Strategic Human Resource Management Report for Banking Sector

This report offers a comprehensive analysis of strategic human resource management (HRM) within the context of South and West Bank, a financial institution planning to expand into India. The report begins by examining the cultural differences between the UK and India, highlighting their p...Read More

STRATEGIC
HUMAN-RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
1. The difference in culture between the UK and India and there possible impact on the
workplace. ...................................................................................................................................3
2. Discussing the approaches to payment for the UK manager that can be considered and what
would be recommended as the best approach to adopt? .............................................................4
3. Issues arise in setting up teams within the call centre.............................................................1
4. Merits of sending an expatriate from the UK to manage the call centre against recruiting
management locally.....................................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4
2

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is a strategic approach of managing employees within the
organization for adding value to the business. The main objective of HRM is to improve skills,
knowledge and efficiency of employees so as to increase the productivity of the organization
(Peltokorpi, 2010). The strategic human resource management helps in ascertaining the present
and future needs of human capital in a business entity to attain overall goals of the business. In
this report, various aspect of human resource management will be studied in the context of South
and West Bank. It is financial institution that provides banking services to its customers.
Recently, the organization is planning to expand its operations in developing nation like, India.
Further, the difference in culture of India and UK will be highlighted. Thereafter, the approaches
used for paying the UK manager will be discussed.
TASK 1
1. The difference in culture between the UK and India and there possible impact on the
workplace.
From the critical analysis of the provided case study, it has been identified that South and
West bank is planning to expand its operation in India by opening a new venture. In order to
ensure success in the new market, it is important for the management to study the difference in
culture of both the countries (Jennings, 2012). This will help the firm in identifying needs of
customers and serving them in the best possible way. The culture can be further defined as the
ideas, language, customs, values, knowledge, attitude and social norms that determine the
behaviour of a specific individuals or society. The lack of understanding of the cultural values of
the host country can result in increasing the chances of interpersonal conflicts among employees
at workplace due to miscommunication or lack of understanding among each other. In addition
to this, it will lead to the development of dysfunctional adaptation behaviour. It may affect the
ability of South and West bank to initiate business relationship with entrepreneurs in India. In
addition to this aspect, it will affect on the negotiating behaviour of bank in the host country.
Therefore, it is important for the organization to have proper understanding about the cross
cultural differences which will help bank in ensuring smoother integration into foreign culture
(Peltokorpi, 2010).
3

The difference in culture will be mainly in terms of following areas:
 Language: It is important part of culture as it helps in providing sustainable environment
in which language could be developed. It is said that culture is transmitted through
language. In India, the major language which is spoken is Hindi and English. Apart from
this, there are around 28 identified regional languages (Hammer, 2011). On the other
hand, in UK 98% of population speak British English and rest speak Welsh. The lack of
understanding of Hindi language can affect British entrepreneurs when coming to India.
 Negotiation goal: The negotiating objectivedifferes in diverse culture. In UK, it is
negotiation of a contract while in India the attitude of business delegates is to create a
business relationship between the parties. Therefore, it is feasible for British delegates to
give time to develop relationship with its Indian counterparts (Abramson and Moran,
2014).
 Business etiquettes: The corporate norms also differ from country to country and thus,
they must be understood to maintain healthy terms in the future. For example: in India the
individuals are not punctual and they can arrive late in business meetings by 10-15
minutes. In the meeting, the senior person is greeted first and business women are
advised to wear covered clothes (Impact of culture on Negotiation, 2004). On the other
hand, in UK, punctuality is must and females can wear trousers, knee length skirts etc.
Thereafter, personal style is more formal in India such as communicating Sir or Madam
is used and individuals are not called directly with their first name.
2. Discussing the approaches of payment for UK manager that can be considered and what would
be recommended as the best approach to adopt?
The money acts as a biggest motivating factor in the organization. As executive of UK is
adopted for Indian market for rendering services, its economic needs must be considered
primarily. It is important for South and West bank to select appropriate payment approach to
maintain interest of UK executive in the foreign nation (Jennings, 2012). The manager will
represent its company and the culture of country in different nation and hence it will play a
viable role for business. Therefore, following approaches can be considered:
 Job ranking and levelling: As per this approach a list of all jobs in the entity must be
prepared from the top managemen t to operational and new joined employee. Thereafter,
4

