HRMandD in a Global Context
Q1. Technological advances are predicted by some academics as likely to have an almost apocalyptical impact on jobs. Discuss this view, and how organisations and managers might address the advances and increased use of technology.
Technology, as understood from a human applicative and practically implementable standpoint, has affected industry all throughout time. They have been linked to human society and civilization as it achieved great feats, which is at present fully interconnected to ensure that the best conditions apply to all sides of the economic landscape. However, the jobs that feature across sectors and industries have always faced challenges, which led to major shifts across the social sphere. In fact, technological change is usually regarded as the most consequential of the change in job positions since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The vast majority of occupation at that time was involved with manual labor, which operated across different industrial spaces. The development of such spaces entailed another consequential shift, this time with respect to operating machinery, which were vast, connected and yielded highly concrete finished goods as the consumer class also grew (CIPD, 2018). The continuum of technological advancements led to the rise and contemporary prevalence of computing workspaces. In light of these conditions, the major breakthroughs and achievements in science and technology indicate that impact of jobs would be significant and highly destructive.
The view is entirely viewed on the basis of what the ‘Second Machine Wave’ shall bring during the 21st century, and the extent of possible impacts that would happen on the achievement of true automation. They are inherently related with the development in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, which would bring a significant change as it is not just that routine and repetitive job positions would undergo automation to the fullest extent (Stouten, Rousseau and De Cremer, 2018). In fact, those jobs that are non-routine and greatly based on cognitive capabilities would also be accomplished by these technologies. This means that there would be an almost ‘apocalyptic’ disappearance of jobs, in which the necessary degrees of ‘upskilling revolution’ would not actually be able to keep pace. What Fleming (2019) underscores with the possible reference to previous studies and propositions for the ‘future of work’ would be exceptionally reflected and detailed all across the board. The compensation principle in this case performing with respect to the development and presentation of new discoveries in terms of job positions would be reflected on the basis of achieving important goals with the technology change (CIPD, 2018). However, in the era of low demand and low growth that is currently ongoing, the possibilities of such things taking place seems to be unlikely to a significant degree.
The Second Machine Wave indicates that the technologies shall move beyond than just mimicking human activities in a far more efficient degree. It shall showcase capabilities of advanced processing, such as data upon certain aspects of the world to take the development of humanlike capabilities at an entirely new level. Nevertheless, it has been pointed out that business organizations have more likelihood in the implementation and proper usage of new technologies, especially at the rate that is currently considered significant. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD, 2018) has showcased how there is a significant mismatch all across the industrial landscape in terms of businesses adopting and starting to use new technologies and the growth of productivity as they might have been expected. Meanwhile, Fleming (2019) identifies how even a cursory glance in the West showcases that in recent past the availability of job positions have increased. However, they were in far more dramatically different conditions and circumstances, which existed and generation or two previously.
CIPD (2018) recognizes through its survey research in the primary idea that introduction of new technology in an existing workplace would be affected on the basis of some consistent variables that are prevalent across human resource management (HRM). These circumstances identify and establish the fact that the keys to ensuring that proper implementation and actual reflections would depend upon the organizations of work as detailed and perceived from the view of organization, strategies for engaging with employees, the matching of skills as they would need to be transitioned, and finally the determination of quality in managing the transformed scenario (Stouten, Rousseau and De Cremer, 2018). All these conditions are what Fleming (2019) refers to as ‘bounded automation’ in which social considerations would ultimately correlate or even link to give possible considerations that organizations looking for change would have to consider. Adverse impacts upon jobs would have to be carefully considered with respect to the people as well, which would be a key point of focus for implementing HRM. The overlying history and precedence of research survey on jobs have revealed that they become challenging to address in the presence of a largely aging workforce (Stouten, Rousseau and De Cremer, 2018). Older workers have declined in terms of having and securing proper long time orientation towards job roles and positions altogether.
Furthermore, it is also imperative to point out how the overall considerations with regards to the future of work may vary in terms of the change, and the identifiable state of the future could be identified as prescient and prevalent. These are indicated to a certain degree by Fleming (2019) in the way of presenting possible rationale and factors at play to possibly bring them about. However, Dellot, Mason and Wallace-Stephens (2019) are the ones who actually provide concrete illustrations and the distinctions of differences about the ‘future of work’ altogether. In this case, the determination of the taxonomy regarding the conceptual framework shall include, automation, digitization, brokerage and management. Each of them are consequential in terms of the futures of work, which include the Big Tech Economy that shall involve the fact that technological development is extremely fast paced in addition to the capabilities to implement and integrate them across widespread system (CIPD, 2018). However, there would be higher levels of insecurity and would duly affect the security attached to jobs as well. These conditions and circumstances could be identified with having a similar relation to the Exodus Economy, in which case the economic slowdown would be far more drastic. The Precision Economy would retain jobs but it would take place in increasingly insecure conditions, and based upon significantly high levels of surveillance (Dellot, Mason and Wallace-Stephens, 2019). The most desirable, however, would be the Empathy Economy, which would be characterized by responsible stewardship. What this means is that technological advances and public awareness and knowledge under such concerns proceeds at a relatively slower rate but is ultimately more harmonious (Dellot, Mason and Wallace-Stephens, 2019). This shall evidently create the possibility with respect to achieve the compensation principle, as well upskilling revolution at different points in time.
