HRM and Globalisation: Strategic and Contemporary Issues Analysis

This report delves into the complex relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) and Globalisation, focusing on the critical issue of inequality in the global workplace. It explores the impact of globalisation on competition, customer satisfaction, and international agreements, highlighting the challenges and opportunities for global HRM. The study examines the significance of inequality, particularly among qualified professionals, and analyzes the role of job design and distributive pay scales in perpetuating this issue. It emphasizes the importance of organisational culture and how HRM can influence it to address these challenges. The report proposes strategic approaches such as dispersive job roles, internship programs, and flexible pay scales to mitigate inequality and foster a more equitable and productive global workplace. It provides insights into the implications of these issues and suggests how organisations can adapt to the changing landscape of global HRM.

Running head: HRM AND GLOBALISATION
Strategic & Contemporary Issues
[HRM and Globalisations]
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Introduction:
Globalisation influences for competition between organisations both at the domestic and
the international level for notably three possible outcomes like enhanced customer satisfaction
and quality products at low cost. Competition is becoming stronger with incrementing
international movement of services and goods. Globalisation is one of the possible causes that
have made such possibilities. The various international agreements like the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) have provided supportive platforms to such movements of goods and services
(Baier, Bergstrand and Mariutto 2014). The globalisation effect has produced some benefits to
the overall organisational outcome whereas it has also generated an ample list of challenges to it.
The management is under severe challenge. Most importantly, the global human resource
management now has loads of tasks to take care of appropriate strategic plans which are highly
productive and have very minimal flaws in it (Bhatti and Ahsan 2016). Some of the notable
challenges to the global HRM are the extensive industrial conflict, stressed labour-management
relationship, the appearance of militancy in trade unionism, and increasing trade union pressure
on workers. There are other few challenges as well such as globalisation & inequality and the
cultural differences. However, the study focuses specifically on the globalisation & inequality
at the global level.
This assignment is aimed at understanding the few issues of HRM at the global
workplace. The study tries to understand the importance of the organisational culture that
enforces a viable resistance to such issues. Hence, it also shows how the human resource
management at the global level can influence a positive organisational culture.

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Part 1: Explain why the chosen issue is important:
The chosen issue for this study which is the globalisation & inequality is important for
various reasons. According to Burman and Fernandes (2017), globalisation has helped to
people to move to other countries seeking better job opportunities. Opportunities can be
categorised into remuneration & benefits, work-life balance, and exploration to a varied range of
job-related skills. These are a few of considerations that graduate professionals make up in their
mind when they think of a global workplace. The global workplace is also occupied with labours
who are less qualified and seek to find a job probably at the assistant level just to satisfy their
needs of income (Brewster, Mayrhofer and Smale 2016). Both the scenarios are different;
however, the study is centric only to inequality in qualified professionals. In most cases, the
qualified graduate professionals do not get the best work-pay; however, they are asked to do a lot
of work-related tasks. Additionally, recruiters at the time of interview prefer hiring those who are
skilled in a varied range of expertise. Jobs are also designed in such a way that a single post
seems to be carrying the multiple kinds of responsibilities. However, those multiple tasks could
have easily been distributed among two or more professionals (Kumar 2014).
Such job designs do really hamper the career of many professionals. They either keep on
bearing the challenges or they get frustrated and are left with no place to move ahead. It is then
necessary that the HRM takes some serious approach to make the management realise the
possible ways out of it. The following figure just validates the highlighted concerns. It shows
that how different countries perform in regards to inequality.

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The figure shows that middle classes have a very less share in the National Wealth as highlighted
by the “Global Wealth Databook” (Inequality.org 2018). The United States tops the list and just
shows how adverse the situations are there. Other countries like as shown in the figure are also
not performing well in this regards (Inequality.org 2018).
It is evident that inequality is a global issue which needs to be resolved with effective
human resource strategies. The global human resource management has loads of tasks regarding
the job designs, pay scales and the training & development. In the opinion of Bos-Nehles and
Bondarouk (2017), job design is important as this can do the half of the task required to be
done to reduce the global inequality level. As viewed from Story et al. (2014), Job design
communicates the allocation of tasks from the assistant level to executive level staffs and the
managerial positions. It has been observed that jobs are designed in such a way that professionals
do multi-task alone. Such job designs are responsible for job-related stress, reduced work-life
balance, health-related issues and others. Some people might be efficient enough in handling

