Global Strategic Management: Remote Work Challenges & Sustainable HR

This report analyzes the challenges faced by MD Solutions, an Indian software outsourcing company, in managing remote staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores communication breakdowns, project management difficulties, trust issues, and decreased productivity. The report proposes new flexible work policies for star performers, such as remote work options, responsibilities sharing, part-time work, and compressed work-weeks, to improve employee retention without impacting cost structure or team morale. Furthermore, it outlines a sustainable human resource framework that MD Solutions can implement to achieve long-term performance excellence and talent retention. This framework includes performance management, talent planning, selection and retention strategies, learning and development programs, employee engagement initiatives, rewards and benefits, values and culture development, organizational design considerations, and the alignment of people and performance with business goals.

Global Strategic
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Challenges faced by leading and managing staff working remotely from the office at time of
COVID-19 .............................................................................................................................1
Developing a sustainable human resource framework ..........................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Global strategic management activities allow companies to take advantage on
competitive opportunities across the world. Acknowledgement of complexities of national
organisations, various shareholders and unsteady requests assist managers to arrange resources
efficiently to prolong and enhance their company at international level (Sanny, Tuori and Simek
2018). In this report, challenges faced by MD solutions to manage their staff remotely at the time
of COVID-19 has been discussed. MD solutions is an Indian based software outsourcing
company that provide service of software development and testing. The report discuss what
policies company should implement for their star performers without impacting cost structure
and team morale. Furthermore, the following report also discuss what human resources
framework company should implement in order to benefit itself for long period of time in terms
of performance excellence and talent retention.
MAIN BODY
Challenges faced by leading and managing staff working remotely from the office at time of
COVID-19
COVID-19 has not only impacted personal lives of people but also their professional
work lives. Due to this pandemic restrictions, people working in offices have to handle their
work from home. As per the case study given, it has been observed that earlier MD solutions was
not prepared for virtual work settings but due to COVID-19 the company has to provide ‘Work
from Home’ facility to all their engineers and employees. Challenges faced by MD solutions are
mentioned below:
Communication:
Effective communication is a key for successful business but managing people working
at different places having flexible schedule and time zones divergence created clear
communication issues (Reisinger, 2020). Employees working from home faced various issues
while communicating with their subordinates such as internet issues, time issues, apps not
working properly, non-availability of smart devices and many more.
Managing projects:
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The biggest challenge company faced earlier and also during this pandemic was to
manage their teams which has spread out across various locations. Keeping tracks or data of
every one about what task they were doing was very difficult for managers as proper
communication was lacking.
Maintaining trust:
Trust issues could arise among remote teams as they cannot observe physically what the
other person is doing. It has been seen in the given case study that employees of the company do
not have trust on Ashwani that he could handle work from home effectively which could be
linked to present pandemic scenario also. As some team members who were newly hired or
working in company for a short period of time have never met each other face-to-face which
might develop trust issues among them.
Less productivity:
This is the most difficult challenge the selected company faced which is very hard to
overcome. In given case study it has been seen that one owner believed that workers get involved
in their personal lives more rather than focusing on professional commitments while working
from home. Employees working from home at their comfortable space have decreased their
productivity as they were not focused on their work and get distracted from various things such
as scrolling social media, household chores and many more (Debellis and Pinelli, 2020).
New flexible work policies for star performer.
MD solutions could execute several new work policies in order to make its employees
stay in company for long time and to provide them flexible work environment. These strategies
could benefit the company as these policies will not impact their cost structure and team morale.
The following policies are explained below in detail:
Remote work:
The company could provide their employees work from home or outside office campus
this will save their time and cost. This will also help the company in reducing carbon footprints
as less people will come to office then they will need few parking spots (Bailey, Mankin and
Garavan, 2018). This strategy will help employees also as they would get focused working
environment and less interruptions will occur in their work which will eventually leads to higher
productivity.
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Responsibilities sharing:
Company could ask its workers to share their job responsibilities as this will increase
their problem solving skills and they will be able to manage workloads in more convenient ways.
This strategy will also help the company to manage work at time when some employee get
absent as they could assign their work to someone else.
Part-time work:
MD solutions could provide its employees part time working facility in order to attract
candidates and to motivate them to stay more in company. This strategy will also help the
company in appointing talented individuals who do not want or able to work full-time. This will
also help in reducing cost without decreasing staff.
Compressed Work-week:
By providing four-day work-week to workers will motivate them to work hard and with
full dedication. Company could also manage their peak workloads as this strategy will allow
them to enhance working hours of employees during peak-time as organisation already providing
four-day work-week (Mutiara and Koesmawan, 2020). This will reduce the cost as people are
working for only four days in office due to which electricity, water and other will be used for
less number of days.
Developing a sustainable human resource framework
For making company successful and to remain in market for long time, MD solutions
should execute a sustainable human resource framework that could benefit organisation in long
run in terms of performance excellence and talent retention. The following is the HR framework
that the company could implement to have competitive advantage in the market (Core elements
of human resource management system, 2021).
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(Source: HR Framework. 2021).
Performance management:
Management of employees is one of the most crucial factor in accomplishing success for
company. Hence, company must execute performance management which is a continuous
procedure of planning, monitoring and reviewing work objectives of workers and their whole
contribution in the company.
Talent Planning:
For developing a sustainable HR framework planning of workforce of company is very
important (Kaneko and Yimruan, 2017). The selected company must identify employees who
have potential skills and help them in improving their abilities so that they could contribute more
in success of company.
Selection and Retention:
The company must focus on recruiting talented candidates in the company who can bring
innovation and creativity which could help company in achieving new targets. The selected
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Illustration 1: HR Framework, 2021

