Issues and Solutions in Global HRM

This article discusses the issues faced by Deloitte Australia and its subsidiaries in cross-cultural management, communication barrier, poor leadership, and lack of integrated policies. It also provides solutions and recommendations for effective HRM.

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GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 2
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction..............................................................................................................................3
2.0 Issues facing Deloitte Australia and its subsidiaries.............................................................3
2.1 Cross-cultural management of employees.............................................................................3
2.2 Communication barrier..........................................................................................................4
2.3 Poor leadership and performance management of employees..............................................5
2.4 Lack of flexible, comprehensive, and integrated policies.....................................................6
3.0 How HRM should deal with the above issues.......................................................................6
3.1 Normative (socio-cultural) influences...................................................................................7
3.2 Socio-economic influences....................................................................................................8
3.3 Institutional influences...........................................................................................................8
4.0 How to ensure the issues above are not repeated..................................................................9
4.1 Criteria for successful international transfer..........................................................................9
4.2 Labor and equal opportunities laws.....................................................................................10
5.0 Conclusion..............................................................................................................................10
6.0 Recommendations..................................................................................................................11
7.0 Implementation plan.............................................................................................................11
8.0 References...............................................................................................................................13

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1.0 Introduction
Deloitte, is a multinational company offering professional services worldwide. It offers
management consultation, auditing, financial advisory, tax, legal, and enterprise risk services.
Deloitte Australia, is situated in Australia where it offers several services to the Australian
people with other subsidiaries in Vietnam, Singapore, and China. Deloitte Australia is facing
several issues that need to be addressed for it to remain competitive. First, due to the cultural
diversity of employees, the company is faced with the problem of culture inclusion and
engagement (Riemer, Scifleet, & Reddig, 2012). There is a need to bridge the communication
gap between people of different cultural backgrounds. Leadership of the company also in not
effective and the performance management of employees is under-evaluated. Similarly, there is
no flexible, comprehensive, and integrated policies allowing new ideas from the stakeholders and
shareholders regarding product and service delivery. The company, therefore, should redesign its
organization and human resource structure so that it can compete with its rivals and meet global
demands (Riemer & Tavakoli, 2013). Implementation of inclusion and diversity policies and
cross-cultural training of employees’ will lead to co-existence and efficient service delivery. This
paper discusses the issues affecting Deloitte company in Australia, China, Singapore, and
Vietnam, how HRM should tackle the issues, and recommendation of an implementation plan
from an international HRM consultant perspective.
2.0 Issues facing Deloitte Australia and its subsidiaries
2.1 Cross-cultural management of employees
Globalization has enhanced spread of organizations and employees behold borders.
Despite the fact that globalization maximizes the talent pool, it creates several challenges as well.
The values, beliefs, norms, and way of thinking vary from one culture to another. As such, a

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workforce made up of individuals from different cultures will experience communication barrier
and divisions among the group (Thomas & Peterson, 2017). This is the situation being
experienced at Deloitte. If these differences are not well managed they will lower the
effectiveness of the employees, their performance, turnover, and eventually will affect the
overall performance of the company. Employees from different cultural background have
different aspirational values and their practices differ significantly (Bird & Mendenhall, 2016).
Employees from different culture also have different etiquette. So, how they address their
seniors differ significantly. For instance, Americans commonly address people using their first
name while Asian countries like China, Singapore, and South Korea prefer to use titles like Sir,
Mr., Mrs., or Miss (Beugelsdijk, Kostova, & Roth, 2017). These difference may bring
misunderstandings and wrangles within an organization if not well understood. As such, Deloitte
has been having challenges of inclusion and engagement of employees of all employees from
different cultures.
2.2 Communication barrier
Deloitte faces the problem of communication barrier since it includes a diverse workforce
of different cultural backgrounds. For an organization to be successful in its operations, the
communication between the employees should be effective. Failure to which passage of
information will be affected thereby leading to communication breakdown (Binder, 2016).
Employees from low-context cultures such as Australia, US, Canada, and United Kingdom tend
to communicate clearly. On the other hand, high-context countries like Japan, Vietnam, China,
and Singapore, communication is implicit and tend to use non-verbal cues. Therefore, failure to
understand your colleague will result in poor passage of the message and consequently the
overall performance of company will decline (Ma, Menzies, & Zutshi, 2019). The upwards

