Cultural and HRM Issues for UK Business Locating a Call Centre in Japan

International Human
Resource Management
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Critically evaluate cultural and HRM issues for a UK business locating a call centre in Japan.3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
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INTRODUCTION
International HRM is defined as procedure of allocating, acquiring and utilising human
resources at global business in order to attain goal and objectives (Abdullah and Zulkifli, 2015).
These has three dimensions such as types of employees, activities of HR and countries of
operations. For managing international HRM, it is very important to consider each and every
activities at global level. Being the IHRM consultant, it is very important for UK companies to
consider cultural as well as HRM issues when locating a call centre operation in Japan. The
culture is different from one place to another which has to be considered by organisation while
operating business in other location. The aim of report is to discuss critically about cultural and
HRM issues for UK business locating a call centre in Japan.
MAIN BODY
Critically evaluate cultural and HRM issues for a UK business locating a call centre in Japan
The culture of every place is different from one another due to which organisation faces
issues and problem to operate their business activities and operation in that place (Albrecht and
et. al., 2015). Before initiating business, it is essential to analyse market and their conditions in
proper manner for positive outcomes. In case of call centre, local language has to be applied in
proper manner so that set goal can be attained. Here, UK business wants to locate call centre in
Japan for which it can face cultural issues.
According to opinion of OAMPI Admin (2020), UK business is planning to outsource
customer support functions to Japanese call centre where they have to consider culture of that
place in terms of economic, lingual and cultural attributes of Japanese. According to World
Bank, economy of Japan is ranked as third largest as well as second developed at global level.
Japan is also regarded as biggest creditor as well as private financial assets that leads to $14.6
trillion which is 13.7% of total assets of world. Out of 500 fortune global company, 62 are
headquarter in Japan. Some of the cultural issue which are faced by UK companies for locating
call centre operations in Japan are as follows:
The Japanese Language- It is very important for organisation to speak Nihongo as
Japanese official language in order to be part of Japanese call centre (What to consider before
outsourcing Japanese call center services, 2020). This language is very famous and lessons of
Nihongo are provided by different educational institutes. There are few multilingual call centre
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that are provided by own Nihongo training. In order to locate call centre at Japan, call centre
representative should be proficient in speaking as well as writing Japanese language to serve
consumers. It is issue which is faced by UK companies, as language spoken in that place is
English which is difficult for people to speak Japanese language. The culture of Japanese present
way of communicating with each other. The individual should know about Nihongo intonation,
basic formalities as well as Japanese greetings. Respective language was constructed in order to
express formality as well as politeness so that they can speak in good manner with people or
customer of Japan.
The Japanese Culture- The employees who work in Japan are stick to company who
have joined organisation after their college until retirement (Brewster and et. al., 2016). Japanese
are regarded as workaholic attitude which represents about that they work at early and leave very
late that is unprofessionalism. Here, Japanese investors wants to view same work ethics for
outsourced employees. When countries workforce represents about high turnover rate then
outsourcing partners uses different type of leadership which helps to motivate them for better
performance. As there is one trends which is unique to Japan where Japanese companies
outsource to other countries then they hire citizen of Japan. This leads them to get advantages of
low cost as well as wages in outsourcing.
Therefore, it is very important for Japan to consider language, culture and economy
before outsourcing call centre business for Japanese people (Cascio, 2015). The representation
should be able to possess Japanese custom as well as language. In this way, these are major
issues which are faced by UK companies when locating their call centre services at Japan
market.
Apart from this, there are different ways to serve customer of Japan which are described
below:
Wholehearted Care for Everyone- Call centre service is focused on word Omotenashi
which is part of Japanese service (8 insightful lessons from Customer Service in Japan, 2019).
This is not to provide great service but performing in passionate as well as earnestly manner. It is
very important for Japanese customer service to attend call with equal heart as well as haly
greeting and help all people with enthusiastically as well as sincerely. If UK companies locate
their call centre business in Japan then they have to greet customers in proper manner for
attainment of positive manner.
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