Strategic Human Resource Management: Training and Workforce Challenges

This essay delves into the realm of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM), particularly within the context of international business expansion. It examines the crucial alignment between a company's overall strategy and its HR policies, emphasizing the importance of employee morale and efficiency, especially during international assignments. The essay uses Innocent Drinks, a British company expanding into Europe, as a case study to analyze various approaches and strategies for training and preparing staff for international assignments, with a focus on Off-The-Job Trainings like coaching, mentoring, and conferencing. Furthermore, it addresses the challenges that workforces face while working abroad, such as cultural differences, language barriers, and lack of belonging, and proposes HR practices to assist staff in overcoming these obstacles, ensuring their motivation and contribution towards the company's goals. The essay highlights the role of SHRM in developing connections between business and HR strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of these challenges.

Strategic Human
Resource Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Approaches and Strategies for newly internationalised organisations for training and
preparing staff.............................................................................................................................3
Challenges faced by workforce while working abroad and how HR practices can assist staff. .6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Strategic Human resource Management refers to aligning company's overall strategy with
the HR polices and procedures. Basically, it is dedicated to building a connection between
business and Human resource strategy of the entity in order to induce productivity and develop
more efficiency within the organisation (Armstrong, 2019). Organisations are of many types and
through revolution taking place in industries and business world companies are moving to
international markets. In such situations, most of the times company's make their employees
move to international offices as well either on project basis or for a particular period of time. In
such cases human resource and company's strategies have to be connected in order to keep
morals of employees high and maintaining their efficiencies. Thus, the essay is developed over
the same in which number of approaches which organisations take for training and preparing
staff to move and work in international waters are analysed and most appropriate ones are
suggested to management. As well as various challenges that workforce face while working
abroad are elaborated too. For the context, Innocent Drinks is considered a British company
which was founded in 1998, making smoothies and juice and selling them through large
supermarkets. The company is headquartered in London, United Kingdom and operates in
Europe as it recently expanded.
MAIN BODY
Approaches and Strategies for newly internationalised organisations for training and preparing
staff
Internationalisation is a process of designing and innovating goods and services for
meeting the needs of customers in varied locations belonging to different regions, religions and
have indifferent preferences (Das and Kodwani, 2018). In recent decades, globalisation took
place and pacing aggressively, that means countries and world is becoming highly
interconnected and cross border commerce is inducing. The result is internationalisation of
companies where new offerings are designed for offering to diverse customer base for fulfilling
their needs and modifications being made in goods and services to meet the preferences of
buyers. Through, Internationalisation companies make efforts to place its foot prints into new
market with the motive of capturing higher market share and developing its presence in the
respective place.

Innocent Drink a UK based smoothies and juice producer who make sales through larger
supermarkets and coffee shops in the areas. Innocent Drinks is 90% owned by its parent that is
Coca Cola and procured the whole European market through around 15 countries. The company
is being internationalising slowly and steady by adopting available resources and making optimal
utilisation. In internationalisation processes Innocent Drink send their experts to specific
countries in which they are planning to expand or have already placed their operations. The main
objective to do so is to make use of human resource and their expertise for gaining a thorough
insight about the market and check their feasibility (Delery and Roumpi, 2017).
Internationalisation is a common phenomena nowadays which is being adopted by
companies having desire to procure larger market share and developing their presence on global
levels. As the company is in transition phase the employees are the one who makes all the plans
feasible and execute them in real practical situations. For the same it is firms, responsibility to
boost morals of employees being moved to international locations and work on behalf of the
firm. In regards to it, the management and HR practices needs to be developed for keeping staff
engaged and motivated. Thus, training and preparations programmes are developed for
introducing employees with change and for making them comfortable with it.
Employee Trainings and Development is a HR practice adopted for the sake of
employees as well as firms benefits. Innocent Drink is a British brand who is recently been into
expansion and development phase and meet the needs and requirements of changing processes
and phenomena's company needs to keep personnels informed and clarified. Training and
Preparation sessions are needs to be provided to workforce for motivating them and offering
them a development opportunity which will reflect upon their professional as well as personal
development portfolio and adhered with future career and development (Ardito and Petruzzelli,
2017). Their are number of Training and Preparation techniques that can be adopted by HR of
Innocent Drinks and matched with business strategy for higher performance standards and
productivity.
There are broadly two methods which organisations normally appear for higher for
preparing and training staff of the changed scenarios to work in them efficiently. These are On
The Job Trainings and Off The Job Trainings. In case of On The Job Trainings, it is basically a
process in which HR team offer knowledge and understanding to employee by engaging them in
operations and making them work on floor and automatically train them. Off The Job Trainings