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communication is also an issue in Deloitte company. Junior employees are afraid to give their
ideas, consult, or even question the senior staff regarding the policies made. This has made the
company to have unhealthy and non-effective relationship between the senior and junior staff.
Such issues create divisions between the groups thereby affecting the performance of the
company.
2.3 Poor leadership and performance management of employees
Leadership plays a pivotal role in the success of a company. Poor leadership will mean
poor performance while good leadership will translate to better performance, growth, and
success of the company (Cavusgil, Ghauri, & Akcal, 2012). The leadership of Deloitte has been
faced with several management issues. The organization uses the traditional leadership
hierarchies that does not match with the current digital world. As such, they are being challenged
by people who believe that the tradition system is outdated and does not steer the organization
forward. These are the future generation leaders who want a new model of management to be
implemented. It is estimated that 75% of universal labor force will be made up of millennial by
2025. Therefore, young employees at Deloitte believe that senior management positions should
be composed majorly of young people.
Deloitte also has not implemented proper performance management policies that are
supposed to oversee the performance of the employees. Employees need to motivated and
encouraged for them to deliver. Motivated employees are known to work more effectively and
the quality of their work is enhanced. Additionally, it leads to innovation, creativity, and
improved performance which translates to growth and success of the company (Crane & Matten,
2016). The leaders also ought to carry out performance management of employees in a
transparent manner. Discrimination at Deloitte during promotion of the junior employees creates

GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 6
wrangles and division within the organization. Given that Deloitte is made up of people from
different cultures, discrimination on race and ethnicity basis creates a rift between various
groups.
2.4 Lack of flexible, comprehensive, and integrated policies
Due to several external factors that affect the operations of Deloitte company such as
digital technology, demographic upheaval, and changing social values, the company has to adopt
flexible and comprehensive approaches that will accommodate these changes. The government,
customers, stakeholders, and shareholders play a crucial role in the operations of a company. The
company ought to listen to them and implement policies that will strength their relationship
(Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright, 2017). However, Deloitte has not invested hugely in
implementation of policies that govern their relationship with customers, stakeholders, and
shareholders. Risk management policies, for instance, should be customer tailored so that the
customers can be covered in case of any misfortunes. If they can make their policies to be
flexible in such a way that they can accommodate new ideas, they will improve the standards of
the company greatly.
3.0 How HRM should deal with the above issues.
Due to increased globalization, many companies are entering new overseas markets. This
means that you will encounter people and employees of different cultural backgrounds and
nationalities. This is the case of Deloitte Australia and other firms in Vietnam, Singapore, and
China. These nationalities have different cultures and managers need to understand the
composition of their employees so that they may know how to handle them (Dhir, 2019). The
international business environment determines the manner the HRM team will handle the issues

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above. Therefore, the socio-economical, institutional, and normative (social-cultural) influences
affects the outcome of the human resource management across cross-cultural communities.
3.1 Normative (socio-cultural) influences
One of the issues facing multinational companies, is management of the diverse
workforce. An internationalized company, has several in-house and extended teams that work in
other nations. Due to diversity, there might arise wrangles and misunderstandings among the
staff hence creating tension in workplace. This affects their performance and consequently the
output decreases. The socio-cultural environment in Australia differs significantly with that of
China, Vietnam, and Singapore (Walker, & Hallinger, 2015). As such, the coordination of
business activities among these nations is a huge challenge. The cultural differences between
these companies may be due to corporate company culture, professional industry culture, and
national ethnic culture. These differences arise due to different leadership styles, business
diversity, and dominant coalition, history of the country, religion, and socio organization. To
deal with these issues, the HRM should understand, embrace, and respect the foreign cultures
(Koskinen, 2017). Also, they should implement inclusion and diversity program to ensure that all
workers are included in the managerial positions and running the business.
Communication barrier is another issue faced by the company. Communication is key in
the success of a company. Given that Australia communicates more direct while Vietnam,
Singapore, and China do it indirectly with high usage of non-verbal cues, an HR manager ought
to know how to ensure the workers communicate effectively. These nations differ significantly
from each other based on power distance, uncertainty avoidance, short-term vs. long-term
orientation, individualism vs. collectivism, and masculinity vs. femininity (Beugelsdijk, Kostova,