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multi-tasks; however, some may not be that much capable. It appears like the particular style of
job design is not applicable at the universal level (Story et al. 2014).
As stated by Glaister et al. (2018), “distributive pay scales” is another issue which
appears as if like a strategic HRM flaw. The distributive pay scales do probably contribute to the
global inequality. Different positions from assistant to managerial levels are offered the fix
salaries; however, they all vary in terms of numbers. The difference in numbers is acceptable;
however, fix salaries might be critical to the fact that there exists a global inequality (Glaister et
al. 2018). There are situations when business is not making potential earns; however, those
managers and assistant level staffs will still keep on drawing their fixed salaries. It appears that
such practice might put pressure on the net profit for a certain period of time (Glaister et al.
2018).
Part 2: Analyse the issue using cultural aspects of the HRM:
As opined by Namazie and Venegas (2015), organisational culture is created which
depends on how strategic is the human resourced management. According to Zubair, Jabeen,
and Zahid (2015), organisational culture can be defined as its characteristics to look at different
essential organisational elements like job design, pay scale and the training & development. In
the light of the facts stated earlier in this section, it looks possible that the HRM can play a very
significant role in influencing the organisational culture.
The first and foremost thing that the HRM needs to take care of is the dispersive job
roles. In spite of allocating multi-tasks to one person, they rather need to differentiate the
workforce based on their expertise. This may produce both positive and negative influences. The
positive influence will be the reduced work pressure, enhanced work-life balance, self-

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satisfaction & enhanced motivation of employees and improved business outcomes (Sheehan et
al. 2016). The negative influence can be the need of recruiting more professionals, so that,
unallocated tasks could be distributed. Added investments will be needed for the recruitment
process. The change might not produce the spot benefits to the organisation; however, they may
be able to observe the benefits in long-term.
The human resource management (HRM) can follow up certain ways to respond to the
identified needs. The dispersive job roles may leave some works as undone because the number
of employees in relevant to the variety of tasks is less. The switching over strategy to dispersive
job roles will then require a strategic response from the HRM (Haak-Saheem, Darwish and Al-
Nasser 2017). There are a few suggestions which the HRM can follow to reduce the required
investments for recruitment, training and pay scales. They may go ahead and recruit some fresh
graduates for the internship (Haak-Saheem, Darwish and Al-Nasser 2017). This is indeed a very
effective move to ensure low expenses made on recruiting professionals and also ensuring the
development of skilled professionals. Professionals are hired for an internship with a minimal
amount as a stipend (Sheehan et al. 2016). The stipend is always very less than a normal basic
pay. This means a straightforward saving on the pay scales (Sheehan et al. 2016). Such interns
may possibly be the valuable professionals for organisations provided that, if they take their
responsibilities seriously (Sheehan et al. 2016).
There are clear prospects in recruiting interns as it is a foundation for quality
professionals with fewer expenses being initially made on them (Zubair, Jabeen and Zahid
2015). According to Baier, Bergstrand, and Mariutto (2014), normal recruitment, on the other
hand, means a comparatively high distribution of salaries which itself never guarantees that
whether professionals will be the assets in future. As argued by Zubair, Jabeen, and Zahid

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(2015), the internship can also never guarantee of the production of skilled professionals or a
continued participation of interns. In fact, in both the case, a high attrition is expected but, the
real difference lies in the amount of money being paid to them on a monthly basis. This is indeed
a real gain.
Another benefit with the interns is they themselves look to learn. It means they may tend
to bear the work-pressure thinking of its benefit in their long-term career. Some of them may
also quit after not being able to handle the pressure. However, the loss in terms of investments
will be comparatively lesser. The fact still persists that interns are paid a very less amount than
the permanent staffs (Namazie and Venegas 2015). Some examples could also help to
understand the benefits of adopting the strategy of an internship. The various PR (public relation)
management agencies like the ‘Advertising Agencies’ do also follow the same procedure. They
recruit the professionals for the internship. They nurture them to grow to the maturity level, so
that, they are productive at that stage (Namazie and Venegas 2015).
In a very similar way, the human resource management at the global level can take the
initiative and follow up the same process. However, the human resource management has added
responsibilities in such situation. It is not just about recruiting the interns. The quality of interns
needs also to be enhanced, so that, productivity at the maturity stage could be more. The quality
of interns could be enhanced if organisations and the universities have better coordination. If
they have better coordination, the HRM will then be able to guide the universities to job-oriented
courses (Kumar 2014). Job-oriented courses mean aspirants being nurtured on the job-related
elements. Hence, such interns will have high domain-specific knowledge. The number of
efficient interns will then increase and hence, the HRM will have the ample number of skilled
interns to select from (Kumar 2014).