is a process that takes place off the floor that means employees are not asked to work. On the
contrary, special training and orientation sessions are arranged for individuals according to the
tasks which are regulated through experts and professional belonging to the field.
The Human Resource Department of Innocent Drinks, have to work strategically and
systematically for preparing staff and workforce for moving into new location on project basis to
find out the feasibility of their operations and offerings. In case of expansion and development,
company plans to develop their project in a new location that implies that firm need to gather
data for which they allocate experts form the company for working on the project. Thus, a
suggested training and preparation route for employee and Innocent Drinks benefits is through
Off The Job Trainings (Bailey and et. al., 2018).
In this training and preparation session the employees who is being trained are referred as
“Trainees” and the experts who are sharing their knowledge are referred as “Trainers”. While
taking Off The Job Trainings employees have to leave their workplace and allegedly take
sessions with the professions. The trainers are either hired form external surroundings or are
placed internally. Mostly, in Innocent Drinks these preparation and orientation sessions or
workshops are for introducing employees with the new project and for making them understand
the requirements of company and about the aim of introducing the project. These sessions and
workshops conducted is part of Off The Job Training methods which are more specifically
known as Coaching, Mentoring and Conferencing. In all three approaches a two way
communication and conversational practice is performed where employees and leader participate
and make innovative and constructive arguments for developing better plans and making most
efficient conclusion (Harvey and Turnbull, 2020).
Thus, most commonly for such training sessions top level management who have made
specific research and plans to expand into new locations should address the employees. In such
trainings majorly information is provided to staff about the exact purpose of their expansion and
what company is expecting them to do. While introducing teams and experts for different job
roles they need to perform the top level management and specific leaders plays the role of
motivators and act in way to guide and direct staff towards the expected performance standards
and criteria. This training and development approach may work best for Innocent Drinks as the
nature of task prescribed is more inclusive and internal to the organisation. Internal plans and
opinions of management will be delivered to employees through effective communication

channels and the leaders roles will be prescribed as vital. This is because it will be their
responsibility to communicate and inspire the chosen best suitable candidates for the job by
negotiating with workforce and encouraging them.
Challenges faced by workforce while working abroad and how HR practices can assist staff
Working abroad and in new locations with the organisation is a broad opportunity which
is offered by the management and decision makers to the professional by thorough investigating
and examining the expertise, attitude towards work, behaviours, performance and more
importantly for abilities to carry out the assigned duties and tasks (Boon and et. al., 2018).
Human Resource Management (HRM) of entities are entitled to make thorough conclusions
about staff performances and suggesting best and capable candidates for the job to the upper
level management. For the same the HR goes through number of practices and evaluations such
as “Promotions”. Employees are offered a promotion in their position according to their
expertise and get them enrolled on the project for working abroad for the specific time till the
date of completion of the assignment. Also, “Transfers” is another technique which HR team
use for placing employee in new locations for the purpose of company's tasks and objectives.
Innocent Drink is expanding its portfolio through online and offline presence in number
of locations beginning with Europe. Company have made itself open to international markets and
stepped in Europe for which HR team may have been using promotions and transferring option
to keep staff motivated as well as for creating a synergetic balance in the group by dividing
expertise in separate locations. While moving to new places of works as it is a huge opportunity
for personnels as they are assigned a project and may provided a opportunity to lead it as well
with utmost potentials and efficiencies (Westover, 2019).
As for a fact every situation has two aspects associated with it in the same manner there
are positive factors attached to employees being transferred to new locations and promoted,
opening new door of opportunities and developments for company and them both. But do have
number barriers or challenges attached too which people face while being moved to new
locations basically abroad under Innocent Drinks internationalisation strategy. These difficulties
which employees face while working in a new place and in new region are Language Barriers,
Cultural Differences, Lack of sense of belongingness, Business Practices and Demotivation.
Employees or Workforce who are being moved form one place to another are humans
and are indifferent form one another. It is sometimes easy for people to cooperate and adjust to

