HRM Assignment: Critical Discussion On International Human Resource Management

Question

Task: INSTRUCTION:
Answer the following questions in this HRM assignment:
As organisations venture into cross-border expansions, various measures are taken into effecting expatriation. Expatriation is often used to describe the process of international transfer of managers.
Based on the definition, answer the following questions:
Executive Summary
• Start off with a bang: e.g. globalization is a new norm, which makes effectives IHRM compulsory.
• Explain what the paper is about: e.g. it examines international recruitment and the different types of expatriation, with a focus on what makes effective expatriation management in a dynamic global environment.
Introduction
• Define IHRM briefly, and why it is so important
• Explain a few of the challenges when operating globally: e.g., varying national PESTLE
• Reiterate that talent managements is critical for multinational, and the options available for international recruiting.
• State how expatriation can be done quite expensive and challenging and then move on to the rest of the paper, that deals with effective expatriation

1. Discuss the main motives of expatriation.
• Assignees have better knowledge of the product from the country of origin (HQ) / parent country
• Qualified personnel may not be available in the host country / subsidiaries
• Managers are groomed for senior positions by learning from country of origin (HQ) / parent country
• Parent country is able to control the coordination of the foreign organisation / host country
• Better understanding of host country markets and encouraging diversity
• To ensure conforming of standards of the parent country (HQ) markets with the host country / subsidiaries
• Assignees can help to ensure the same culture and processes as HQ / parent country
• Transfer of know-how-assignees able to receive training from parent country
• Same practices can be upheld from the parent country (HQ)
• Training time is reduced as assignees in host / subsidiaries can be hands-on

2. What are the different forms of expatriation that the Human Resource Department may consideration

• Parent country national - PCN – (e.g. Germany)
• Host country national - HCN – (e.g. China)
• Third country national – TCN – (e.g. India)
Others (these can have some impact on choice)
• Request for expatriation based on marital status
• Request for expatriation based on family transfer
• Request for expatriation based on ………..other reasons

3. Critically evaluate the success of an international transfer from both the view of an individual assignee as well as the organisation.
• What make an international transfer successful
• What are the benefits to the assignee? Career satisfaction / higher income / exposure / new practices / diversity / confidence
• What are the benefits to the organisation? Org intelligence / benefit from skills / language / fair students / talent dev / streamline operations / new perspectives

Conclusions
• Based on your research study, draw appropriate conclusion of whether the organisation you work for would consider expatriation.

Answer

Introduction
Defining IRHM
International HRM is a term which is used for organisations which operate internationally and hire people throughout the world. The international human resource managers are mainly engaged in training the international people as staff for improving their ability to communicate and provide better service to the clients. International human resource management is important as they provide better training and maintain cultural diversity by controlling the expatriate population.

Explanation of challenges in operating globally
There are a number of challenges with understanding the social perspective and theory viewpoints for producing products for the community of a different country. Other than that, political and legal issues are main as every country has different political opinions and their individual legal systems which have to be dealt and abided for sustaining business in their countries.

Importance of talent management in international recruiting
The talent management and the IHMS are efficient in gathering talent from the international population and utilising it in a proper way for fulfilling organizational goals and attaining efficiency. The talent managers recruit in the international market mainly through the help of business process outsourcing, partnering with foreign independent contractors and various other international professional employer organizations (Unit, 2012). These organizations provide quality candidates for further training and help in securing their careers in the international market.

Question 1: Discuss the main motives of expatriation
Expatriation has various reasons depending upon which candidates shift from one place to another for developing their career opportunities. Political tensions and social issues force a candidate to get out of their motherland and seek job opportunities in other developed countries. Many regional products which a company sells in the international market are better known by the regional staff than the country of origin. Regional people know about their own products much more than the host or parent country staff. Due to this reason, it is necessary for the parent country's people to rely on its international expatriate recruitment and train them through IHRM in order to improve their confidence levels and ability of customer handling. Rising political tensions in developing countries are a main reason for expatriation. International business development and talent pool occurs from all over the international market thus a company can have numerous employees who are better and well performing than the employees of the host country which is completely normal (Reiche et al. 2017). Due to this reason in many cases it has been identified that the expatriates working in a different country can perform better than the employees of the host country and their performance is more developed through the help of IHRM. Expatriation mainly occurs from the countries where there are limited growth opportunities for candidates and limited earning opportunities. It is seen that the managers in the international business organisations are trained and groomed well for providing their best in the business process and fulfil organisational goals.

