Impact of Culture on HRM Practices in Asia

This report discusses the impact of regional and national culture on HRM practices in Asia, with a focus on Marks & Spencer. It explores the value creation through HR strategies, the M&S model of employment, and the significance of local culture in hiring and firing. The report also covers the terms of employment laws in India.

Human Resource Management

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................2
A. Value creation through HR strategies.....................................................................................2
B. Impact of regional and national culture on HRM practices in Asia........................................3
C. M&S Model of employment ..................................................................................................4
D. Dimension of HRM practiced by M&S in Asian country like India......................................5
E. Significance of local culture in Hiring and Firing ..................................................................6
F. Terms of employment laws in India........................................................................................7
G. Recommendations to employers regarding the use of HRM practices that ensures high
performance at work....................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
1

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is one of the main important task of every organisation because
without any people an organisation cannot achieved its goals. All the firms has to make sure that
the right person with the required skills and abilities must be placed at the position that matches
with their skills and knowledge at the right time. HRM of every organisation is responsible for
hiring, managing, controlling, coordinating and motivating the workforce in the organisation. In
this report by taking Marks & Spencer which is a UK based company majorly dealing in
clothing, food and home products, the various factors like value creation, HRM practices and
policies and personnel management is discussed. How HRM affected by the national and
international culture and its role in overall organisational performance is included in this report.
Also, this report highlights various HRM policies and practices exercised by Asian and African
countries in management of human resource. In the first part of this report it has been discussed
that how HRM is helpful in creating and adding value to the organisation and after that the
analysis of impact of regional and national culture on HR practices has been given. Then the
organisational levers used by the firm in creating value has been explained. After this integration
of local culture and HR practices with regards to hiring and firing workforce and its importance
has been discussed. At last the impact of international HRM on local business systems due to
differences in employment laws are given following with suggestions and recommendations to
employers with regards to improvements in HR practices so that the overall performance of the
organisation can be taken to the higher level. All of these functions, roles and responsibilities
stated above will be discussed in the context of M&S in this report.
MAIN BODY
A. Value creation through HR strategies
Every organisation like M&S must have a well- defined and structured HRM system. This well
designed system have many strategies and in following these strategies they have a set of
policies and practices being followed to perform their function effectively. Those organisations
who consider their employees as the most important asset can create more organisational value.
A strong organisation can be build through carrying out HRM function effectively by motivating
and boosting morale of employees for higher organisational performance (Al Ariss and Sidani,
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2016). M&S can also focus on its HRM for improved and better performance which can add
value to the company.
Establishing relationship between organisational performance and people: HR strategies always
aims at higher performance from the people they manage by acquiring talented workforce,
motivating them through various monetary and non-monetary tools for the accomplishment of
the organisational goals. M&S can ensure its long term survival, success and excellent financial
performance through establishing link between its performance and people (Bigley, 2018). This
link can be helpful if the HR manager focuses on provision of proper training and development
along with regular increase in remuneration and promotions.
Acquiring talent and its retention: The main function of HR involves hiring talented, skilled and
well qualified workforce for the organisation, and to retain, motivate train and develop them
which is the foundation of M&S's higher performance. HR manager of M&S must develop
attractive job design to hire the best talent for the company (Brewster, and et.al. , 2016). HR
manager's role to build strong interviewing process, screening, training, evaluating performance
and constructing the best compensating tools adds to the value of the M&S in the market.
Equality and fair judgement in selection process: HR professionals must allow for fair
judgement during interviews, selection process and promotional events. It must educate mangers
and leaders about various employment laws to legally protect the employees and company from
discrimination and termination of employees on unjustifiable grounds (Budhwar, 2016). HR
manager of M&S can protect the company from lawsuits which would definitely be helpful in
creating value and image of the company.
Allowing Employee's participation in planning and decision making: Inclusion of HR in
planning and decision making activity is the best strategy of the modern times HR department.
This enables M&S in assessing its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (Malaurent
and Karanasios, 2020). The employees provide various information related to future and current
needs of resources and requirement of training for competing in the market.
B. Impact of regional and national culture on HRM practices in Asia
Every country has different laws and legislations known employment laws which must be
incorporate by the HR manager in its policies and practices. There is a cultural difference
between countries and these differences must be considered by the companies like M&S which
operates internationally (Nixon, 2019). With the expansion and globalisation of businesses
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across regional and even national boundaries HR practices of the companies need to be adapted
with variations between nations. These variations may be in the form of leadership style to be
followed and the base country's regulations regarding employments and compensation (Reiche
and et.al.,2016). The various points in relation to impact of such cultural differences at regional
and national level on HRM practices are as follows:
 A highly feminine culture focuses more on gender equality which impact HRM practices
to hire workforce with enough care so that the gender discrimination should not take
place.
 A culture can be differentiated on the ground of individualism and collectivism where in
the former case individual performance, motivation and initiatives are core but in the later
one more emphasize on team work, team goal and loyalty are the main factors in the
organisational performance (Reiche, Harzing and Tenzer, 2018).