the jobs can be classified as the key operations, management, production etc. thereafter;
jobs can be ranked by the degree to which they yield profit to the business. On the basis
of these results, pay structure can be determined (Messmer, 2007). In addition to this
aspect, job responsibility, size of company, and complexity of work that will be handled
by manager in India etc. are some factors which must be considered while determining
the pay structure.
 Market data and pay trend: According to this approach, management can overlook the
pay offered by rival entities to their employees in the foreign nation. In addition to this,
prevailing wage rate as per the foreign standards can be considered to determine the pay
structure accordingly (Moran, Abramson and Moran, 2014). Other than this, the law of
demand and supply will have direct impact on the salary level. Therefore, it is essential
for the management to understand that the competitive salary is provided to manager in
India.
 Collective bargaining: It is another approach that will enable the management of South
and West bank to indulge in formal bargaining process with the manager which is
selected for India. Therefore, bargaining can be used to determine the wage level.
However, it will depend on prevailing market rates and the financial resources available
with the company (Messmer, 2007).
Further, it is recommended that the company should consider collective bargaining as an
approach for determining the pay of manager in UK.
5

3. Issues arise in setting up teams within the call centre
Call centre are considered as the front line of customer service and thus they help in
providing best services to consumers so that problems can be overcome. It can be assessed that
there are several issues which might arise up in setting up a call centre so that problems can be
solved in an effective way-
Employee absenteeism- Here, it can be assessed that at the time when planning for
setting the call centre in India, South and West Bank management is required to anticipate the
working culture of Indian employees so that they can identify their working operations and thus
give their best to the company to satisfy the clients (Alcazar and et. al., 2011). Surprisingly,
company has identified that there are various festivals celebrated by Indian people and thus
accordingly they have to plan for their holiday lists so that they can manage their workload.
Because employee absenteeism is a major concern and fewer staff available is unable to handle
the customer interactions. Hence, absenteeism impacts the staff morale and it even foster similar
behavior in those employees who are left for working (Boella and Goss-Turner, 2013).
Staff attrition- Manager of South and West Bank appointed from UK office identifies
that the personnel recruited from India are not focused, possess negative energy etc. which
impacts on their quality (Claydon and Beardwell, 2010). Also, unsatisfied workforce leaves the
job and thus it increases staff attrition rate within firm. Hence, business is required to provide
best facilities in the form of motivation so that employees can be contented and thus remains
within the call centre for long time period. It is essential for the firm to provide motivational
ways in the form of financial and non financial methods so that staff attrition can be overcome
(Colbert, 2014).
Manager-employee relationship- It is one of the crucial issue which is faced by the
teams within the call centre. Therefore, cited bank is required to train their managers who are
shifting from UK to Indian branch so that they need to understand the work culture of Indian
employees and thus maintain effective relationship among each other so that best relationship
can be developed (Longenecker and Fink, 2013). It is essential to have an effective bonding
between manager and employee and also they should understand each other requirement so that
positive energy can be flowed upon the floor to accomplish the desired tasks.
Communication gap- These issues arises because of setting new teams within call centre
and thus South and West Bank is required to overcome the communication gap among
1