Candidates also engage in expatriation due to changing of marital status or any other kind of family relocation factor. In these cases the IHRM will be engaged in analysing the supreme candidates for recruitment by analysing their talents. The organizational managers get proper training from the country of origin where the organisation headquarters is located to develop a professional attitude for serving the international customer base and working with a range of different expatriate employees and maintaining a proper diversified environment in an organisation. In the international business process the host countries which are mainly the foreign branches in different host countries are operated by the main headquarters. Higher salaries, better work environment and international exposure are a basic concern for enthusiasts employees based on which expatriation can also occur. In these kinds of cases, controlling and monitoring the foreign country's business ensures proper communication development and better secures international communication. As stated by Tungli and Peiperl (2009), cultural diversity is beneficial for the international organizations as they construct a better and more powerful organizational culture that is productive in providing service to their international population. The construction of a better and more diversified workplace is necessary as it increases talents within an organisation and develops positive organisational culture.

An international organization before setting up the business process in any foreign country can engage in confirming the standards of the host country and its political, legal and cultural aspects. Immigrant issues also increase the rate of expatriation and in these cases an organisation has to analyse the external market before setting up a new business in any foreign country. Ensuring proper culture and market conditions in a host country is necessary for the organisations to develop a business in the particular host country (Lam et al. 2021). Through Porter's five forces a proper understanding of the market and operating industry can be developed which can be successful for the headquarter brand to start business operations in a foreign host country. Before expatriation a headquarter brand needs to focus on analyzing their culture and training them according to the organizational culture for attaining better security in the business process. As mentioned by the views of Ismael et al. (2021) proper organizational training is beneficial for the international recruitments based on which a collective thought development process according to the organisational goals develops. The organizations prior repatriating or setting up a new brand in a foreign host country must check its existing culture and understand its capability to attain organizational culture based on which the design has to be taken.

After proper expatriation in an organisation, the assignees are focused on to receive proper training from the parent country IHRM, which increases the interests of the expatriates to work in another country and gather knowledge related to work. It is the responsibility of the IHRM to provide proper support to the expatriate assignees whose main responsibility is to work for the parent company in a foreign branch. It is necessary for the international organisations to provide proper training to the assignees for developing and improving organizational culture. A parent country’s headquarter branch can provide proper training to the expatriate staff as they have different cultural values and perspectives. Hunger for better skill development and interest in international communication development within the candidates from mainly third world countries; act as contributing factors for increasing the rate of expatriation. The responsibility must be taken by a headquarter branch of a parent country to improve training practices in the other foreign host countries where there are sub branches (Butali and Njoroge, 2017). It is important for the senior heads of a headquarters branch to engage in group meetings and focus on face to face training procedures which can improve the interest rates of the assignees from different countries and of different cultures to develop their cultural viewpoint. Some cases have been pointed out that employees working in foreign countries provide livelihood to their family in their native country. These expatriate employees aim to gather more money from the foreign countries and send them to their native countries which are mainly third world countries. Due to this reason, the assignees after getting proper training have to reflect the training practices into activities ensuring proper organizational growth. The assignees of the host countries have to provide proper efficiency to the organisation based on which the better organizational productivity is attained (Reiche et al. 2017). The expatriate employees from different countries need to improve their ability and work for the organization in a dedicated manner for securing better organizational productivity.

Question 2: different forms of expatriation
Assigning employees to global events and sending them to abroad assignments has become a normal phenomenon. 50% enhancement has been witnessed in global mobility that indicates the organisational expanding their operational area and enter in the overseas market that provide them the opportunity to increase their operational efficiency. However, it is essential for the organisations to involve relevant forms of expatriation strategy that can enable them to complete their expatriation program successfully. There is significant variety within the types of expatriates such as foreign correspondent, they are the employees that remain employed with the home organisation and pay rolled by the same organisation while they are engaged with the foreign projects and rendered their service afar from their home country. With such types of expatriate forms, the home organisation does not need to involve any type of extra set up and they only have to provide expat benefits to the engaged employees to conduct their role in the foreign market (Hünnemeyer, 2020). However, there is a significant amount of challenge associated with the foegn correspondent expatriate as there is risk of violating the laws regarding payrolls and immigration that impact on the reputation of the home company. In order to avoid any legal issues in the overseas market, the foreign employees need to report the deductions, withholdings and tax rates that need to contribute to the home organisations to the host country. Some of the organisations are now including a shadow payroll tool to avoid any extra burden of expat benefit. On the other hand, temporary transferee or localised employees are another mode of expatriates that are used by home country to expand their business in the host country. The transfer or localised employees resign from the home organization and get hired by the host country employer. In this form of expatriate, the localised employee only contributes to the growth of the host employer and also does not retain pivity of the employment contract with the home country employer. The home country employer does not act as the dual or joint employer as the expat has been officially resigned from the organisation. However, the transfer is only temporary and the localised expat soon repatriates with the home organisation once they finish their assignment in the host country. As per the opinion of McNulty and Brewster, (2019), the new employer in the host country generally extends their retroactive service or the seniority credit for their past service to the home country organisation. The local expat also sometimes paid with extra expat benefit due to their direct involvement with the organisational work. It is essential for the home country organisation to involve pre departure training for their employees that will enable the employees to sustain with the new culture and working atmosphere of the host organisation. The comprehensive orientation program will provide employees a sense of clarity of the situation to which they will be attached soon. It is also necessary for the home country organization to ensure the safety of their employees in the foreign country to run operations in a smooth manner.