 The values, behaviour and attitudes of people in different countries differ where the
country of origin and the host country may have people with variations in terms of their
preferences for procedures and policies to be followed by HRM.
 In this report we have taken M&S which is also a MNC based in UK but operating in
various countries of Asia so they need to incorporate the required laws of the Asian
countries with regards to employment, compensation and hiring & firing of employees in
the company. Like in India, an Asian country where there are laws related to human
resource of the company for their wages, termination of employment, maternity leaves,
gratuity, provident fund and work culture (Rissanen, 2019). So HR manager of M&S
must ensure that these cultural laws must be identified beforehand.
In this way regional and national culture impact HR practices while operating in that particular
cultures.
C. M&S Model of employment
The model of employment of M&S is very effective and it considers all the points which are
ethical from the business point of view. M&S has adopted a very innovative model of
employment as it addresses the goals and objectives of the business, fulfils needs of the
employee and also maintain a sustainable environment (Vosko. and et.al., 2017). First they begin
with identifying the requirement of the workforce and for that the organization does workforce
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and workload planning. Also the cream employees of the organization are recognized and also
efforts are made to keep them in the organization (Migliore. and et.al.,2018). M&S model of
employment is a combination of competitive, supportive and customize employment. From the
competitive employment aspect the employees are paid for the work they do either on a full time
or part time basis (Wehman. and et.al.,2018). The compensation provided to the employees are at
or above the set minimum wages but does not provide lesser which have similar kind of work
and worked for particular hours. Apart from this supportive model of employment is also
adopted by M&S in which they hire employee that cannot work at their full capacity due to their
disability or are unable to work because of the severity (Migliore, 2020). Customized
employment is one in which both the need of employer and employee can be met and it can take
different forms such as task reassignment, job carving, job sharing (Inge. and et.al., 2018).
The organizational levers used by M&S to create value consist of strategy, purposeful
culture, work environment optimization, employee development, strategic hiring, and adopting
continuous improvement and cost management. The strategy of M&S is to become the world’s
most sustainable retailer (Barth. and de Beer, 2018). M&S have a purposeful culture by
establishing well-defined mission and it would be used to create value in the organization. Also
making the environment of the workplace optimal by making the employees feel comfortable
and motivated which leads to increase in morale is used to create value for the firm. Also
providing the employees with adequate training and development opportunities for continuous
improvement helps in creating value for the organization. Strategic hiring reduces the employee
turnover and also lowers the recruitment cost and all these levers are used by M&S to create
value.
D. Dimension of HRM practiced by M&S in Asian country like India.
M&S practices transactional management style in Asian country like India in which the
company gives compensation to the employees in exchange for their services. The company also
believes that employees are not self-motivated and they require instructions and proper
monitoring to accomplish the task and achieve the goal effectively and efficiently (Alghazo. and
Al-Anazi, 2016). M&S in exchange of the employee’s services also gives them job security and
sometimes promotions. The transactional leader gives rewards at good performance and punishes
at bad one. The task of managers is to both monitor and nurture employees. While the company
monitors it carries out a systemic process of collecting, analysing and using the data and
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information which helps in determining the progress of the work and also helps the management
in taking future decisions. Management also take cares of their needs and interest. Apart from
monitoring the company also supports them at the time of need and provides them
encouragement.
The speed of taking decisions is fast which gives the company a competitive advantage in
India and also promotes innovation. It is also denoted as the ability of making useful and faster
choices and it helps M&S to create good value for their organization.
M&S also pays the employees that work in India in accordance with the performance which
means they uses differential piece wage system for paying their employees (Ogbonnaya,
Daniels. and Nielsen, 2017). It is the way by which the pay is linked to the performance of the
employees and it is also a fair way to compensate it leads to higher productivity and also
improves motivation.
There is an increase flow of communication at their workplace situated in India and also
they have a job design of teamwork rather than division of labour (Lee, Raschke. and Louis,
2016). The company handles the conflict by managing the climate and culture at the workplace
and they focus less on reaching temporary conclusions.
When finalizing any deal they do not go for separate negotiating and instead they go for
harmonization and they maintain the key relations with the customers which means customers
are the main focus (Tsai. and et.al., 2017).
