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The role of pre-departure training is to support adjustment of the employees who are to be assigned international duties. It also ensures that the expatriates have the right capacity and knowledge to accomplish the assigned tasks in a successful way. The faster the employee and his / her family adapt to the life in foreign country, the more productive he / she is likely to be. Language training can be one before the GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 3 employees depart or after
The role of pre-departure training is to support adjustment of the employees who are to be assigned international duties. It also ensures that the expatriates have the right capacity and knowledge to accomplish the assigned tasks in a successful way. The faster the employee and his / her family adapt to the life in foreign country, the more productive he / she is likely to be. Language training can be one before the GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 3 employees depart or after
The role of pre-departure training is to support adjustment of the employees who are to be assigned international duties. It also ensures that the expatriates have the right capacity and knowledge to accomplish the assigned tasks in a successful way. The faster the employee and his / her family adapt to the life in foreign country, the more productive he / she is likely to be. Language training can be one before the GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 3 employees depart or after
Components of Effective Pre-departure Training Developing expatriates for international assignments is a big challenge. The role of pre- departure training is to support adjustment of the employees who are to be assigned international duties. It also ensures that the expatriates have the right capacity and knowledge to accomplish the assigned tasks in a successful way. Training has the main goal of increasing working skills and making sure the needs of employees will be catered for .For effective pre-departure training, several components need to be covered. They include: cultural awareness programs, diversity and language training, practical assistance training for the training role, TCNs and HCNs expatriate training, non-traditional assignments and training (Dowling ,2013). Moving in new foreign country can be an exciting adventure to the expatriates yet so confusing. Cultural awareness training tries to assist them to adjust and perform better. Getting comfortable with local culture is vital for those employees venturing oversees and need to optimize their performance in the host country. For one, the employees need to understand the host countrys people, the laws, customs, religion and etiquette. Through cultural awareness programs, they will be able to adjust faster in the new environment saving the company some costs and enhancing fast transition abroad. For any successful assignment, integrating in the host local culture should be as fast as possible. The faster the employee and his/her family adapt to the life in foreign country, the more productive he/she is likely to be. On the others side of the coin, failure to adjust to the new environment results in assignment failure and consequently translates to financial losses to the company (Rao, 2008). Diversity and language training is another component required for the expatriates. Although English is the majorly used language, there is the need for language training in the host countries and in the relevant corporate language. Language training can be one before the GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 3
employees depart or after but if done before departure its more efficient. The ability to speak in foreign language is very essential in job performance and making business negotiations. Language training for expatriates is a critical part in ensuring that the assigned tasks are successful. It also fastens integration in the foreign culture. Although its takes time to train one in foreign language, for the company to achieve success it requires employees who are competent in the host language. Practical assistance is another key component required in pre departure training program. This helps the expats and their families in adjusting to the new environments. Providing assistance can relieve pressure and anxiety, and help the employees abroad overcome negative feelings towards the host country. This can be done through offering relocation assistance, local orientation and language assistance. Choosing the best practical assistance is important as it will save on costs and help the expatriates settle down quickly thus enhancing job performance. Last but not the least, training of HCNs and TCNs is another component. The company should provide training to the expatriates on the international assignment prior to their departure. HCNs may be trained locally or in other subsidiary programs. This builds a sense of corporate identity and the expatriates are competent in tackling the new assignments. Training HCNs and TCNs will build a global competent team with the management skills to run the company. Criteria for Assessing Performance of Expatriates Working Abroad Failure of an international assignment is usually very costly to any company. Greater emphasize should be taken on assessing the performance of the employees working abroad. For the success of international assignments, consistent and comprehensive assessment of expatriate employee performance as well as appraisal of the whole operations is required. The criteria of GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 4
assessing the performance should be agreed before the expatriate are selected and placed in international assignment (Stahl et al., 2006).Establishing criteria for assessing performance is a difficult task due to the many differences in international environment. The criteria for evaluating should be clear, relevant practical and reliable for it to be meaningful. For this paper, I will propose three criteria for assessing the performance of expatriate employees of this company. Hard criteria top the list. They are performance based or outcome based, objective, quantifiable and can be directly measured such as return on investment (ROI), market share or profits. The main advantage of hard criteria is that they are easy to collect, interpret and usually provide quick evaluation of performance. Defending hard criteria legally is also easy hence the chances of subtle or international discrimination are reduced. The company can use these criteria to determine important elements of job performance. Soft criteria tend to use performance indicators such as relationship or trait-based such as style of leadership or interpersonal skills. The reason I recommend these types of criteria is that they are subjective and very vital for accurate and well balanced performance appraisals and assessment. The success of an international expatriate depends mostly on personal traits and leadership skills. Soft criteria for many decades have been posited as central to expatriate success. Using these types of criteria, the company will benefit in assessment of performance of expatriates where objective, measurable results are not always available. Due to the subjective nature of the soft criteria, factors such as rate errors, cultural differences and biases, care should be taken when incorporating them in performance evaluation. GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 5
