HRM Assignment Sample
What are the implications for the HRM function in MNEs, in rethinking the use of global teams, virtual collaboration, international assignments and flexible working arrangements, in the current and post-pandemic business environment?
Introduction
The post-pandemic period had created a plethora of challenges for companies in their HR management process. Due to imposed restrictions on travel companies were left with no other choice apart from adopting remote ways of managing their workforce. Hence focusing upon this aspect that changed methods of HRM operations of several major firms the study would analyse the implications of remote working in the post-covid period. Furthermore, the study would also explore the alternatives of international locations by identifying local, remote and international options that are available. Additionally, the study also aims to explore the changes that have occurred in the needs and requirements of training employees in remote environments. The changes in the expectations of ex-pats and flexible working arrangements have had an impact on their performance in the post-covid period.
Increase or decrease in the number of international assignments and their implications
The concept of global and remote teams has become much more widespread in the digital age, especially with the use and availability of the internet (Alexander et al. 2021). This has increased connectivity and increased the means of communication channels, which on the other hand, has supported the development of global teams.
The prevalence of global and remote teams has benefitted MNEs to a great extent by increasing the productivity of the organisation with the help of employees belonging to different parts of the world. An increase in productivity has in turn increased the competitive advantage of the organisations. For example, Microsoft has adapted to a hybrid model of working and a huge number of employees are working remotely for the organisation this has benefited the company in various ways (Weforum, 2021). Workforce diversity of the organisation has also increased with the enforcement of global and remote team concepts, which in turn, increase the creativity and innovation within the organisation. It has also developed the skilled teamwork of MNEs which has helped the growth and development of industries effectively.
Remote working has increased the chances of collaboration for the companies, and has provided them with greater opportunities for expansion across the world. During Covid-19 pandemic there was a significant increase observed in a remote working system. This pandemic has forced the companies to adapt to a remote working system which has impacted the productivity of the company (Alexander et al. 2021). Even after the pandemic employees are inclined towards work from the home system as it saves them time and expense of travel. According to some reports, in the United States, around 5 million people were working remotely from home (Forbes, 2021).
Apart from the advantages, global and remote working has some disadvantages as well. For instance, employees and employers in an organisation have been found to be less connected as compared to the traditional working system and this has reduced the creativity and innovation of the companies. It has also been observed that the productivity of employees also declined to some extent in some cases, as they have added their commuting time with working time but the work being done by them is still constant (Ozimek, 2020).
Overall it has been observed that the number of international assignments has increased over time due to the digital revolution in recent years. In addition to that, Covi-19 pandemic has also played an important role in the increase of international assignments in the last few years. This increasing trend of remote working has somewhat impacted the Human Resource Management (HRM) of the companies. For example, remote working has restricted HRM from monitoring the activities and performance of the employees (Silas, 2021). Hence, failures or successes of the employees can be neglected or overlooked easily on an everyday basis. This led the HRM to develop new and effective systems to monitor the performance and productivity of the employees.
Alternatives to managing international locations and workforces–locally, remotely and internationally
Locally
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it can be estimated that 2.7 billion people within the global workforce have been negatively affected by the measures of staying at home and lockdowns (Deloitte, 2022). The spread of Covid-19 has not stopped yet although the spreading power has decreased. Many organisations have tried to provide flexible work shifts to the local people. It is not appropriate to call everyone at work even after the restrictions have been called off. The whole workforce has not been called for work at the same time in some organisations, for example, in Deloitte (Deloitte, 2022). In this organisation, alternative work from home facilities is provided to the workers locally. It can be said that the organisation is trying to maintain the rule of social distancing by calling limited workers together in the workspace. On the other hand, campaigns have been conducted by this organisation to make the local people aware of curbing the spread of Covid-19. These things have been helpful to make people understand the shifts provided for their work according to job role or distance from home to the office.
Remotely
The situations after Covid-19 have forced the Global organisations to provide work from home facilities to the workers. Organisations such as EY have managed their workforce by investing in making the technology-enhanced which will be helpful for connecting or communicating with the employees who are working from home (EY, 2022). This organisation has provided the work from home facility to the people who are staying a long distance from the office. In this tough situation, travel expenses can be hectic for a worker when there is a shortage of income. It will also help to curb the spread of Covid-19 as social distancing norms can be maintained properly if there are fewer people at a time in the workforce (Savić, 2020). On the other hand, this organisation has provided remote working facilities to the people who are suffering from income shortages and are staying at a place from which reaching the office is difficult.
