Vodafone's Global HRM Strategies: Case Study Analysis

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INTERNATIONAL HRM PRACTICE
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................4
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion and Recommendations................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13
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Introduction
The report aims to identify the practices of international human resources management in the
context of Vodafone Group Plc. Vodafone is one of the fourth largest telecommunications, and
IT services companies. It operators its business from its headquarter in London and Newbury.
Vodafone has around 313 million mobile customers as of 2018. The company has been operating
in a total of 24 countries. The market capitalization of Vodafone is approximately £52.5 billion
as of 2016. The company did many large scale mergers to get enter into the different counties
such as with Mannesmann in Germany and with J phones in Japan. It is considered to be their
very successful strategy to get enter into new markets internationally. Their global strategy is to
identifying requirements of new emerging markets. The report helps to understand and evaluate
the organizational structure of the company and its impact on managing the global workforce all
around the world. The different sources of staffing of Vodafone will be discussed in this report.
International reward & compensation approaches and the most suitable approach for the
company will be addressed in this report. Some cultural awareness programs for managing
diversity and a few recommendations for the company will be discussed in this report as well.
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Task 1
a. Identify the organization structure(s) of your chosen MNC and evaluate its effectiveness
in managing the workforce throughout the subsidiaries.
In today’s competitive world, every industry has been facing a lot of competition from all over
the world because most large companies expand their business to the different and other
countries to increase their chances of growth as well. Globalization is the biggest reasons for this
business expansion trend on the international level. Vodafone made several mergers and
acquisitions such as with Mannesmann in Germany and with J phones in Japan. These are few of
the biggest mergers in the world. Managing a global team of employees is complicated because
Vodafone operates its business in different countries and has many employees from different
countries, background as well. The organizational structure of the multinational companies plays
a vital role in successfully managing the human resources function in the organizations as well.
Vodafone of one of the most renowned telecom company in the world who operators their
business from London but now they have offices in every big city of the universe itself. The
following is the organization structure of the Vodafone.
Vodafone’s prime focus will be on commercial and financial priorities, data leadership, cost
efficiency, brand advocacy, and return to shareholders as well.
Vodafone wants to simplify the organization structure by reducing the layers and only the
governance.
The accountability of the group's operating companies will be control under regions.
Europe will be the centre of an existing business in Europe and the west. Africa, middle east
Asia pacific will handle the central Asian regions.
CFO, CEO and strategy & business development director, will be going to responsible for
effective strategic planning to attract more investments.
Global marketing will be lead by Group chief commercial officer who will report to the Group
CEO.
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All technical things will be taken care under Group technology, which is group CTO and will
directly report to the Group CEO (Gaspary, et. al., 2018).
Vodafone Group Plc follows a matrix style organization structure in the company globally.
Matrix is one of those styles where the company's employees have to report to different levels, to
more than one person. It helps to supervise the tasks as well adequately. This structure maintains
the management to provide their expertise to those areas where it is needed. It increases the
bonding between different teams’ employees, which improve their productivity, and that will be
helpful to the company to increase their sales & revenue as well. Matrix organization structure
style helps to provide flexibility to respond quickly to the customers, which help to achieve
customer satisfaction as well (Bekdik, et. al., 2018).
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b. Define international human resource management. Explain the sources of staffing in
MNCs. Suggest with the rationale the most appropriate source(s) of staffing for a new
global operation of your chosen MNC in a new country.
International human resources management is considered to be a set of activities aimed
managing organizational human resources at international level which will be helpful to the
company to achieve corporate objectives and competitive advantage at domestic and
international level itself. The following are the sources of which Vodafone uses to recruit the
talent globally for their company.
Internal sources – In internal sources, the organization doesn't hire anyone from outside the
company itself. The following are the types of domestic sources of recruitment as well.
 Promotions – It will be an excellent way to fulfil any vacant profile if the company have
some employees who are currently working in the organization who would be the most
suitable for the company.
 Retired employees’ services – It is not a very popular method, but sometimes
organization take services from its retired employees as well. The company can offer
some employees to continue their services after their retirement in a part-time or full-time
basis as well.
 Transfers – While the organization has multiple branches, sometimes it can transfer
employees from one department to another to complete the tasks as well (Basu, et. al.,
2018).
External sources – In external sources, the company has to hire skilled employees from outside
the organization based on the different recruitment process itself. The following are the types of
external sources of recruitment.
 Recruitment advertisements – Vodafone Group Plc often hires through posting
recruitment advertisements in newspapers, billboards and other print media.
 Placement agencies/outsourcing – company sometimes tie-ups with the placements
services providing outsourcing companies, to hire skilled employees from other
places.
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 Employee referrals – it is a current running requirement trend where the employees
can refer their friends and family to fulfil any vacant profile, and employees get
referral benefits.
 Job fairs – Job fairs & educational campus hiring are smart ways to hire new talent in
the company which helps the company to fulfil its bulk vacancies as well
(Amarakoon, et. al., 2018).
For hiring of any international operation for Vodafone Group Plc, the best recruitment strategies
will be following.
Social media & digital platforms – Social media will be helpful to increase the customer reach
of the company as well as the prospective employees reach as well. In a new country, social
media platforms will be the best suitable medium to run a recruitment campaign to hire skilled
employees. Vodafone can create a recruitment page on social media platforms to hire employees.