employees by providing them with information regarding policies and practices introduced
within the firm (Martin, 2010). Also, they need to be given timely training to their workers so
that it can increase their job morale and thus work accordingly. Further, communication gap is
created due to cultural differences among people as in the call centre people from UK as well as
India works together. Therefore, both the individuals are required to assess their needs and attain
common goals.
4. Merits of sending an expatriate from the UK to manage the call centre against recruiting
management locally
It can be assessed that at the time of opening the branch in other country, it is essential
for the business home country to send expatriate from their own country instead of recruiting
them locally. It helps the organization to develop the place professionally and personally so that
they can provide best career guidance and enable them to put their international experience to
work (Mello, 2014). Also, expatriate will be able to share their experience to subordinates to
manage the work operations and identify capabilities of each other so that work can be assigned
accordingly. In this case, shifting of manager from UK branch to Indian branch will help in
saving cost of cited bank to search for potential managers in the new country where they are
planning to set up the call centre. Further, expatriate person will put their international
experience to the work so that they can attain global standards and achieve desired objectives.
Moreover, firm should send the experienced people for the right reasons inspite of hiring
local as personnel will require less training because they already know their job roles to perform
the operations effectively. For instance, if cited bank plans to hire the personnel from India for
managerial positions then they have to invest huge capital to provide them training so that they
can understand their work culture as well as their process of communicating with clients
(Panagiotakopoulos, 2013). Therefore, it is significant for South and West Bank to send their
expatriate managers from UK itself so that they can manage the operations in India and thus
work accordingly. Thus, it is the best way of sending the managers from home country to foreign
country as they already possess desired experience and knowledge which is required to
accomplish the tasks effectively and efficiently (Grote, 2007). The people send should possess
communication skill so that they can interact with each and every individual and make them
comfortable so that work can be accomplished easily. Also, they should possess cultural
2

flexibility so that they are being open towards the local market trends and also experiment with
different customs in order to attain satisfaction.
CONCLUSION
It can be articulated from the research that businesses are required to effectively manage
their workforce to attain organizational goals. South and West Bank plans to start their call
centre in India which is an effective strategy as they can get cheap and skilled labor force so that
they can maintain the best customer relationship within firm. But firm faces issues in providing
them payment in relation to government regulations so that it does not affect the living standard
of people living in India. Further, the firm also witnessed issues in setting up teams within the
call center. such as employee attrition rate, huge cost, absenteeism and communication gap etc.
that needs to be overcome so that success can be attained.
3

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alcazar, F. and et. al., 2011. Researching on SHRM: An Analysis of the Debate over the Role
Played by Human Resources in Firm Success. Management Review. 16(2).pp. 213-241.
Boella, M. and Goss-Turner, S., 2013. Human Resource Management in the Hospitality
Industry: a Guide to Best Practice. London: Routledge.
Claydon, T. and Beardwell, J., 2010. Human Resource Management: a Contemporary Approach.
6th ed. London: Prentice Hall.
Colbert, B., 2014. The Complex Resource-Based View: Implications for Theory and Practice in
Strategic Human Resource Management. The Academy of Management Review. 23(4).pp.
341-358.
Hammer, M. R., 2011. Additional cross-cultural validity testing of the Intercultural Development
Inventory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations. 35(4). pp.474-487
Jennings, M., 2012. Business: Its legal, ethical and global environment, Stamford CT: Cengage.
Longenecker, O. C. and Fink, S. L., 2013. Creating human-resource management value in the
twenty-first century: Seven steps to strategic HR. Human Resource Management
International Digest. 21(2). pp.29 – 32.
Martin, J., 2010. Key Concepts in Human Resource Management. SAGE.
Mello, J., 2014. Strategic human resource management. Cengage Learning.
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R. and Moran, S. V., 2014. Managing cultural differences.
Routledge.
Panagiotakopoulos, A., 2013. Mina makes the most of human-resource management: Mini-
market switches from competing on price to competing on service. Human Resource
Management International Digest. 21(1). pp.26 – 27.
Peltokorpi, V., 2010. Intercultural communication in foreign subsidiaries: The influence of
expatriates’ language and cultural competencies. Scandinavian Journal of
Management. 26(2). pp.176-188.
Online
Grote, G., 2007. Human Resource Management (HRM). [Online]. Available through :
<http://www.oat.ethz.ch/education/material/material_06_07/material_VO_HRM_06_07/
HRM-WS06-24._31.10.pdf>. [Accessed on 14th July, 2016].
Impact of culture on Negotiation. 2004. [Online]. Available through :
<http://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/negotiating-the-top-ten-ways-that-culture-can-
affect-your-negotiation/>. [Accessed on 14th July, 2016].
Messmer, M, 2007. Approaches to employee pay. [Online]. Available through :
<http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/approaches-to-employee-pay-levels-in-your-
organiza.html>. [Accessed on 14th July, 2016].
4