensure the entity can manage its workers in the host country with ease hence it will not suffer setbacks due to employees’ turnover (Ashraf and Prentice, 2019, p. 98). Merging the relationship between employment and transnational context will allow the corporation to be at the forefront of executing its business activities with ease due to limited resistance from assignees in the subsidiary firm. Furthermore, it can be useful for the entity to solve labor disputes and a tool for a collective agreement.
Legal and Regulatory Requirements
Generally, governments have policies and regulations that govern business activities within their jurisdictions. Some countries have specific laws for foreign companies seeking to venture into the local market. Therefore, it is necessary for any organization to include ways by which they will deal with the legal and regulatory needs of the host country in their global mobility policy. During the preparation of the guidelines, the firm should ensure it explores and establishes a viable procedure to ensure it is not impacted by the measures imposed by the other country’s authority. For instance, some nations require that all foreign employees to have a work permit that indicates their reason and duration for a stay in the country. It should be upon the organization to provide workers with the requirements so that they cannot be troubled by the local administration. Complying with the laws will make the business entity operate smoothly without restrictions. To achieve this, the company should have a protocol that allows it to find information about the laws before sending its staff members for the assignments in different countries.
Compensation Plan
The mobility policy should also include a detailed guideline about the compensation plan that the organization would use to compensate its expatriate staff. A company may decide to use different approaches to arrive at the workers’ base salaries. Firstly, business management can apply host-country-based procedures. Using this technique, an organization would pay assignees according to the national rates of the host country (Mane and Arora, 2018). All the allowances and other benefits would be determined and calculated in relation to the foreign country. Secondly, the firm can use the headquarters-based method whereby the business organization treats all its workers irrespective of their location as if they are located and working in the same country. This would allow the corporation to pay the assigned employees overseas base salaries in terms of their home rates.
Lastly, an organization may choose to use the balance sheet method where the company calculates all the workers’ compensations based on the rates of the home country, including all the allowances and deductions. The management then converts the payment to the host country’s currency. This approach would enable the expatriate employees to continue receiving the same amount of income as before they were assigned duties in foreign countries (Absah, Sembiring, and Francisco, 2020, p. 28). It is also vital in enabling the staff members to maintain their living standards because there will be less or no significant effect on the net salary. Including a compensation plan in the mobility, the policy would ensure expatriate personnel is aware of how the organization will compensate them.
Health and Welfare
The Health and welfare of employees is significant, and employers should guarantee employees how they will be catered for while at work. To be able to meet the needs of the assignees, an organization should include the program in the mobility policy to ensure its workers’ affairs are fully protected (Bretones and Santos, 2020, p. 4). The company should do a preliminary analysis to compare how the host country offers health programs and the home nation’s structure. From this point, the firm will be able to formulate an effective policy that guides how the well-being of employees overseas is maintained (Al-Hanawi, Mwale, and Qattan, 2021). The business organization may opt to provide the services in accordance with its home management or follow the pattern of the foreign nation.
Diffusion of Human Resource (HR) Strategies and Practices
The process of diffusing HR strategies and practices in international firms is sensitive and complex because there are a number of underlying factors that influence the procedure. An organization should have a policy highlighting how the parent company intends to coordinate and link its activities with the host country. Therefore, a company should inquire about the HR practices in the foreign nation to understand and formulate a matching process to ease the operations in that country (Wijewantha, 2019). The strategies of the firm and factors of the host country, such as the beliefs and values of the people, determine the adoption and transfer of the HR practices. The importance of the strategic practice of HR is considered while opting to diffuse it within the subsidiary firm.
Training of Assignees
Achieving success comes with commitment and determination from both the employer and employee. The business organization should ensure that before sending expatriate staff to foreign markets, they have well-planned criteria by which they will offer them the necessary training to enhance their job development. The approach would enable assignees to have the required competencies and skills to perform their roles effectively (Zhong, Zhu, and Zhang, 2021, p. 252). Therefore, an organization should formulate a guideline that directs how the person would receive coaching on their related responsibilities to improve their productivity in the local industry. The firm has to research and compare the value of training in the home country with the services in the other nation, then it decides on how the whole process would be conducted.
