International Human Resource Management Staffing Approaches Essay

Paper Type: Essay

Pages: 3

Wordcount: 698 Words

Date: 2021-06-17

Categories:

Introduction

Over the last ten years, globalization and internationalization have been on a quick pace, mainly to expand business operations outside country boundaries while making a continual commitment to home markets, which requires a complex business structure. The effective management of human resources serves to be the critical determinant in the success of an organization venturing globally (Harzing, & Pinnington, 2010). Geographic distance is one of the major challenges facing multinational businesses because there is no close relationship on a day to day basis with headquarters. It is due to this that the staffing policies are given precise attention in the international business arena. There are a lot of types of staffing policies in international business. The staffing policies used, as discussed in this paper, therefore, include:

Ethnocentric Staffing Policy

The ethnocentric staffing approach is a strategy of international business to fill key positions with managers from parent headquarters rather than employing the locally available staff. Expatriates from parent headquarters are believed to better represent the interest of the home office and to ensure that home headquarters are aligned with the international headquarters.

The advantages of ethnocentric staffing approach include:

- It aligns the perspective and interest of all foreign subsidiaries with the home office.

- It eases communication since there is no cultural and language barrier.

- It enables transfer of employees with performance record, and this will provide a level of predictability (Mossler, 2003)

- It enables transfer of headquarters' culture to the foreign operation, and this enables infusion of central beliefs all over the organization.

- It develops career and promotion opportunities for parent country nationals.

- It has a greater ability for transferring know-how of expatriates from parent headquarters to subsidiaries.

- It acts as a control measure over the subsidiary.

Polycentric Staffing Policy

Polycentric staffing approach describes an internationals' approach to recruiting the nationals from a host country to manage the branches in their country (Sharan, 2006). The host country nationals will be hired for positions from mail clerks to executive positions. In this policy, there is no or little flow of employees between various countries.

Advantages of polycentric staffing approach include:

- It enables the national from the host country to guide the company better on the conditions of local market, laws, culture and politics at each remote location.

- Employing host nationals sends a message to consumers and nations that the business is committed to the country and her people.

- Local workers are cheaper due to lack of relocation expenses and compensation for working in a foreign country.

- It enhances the career and moral opportunities of local staff.

- It eliminates language barrier and adaptation problems.

- It allows continual management within the hostage country.

Regiocentric Staffing Policy

In the regiocentric staffing model, employees are moved to subsidiary positions in other countries but stay in the same region. Facilities and company offices are regionally grouped as a single unit and work with autonomy from headquarters at home. A single region may consist of grouped countries, and the region develops its Human Resource Policies and Practices (Guo, Rammal, & Dowling, 2016). Regiocentric staffing policy allows transfer of employees between countries within the region but does not usually go beyond their home region.

The advantages of regiocentric staffing approach includes:

- It enables the host country's national managers to have opportunities to influence decisions and be competent at regional level

- It broadens the view of expatriates.

- It reduces the problem and opposition towards strangers. For example, the Austrian who moved to Germany will have fewer problems adapting than any Japanese who is sent there, culturally.

- Development of regional approaches helps multinational companies via the evolution from polycentric or ethnocentric approach to a geocentric approach.

References

Guo, Y., Rammal, H. G., & Dowling, P. J. (2016). Global talent management and staffing in MNEs. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing, 2016.

Harzing, A.-W., & Pinnington, A. (2010). International human resource management. London: SAGE.

Mossler, K. (2003). The Pros and Cons of International Staffing Policies. Munich: GRIN Verilog GmbH.

Sharan, V. (2006). International business: Concept, environment and strategy. Delhi: Pearson Education.

Wild, J. J., & Wild, K.L. (2015). International business: The challenges of globalization (8th Ed.). Don Mills, Ontario: Pearson Education.

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