Human Resource Management Report: International vs Domestic HRM

This report provides an analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices, particularly focusing on the differences between international and domestic HRM. It uses the Commonwealth Bank (CBA), including its subsidiaries Bankwest and St Andrew's Insurance, as a case study. The report examines issues in staffing, recruitment, and selection, including challenges arising from cultural differences. It also explores various training and development methods and their associated challenges. The analysis covers the ineffectiveness of the HR department, non-compliance with legal provisions, and lack of coordination within CBA. The report highlights methods like online recruitment, interviews, and written tests, alongside challenges related to cultural differences and employee training. The study emphasizes the importance of effective HRM strategies for organizations operating in both domestic and international contexts, offering insights into best practices and potential pitfalls.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1. Explain the difference between domestic and international HRM.........................................1
2. Examine various issues and methods faced by managers of company in staffing, recruiting
and selecting the candidates and challenges faced due to cultural difference............................3
3. Methods and challenges of training and development............................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................7

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Human resource management is very much important for an organisation, as this help them in
managing their employees. For this report, chosen organisation is Bankwest and St Andrew's
insurance whose parent organisation is Commonwealth Bank. In this report, a study will take
place on difference between international and domestic HRM along with this, discussion will
take place on issues of staffing and retention for organisation along with problems of training
and development.

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management, is very important for an organisation, as this help them in
managing their staff members and employees at their work place, so that effective work force
can be designed. This help an organisation in making proper set of skilled employees which help
them in attaining their goals and objectives, so that they can grow and develop in future. Along
with this, there are ample number of roles and responsibilities which human resource manager of
an organisation have to follow, so that they can make an effective work force. For completing
this report, organisation chosen is Bankwest and St Andrew's insurance. It's parent organisation
is Commonwealth Bank, which is one of the world's biggest bank (Noe and et. al., 2017). In
2017, they use to face a issues related to HRM, where they were not able to retain their
employees and also not able to provide pay to part time workers. In this report, a study will take
place on difference between international and domestic HRM. Along with this, a discussion will
take place on issues faced by organisation related to their staffing and retention process. Also, in
the last a discussion will take place on challenges faced by them while providing training and
development to their employees.
1. Explain the difference between domestic and international HRM.
HRM practice is very essential for an organisation, as this help them in managing their
staff which is working for them in organisation. Along with this, there are ample number of
operations which are required by HR manager to follow those. Some of them are hiring new
employees, provide training and development sessions to employees, make strategies for benefits
of employees. Also the HRM practices performed by an organisation depends on the level of
operations, that they use to provide their functions at national or international level.
Commonwealth Bank, is one of the biggest bank of Australia, which use to perform their
operations in business environment of Australia and other parts of world (Cascio, 2015).
Therefore, it is very much important for them to understand difference between both national and
international human resource management, so that they can effectively manage their staff and
employees at both national and international level. There is difference between both domestic
and international HRM practice, some of these are as follow :-
International HRM Domestic HRM
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 It is defined as human resource practice
which is used by an organisation, so that
they can manage their staff at
international and national level. This will
help them in achieving their goals and
objectives at both national and
international level.
 This is a human resource management
practice which is used by an organisation
that use to perform their operations in
single nation only. This help them in
managing their staff members and
employees working in local nation only,
so that they can achieve their goals and
objectives set by them for single nation
only.
 For an organisation like Commonwealth
Bank, it is very important to manage
proper culture at their work environment.
This will help them in managing number
of employees from different culture, so
that diversity at work place can get
increased (Brewster and et. al., 2016).
This all result them in attracting ample
number of customers from different
culture at global level.
 For an organisation which use to provide
their products and service at global level,
it is not essential to maintain proper
diversity at their work place. As, they
use to only deal with local customers, for
which it is not necessary to maintain
staff members of different culture.