In that vein, what the managers need to achieve in that vein is the proper delivery of outcomes that shall reflect the ways in which Empathy Economy could be reached. Under such circumstances, organizations themselves would have to undergo consequential transformation in order to achieve the widespread results. To address them properly, organizations and managers would need to centralize their HRM objectives and strategies appropriately (CIPD, 2018). They shall have to properly relate with the achieved conditions whereby all the circumstances considered together shall yield knowledge management within organizations first. This point is of significant necessity as it justifies and relates to the achievement of knowledge, and the systems that could effectively highlight the pathway of achieving better and more profitable outcomes in the future altogether (Dellot, Mason and Wallace-Stephens, 2019). They shall underline the technological advances that shall take place in a continuum, but with identifiable and quantifiable aspects altogether. They would, of course be consequentially associated and related to other aspects, such as the indicative ways in which career development strategies and ideas would be translated into different programs, allowances and other considerations (Pauli, Buchelt and Pocztowski, 2019). They shall identify the exact ways with the help of which actually relevant outcomes would be achieved by and large.
The key factors at play under these circumstances must be associated with favorable outlooks toward organizations to actually adopt and implement new technologies in proper ways. The difference in the scale of economies usually entail that large international organizations tend to have more prescient issues, as well as greater access to achieving proper skills and capabilities than others (Wang and Siau, 2019). However, the key to achieving actual relevant and consequential outcomes would underline how the developments have, for the most part, reflected the achievement towards actually relevant outcomes (Dellot, Mason and Wallace-Stephens, 2019). Such important correlations to size and the extent of conditional securities identify with the key factors of change. However, when conditions like low labor costs offset the costs associated with new technologies, it shall imply the effects to be taking place upon everybody except a handful of the biggest and most prominent organizations. Therefore, under such circumstances, the non-possibility of replacing job positions with automated and advanced mechanization of workflow would not be able to be achieved (Pauli, Buchelt and Pocztowski, 2019). However, they also mean that the extent of costs associated with labor will trend even downwards than before. Managers and organizations need to be acutely aware of these conditions, and must properly ensure the transitions and changes would happen with technological advancement with the inclusion of the proper people who would mostly be employees.
These are the most prominent steps and initiatives to be taken by HRM, which would eventually spread to other managers and ultimately the entire organization. It would matter of how the proper ways of equal footing are attained to make the entire scenario fruitful for all, dynamic and not dominated by a select few.
Q3. International assignments have typically been undertaken by high status employees. Discuss reasons why this may be and also how and why international assignments may alter in future.
The entire perspective from the outlook of delivering the best conditions of international management of work reveals certain exceptional and relevant scenarios. International presence of businesses tend to expand and complicate the affairs at play to a very significant degree. Under these conditions and circumstances, the assignments that arrive from the primary center of an organization must reflect major and consequential steps to be taken (Hughes, 2016). Research that have happened over recent times, however, reflect the widespread importance associated with how international HRM (or IHRM) would be indicated and established. In considering that, it is important to specify that the notion of becoming multinationals would specifically imply business presence in a country for any business other than its own. It is what exactly guides the consideration and achievement for important results (Budhwar, Varma and Patel, 2016). IHRM would be, of course, closely associated in order to deliver proper outcomes associated exceptionally with the people who are involved. In the fashion that most consider as rational, it could be identified that the requirements would exceptionally entail the setting up of a new company in the international sphere. This means that the establishment of necessary business concerns are directly tied to having employment in job positions, which would be consider of higher status.
In the case of international organizations specifically, it is exceptionally relevant to consider and establish the fact that there would be a global dispersion of employees. The spatial dynamics would become the core of a range of issues that would be faced by the top management at the global headquarters. In that vein, as far as people are considered, IHRM takes the shape of associating and implying the fact that skills and knowledge would be required (Budhwar, Varma and Patel, 2016). They would effectively proliferate all across the board, and impact the realization of important outcomes related to almost all aspects of management. It shall most prominently be utilized and portrayed in terms of attainable positions in terms of policies and practices. These identify the defined circumstances in the abstract for IHRM, as they must be employed in terms of high status employees (Hughes, 2016). It effectively bends the entire organization to adapt and change to these demands of forces and factors inside of the entire macro environment, which would effectively become highly distinct and challenging in terms of plurality and variations. The key points would reflect the state of recognitions and appreciating them with respect to the differences, which could be found under local markets (Budhwar, Varma and Patel, 2016). The differences, however, must be considered from the perspective in terms of being given towards the state of achievements by and large. These circumstances carefully underline HR managers and executives, whose job positions are universally considered to be high in terms of status derived from their importance and impact, could lead to the achievability of outcomes or results.