Print media will not be helpful enough for the companies to hire employees, so using digital
platforms will be a good option because they are popular medium as well.
The HR function of Vodafone easily got affected by these recruitment strategies. According to
expectancy theory the profile, recruitment process and benefits & perks must be according to the
expectations because it is required for employee satisfaction that the expectations of employees
must be fulfilled (Lloyd & Mertens, 2018). The organization allows no discrimination policy in
its human resources functions, and according to equity theory of IHRM, it is essential for
companies to provide equal opportunities to every deserving candidate as well (Gates & Reinsch,
2018).
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Task 2
a. Define and evaluate international reward and compensation approaches that MNCs
adopt. Recommend the most suitable method that motivates an expatriate in your chosen
MNC's international assignment. Justify your recommendation.
The international compensation system is considered as a provision of monetary and
nonmonetary rewards, which includes base salary, benefits, long & short term incentives
concerning performances of employees. Managing compensation internationally is not an easy
task. International human resources managers have to think according to the guest countries
compensation trends, wages policies and conditions as well. The main objective of managing
compensation policy is to indicate that the employer has an edge of having the right person for
the right profile. It could be easily adjusted according to the business needs, goals and available
resources as well. The following two are the most essential approaches use to determine
international compensation as well.
Going rate approach – It is one of the most commonly used and practical methods. In this, the
benefits and compensation will be based on local market rates, which seems fair with the local
employees that they will get pay accordingly to their home country.
Balance sheet approach – In this approach, the compensation is designed to equalize the
purchasing power of employees at comparable positions levels internationally and home country
so far. It helps to provide incentives and perks to offset differences between assignment locations
(Festing & Tekieli, 2018).
Vodafone Group Plc is operating its business in 27 countries successfully, and the following will
include the best compensation approach for the company for a new international assignment.
Global market approach – It must be considered as the best approaches when it comes to
working in multi nations for a company. In this approach, the company adopts a global market
approaches which mean all the benefits & perks will continue as the home country of the
company. The compensation will be the same, even if the tasks might be completed by various
people from various countries by a different period as well. It should be considered as one of the
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best compensations approaches for those companies who have been operating in different
countries itself (De Loecker & Eeckhout, 2018).
Justification
For considering the global market approach, the most appropriate approach because it helps to
maintain equality and consistency among all the employees working for the company as well.
Vodafone' vision is to lead the employees with balance, and global compensation will be helpful
to manage it easily. It will be useful to connect with the employees and increase their
productivity as well. As like any other multinational companies, leading international
compensation will be a complicated task for Vodafone, and global approach provides ease to the
whole process.
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b. Discuss relevant cultural awareness training programmes to motivate expatriates in
international assignments adopted by your chosen MNC.
Vodafone Group Plc is operating worldwide, and Vodafone respects its employees' diversity in
cultural in employees working from 24 different nations on various operational positions in the
company. It is not multinational, and it is multicultural organizations as well. The company's
prime focus as an employer is on hiring best and skilled employees from all the world, for which
Vodafone encourages its managers to gain experience of working within different cultures and
countries as well. The organization promotes open culture to help employees to raise the issue by
any behaviour; they would feel discriminates against individuals. The following are the programs
run by the company for cultural awareness to motivate employees.
Vodafone cultural navigator – It is an online tool which helps the employees to understand the
aesthetic preferences of an individual. It provides an exciting experience to the employees and
management to understand the cultural differences and treats everyone fairly and equally as well.
If any employees want to raise voice against any discrimination on different cultural-based,
according to motivation theory of IHRM, it will make it easy to increase the motivation level of
the employees. Vodafone respect all work and motivates its employees to work in different
cultural zones as well (Birnkraut, 2018).
Cultural integration programs – It is one of the best programs run by the company for cultural
differences. It helps the management to understand any new country's aesthetic preferences and
choices. It will make it easy to motivate employees to participate in international assignments.
These programs will be helpful to the employees to understand and adopt new cultural because
differences could be huge or small as well.
Code of conduct training – In the company's code of conduct, there are particular sections for
employees equality, no discrimination against cultural differences. The company make it sure
that all employees took this training so they will feel motivated towards working in other
cultures as well. It makes it clear among all the employees from different background, cultural
that company value and respects their aesthetic. According to performance theory IHRM, it will
make them feel connected with the company, which increase their productivity (Benuto et al.,
2018).
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Active participation is survey & feedback programs – Company promotes active involvement
of the employees in regular survey & feedbacks, which will be helpful to the employees to feel
connected and understand company policies against cultural discrimination. It motivates
employees to bring and adopt awareness about multicultural differences.
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Conclusion and Recommendations
The practices of international human resources management in the global context of Vodafone
group plc. has been discussed in this report. Vodafone is one of the largest telecommunication
service provider companies in the world. It has been following the most successful global
expansion strategies. The organization structure of the company has been discussed in this
report, which helped to understand that there are more than one persons to report. Sources of
staffing & recruitment of the company have been discussed. International reward &
compensation approaches, cultural awareness programs and few recommendations of the
company have been addressed briefly in this report.
For gaining better competitive advantage, the company should launch its own high tech advance
mobile handsets to its customers, which will be helpful to the company to increase its revenue
and customers satisfaction as well.
While making mergers in the past, Vodafone has to struggle in some countries due to lack of
research and developments. The company should create and effectively plan research while
making mergers internationally. It will be helpful to the company to make successful decisions
as well.
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