Introduction
As multinational companies are different from minor local companies engaged in manufacturing one-purpose goods or having a narrow profile, these companies should establish strategies aimed at motivating their multinational and multicultural employees to attract talented employees and retain the existing ones. There are different strategies in the world economic experience, though not all of them can be considered equally effective or applicable to certain companies, especially global ones. Globalization presupposes the use of a multinational workforce as well as different strategies successfully incorporated by and used by companies in different countries all over the world. Motivation in the case of globalization becomes a burning issue of multinational companies as they should establish the most appropriate way to motivate their employees.
Motivation and Globalization
As there is not and cannot exist a universal way for a multinational company to motivate its employees (including professionals) around the world to exert maximum effort and be accountable for their results, it is necessary to establish different strategies for different locations (searching for the most appropriate). Merit-based salaries are used in Novartis, though it is difficult to define and evaluate the genuine performance of employees, moreover, the long-term efforts can be aimed at effective performance within a few years. So, the merit-based salary is one of the pitfalls on the way to a successful motivation strategy, though this type of strategy can be considered one of the most effective within the framework of short-term efforts targeted on immediate results and performance measurement.
Development of leadership competencies can be effective in terms of motivation, as leaders of formal groups are sure to be highly motivated in terms of effective performance of their groups, though the Novartis Company has faced the problem of representatives of the collectivist cultures where the performance of each individual is measured according to the performance of the group. In this case, it would be preferable to incorporate different strategies with people representing different mentalities. As collectivist cultures cannot be effective measures in groups performing some efforts, they should be motivated to develop their leadership competencies to lead the formal groups in achieving certain goals.
The concept of globalization can be also viewed as an effective way of developing leadership competencies. As this process presupposes the development of personal traits and reprogramming them to function to achieve certain goals, it is necessary to incorporate this strategy only with employees that can operate as individual employees without regarding the actions of other employees. The development of leadership competencies can contribute greatly to the companies located in countries with high potential for this type of development.
Novartis’s standardized system for performance measurement around the world can be considered potentially effective. As the company is a multinational one, its managerial should be advanced in terms of establishment and incorporation of different strategies. Though the merit-based approach is not a universal one, especially considering the analysis of national mentality, it is obvious that the efforts of the company’s employees are effective in the productivity, profitability, and relevance of measures taken. It is not necessary to advise Novartis to require the use of a normal distribution around the world because these measures are not likely to result in a change of productivity or annual turnover.
As financial motivation is not the most appropriate strategic step for the Novartis company because the economic conditions are different in all countries as well as working conditions. For those who rank consistently at the bottom of Novartis’s distribution, the managing strategy can include more dynamic use of motivation strategies, the suchlike establishment of a customer and quality focus, open communication, collaboration, and loyalty, and demonstrating competence (all these aspects should be developed to be demonstrated).
Talent management challenges in China should be analyzed in terms of Novartis’s strategy for dealing with this issue. As talented employees can be successfully cultivated from within, it is preferable to continue this strategy. It is ineffective to keep the compensations as high as to match outside offers, though two other strategies (placing positions in the areas where the salaries are lower than in the major location and hiring young inexperienced graduates that have to obtain part-time jobs because of the insufficient job market). These steps can be successfully used to solve the turnover problems within the company in China.
Conclusion
Multinational companies are widely spread all over the world due to the development of globalization and tendencies related to this concept including different cultures and dilemmas on the way of establishing and incorporating different managements strategies to motivate employees that got used to different ways of motivation because of their mentalities. As collectivist cultures cannot be motivated with the help of performance measurement or merit-based salaries, it is necessary to develop different motivation strategies about different nationalities within the staff members of the company. Moreover, it may be useful to establish different types of motivations for representatives of different nations in a single company, suchlike the Novartis.