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“Distributive pay scales” is the other suggestion for reducing the global inequality. It
means there should not be the fixed salaries. The assistant level staffs and the managers must
have the difference in salaries but, that needs to be flexible and be in direct proportion to the
business outcomes. There is a need for a system which could effectively manage the percentage
of variation in either of the situation such as the incrementing and the reducing business
outcomes (Brewster, Mayrhofer and Smale 2016). This may indeed be challenging to the global
HRM and also very unique of its kind as the standard rule of salaries is different to what is being
suggested (Brewster, Mayrhofer and Smale 2016). However, global inequality needs a robust
strategic move from the global HRM and this is one of those kinds. There are practical examples
that support the same fact. The sales department, for example, does follow the similar kind of
strategy. They offer fixed salaries to salespersons; however, there can also be deductions in cases
they are not able to meet the target. The executive level and the managerial staffs though have
the fixed salaries; however, they may also get commissions on overshooting the target. The
assistant level staffs will seek for overshooting the target or at least, meeting the target, so that
they could get their full salaries and also the incentives in case of overshoots (Kumar 2014). On
the other hand, managers will always look for overshoot as they have no such threats of losing
their fixed salaries. They rather look for commission based pay.
Part 3: Discuss critically the implications of the contemporary issue for the future of
human resource management practice:
The few suggestions that have been given to the global human resource management
(HRM) if being implemented by the global HRM may expectedly bring a lot of the difference.
Distributive pay scales will bring some of the changes whereas dispersive job roles will bring the
rest. There will be an environment where employees have the competitive spirit and are doing

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hard works to ensure that they get at least the basic salaries. They will focus on developing skills,
so that; they open up ways to ensure an improved performance every time. Overall business
production will get improve due to the enhanced commitment to work. Employees will live in
fear to lose the job and hence, will not think of taking things lightly.
Distributive pay scales will also mean that assistant level staffs have no feeling of
injustice in them. It may be the case when there are unequal salaries distributed among assistant
level employees. However, the future workplace will probably have a reduced such feeling as
fixed salaries are not ensured anymore. They will rather be motivated to good performance, so
that, they get the same values as that of others.
Dispersive job roles will contribute to a dynamic workforce who is concerned with their
specific roles and responsibilities. This looks possible indeed as staffs will have reduced work
pressure due to being assigned to their expertise only. They will not be bothering the multi-task
which they have to do at present. Work-life balance will be redefined. Employees in the future
will be able to find sufficient time for their personal life and hence, will feel rejuvenated on
every office morning. The future workplace will also have the skilled interns who will be
strengthening their roots to become the permanent professionals. The future organisation will be
finding the solutions for labour shortage which is at present a challenge to HRM (Bhatti and
Ahsan 2016).
Labour shortage is an added issue for the contemporary workplace as employee turnover
rates are also higher. Attrition is increasing as many employees look for jobs which satisfy both
their basic pay and also the work environment (Burman and Fernandes 2017). However, the
future workplace will have a reduced rate of attrition as employees will be able to get their

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desired work profile and also the work environment. Interns will be getting the elevated
opportunities for their career due to a proposed internship in future. Moreover, they will in most
cases be in the line of their destination.
Conclusion:
Therefore, globalisation and HRM is a resource to many challenges of which global
inequality is one of the challenges. It has affected even the developed nations. Developed nations
have also struggled to make ways to lessen the inequality. The situation is even worse in
countries as such the United States. The global human resource management has ample of
challenges to face. The global inequality can be reduced if the HRM identifies the place for some
change as suggested in the study. There is a need to implement the distributive pay system in
organisations, so that, there are no fixed salaries and employees work hard to ensure their fixed
salaries are at least saved. There is also the need to consider a change in job design, so that, there
is an ample number of place for interns. If this happens, permanent employees will be allocated
to their expertise related works only. On the other hand, interns will get the elevated
opportunities, so that, they could be exposed to the world of opportunities. If such changes
happen then the overall business outcome will get better. The rate of attrition will also reduce as
employees will have maximum satisfaction at the workplace.

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