Internationally
Multinational organisations have invested in their technological field highly to connect with people globally. The expenses are provided to the workers to make them capable of announcing their internet connection and getting high-quality internet service. This type of investment has been done by organisations such as EY and Deloitte. Deloitte tried to help the workers during this difficult situation and has also focused on their own profitability for the long term (Deloitte, 2022). The decisions about the investment were made by the organisations based on the salary of workers. This type of initiative has been helpful for the employees to get hold of operations in the organisational workforce virtually. Through this initiative, the branches of these organisations, which are situated in different places can be connected and scenarios of businesses in different branches can be analysed at the head office by the director’s board or authority (Zhong et al. 2021).
Post-covid situations have increased the workload for the employees as the organisations need to recover their losses in a fast possible manner. Therefore, changes have been implemented in influential organisations. The changes have been communicated by understanding the needs of a workforce and according to the behaviour in the locality (Przytuła et al. 2020). This is because it is important to understand the behavioural differences in different countries. This strategy of the organisations has made them recover their loss conveniently. The global working issues have also been solved by these strategies to a greater extent.
Training implications/requirements, based on changes to managing an international workforce in current and post-pandemic times
The crisis of Covid-19 has accelerated the digitisation level to make reductions in the physical interactions. This has been an influencing factor to find ways for reinventing work and in some cases, a partial disruption in jobs by changing the way by which workers perform. For example, the healthcare system of the UK has experienced several years of digital evolution that took place within some weeks. In the year 2019, appointments took place at a less rate of 1% through the video link (McKinsey, 2022). Now, the doctors are addressing 100% of the patients through the phone and proceeding with face-to-face consultations for about 7% of patients (McKinsey, 2022). Therefore, the clinicians need to learn the manner of implementing effective and efficient diagnosis of remote categories. The clinicians need to be trained with proper technical skills in order to provide medical care based on technology.
Other sectors need to train the workforce for new skills as their operations have been redesigned for fighting the pandemic. For example, consumer banks need to enhance employee cross-training in specific services as the demand for applications of mortgage refinancing has surged. Banks need to train the employees in empathy as this provides help to the distressed clients for using the digital tools and latest products or services (de Lucas Ancillo et al. 2021). The employees need to be trained with the ways in which E-Commerce technology can be used highly. The organisations need to build digital, cognitive, emotional and social skills within the employees along with enhancing their adaptability and resilience.
Adding to that, the training requirements of employees have also seen an increased rate of upskilling programs that organizations have adopted to make their workforce multiskilled. In the present post-pandemic world employees with multiple skills and expertise in different areas are much more preferred than other employees who have generic skills or are experts in one or two areas (Choi, 2018).
Changes in expectations of existing ex-pats, working internationally
Expatriates play an important role in the expansion and development of organisations. The ex-pats perform different tasks in a company, for example, they work as boundary spanners and network builders for a company. They help in the expansion of the companies and to proliferate organisational culture among employees working in different centres and offices of a company. Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the attitude and expectations of ex-pats working internationally. According to a report, around 36% of ex-pats working for different companies have accepted that they have now started valuing their benefits package much more as compared to pre-pandemic times (Expatnetwork, 2022). During this pandemic, the ex-pats have used their benefit package in order to avoid any health issue, which has helped them to maintain their work-life balance immensely. Expats are now expecting to use their benefits package more frequently post-pandemic.
Apart from that, during Covid-19 pandemic the ex-pats have faced several challenges across the world. whereas, ex-pats working remotely from home have availed the benefit of spending time with their families. This has led to the expectations of ex-pats to grab the opportunity of remote working from home whenever possible. In another situation where ex-pats were working traditionally during the pandemic, they experienced high anxiety due to living away from their native country and family (Mello and Tomei, 2021). This has also brought certain changes in their attitude and expectation towards the organisation they are working for. Expats are now expecting higher job security and their company to provide them with good healthcare facilities as compared to pre-pandemic times.
In the case of developing countries, a large number of migrant workers work in these countries to avail themselves a stable source of income. A higher number of migrant workers helps in improving the foreign direct investment as well as strengthens the external financing in the country. Covid-19 has greatly impacted this negatively which in turn affected the lives of expatriates. For this reason, ex-pats are now expecting certain changes and enforcement in policies related to migrant workers to ensure their job security (Branas-Garza et al. 2020).
On the contrary, according to some other studies, a large number of expats are still confident and positive about working traditionally in different countries. Many countries like Singapore, UAE, Mexico and others have handled the Covid-19 pandemic very effectively which has increased the expats’ faith in the countries and its government (Human resources online, 2021). For this reason they are now more confident about working in these countries as compared to earlier. Expatriates working in these countries have chosen to work in these countries willingly in order to adapt to a healthier lifestyle. Studies have shown that the expats have improved their lifestyle working during Covid-19 pandemic by eating more healthily and exercising more. Hence, these are the reasons expats working in above mentioned countries expect to work in those countries for a longer period.