In effects, IHRM manifests and conveys the indications toward the achievement of results in terms of change through different ways, whether it is with its structure, or the culture. Both these considerations also highlight a great deal of differences among different multinational companies from different sectors and industries achieving appropriately varied results altogether. Such important considerations and results could effectively lead one to believe how the IHRM usually indicates that changes based upon the circumstances of convergence and divergence (Budhwar, Varma and Patel, 2016). These are appropriately identified on the basis of a certain state of conditions or ‘model’ of an organization, as to what that might take place. For instance, convergence generally means that global trends and factors often lead to the international affairs to become similar to what the conditions made the firm successful in the first place within its own home country. The parent would, therefore, want the organizational interests in other countries to converge in the ‘ideal’ state of conditions altogether (Budhwar, Varma and Patel, 2016). Meanwhile, divergence means the opposite in which organizations leave behind the universalist paradigm in terms of the worldview to essentially point to the contextual needs and conditions that any organization is bound to face over the most consequential and significant of concerns altogether (Hughes, 2016). These identifying conditions underline how the entire state of affairs related to this must carefully associate and relate with employees who must be high status at large.
The key to understanding the need for understanding the extent of challenges and resistance that international organizations face indicate the emergence and relative prioritization of the agency theory. In this case, the key concern for the principals of an organization is to ensure that they appoint agents who would always adhere and associate with the key aspects of their interests by and large (Hughes, 2016). These conditions would indicate and portray the fact that they are high status from the perspective of principals. The agents appointed thusly would pursue to the realization of the entire organizational structure by and large. As already pointed out before, the high status of employees in handling internationalization would be acutely aware as well as prepared the concerns through the help of which actually relevant outcomes would be obtained (Andersson et al., 2019). Under these circumstances, the careful notion of the wide scale and potentially significant impacts along such lines would reflect the achievement of important results or outcomes. National institutions happen to be perhaps the most notable of points for consideration regarding the achievement of necessary results. What they point out is the fact that actually relevant outcomes and consideration would normatively resist the full-fledged operations of multinationals in their respective countries (Grimshaw, 2020). In order to deal with problems that actively indicated towards suppression of control as well as the chances in achieving success, it is exceptionally relevant to point out and lead the achievement of the key results altogether. As a result, the overall picture as to why high status employment in terms of international affairs of an organization is the most normative state of affairs.
What the current conditions of internationalization and the point of IHRM generally mean or indicate is that the expatriation is necessary for business organizations to a certain extent. Primarily speaking, they would be consequential in terms of achieving necessary outcomes, which would be related towards achieving the outcomes. This has meant that linkages between the degree of expatriation against that of local hiring and staffing practices would become consequential (Andersson et al., 2019). This invokes a great deal of processes being initiated and realized for achieving the core objectives at play by and large. As the world converges and diverges by organization and individual based linkages, there is certainly a great relevance of the usage of most current technology must be in order to implement (Grimshaw, 2020). They are already currently use with respect to policies and practices established in a way, which would lead high level managers and executives appointed in different countries to setup and orient employees from different cultures to assimilate properly with the organizations. Above everything else, the strategic points still held considerable influence and consideration altogether (Grimshaw, 2020). Clearly, the different approaches that have been identified with staffing strategies under IHRM, such as ethnocentric and polycentric approaches respectively to indicate the outcomes or the results.
However, the future of work in the view of all these potential considerations shall indicate how little the intervention requirements of high level employees would play roles. With technological advancements, they would be carefully based upon the provisions in accordance to the emergence and constantly growing proliferation of dynamic technologies. These have essentially indicated the type of virtual environment, which has led organizations and other parties to not pay a great deal of heed by and large (Andersson et al., 2019). Contemporary reflections have been noted how international management of employees could be effectively attained by the gig economy. What they relate to and establish is that the vast majority of the functions that might have been considered to be slightly repetitive and routine based would be handled through the automation in communication as well as the application of certain specific points of intelligence (Grimshaw, 2020). They would be carefully identified and indicated in terms of achieving the most consequential goals one could imagine or portray. Through their implementation, it is possible to see how exactly the conditions shall entail the limited state of requirement for the basic level requirements, as they would be handled by the necessary technicians for some part, and by the computing environment itself on the whole (Grimshaw, 2020). These are the most consequential aspects of change in which heavy and consequential recruitment in different possible ways for IHRM and other aspects of international management would be realized.
They shall all consequently reflect and establish the conditions in terms of which actually relevant outcomes and circumstances would emerge for the organization in the future.
Reference List
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Budhwar, P.S., Varma, A. and Patel, C., 2016. Convergence-divergence of HRM in the Asia-Pacific: Context-specific analysis and future research agenda. Human Resource Management Review, 26(4), pp.311-326.
CIPD, 2018. Automation and the future of work. Available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/cipd-submission-to-hoc-business-select-committee-on-automation-and-the-future-of-work_tcm18-51802.pdf (Accessed 16 July 2018).
Dellot, B., Mason, R. and Wallace-Stephens, F., 2019. The Four Futures of Work. RSA. Available at: https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/reports/rsa_four-futures-of-work.pdf (Accessed 16 July 2021).
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