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& Roth, 2017). By understanding the culture of each employee, it is possible to develop efficient
communication style within the multinational companies.
3.2 Socio-economic influences
Companies from different cultural background have different labor market conditions,
social interactions, and economic conditions. This is true for Deloitte company in Australia,
China, Vietnam, and Singapore that have different socio-economic influences. The leadership
policies that are adopted by a company determines its success. For instance, Deloitte Australia
uses the traditional leadership hierarchies that are outdated (Riemer & Tavakoli, 2013). This
means for it to remain competitive in the current world it has to use current digital systems. This
should also extend to other subsidiaries in China, Singapore, and Vietnam to be able to reap
maximum economic benefits. Similarly, they should implement proper performance appraisal
system that promotes employees on the basis of merits not ethnic lines. Australian HRM team
should also ensure that there is horizontal transfer or movement of employees between these
countries (Dhir, 2019). By doing so, they will encourage social interactions and will eliminate
cross-cultural management challenges within the organizations.
3.3 Institutional influences
Policies that are set by the company and governmental legal rules and regulations
influence the performance of a company. Lack of flexible, comprehensive, and integrated
policies negatively affect the operations of the business. Every country has its own business
environment governed by specific regulations and the companies should adhere to them (Al-
Sarayrah, Tarhini, Obeidat, Al-Salti, & Kattoua, 2016). The relationship between Australia and
China, for instance, has been enhanced through the formation of Chinese Service Group that is
made up of several specialists in China and Australia. The Deloitte Australia’s Chinese Service

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Group (CSG) helps in creating a mutual relationship between these two nations (Mayes, Finney,
Johnson, Shen, & Yi, 2017). Therefore, people from these nations can operate business freely
without following complicated procedures. The same policies if they can be extended to Vietnam
and Singapore, they will ensure business runs smoothly between these countries.
4.0 How to ensure the issues above are not repeated
It is important for HRM team to ensure that the identified issues affecting Deloitte in
Australia, China, Vietnam, and Singapore are dealt with completely. This will minimize the
probability of the same issues arising again. The most crucial way to do this is to engage in
appropriate policy-making strategies that will ensure successful international transfer and labor
and equal opportunities laws for a successful cultural diversity management in an international
environment.
4.1 Criteria for successful international transfer
Different organizations employ different strategies in transferring competence of
subsidiaries across various units. Through the use of corporate socialization mechanisms, it is
possible to transfer knowledge between the host and foreign subsidiaries using the management
compensation systems as well as expatriate managers (DeNisi & Sonesh, 2016). Therefore, to
develop a successful international transfer, multination corporations should focus on filling a
necessary position, management development, and organization development, coordination, and
control. Position filling in a subsidiary could be accelerated through transfer of know-how,
training, and development of local managers. This will compensate lack of qualified managers
and personnel. Management development, on the other hand, encompasses development of the
expatriate’s management capabilities, development of manager’s global awareness, and offering
better career opportunities for employees (Duarte, 2016). Finally, organization development

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entails ensuring homogenous practices in all the firms, common reporting system, coordination,
facilitation of efficient communication, and creation of a uniform compensation policy.
4.2 Labor and equal opportunities laws
To ensure success of a culturally diverse management in an international environment,
the organization should set laws and regulations that should be adhered to. For instance, zero-
tolerance and non-discrimination policy that ensures any employee discriminating others on
basis of ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation is punished (Carter, 2019). Also, sensitivity
training laws that ensures every employee is trained on the importance of respecting cultural
differences of colleagues. Compensation and benefits policies that ensures workers are employed
and promoted on the basis of merits should also be implemented. This will create harmony in a
culturally diverse international environment hence improve the performance of the organization
(Reed, & Henley, 2015).
5.0 Conclusion
Management of international business involves several challenges due to diversity of the
workforce. Cross-cultural management of employees is a major challenge that needs to be
addressed. Similarly, communication barrier among the workforce affects flow of information
within the organization. Lack of flexible, comprehensive, and integrated policies within the host
nation and other firms may lead to poor coordination among the firms. As such, international
managers should understand how socio-economic, institutional, and normative influencers affect
the operations of international companies. Development and implementation of inclusion and
diversity programs and other policies that protects against employee discrimination are essential
in success of international companies. This may involve labor and equal opportunities laws and

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strategies that would ensure successful international transfer of knowledge and managers from
one firm to another.
6.0 Recommendations
To overcome cross-cultural challenges for multinational corporations, the international
managers should be aware of the probable challenges in an international environment. To
overcome the issues raised in this report, the following recommendations can be elucidated.
 Implementation of diversity and inclusion programs in both the host and
subsidiary workplace (Carter, 2019).
 Training employees and the HRM team on various communication styles used by
different cultures such as use and meaning of the non-verbal cues.
 Implementation of proper performance management policies to oversee the
performance of the employees. This encompasses proper performance appraisal
system that promotes employees on the basis of merits (Bertram, Blase, & Fixsen,
2015).
 Implementation of flexible, comprehensive, and integrated strategies that govern
the organizations relationship with customers, stakeholders, and shareholders such
as risk management policies.
7.0 Implementation plan
Implementation plan is a critical strategy that a HR consultant should create and present
to the organization (Bertram, Blase, & Fixsen, 2015). This is because it determines the feasibility
of the recommendations. It assigns a responsible party for each objective, resources necessary,
and the time frame when the plan is likely to be achieved.