Finally, contextual criteria attempt to put into consideration factors that result from the situation in which the expatriate is performing. Situational considerations deserve serious attention in as much as the host country environment. They are very vital in expatriate performance assessment in that they help avoid opportunity bias (occurs when expatriates achieve differing levels of performance due to factors beyond their control). Recruiting and Selection Strategy When Offering International Assignment International assignments are very expensive and of strategic importance. Failure can have adverse effects on the company. To help reduce the chances of failure on international assignments, the company should do proper selection of the international assignees and efficient recruitment systems (Perkins et al., 2006) This firm should use a selection system where by candidates are selected by level of high performance. This means the individual has achieved enough maturity and management experience in the domestic environment. Selecting strategy should not be limited to the home country employees. The company should sort out right candidate throughout their global subsidiaries. I strongly propose that the best employee should be picked for international assignment. The best candidate can be determined by use of proper assessment tools and vetting by qualified selected panel after rigorous interviews and reviews of previous assignments both locally and internationally. This strategy will help in developing an integrated, worldwide organization through the international career growth of elite managers and, by defect, creating a global core of executives. Although selecting and developing the existing staff for international assignment using the above mentioned strategy, careful recruiting is very essential in this case. Two thirds of the GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 6
recruits should come from internal environment of the organization as opposed to external. This is because the staff has already developed in that organization has existing knowledge and perhaps went through a considerable selection process to join the organization. However, in cases where there will be new objective which cannot be performed by the internal staff, I propose recruitment of outsiders who have experience on the international assignment. The recruitment procedure should be based on technical ability, emotional maturity and cultural suitability, family adaptability and global mobility and talent management. Comparing and Contrasting Staffing Alternatives for Foreign Operations There are two major alternative staffing approaches that can be used for foreign operations for this multinational company. They are the ethnocentric and polycentric staffing approach. Ethnocentric staffing approach will make uses of the employees who are natives of the parent country of the company to fill the positions both at home and abroad. The reason for use of native employees is because they are familiar with the goals, policies, technology and the products of the company (Stahl, 2006). They employees are able to report the company particularly when there is insufficiency of managerial skills at the native country. There is easier communications since no language and culture barriers. The company can also transfer employees easily to other subsidiaries. Disadvantage is that you can lose local perspective insights, hiring expatriates is expensive. Polycentric approach on the other hand involves hiring host country key positions especially when multinational countries want to go local. Its less expensive to hire locals who are more instrumental in tackling problems as they emerge. Its able to mitigate cultural and legal Nevertheless, coordinating goals between the main and regional offices and the conflicting GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 7
loyalties of the host country is a major drawback of this approach. Moreover, most nationals continuous to experience difficulties to adjust to international assignments .Adaptation of expatriates is uncertain, complicated personal planning procedures, difficulties of constant mentoring and interference of expatriate private life are some of the disadvantages. Based on the highlighted issue I recommend the polycentric staffing alternative. The disadvantages of ethnocentric approach are more as compared to polycentric. On the other hand this company is not well established and hiring new expatriates from the foreign countries will be very expensive. High Quality Mentoring System for International Assignees A high quality mentoring system for international assignees seeks to enable the international assignees to successfully adapt to the host environment. At the same time it ensures they keep in touch with their host country and prepares them for repatriation and other assignments. The success of an international assignment relies greatly to mentoring system adopted. High quality mentoring system speeds up the process of integrating in the new foreign environment and jobs assigned. It helps the expatriates derive maximum benefits from the new experience and upgrade job performance. High quality mentoring system ensures improved retention of expatriates, productivity and significant returns for the company. Chances of failed international assignment are reduced (Dowling, 2008) A formal mentoring system specifically on-site mentoring systems will be important for this company. The reason for choosing this system is that the mentoring coordinator is able to manage the startup, progress and evaluation phase of the program. Mentoring the expatriates on the site (where they are located) is much easier and effective. Furthermore, this system is GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 8
directed towards achieving a certain goal. The program has finite duration, its regularly evaluated and there are measures for assessing programs goals (Kuhlmann, 2001). Measuring Return on Investment for International (ROI) Assignments Getting an exact scientific way to say that an international assignment has given a certain amount of value or the expatriate exhibited a certain degree of performance is very challenging. However, using ROI can help in determining some of the revenues. First, I will truck the cost of the expatriate programs formally. Quantifying the costs entails the ability to track associated costs and determining what the costs are. This will help in understanding more accurately the ROI concept. One challenge will be calculating the expatriates costs due to variations and complexity of the international experiments (Dowling et al., 2008) Measuring of the returns will involve identifying a clear definition of assignment success. Secondly, calculating the returns will also involve starting with potential objectives. Measuring success largely depends on what one intends to achieve. Chances are you can have very cost effective assignment that does not meet the objectives which can cost the company even more in the long run (Caliguiri, 2012). Finally calculating RIO will require the use of the key drivers of international assignments: technical skill need, knowledge transfer, management development, renewal, governance and control, organizational needs. By using these drivers, it will be easier to describe and compare individual assignments according to the value they have to different stakeholders. The company will also be in a position to measure the kind of relative value proposition which can be set up and compared to costs. Once the company is able to determine its drivers it will be able to define objectives and evaluate returns. GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 9
References Dowling, P. J., Festing, M., & Engle, A. D., Sr. (2013). International human resource management (6th Ed.). United Kingdom: Cengage Learning EMEA. Dowling, P., Festing, M., & Engle, A. D. (2008). International human resource management: Managing people in a multinational context. South Melbourne, Vic: Thomson Caligiuri, P. (2012). Cultural agility: Building a pipeline of successful global professionals. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Dowling, P., Festing, M., & Engle, A. D. (2008). International human resource management: Managing people in a multinational context. London: Thomson Learning. hlmann, T. ., endenhall, . ., Stahl, . . . eveloping global business leaders: Policies, processes, and innovations. Westport, CT [u.a.: Quorum Books Stahl, . ., jrkman, I. . andbook of research in international human resource management. Cheltenham, UK: E. Elgar Pub. Perkins, S. J., Shortland, S. M., & Perkins, S. J. (2006). Strategic international human resource management: Choices and consequences in multinational people management. London: Kogan Page. Rao, P. L. (2008). International human resource management: Text and cases. New Delhi: Excel Books.