Case Study: Selecting Employees in a Global Labour Market

Describe how companies select and train human resources in a global labour market.
To be effective, employees need to understand that region’s business and social cultural.

Many companies have headquarters plus facilities in locations around the world. To be effective
employees in company, need to understand that region’s business and social cultural.

Organization need by hiring host-country national can more easily understand the value and
custom of the local workforce than someone from another part of the world can.

Training for and transporting families to foreign assignments is more expensive than hiring people
in the foreign country. Employee may have reluctant to take foreign assignment because of the
difficulty of relocating internationally.

Sometimes the move requires the employee’s partner to quit a job, and some countries will not
allow the employee’s partner to seek work, even if jobs might be available.
 Case Study: Selecting Employees in a Global Labour Market

Qualities associated with success in foreign assignments are the ability to communicate in the foreign country,
flexibility, enjoying a challenging situation, and support from family members. What would persuade you to take
an international assignment?

Even so, organizations fill many key foreign position with home-country or third country nationals. Sometimes a
person’s technical and human relations skills outweigh the advantages of hiring locally. The local labour market does
not offer enough qualified people.

At organization located where needed skills are in short supply, hiring immigrant employees may be part of an
effective recruitment and selection strategy.

Selection of employees for international assignments should reflect criteria that have been associated with success:

• Competency in the employee’s area of expertise

• Ability to communicate verbally and nonverbally in the foreign country
• Flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity, and sensitivity to cultural differences
• Motivation to succeed and enjoyment of challenges
• Willingness to learn about the foreign country’s culture, language, and custom
• Support from family members
 Case Study: Selecting Employees in a Global Labour Market

Culture shock
Disillusionment and discomfort that occur during the process of adjusting to a new culture.

Qualities of flexibility, motivation, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are so important

because of the challenges involved in entering another culture. The emotions that accompany an
international assignment tend to follow a cycle like that in Figure.

If employees persist and continue learning about their host country’s culture, they develop a
greater understanding and support network. As the employee’s language skills and comfort
increase, the employee’s mood should improve as well. Eventually, the employee reaches a stage
of adjustment in which he or she accepts and enjoys the host country’s culture.
 Case Study: Selecting Employees in a Global Labour Market

Virtual expatriates
Employees who manage an operation abroad without permanently locating in the country.
Some organization solve this problem with a compromise: the use of virtual expatriates, or
employees who manage an operation abroad without locating permanently in that country.

They take frequent trip to the foreign country, and when they are home, they use technologies
such as videoconferencing and electronic collaboration tools to stay in touch. An assignment as a
virtual expatriate may be less inconvenient to family members and less costly to the employer.

According to a recent study involving more than 200 multinational organizations, 100% of North
American companies reported using short-term assignments. They types of assignments
generally last 6 to 12 months, avoiding the move of the whole family.

Short term and commuter assignment are gaining increasing acceptance by employees and
decrease the risk of assignment failure, which provides a win-win for both the employee and
employer.
 Case Study: Training and Developing a Global Workforce

In an organization whose employees come from more than one country, some special challenges
arise with regards to training and development.

1. Training and development programs should be effective for all participating employees,
regardless of their background.
2. When organizations hire employees to work in a foreign country or transfer them to another
country, the employer needs to provide training in how to handle the challenges of working
there.

Training Programs for an International Workforce

The first question to ask international workforce is to establish the objectives for the training and
its content. Decisions about the training should support those objectives. The developers should
next ask what training techniques, strategies, and media to use. Language differences will require
translations and perhaps an interpreter at training activities.
Next, the developers should identify any other interventions and conditions that must be in place
for the training to meet its objectives.
 Case Study: Training and Developing a Global Workforce

Finally, the developers of a training program should identify who in the organization should be
involved in reviewing and approving the training program.

The training program plan must consider international differences among trainees. E.g., economic
and education differences might influence employees’ access to and ability to use web-based
training.

Cultural difference may influences whether they will consider it appropriate to ask questions and
whether they expect the trainer to spend time becoming acquainted with employees or to get
down to business immediately.

To meet the needs of trainees in China for instance, the training the training program should take
into account that culture’s high power distance. The instructor needs to encourage audience
feedback, perhaps by inviting the group’s senior member to speak.

When working internationally, there may also be times when an employee requires immediate
training training or coaching to perform the job in a remote location.
Case Study: Training and Developing a Global Workforce
 Case Study: Training and Developing a Global Workforce

Cross-Cultural Preparation
Training to prepare employee and their family members for an assignment in a foreign country.
1. Preparation for departure
Language instruction and an orientation to the foreign country’s culture.
2. The assignment itself
Some combination of a formal program and mentoring relationship to provide ongoing
further information about the foreign country’s culture.
3. Preparation for the return home
Providing information about the employee’s community and home-country workplace (from
company newsletters, local newspapers and so on)

Global Employee Development

At global organization, international assignments are a part of many career paths. The organization
benefits most if it applies the principles of employee development in deciding which employees
should be offered jobs in other countries. Career development helps expatriate and inpatriate
employees make the transitions to and from their assignments and helps the organization apply the
knowledge the employees obtain from these assignments.
 Best Practices
Deloitte Develops a Global Workforce

Deloitte is an accounting and consulting firm, whose 95,000 employees work in 700 offices
located in 140 different countries around the world.

Global Development Program, based on a curriculum developed by the human resource

department, identifies mid-career employees in Deloitte’s worldwide locations and assigns them
to work in other countries. The employees learn the languages, business practices, and cultures
of the countries where they are assigned. They also have plenty of opportunity to interact with
other expatriate employees.

100 of employees and Deloitte offices in 50 countries participate in the Global Development
Program. Executive give the program some of the credit for the firm’s growth in global revenue.
The company expects further benefits down the road, as Deloitte increase its ability to serve the
multinational needs of its clients.