The question of globalization.

The question of globalization.

Managing human resources has taken center stage in any company set up as organizational success is pegged on it. More companies are investing in getting the best out of their employees and adapting them to the changing economic landscape. Companies use various tactics, including learning incentives, free training, and performance appraisals. Human resource managers grapple with a fast-evolving environment as they are forced to stay in line with emerging management trends or risk shut down. This report will focus on some emerging human resource development issues, as highlighted by several academicians in the field. The paper will also explore the possible course of action for these trends.

The question of globalization.

International hiring and recruitment is a serious issue for most companies that are expanding. The process requires bridging the linguistic and cultural barriers, which forces the organization to diversify its systems to accommodate employees from global job pools. It also poses a lot of logistical issues such as travel and accommodation arrangements and the question of salaries and wages. Additionally, despite hiring qualified employees, a company has to train them to perform specific functions in line with the company’s goals. Such training goes a notch higher when organizations might be forced to offer training in cross-cultural communication and international solicitation laws.

A tied challenge for organizations is fine-tuning their hiring prospectus with global expectations to attract the best candidates for their vacancies. Before an employee accepts a job offer, they look at the potential caliber of the organization, their possible wage, chances for growth and promotion together with the working conditions. A company is therefore compelled to adapt to these strings to attract the best and retain their most productive employees amidst cut-throat competition. Having the retention capacity for excellent employees is a critical factor in ensuring an organization stays in the game always.

Globalization and mechanization

According to research, by 2022, most organizations expect to have globalized their operations by modifying geographical locations and chains of production and distribution. Such a trend has a significant impact on employee mobility trends globally. Seventy-four percent of companies are interested in hiring locally available talent due to logistical constrictions. However, the question of cheap international labor is not fully explored. Human resource departments are also forced to develop strategies to make remote particular job descriptions to reduce the resource strain of physical office operations.

Multinational organizations are predicting a notable swerve in the boundary between the human workforce and mechanized labor between 2018 and 2022. Two years ago, human beings performed 71 percent of tasks in over 12 industries leaving the rest to machines and robots. These are steadily shifting figures. Human resource departments should take it as a challenge to come up with a human-machine integrated platform of work in addition to the running of day to day business. Further still, they should be engrossed in thinking through their current work experience and offering a perfectly smooth transition. A tumultuous change could destabilize customer bases and purchase patterns.

Why are these trends significant?

Human resource development departments are tasked with supporting and ensuring delivery of the organization’s goals, supporting workplace training, and additional professional learning. They are promoting the sharing of knowledge within and without departments, developing and seeing through training, and teaching new HDR norms and practices. The department is thus basically tasked with constantly reorganizing the work pool to suit company goals. It is, therefore, a big challenge for these departments to initiate and see through company strategic initiatives.

The Human Resource Department should create an environment that keeps employees up to date with the rigors and demands of the dynamic working environment. The increased mechanization, on the one hand, could mean more employees could lose their jobs. However, it could also mean employees are trained to work with the machines. Further on, organizations that don’t brace for these imminent transitions could face closure as the general public expectation swerves with the winds of change. This underlines the importance of riding on the waves of change.

Globalization is another elephant in the room for growing organizations. The goal of any organization is to expand beyond its borders, multiplying its potential profit in the process. Developing an intricate strategy for hiring employees on the global platform to receive the best of the pack while keeping down operational costs is the ultimate goal of every human resource department. This will involve the choice of opening remote branches in all countries or coordinating an online working platform. It would also create the challenge of training this vast pool of employees as an incentive. As these unfold, the organization will be looking to maintain a desirable prospectus to retain their best workmen and attract better.

A way forward.

In an event, a company decides to take up a tech-savvy model of operation that might force them to lay off workers; employees should be informed early enough and prepared by counseling. Moreover, alternative functions within the organization can be spotted, and workers encouraged to try out for them. The human resource department should also review the performance evaluation reports to determine those employees that are essential to the company, and that can’t be lost. Alternatively, the organization can consider a partial job freeze as a contingency plan as they formulate a formula to put to good use their excessive labor force.

Finding talent and hiring is just a start for a department. The real deal would be managing the pool of talent to exploit them to the maximum as they also fulfill themselves. Employees could easily walk out of the door when they feel they aren’t utilizing their potentials. Harmonizing the wage and salary scale with international expectations is another way of making sure you retain your labor force. However, care should be taken not to overpay workers in a bid to offset competitors as this could balloon the wage bill. Better employee engagement, motivation, and dynamism could also ensure better talent retention. Companies should be elastic and change with the waves of customer tastes and preferences. Employee training should also be relevant to the existing and looming trends.

Case Study of successful HRD adjustments.

SingTel is a giant communication company headquartered in Singapore. When the global financial crisis of 2008 affected the entire economic sector, it was forced to find a way out and continue its practice of educating employees as an incentive. It decided to launch the Singtel group learning fiesta in November 2008, which is an annual meeting of employees that includes training and general exchange and interaction. The festival expanded quickly in countries like the Philippines, Australia, Malaysia, and the USA with impressive results. Today, it is a permanent platform that brings together employees from different markets of the economy to share ideas.

Chevron is a large multinational oil and gas company based in Singapore, with the city-state acting as the focal operational base. At chevron, employees begin their training on day one of employment and continue with it for their whole career. The company developed The Chevron way that is a handbook of ethical standards required of employees and operational guidelines. They also introduced diversity training and other related symposiums to help the course of multicultural integration and tap into the employee talent pool. The institution of a mentorship coaching model has also bridged the gap between junior employees and top management through frequent interaction.

Organizations should realize that the ultimate task of the human resource department is not minimizing operational costs but maintaining a reliable workforce that shall achieve the long term development goals. Human resource departments should be supported to recruit, retain, and develop a pool of talent that shall ensure the ultimate success of an organization. Companies should also brace for the ever-changing playfield of employment and technology. They should implement strategies that are workable and ensure a smooth transition for the sake of their customers. Employees should also be assisted to cope with the changes in the market as they have economic implications.