 For Commonwealth Bank, which use to
perform their operations at global level,
it is very much important to use
international HRM practices. As these
will help them in managing their staff
and employees in different nations, so
that their performance in different
nations get improved.
 Where as, for an organisation which use
to perform their operations at domestic
level, it is very much important for them
to adopt domestic HRM practice. As this
will help them in managing their
employees at domestic level (Stone and
Deadrick, 2015).
 This is the type of HRM practice, where
organisation like Commonwealth Bank
have to be careful and consider different
 This is the type of HRM practice, where
organisation and their manager have to
deal with limited number of employees
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points while making HRM practices. As
there are ample number of factors which
can affect the performance of this at
global level, like institutional factor and
culture difference.
and also with very few number of
activities. As these activities are also
very less complex because influence of
factors like institutional and cultural
factor is very low on this.
 Along with this, major difference
between both international and domestic
HRM is that, at international level
manager of organisation like
Commonwealth Bank have to deal with
huge number of employees which
belongs to different nations (Collings,
Wood and Szamosi, 2018). This all
hamper the process of strategy making
for HR manager of them.
 Where as, manager working at domestic
organisation have to manage only few
number of employees which belongs to
single nationality only.
2. Examine various issues and methods faced by managers of company in staffing, recruiting and
selecting the candidates and challenges faced due to cultural difference.
In the present case study of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, there are various issues
faced by the manager. In this case scenario, millions of dollars are not paid to 7000 part-time
staff of the company. There are various types of issues faced by the manager of the company
which are as follows:
Ineffectiveness of HR department: Managers of Commonwealth bank failed to perform
their work in an effective manner. HR manager has been eliminating the low paid staff of the
company since 2009. HR is responsible for management of people working in the organisation
by providing them growth opportunities, but in the case of CBA, it was totally opposite as there
was high part time employee turnover (Brewster, Chung and Sparrow, 2016).
Non-compliance of legal provision: Every company has to follow various legislations in
order to conduct the business lawfully. It was compulsory for CBA to adhere to applicable legal
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obligations primarily, related to employment. However, the bank has failed to comply with such
legal provisions which impacted its profitability.
Lack of coordination: There are various departments that operate in an organisation
which require policies, strategies, plans and procedures. CBA is an example that shows failure to
create synchronisation among the above mentioned things which caused it suffer from both
financial and non-financial situations.
Non fulfilment of policy terms: The CBA policy for employees stated minimum wages
together with perks and benefits. However, the case has shown failure of bank to carry the
provision of its own policy.
Methods used by managers while recruiting, selecting and staffing employees
There are various methods used by the HR manager of Commonwealth Bank of
Australia. Some of the most commonly used methods for recruiting or selecting employees are as
follows:
Online Recruitment Portals: Many organizations opt this method for recruiting
employees. With the help of this method, companies can recruit and select fresh and talented
candidates across the world (Reiche and et. al., 2016). In the present case, managers of
commonwealth bank use this method in order to attract more candidates from all the world. As a
result, company recruit effective and skilled employees in order to accomplish their objectives.
Interview Methods: This is the most common and effective method for recruiting and
selecting employees. In this methods, managers of the company call the short listed candidates
for personal interview, where they can easily finalise the capable employees. In the present
context, mangers use this method in order to select candidates on the basis of their technical
skills. With the help of which, managers can appoint capable and trained candidates.
Current Employees References: This is the method where current employees give
reference to their boss to select their family members as the employees of their company. This
type of method is not used by big corporations as this reduces the chance for other capable
candidates. In references to commonwealth bank, managers do not prefer this method (Bratton
and Gold, 2017).
Written Test: For recruiting and selecting candidates, one of the method which is
commonly used by managers of most of the company is written test. This method is used to
examine the basic knowledge of candidates required for the selected position. In the present
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context of commonwealth bank, this method plays very effective role as basic accounting
knowledge is essential. With the help of this method, managers can select best suitable candidate
for the vacant position.