Overall it can be said that Covid-19 have changed the expectations of expats from their respective organisations as well as from the countries they are working in. Some of the expatriates are willing to work traditionally, whereas some of them are willing to change to a remote working system according to their experience (Mello and Tomei, 2021).
Implications for employees and employers in relation to flexible working arrangements
The environment in which employees and employers work, has drastically changed due to flexible working arrangements. From the perspectives of the employees, it can be seen that the work-life balance of employees has greatly increased due to which the employees have started to grow a likelihood towards flexible working arrangements (Aczel et al. 2021). Additionally, this has also increased the ease of working especially for employees who had to travel a lot to reach their offices. Eeven, the flexible working arrangements has created opportunities for several novices and experienced individuals, especially in the ICT sectors. Individuals are able to approach international firms and apply for jobs that allow work-from-home facilities (Timms et al. 2020). Thus due to the presence of such facilities employees are able to work for foreign organisations at the comfort of their homes.
It has also been seen that the ability of employees to work longer hours have also increased in flexible working arrangements and this is a significant benefit for both the employees and the organisation. In the traditional working arrangement of 9 to 5 hours, employees had no option other than to give their best performance within the stipulated time frame (Avgoustaki and Bessa, 2019). However, remote working arrangements have allowed companies to utilise their human resources in the hours when they are the most productive. Such changes in the HRM has increased the profitability of organisations while has also influenced organisations to continue remote and flexible working arrangements even in the post-pandemic period.
The CFO of Gartner incorporated has stated that conducted within the organisation reflected that 74% of organisations operating in the global market are considering some form of hybrid or permanent remote working facility in their organisation (Forbes, 2021). Such decisions are undertaken by employers considering the various benefits that can be achieved by companies with the use of remote and flexible working arrangements. Moreover, considering the perspective of employees it has been seen 58.6% of the employees who were working during the Covid-19 pandemic in remote working arrangements and decided to permanently shift their roles to remote working shifts and facilities (Forbes, 2021).
While on the other hand when exploring the implication of employers it has been seen that by adopting flexible working arrangements companies are able to reduce the number of absences and leaves that employees frequently took before the pandemic (Yu et al. 2019). This has increased the average working hours of the entire workforce which has been a significant benefit for companies that have a huge workload. As it has been seen above, flexible working arrangements have increased the satisfaction of employees and this has increased the organisation’s ability to maintain a loyal workforce. The employee turnover rate has significantly decreased after the adoption of flexible working arrangements which is another advantage that has influenced employers to adopt and increase the scope of flexible and remote working facilities within the company (Green et al. 2020).
Adding to that, implicating from the perspective of employers it has been seen that knowledge transfer and international collaboration has increased the ability of employers to train and carry out upskilling strategies in the company. The ability to increase collaboration with international employees working remotely has also helped in achieving diversity and creating job opportunities for potential employees in other countries who were previously not accessible (Chung and Van der Horst, 2020). Thus employers are willing to incorporate flexible and remote working facilities within their organisation to ensure that they are able to form teams made up of experts. Another aspect linked with remote working and flexible working arrangements is the ability of companies to reduce their operation cost significantly (Anderson and Kelliher, 2020). As employers did not operate their offices during the period of pandemic a lot of cost linked with the use and maintenance of the office premises was saved by companies. For instance by only utilising remote working Google was able to save $1 billion in terms of operational costs (Bloomberg, 2021). Moreover, to boost the performance and create a scope of better resource usage many companies provided computers, laptops and even broadband connections to employees so that they can work from home without having to spend on getting the required hardware at home.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic has posed a great challenge for mobility in different sectors or around the globe. It can be stated that global and remote teams have provided advantages to the multinational organisations to a considerable extent by proceeding with work along with increasing employee productivity. Remote working has tried to reduce the income shortages for employees all over the globe. Many businesses have recovered their loss due to the remote working facilities and technological development. It can also be concluded that the expatriates have helped to maintain the smooth flow of working on an international level. Benefits packages have been provided to the expatriates in order to avoid any kind of issues associated with health. This has been helpful for increasing their mental stability along with maintaining work-life balance. It should be noted that the digital skills of the employees need to be upgraded in order to use E-Commerce and the cognitive skills also need to be developed within the employees to provide effective services to the customers through digital platforms.
References
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