Practices and Challenges in International Human Resource Management

This report provides an overview of international human resource management (IHRM) practices, challenges, and issues in the context of international business. It discusses key practices such as international staffing, pre-departure training, and compensating expatriates, highlighting different approaches like ethnocentric, polycentric, and geocentric staffing. The report also addresses challenges and issues faced by HRM in international business, including ethics and corporate social responsibility, emphasizing the importance of a code of conduct for international operations. The conclusion underscores the critical role of HR in managing employees at the international level and ensuring the smooth functioning of the organization, with international staffing, training, and compensation identified as essential functions. Desklib provides students with access to similar solved assignments and resources for further study.

International human
resource management

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PRACTICES OF HUMAN RESOURCES IN THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
International staffing
Pre- departure training
Compensating expatriates
CHALLENGES AND ISSUES FACED IN HRM FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Ethics and corporate social responsibility
Code of conduct for the international business
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is the practice of conducting many different functions within
an organisation.
These functions include recruiting, hiring and managing the employees of the organisation.
Human resource management is strategic approach that is used to have an effective
management which will make the individuals work effectively (Surucu and Sesen, 2019).
Human resource management of an organisation helps in gaining competitive advantage.

PRACTICES OF HUMAN RESOURCES IN
THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
International human resource management helps in studying all the activities of the
management that will impact the processes within the organisation.
International human resource management helps in providing solutions for business
issues present at the global level.

International staffing
Staffing is one of the most important functions for international HRM.
Staffing includes finding the right match for the organization. In the case of international
operation, the complexity of staffing process increases.
HR have to decide the mixture of the local employees which is not an easy decision to
be made and is influenced by many reasons.
International staffing is the process of selection the candidates who are the appropriate
for the organization. The selection of candidates is done by different ways.

International staffing
Parent country nationals: It refers to the individuals from the headquartered country.
These individuals take the higher level of the organization
Host country nationals: This is related to the citizen of the host country and the country
other than the home country of the organization. These individuals occupy the middle
and the lower part in the management system.
Third country nationals: Here the candidates are selected from country other than home
country and the country hosting its subsidiary. They have the substantial international
experience that will benefit the company and provide it exposure in the foreign markets
bringing in many advantages for the organization.

International staffing
There are different approaches towards the international staffing process which are
applied by the HR department of the organization.
Ethnocentric approach: Within this approach, the strategic decisions of the company are
made at the main headquartered organization while the subsidiary organizations allowed
very little autonomy.
Nationals from the parent country acquire the higher management seats within the
company and control all the critical areas related to the business operations.

International staffing
Polycentric approach: This approach makes the company to treat its subsidiary
organizations as a distinct entity.
Each of the subsidiary is provided with some autonomy to run their business and make
the decisions on their basis.
Geocentric approach: This approach of the HRM helps the organization to focus on the
staffing practices and having the best employees for certain positions within the
organization (Mansour, 2020).
It is based on the philosophy of having global integration.

Pre- departure training
It is very rare that two countries have same and uniform culture while following similar
societal norms and working practices.
It is responsibility of human resource department of the organisation to provide such
training to its employees.
The aim of this training is to have focus on the skills that are required to work on host
organisations and important for attaining the success in the international assignment.
It helps them to understand the cultural differences along with the socio- political
environment of the host country.

Pre- departure training
This training provides the employees of the company to prepare them for the intentional
assignments.
HR conducts these training session in the country where the staff is supposed to work.
It is important that HR of the organisation is considers the family, their lifestyle and their
preferences in order to have a successful relocation of the employees to the host country.
A pre- departure training is also known as expatriation helps in making the adjustments
easy for the employees to work in different cultures.

Compensating expatriates
One of the most important practices for HRM for international business is providing
compensation within the international assignments.
Each country follows different norms of compensation and the organisation is supposed
to adhere these compensations laws of the place where the employees are posted.
Compensation also makes for an important tool that will help in boosting the motivation
of the employees.

Compensating expatriates
An employee working in the host country considers money as the sole motivator while
some might feel that rewards not based on finance such as challenging tasks and
innovative approach of the organisation might be a reason for working motivation.
These reasons make it important for the organisation to identify the needs of the staff
members and provide them with associated compensation.
It is essential that the compensation of these employees is done in fair and equitable way
with respect to the international compensation norms.