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Action Place Objective Responsible/
Resources
Metrics for
success
Time
frame
Implementation
of diversity and
inclusion
programs
Host and
subsidiaries
Creation of a
conducive working
environment
Existing human
resource
management
team
-Interviews
-Survey
Within 3
months
Training of
employees and
HRM team
Host and
subsidiaries
Improve their
interaction skills in
an international
environment
Outsourcing
cross-cultural
trained
professionals
Company
annual
reports
Training
for 2
weeks.
3 times
a year.
Implementation
of proper
performance
management
policies
Host and
subsidiaries
Creation of equal
opportunities for all
employees
-Existing human
resource
-Senior
managerial staff
-Company
annual
reports
-Surveys
Within 6
months
Implementation
of strategies
that govern the
international
environment
Host and
subsidiaries
Creation of a mutual
relationship between
the host and
subsidiaries.
-New strategy
implementation
team
-Advanced
technology
-Company
annual
reports
Within 6
months

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8.0 References
Al-Sarayrah, S., Tarhini, A., Obeidat, B. Y., Al-Salti, Z., & Kattoua, T. (2016). The effect of
culture on strategic human resource management practices: A theoretical perspective.
International Journal of Business Management and Economic Research, 7(4), 704-716.
Bertram, R. M., Blase, K. A., & Fixsen, D. L. (2015). Improving programs and outcomes:
Implementation frameworks and organization change. Research on Social Work
Practice, 25(4), 477-487.
Beugelsdijk, S., Kostova, T., & Roth, K. (2017). An overview of Hofstede-inspired country-
level culture research in international business since 2006. Journal of International
Business Studies, 48(1), 30-47.
Binder, J. (2016). Global project management: communication, collaboration and management
across borders. Routledge.
Bird, A., & Mendenhall, M. E. (2016). From cross-cultural management to global leadership:
Evolution and adaptation. Journal of World Business, 51(1), 115-126.
Carter, S. D. (2019). Increased workforce diversity by race, gender, and age and equal
employment opportunity laws: Implications for human resource development. In Gender
and Diversity: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 380-405). IGI
Global.
Cavusgil, S. T., Ghauri, P. N., & Akcal, A. A. (2012). Doing business in emerging markets.
Sage.
Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.

GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 14
DeNisi, A. S., & Sonesh, S. (2016). Success and failure in international assignments: A review
and a proposed multi-dimensional model. Journal of Global Mobility: The Home of
Expatriate Management Research, 4(4), 386-407.
Dhir, S. (2019). The changing nature of work, leadership, and organizational culture in future
ready organizations. Corporate culture, Management, Leadership, Job redesign,
Organizational Behavior, Innovation, Change Management, Human Resources, VUCA.
Duarte, M. J. (2016). Factors in the effective transfer of knowledge from multinational
enterprises to their foreign subsidiaries: A Mozambican case study. International
Journal of Training and Development, 20(3), 224-237.
Koskinen, S. P. (2017). Intertwining gender inequalities and gender‐neutral legitimacy in job
evaluation and performance‐related pay. Gender, Work & Organization, 24(2), 156-170.
Ma, R., Menzies, J., & Zutshi, A. (2019). The Australian Style of Negotiating with Managers
from China. In The Palgrave Handbook of Cross-Cultural Business Negotiation (pp.
457-486). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Mayes, B. T., Finney, T. G., Johnson, T. W., Shen, J., & Yi, L. (2017). The effect of human
resource practices on perceived organizational support in the People’s Republic of
China. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 28(9), 1261-1290.
Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2017). Human resource
management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
Education.
Reed, F. D. D., & Henley, A. J. (2015). A survey of staff training and performance management
practices: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 8(1), 16-26.

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Riemer, K., & Tavakoli, A. (2013). The role of groups as local context in large Enterprise
Social Networks: A Case Study of Yammer at Deloitte Australia.
Riemer, K., Scifleet, P., & Reddig, R. (2012). Powercrowd: Enterprise social networking in
professional service work: A case study of Yammer at Deloitte Australia.
Thomas, D. C., & Peterson, M. F. (2017). Cross-cultural management: Essential concepts. Sage
Publications.
Walker, A., & Hallinger, P. (2015). A synthesis of reviews of research on principal leadership in
East Asia. Journal of Educational Administration, 53(4), 554-570.