Video Interviewing: This is one of the best known method for recruiting and selecting
employees in an organisation. Using video technology will be a great method as it is cost
effective and company can appoint candidates from all over the world. In the context of
commonwealth bank, managers use this method in order to recruit candidates from all over the
world.
As per the above analysis it has been analysed that there is cultural differences in the
organisation as employees belong to different countries, there educational background is
different and many more. It is quite difficult for the management team of the company to appoint
candidates within similar background (Jamali, El Dirani and Harwood, 2015). For reducing the
complexities between working culture of the company, managers should assign work in teams,
which increases the coordination among employees. In addition to this, managers can also
provide training and development session to their employees, in order to perform their work in
effective manner. As a result, performance of employees will be increased and objective of the
organisation can be achieved in an effective and efficient manner.
3. Methods and challenges of training and development.
In order to provide training and development sessions to their employees, managers use
various methods. Some of the methods along with their challenges are as follows:
Lectures and special courses: This is one of the most traditional and used method of
training and development. These methods of T&D are designed by the management team of the
company in order to solve employees doubts regarding tasks and activities. In order to solve such
issues mangers develop a training session and provide training to large group of employees. This
is the quickest and most simple method of training (Banfield, Kay and Royles, 2018) .
Challenges: As it is the easiest method of training and development, still there are some
issues faced by the employees. Lectures giving by trainer is not understandable by the employee
is the most common problem faced by staff members.
Business Games: This type of method is mainly used by the managers in order to
identify problems and resolve them. In this method, employees of the company involves in this
business game. Under this method, team of employees make discussion and identify the
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problems faced by them. After analysing the problem, employees should take a decision in order
to solve the problem. In this method, issues arises related to sales, R&D and many more.
Challenges: Lack of participation from employees is one of the biggest challenge faced
by the mangers of company. Sometimes, it becomes lengthy and boring for the employees as
they back out from such methods.
Group Discussions: This is the method, commonly used by managers in order to bring
effective changes in the organisation. This method is mostly take place in classroom where group
of people discuss about a particular problem. In order to get solution for a particular problem,
staff members engage in group discussion process (Deresky, 2017). It is one of the better way for
providing trainings.
Challenges: One of the biggest challenge faced by the managers of the company, is they
have hectic working schedule. In order to implement group discussion in the organisation,
working schedule of employees get affected. As a result, working of the employees get affected
in a negative manner (Bailey and et. al., 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that, there is big difference between both
international and domestic Human resource management practices. Also it has been concluded
that there were ample number of issues faced by organisation while staffing and recruiting
employees for different functions. Along with this, there were several number of issues faced by
organisation and employees while providing training and development sessions.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bailey, C., and et. al., 2018. Strategic human resource management. Oxford University Press.
Banfield, P., Kay, R. and Royles, D., 2018. Introduction to human resource management. Oxford
University Press.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017.Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Brewster, C., and et. al., 2016. International human resource management. Kogan Page
Publishers.
Brewster, C., Chung, C. and Sparrow, P., 2016.Globalizing human resource management.
Routledge.
Cascio, W. F., 2015. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill.
Collings, D. G., Wood, G. T. and Szamosi, L. T., 2018. Human resource management: A critical
approach. In Human Resource Management. (pp. 1-23). Routledge.
Deresky, H., 2017. International management: Managing across borders and cultures. Pearson
Education India.
Jamali, D. R., El Dirani, A. M. and Harwood, I. A., 2015. Exploring human resource
management roles in corporate social responsibility: the CSR‐HRM co‐creation
model. Business Ethics: A European Review.24(2).pp.125-143.
Noe, R. A., and et. al., 2017. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage.
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Reiche, B. S., and et. al., 2016. Readings and cases in international human resource
management. Taylor & Francis.
Stone, D. L. and Deadrick, D. L., 2015. Challenges and opportunities affecting the future of
human resource management. Human Resource Management Review.25(2). pp.139-
145.
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