E. Significance of local culture in Hiring and Firing
It is right that the local culture or where the company has its operations has a great influence on
the hiring and firing of the employees but Marks & Spencer being the one of leading
multinational company cannot just get influenced by the cultures of countries. M&S has defined
procedure for the hiring the apt candidate who can contribute in its success and firing the
employee who is not able to gel with the company’s vision from the long time and there are
many reasons because of which company fires the employee. Company follows the proper
recruitment and selection procedure in order to get the right employee for the right job and
whose objective can be synced with the objective of company (Rana and Malik, 2017). It
advertises on platforms about its vacancy and also arrange open interview and campus interview
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to provide opportunity to fresh talents, after the screening interview applications it conducts the
selection test, candidates who pass this test are called for the selection interview, the candidates
who are selected in selection interview have their medical examination, reference check and at
last the letter of appointment is provided to the. After their entry in M&S, company provides
them the complete training before their hands on to actual work and to minimise their chances of
errors and HRM with the help of employer regularly evaluates the performance of the
employees. Company try their best to protect the interest and retain their talents through different
HRM practices (Buller and McEvoy, 2016). But there are some employees in the company who
are not performing well or have constant poor performance, unethical work behaviours, stealing
company equipments, involved in some practices are fired or terminated by the company as these
people are not contributing enough and are the source of less productivity. HRM of M&S
conducts the termination procedure where the employees are asked about their explanation and
conclude the face to face termination meeting in order to attain all the valuable resources of the
company’s property before employee leaves (Sabiu and et.al., 2019).
F. Terms of employment laws in India
Marks & Spencer is the British global company, having its operations in various countries.
Every time the company does its operations in international borders, it needs to do its business
by following the rules, regulations and laws set by the government in the country it is operating.
As it also helps in the smooth functioning of its operations, discussed below are some key
employment laws that is to be followed in India by Marks & Spencer –
Employment Contract – Generally, this act is practiced to stop the employees from moving
towards more rewarding jobs after gaining skills, training from company. M&S has to practice
its business operations according to the set norms in Indian Contract Act, which protects the
interest of employees and employer working in India (Gupta, 2020).
Working Conditions Act – According to this Act, in the employment law in India, Marks &
Spencer have to provide the proper and hygienic working conditions with the all the necessary
facilities to its employees and workers. It states that company should also provide the proper
holiday leaves, maternity leaves to women, all the national holidays as per the India to its
employees working in India.
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Provisions to Wages – This act states that the minimum salaries and wages that is compulsorily
to be paid to the Indian workers and employees, to protect the interest the interest of employees
and workers working in the company (Srivastava, 2016).
Social Security Benefits – In India, it is compulsory for all the companies to provide healthcare
and cash benefits in the case of maternity, employment injury, sickness etc. It involves the
insurance policy and provident fund policy that is must and to be provided by Marks & Spencer
to its employees and workers.
Sexual Harassment at Workplace – The company should provide the safe and secure working
environment to all its employees especially womens and have strict policies regarding the
prevention, prohibition and redressal from sexual harassment at workplace. This Act is
applicable on the all the employees working in the company.
G. Recommendations to employers regarding the use of HRM practices that ensures high
performance at work
Listed below are some recommendations that is suggested to Marks & Spencer India related
to the use of HRM practice which ensures that the company’s performance is high-
 It is suggested to M&S to focus on providing safe, healthy and positive workplace
environment to its employees, in order to lower their retention, while ensuring that
company retains the best talents which helps in maximising M&S performance.
 Managers in H&M must use Performance Management System, which helps in
monitoring and analysing the employees work. Through this HRM practice, company
will gets to know what are weak areas of employees or what are areas that employees
need to work upon or needs improvement. By improving those areas, company can
ensure high performance at work (Buny, 2020).
 It is recommended that company should adopt the open book management style practice,
which ensures that its employees works enthusiastically and make them interested in
company’s strategic decisions and they will perform their best because of their
involvement.
 H&M may also use the practice where the performance of the company is linked with
bonuses, this will make the employees motivated towards giving their best, will result
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into all employees high performance and through this overall company’s productivity and
performance will increase.
 Company should also adopt the HRM practice, where it can highlight the top performers
of the company at every regular time intervals (O’Donovan, 2019). This practice
everytime encourage the employees to put their best and creates the competitive
environment in the M&S, ultimately result into high performance from its employees.
 HRM practice of collecting the feedbacks time intervals also makes sure that if there that
is no issues from the end of employees and if there is HRM can discuss and resolve it
with the help of manager. Sometimes, the valuable feedback helps in betterment of the
company. So, the practice of solving conflicts and collecting suggestions also ensures
high performance at workplace as the employees are disturbed from anything and are
focused and dedicated in giving their best.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that there are various ways in which values are created by the
organization by using their HR strategies. Also the impact of regional and national culture on the
practice of HRM in Asian country like India is analysed. The company uses a combination of
model of employment such as competitive, supportive, customization model and also
organizational levers used by M&S to create value is also stated. Using the Storey’s point of
difference between HRM and personnel management, M&S practices various principles in the
Asian country such as transactional management style and the speed of taking decisions are also
fast. The company also links the pay to the performance of the employees and also there is an
increase flow of communication at the workplace present at India. The company goes for
harmonization when fixing a deal. Importance of local culture is considered when hiring and
firing of employees and also various practices are heighted which need to carry out HRM in
transnational or internal subsidiary. The difference in the terms of employment laws is also
determined when international HRM changes local business system. Based on the findings
various recommendations are made to employers regarding HRM practices to ensure that the
organizational performance is high such as providing the employees with better training which
can enhance their skills and expertise, resolving the issues and conflicts of the employees etc.
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