company should also keep their present employees by providing them flexible workplace
environment.
Learning and Development:
MD solution must provide their employees training and development programmes in
order to improve their skills. They should motivate their workers to develop and learn new skills
that could benefit them in their career growth. This strategy will help employees in their personal
as well as professional growth.
Employee Engagement:
The company must enhance engagement of employees by organising several fun
activities at workplace, recognise their good work, communicating with them, taking feedbacks
from them regularly, providing them safe workplace environment and by involving them in
decision making process (Sitthiwarongchai, Jadesadalug and Kongklai, 2018). This will help the
company as employees will stay in organisation for long time and contribute their work in its
growth.
Rewards and Benefits:
The company should provide benefits and rewards such as bonus, promotion, salary
increment and many more to its top performers in order to encourage them to enhance their
productivity.
Values and Culture:
Values define what is important and right for the company whereas culture is
accumulation of business procedure, practices and interactions that make a positive workplace
environment. The company should define its values as well as promote diversity at workplace so
that people from diverse background and culture could grow their personal believes towards each
other. The selected organisation must encourage its workers to express themselves freely and
must chase after their values. This will motivate and satisfy employees to work hard as well as
with full dedication which eventually results in success of company (Reisinger, 2020).
Organisation design:
The company should design its organisational structure with clear objectives and possess
an ultimate aim of ameliorating effectiveness and efficiency of employees. The could be
achieved by understanding requirement for change in working strategies or policies, business
procedure, resources, workflows, roles and responsibilities of every individual working in
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company. By testing new structure and managing transformation from old business structure to
new the company could implement new organisation design effectively.
People and Performance:
Keeping people engage within company along with monitoring their performance is very
important for MD solutions to improve its position in the market. The selected organisation
could manage both task by setting clear expectations and objectives in front of employees along
with providing them constant guidance from their managers (Hutaibat, 2019). The leaders or
managers must set goals for workers and encourage them to accomplish within a given time
period.
Business Goals:
The selected organisation must set its business goals as they help in guiding employees'
concentration and assist them in accomplish desirable results. For instance, profitability cannot
be achieved without making sales along with organising finance expenses properly. Employees
should be provided with clear goals that the company wants to achieve and must provide them
guidance according to that. The business goals set by company must be specific, achievable,
measurably and timely.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it has been evaluated that selected company managed their
work from home at time of COVID-19 pandemic very effectively. They applied various
strategies for maintaining theiGBHr work balance properly when its employees were working
from their homes. The company could also implement various innovative work policies for their
staff members who are talented without affecting cost structure and their motivation.
Furthermore, it has also been observed that for developing a better management within company,
it should execute sustainable human resource framework that could help it in making flexible and
sustainable working environment for firm.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bailey, C., Mankin, D. and Garavan, T., 2018. Strategic human resource management. Oxford
University Press.
Debellis, F. and Pinelli, M., 2020. Board interlocks in SMEs and the formation of international
joint ventures. Piccola Impresa/Small Business. (2).
Hutaibat, K., 2019. Accounting for strategic management, strategising and power structures in
the Jordanian higher education sector. Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change.
Kaneko, P. and Yimruan, S., 2017. Combination of Strategic Management Accounting
Implementation, Organizational Culture, and Human Resource Accounting Capabilities
on Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Literature Review on Thai Traditional Puppetry
Businesses. PSAKU International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research
(PSAKUIJIR). 6(1).
Mutiara, D. and Koesmawan, M., 2020. Strategic Management in Achieving Service Standards at
the Center for Community Learning Activities (PKBM). Asian Journal of
Contemporary Education. 4(1). pp.57-68.
Reisinger, S., 2020. Interactive exercises, peer coaching, and videos in strategic management
education. In Teaching Strategic Management. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Sanny, L., Tuori, M. A. and Simek, L., 2018. Strategic Analysis of the Logistics Industry in
Indonesia. Advanced science letters. 24(12). pp.9389-9392.
Sitthiwarongchai, C., Jadesadalug, V. and Kongklai, C., 2018. Development of strategic
innovation management components. The EUrASEANs: journal on global socio-
economic dynamics. (1 (8)). pp.64-72.
[Online]
Core elements of human resource management system. 2021. Online Available Through:
<https://www.kpi.com/blog/2019/07/17/core-elements-of-human-resource-
management-system/>./
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