There are different types of expatriate who have been moving from their home origin in search of new opportunities. It is often seen that people with limited earning opportunities in their home countries move to the international countries for better career opportunities. It is the duty of the IHRM to focus on the needs of the expatriate and recruit them based on their types. As stated by Reiche et al. (2017), IHRM needs to recruit and evaluate talents within a particular market based on which recruitment shall be done. It is necessary for the IHRM to point out and understand the escapee expatriates who have no option of work or any career development opportunities in their home country in order to provide them the opportunity to work and develop their career. For instance, Florida and Thailand are the best places for expatriates from different places where the expatiarts come from different countries in search of job opportunities due to social or political issues in their home countries. Apart from the escapee expatriates, there are explorer types of expatriates who have the interest to mix with the international culture and understand others cultures. According to Reiche et al. (2017), the international expatriates focus on the increased talent pool from different countries and recruit the best possible employees who are suitable for an organisation. It is necessary for the IHRM to point out these kinds of extroverted people and appoint them in their designated places for attaining better business value. Apart from that, there are also other types of expatriates who can be found in the international markets like people who have left their home country based on marital status. Other than that, expatriates can also be found due to relocation of their family due to which they had to leave their home country and set up in a foreign country. In this context, it is the responsibility of the international expatriates to provide proper employment to these expatriates. Recruiting these expatriates from different countries helps in increasing organizational diversified culture and increasing collective workplace development by assimilation of different cultures.

Question 3: Critical evaluation of the successful international transfer
One of the prime criteria of making an expatriation successful is to select promising employees that are capable of managing business overseas. In order to successfully complete overseas assignments, organisations need to engage people who have necessary technical skills to complete the job and are also comfortable in working in different cultures. On the other hand, successful expat assignments also depend on the close monitoring of the parent organisation and they need to maintain effective coordination among their international subsidiaries so that the parent organisation can get a global perspective. According to the UN statistics, nearly 232 million employees are associated with the international assignment and to support the expat assignments, parent organisations need to invest effectively that will allow the assignee to complete their tasks successfully (Weisinger, 2011). On the other hand, successful expatriation also depends on the training procedures that play an effective role in completing the international assignment smoothly. Providing cultural training is an integral part of successful international assignment as the expatriate needs to have an effective understanding about the cultural value and behavioural patterns of the host country. The assignee is required to gain historical information about the host country and economic and religious value of the country so that they can perform their duty accordingly. Organising training courses, language courses and workshops can ensure the success of international assignments. In addition to that, the parent organisation needs to develop open and frequent communication with the assignees so that they can update about the latest progress of the projects. It is important for the assignee to reach to their home sponsor and share their experience with them (Jones, 2007). On the other hand, the communication process between assignee and the organisation need to structure that will allow the assignees to inform the latest proceedings about the project to their home sponsor, stakeholders and other relevant associates that will finally allow them to make more effective campaign in the host country to improve the business outcome. Repatriation is another significant factor that can impact the success of expatriation. Companies need to act in a responsible manner and involve strategies that will allow the expat to complete their relocation after successful completion of overseas assignments and cope up with the latest changes that have taken place within the parent company during the period of the expatriation.