new surroundings and working conditions and for others it will be a piece of cake. Therefore,
employees of Innocent Drinks can face issues and barriers while working overseas like firstly of
Cultural Differences. The fact that people belonging to different regions takes time to adjust in a
new place and in new location is true and this can be the biggest challenge for the professional as
they will be lacking behind in coping with their work and managing tasks accordingly.
Moreover, another barrier would be of language and business practices because employees will
be encountering to varied ways of performing one similar task that can create chaos and
confusion for the individuals and thus, here expertise and responsibilities of employee will be
reflected to showcase their talents and rationalise accordingly (Rees and Smith, 2017).
One more burden which employees may feel while moved to new place of work is
demotivation that will keep them from offerings their best to the firms goals and purpose to
which they are serving. The overall impact of the barriers employee faces in new locations while
working is demotivation and demoralisation. This is another challenge that leads to lower quality
of services people offer to the organisational and toward its goals. The employees who have been
moved to new locations for work purpose and for establishing presence of Innocent Drink in new
country can feel demotivated due to several challenges they are being encountering and lack of
sense of belongingness in the place.
Here comes the role of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM), here HR team
of Innocent Drinks will be developing connections in their business and HR strategy to deal with
the consequences that are developed through challenges employee faces. There are numerous HR
techniques and methods that company can adopt to deal with the situations created due to
barriers came in front of staff members in new place of work. The human resource management
may have already predicted these burdens or can analyse through different performance
management practices. There steps to mitigate the impacts of these challenges employees can go
through will be assisting staff in dealing with situations and cope with them (Madera and et. al.,
2017).
The human resource team of Innocent Drink can make use of several solutions to resolve
the issues. Such as for the purpose of dealing with business practice challenge the inductive
trainings and preparations sessions that is the Off The Job Trainings is a appropriate HR
approach. In those training employees would be briefly introduced to dynamic environment and
changing business practices which prepares them for such situations. Moreover, in order to deal

with the cultural difference barrier, the HR team of Innocent Drink will be introducing workforce
who are being shifted on the project to new place of work to the culture of the place. In order to
reduce the cultural barrier the HRM can should keep staff well aware and informed with the
change taking place, change management can be a suitable approach for the same. The reduced
cultural differences can also mitigate the challenge of Lack of belongingness as employees will
be making efforts to get more insight and knowledge about the new surroundings in which they
are going to work and will be living for a particular period of time (Wright and Ulrich, 2017).
From all the above practices the most influential and impactful practice is of motivating
and inspiring people. Demotivation is a the major factor that lead to reduced and inefficient
performances of staff. And it come sunder major responsibilities of HRM function to keep staff
motivated. Thus, leaders and HR team will have to be involved in chores to increase employee
enthusiasm for working in new place. The suggested motivating practices are performance
appraisals, rewarding and most importantly of keeping staff engaged in the functions making
them major parties for completing tasks and assigning them authorities (Collings, Wood and
Szamosi, 2018).
CONCLUSION
The above discussion is made over human resource management with strategic and
systematic approaches which concludes the importance of human resource for effective and
efficient functioning of organisation and its operations. The essay is developed over the major
activities and actions HR and management takes by connecting them to management practices of
human resource. It is clarified that while moving employees overseas form their domestic place
of work they require trainings and earlier preparations. Thus, the management and HR makes
arrangements for offering appropriate and suitable orientation to those who are seeking effective
expertise for carrying out the projects abroad and work potentially. Although there are number of
challenges which will be faced by employees such as varied business practices and
communication. For dealing with such situations HR unit take sever steps with the help of
efficient practices to keep staff morals high and make them work in the most productive and
effective manner.

REFERENCES
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