Role of International Manager
When the company is formulating mobility policies, it should consider the role its international manager will play in ensuring the success of the operation. Generally, countries have different management structures, which could lead to implications on the process of management. The organization should ensure it undertakes a proper analysis of the host country to determine essential functions that relate and those that differ from the home context. Through the approach, the foreign director would be able to organize and facilitate quick adaptation to the local procedures (Khan, Brymer, and Koch, 2020). Furthermore, they would be in a position to structure an effective management hierarchy that oversees all the operations in overseas corporations.
Conclusion
In summary, an organisation should ensure it takes into consideration factors such as relocation logistics, labor standards, training of employees about local cultures, diffusion of HR strategies and practices when developing the mobility policy. It should also include aspects of the compensation plan, health and welfare, and the role of managers on the guidelines to ensure assignees are able to offer their services in foreign countries effectively. Formulating accommodating policies would guarantee both the company and its expatriate employees a proper ground to undertake all the necessary activities. Furthermore, the policies would ensure a smooth transfer of workers from the home country to the subsidiary firms overseas. The process would enhance the productivity of assignees, thus increasing the performance of the organization and the general success of the assignment.
Reference List
Absah, Y., Sembiring, B.K.F. and Francisco, Y., (2020) ‘Analysis of expatriate compensation policy in multinational companies.’ International Journal of Business and Economy, 2(1), pp.25-30.
Al-Hanawi, M.K., Mwale, M.L. and Qattan, A.M., (2021) ‘Health insurance and out-of-pocket expenditure on health and medicine: heterogeneities along income.’ Frontiers in Pharmacology, 12. Web.
Ashraf, H. and Prentice, R., (2019) ‘Beyond factory safety: Labor unions, militant protest, and the accelerated ambitions of Bangladesh’s export garment industry.’ Dialectical Anthropology, 43(1), pp.93-107. Web.
Bretones, F.D. and Santos, A., (2020) Health, safety and well-being in migrant workers: An introduction. In Health, Safety and Well-being of Migrant Workers: New Hazards, New Workers (pp. 1-7). Springer, Cham. Web.
Guo, Y., Jasovska, P., Rammal, H.G. and Rose, E.L., (2018) Global mobility of professionals and the transfer of tacit knowledge in multinational service firms. Journal of Knowledge Management. Web.
Khan, M.A., Brymer, K. and Koch, K., (2020) ‘The production of garments and textiles in Bangladesh: Trade unions, international managers and the health and safety of workers.’ South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management, 7(2), pp.276-292.
Krifors, K., (2021) ‘Logistics of migrant labour: Rethinking how workers ‘fit’transnational economies.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(1), pp.148-165. Web.
Mane, P. and Arora, C., (2018) ‘Challenges of expatriate management with special reference to compensation.’ Journal of Commerce and Management Thought, 9(3), pp.377-386. Web.
Ruggie, J.G., (2018) ‘Multinationals as global institution: Power, authority and relative autonomy. Regulation & Governance, 12(3), pp.317-333. Web.
Sageder, M. and Feldbauer-Durstmüller, B., (2019) ‘Management control in multinational companies: a systematic literature review.’ Review of Managerial Science, 13(5), pp.875-918. Web.
Serafini, G.O. and Szamosi, L.T., (2021) ‘Variations and differences in the application of HR policies and practices by US hotel multinational firm’s subsidiaries across coordinated and transitional periphery economies: A case approach.’ The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 32(17), pp.3659-3695. Web.
Tsourvakas, G. and Yfantidou, I., (2018) ‘Corporate social responsibility influences employee engagement.’ Social Responsibility Journal. Web.
Wijewantha, P., (2019) ‘National culture and transfer of hrm practices in multinational corporations (MNCs).’ International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 8(9), pp.1036-1040.
Zhong, Y., Zhu, J.C. and Zhang, M.M., (2021) ‘Expatriate management of emerging market multinational enterprises: A multiple case study approach.’ Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 14(6), p.252. Web.
Zhu, J.S., (2019) ‘Chinese multinationals’ approach to international human resource management: A longitudinal study. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 30(14), pp.2166-2185. Web.