Employees that are associated with international assignments can be benefited in multiple ways and the international assignments can add tangible and intangible benefits to assignees career that will improve the future progress. Higher income is one of the potential benefits that can push the career of the assignee. Getting a promotion or salary hike is the major benefit that candidates can witness after completing their international assignments. Association with international assignment will allow the assigned to update their CV that will reflect their new acquired skills which they attain during the abroad assignment. This type of assignments can provide chance to expat to explore their new skills which cannot be done while only limiting to the home organisation. An expatriate benefit from the new workplace experience and is able to focus on the more relevant skills and knowledge that will open up new opportunities in their professional world. On the other hand, expat can become proficient in particular areas after completing their time abroad (Stiles, 2009). Language proficiency is among those benefits that can impact the growth of the candidates. Association with the foreign assignment will allow the expat to improve their existing skills and becoming proficient in languages can allow assignees to interact with regional clients in fluent manner that not only add value to the existing business but also provide opportunity to them to improve their career goals. In many cases, it has been witnessed that expat often become more culturally aware and gain understanding about the foreign cultures that help in managing the foreign client of the organisation. Association with multiple international assignments will enable the assignee to get familiar with societal norms and acquire knowledge about the unique culture that plays an important role in developing effective relationships with foreign business associates. Adopting a new culture will help in improving the relationship with foreign colleagues and help in developing such a professional culture that can increase the success rate of assignments. Not only the professional life will be more nurtured by the personal life of expats will also be influenced by involvement with international assignment. Time overseas will provide a chance to assignees to work in their personal relationship and maintain these connections by creating new extant relationships with other colleagues who are in similar situations. On the other hand, the expat often gets relocation benefits and family benefits that involve schooling, health insurance and spousal job replacement that allow the expat to smoothen the process of relocation. In addition to that, accommodation benefit that is subsidised or free housing is also part of the benefit program.

Conducting international assignments will not only benefit the expat but also add value to the existing organisation. Association with international projects will provide exposure to the international market and allow them to increase their market share that will ultimately benefit the organisation. By with export territories will allow them to gain effective knowledge about the local market that allows the organisation to conduct their business effectively in the outside market (Sahakiants et al. 2018). Gaining understanding about the local market will reduce the associated risks and help them to avoid mistakes from the business that will increase the chance of success. Another advantage of the expatriate program is that it will install a company culture that will manage the overseas business function. Expatriate will work in close manner with subsidiaries, agents, distributors and joint partners to ensure that they collect effective information about the parent company culture and use those factors within their local business to provide effective service to their local customers and ensure the success of the organisation. It will increase the control over their local function and enhance their financial performance in the overseas market. Expatriates will also ensure that parent organisations will use the relevant local policies within their business function and deliver quality standard service to their target customers. On the other hand, it will also develop management talent that allow the expatriates to know the diversity of the local market conditions and provide them a chance to gain a broader perspective of the local market. It will also allow the parent organisation to recruit local skilled labour and manage the diverse team. However, it is essential for the parent organisation to maintain the competencies of the local function and involve local leaders to manage the function in the market (Pucik et al. 2017). Organisations are gradually realising the importance of talent management acquisition and now they are concentrating on developing local talents and encouraging them to develop local successors that will become responsible enough to run the local operations. Instead of recruiting international employees to the local function that can increase the overall cost of the business, involvement of local employees will ensure the effective performance of foreign organisations.

Recommendation
It is the responsibility of the international managers to focus on providing proper support to the expatriates as they face certain diversity oriented issues like linguistics issues and lack of understanding other’s viewpoints. The international human resource managers need to provide proper comfort top the expatriate candidates and provide them proper training so that their efficiency related to their work practices increases. Apart from that, the IHRMs also can communicate with them and provide their suggestions to the expatriate candidates so that their ideas are developed in a constructive manner. Depending upon these steps better business dev elopement can occur and proper workplace harmony can be established.

Conclusion
From the aforementioned report, it can be concluded that international human resource management is gradually becoming complex in nature and there are multiple challenges that are affecting the performance of the organisation. Unprecedented political events, such Brexit, trade war between the US and China and also occurrence of pandemic has deeply impacted the function of multinational organisations. Expatriate programs are beneficial for both the employees and organisation and can add value to both of their functions that will eventually strengthen the position of foreign organisations in the overseas market. Providing training to employees so that they can manage the overseas function is necessary for parent organisations and in order to achieve the goal, they need to include local talent recruiting management that will allow them to develop a local successor to manage their international function. On the other hand, it is crucial for parent organisations to gather extensive knowledge about the host country and involve changes as per the demand of present market conditions. Most of the time, the existence of huge cultural and societal differences impact on the progress of business and it will eventually limit the function of parent companies in the host countries. Performing PESTLE analysis will allow the organisation to gather knowledge about the existing condition of the political system and involve important rules and regulation within their function to avoid any kind of crisis (Mansaray and Jnr, 2020). Multinational organisations are also considering expatriate training programs to eliminate the arising issues from the international expansion. This type of training program will allow the employees to cultivate their cultural sense and allow them to provide effective service to local customers that will ultimately help in improving their business performance in other countries.

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