PGBM136 International Human Resource Management Assignment Sample
Module code Title: PGBM136 International Human Resource Management Assignment Sample
Introduction
Human Resource Management (HRM) plays a pivotal role in an organisation as the responsibilities of HRM are planning, hiring employees, providing training for development, managing the huge workforce, motivating those employees, implementing policies and so on. In this age of globalisation roles and responsibilities of HRM become more challenging as the HRM needs to manage the international workforce to achieve success for an organisation. In this essay, the convergence approach of HRM and initiatives of HRM in a famous food conglomerate, McDonald’s will be discussed in detail to understand the significance of the topic properly.
Justifying the choice of McDonald’s
McDonald’s is a popular company which is based in the USA and deals with fast food in an international range effective leadership as well as international HRM provide support to maintain the growth of the business. In 1954, the company was established by Ray Krock in California and it has become one of the leading food companies in the world with nearly 200,000 employees working worldwide which boosts the productivity of the company (Corporate.mcdonalds.com. 2022).
The company currently operates its business in more than 100 countries through its 36000 restaurants and managing this huge workforce convergence approach of HRM is highly essential to maintain a good work environment within the company. Efficient managers set proper values such as commitment to doing the right things, identifying more responsible sourcing, implementing people, processes and practices to deliver desired quality food and so on.
Along with that, the company dominates the international competitive market as the revenue of the company is $19, 208 and effective strategies in the work process that are implemented by HRM help the company to achieve prosperity (Corporate.mcdonalds.com. 2022). Effective HRM is managing the workforce of the company with a convergence approach and for this reason, the company has been chosen for this essay to understand matters constructively.
Developing trend toward the convergence of Human Resource Management (HRM) globally within McDonald’s
International training and development and Workforce diversity
Globalisation refers to the growing interdependence of world economies, culture, population, cross-border trade and many more and to handle the current trends of globalisation international HRM follows convergence trends. The HRM of McDonald’s has to recruit employees from all over the world and to achieve desired productivity the HRM needs to provide training programmes in the different countries.
Additionally, to manage the cross-cultural or diversified work culture, the company arranges global training programmes for the workforce of the company to follow the latest trends. The business environment has gone through a radical change and McDonald’s arranges different training programmes for the employees whereas the company also faced training related difficulties at 5 Cross Roads, Hamilton (Duggal and Alexander, 2018).
The company all over the world arranges 12-18 months of training for the employees in the restaurants and arranges operator training classes by local professionals to provide required training in regional languages. In addition to that, training and development programmes help the company to engage the competency of the employees and the food giants such as McDonald’s have faced a direct fall of 18% in revenue due to a lack of training of the employees in 2015 (Puleka et al., 2018).
The company also focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion to follow the current trends as well as the convergence approach and the HRM of the company implements stringent rules regarding the same in every country. The company aims to exploit economic prosperity by dismantling any barriers of discrimination, focusing on inclusion and belonging and the company takes initiatives to enhance the female leadership to 45 % by 2025 to maintain a well-diversified work culture (Corporate.mcdonalds.com. 2022).
McDonald’s deals its business in about 100 countries and to maintain a good work culture the HRM of the company follows the emotional intelligence theory of Daniel Goleman. The emotional intelligence theory of Daniel Goleman includes self-awareness, self-management, and relationship management and so on and this helps HRM effectively to maintain organisational culture as well as productivity (Dâmbean and Gabor, 2021).
Figure 1: Productivity of the employees for implementing the Emotional Intelligence theory (Source: Dâmbean and Gabor, 2021)
The HRM of the company also implements Global pay Principles to provide equal payment opportunities for the employees all over the world and it helps to draw equality among the employees irrespective of responsibility, location, gender, and ethnicity and so on.
The company also arranges several programmes online as well as the offline mode to train the employees and in India, the company boosts productivity and provides training under work from home policy. Nowadays, to achieve success in providing training and development programmes, HRM needs to focus on environmental, legal, technological and many other aspects at the national and international levels (Silva and Lima, 2018).
Sustainability maintaining
In recent days climate emergency has become a burning issue for this planet and Effective HRM implements several policies and takes various initiatives to follow the currents of maintaining sustainability within the work process. The HRM of the company with the help of authority addresses the problems and sets goals related to climate change, respecting human rights, reducing food and packaging waste, farmer livelihoods, conserving forests and so on.
Furthermore, effective HRM of two subsidies of McDonald’s in Sweden and the UK arranges effective programmes to enhance engagement of the employees in environmental programmes that helps to fulfil the initiatives related to sustainability (Sanyal and Haddock, 2018). The company also follows the triple line bottom management theory of John Elkington to increase sustainability-related to people, planet and profit which are important for an organisation to follow the contemporary trends and convergence approach.
Moreover, the effective HRM of the company sets plans to follow Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) such as zero hunger, life on land, climate action and many more all over the globe. The HRM provides proper training regarding sustainability initiatives and engages those employees in enhancing the awareness of the same thing among the employees of the company to follow the latest trends in the international range (Langert, 2019).
For example, the company to reduce the waste of plastics globally takes initiatives to use paper bags and, in this way, the HRM of the company floors convergence approach. The HRM of the company also provides training to the employees to engage with local farmers to share best practices and this function helps to increase the social as well as environmental sustainability of the company.
Additionally, The HRM of the company implements strict rules in the world regarding the beef supply chain and collaborates with several companies such as Argo Tools, Ag-tech, and pro forest companies to curb the issue related to sustainability. In the changing and complex business environment, the HRM of McDonald’s needs to focus on strategies, and core values to boost the productivity of the employees in an effective manner (Raj and Singh, 2021).
The HRM of the company provides proper training to the employees to reduce the carbon emission and 23.6% of the target has been achieved in the restaurants which boosts the overall profit of the company (Corporate.mcdonalds.com. 2022).
Figure 2: Effective initiatives of HRM boost the overall profit of McDonald’s (Source: Corporate.mcdonalds.com. 2022)
Customer services
In this age of globalization, international HRM follows convergence approaches to follow the contemporary trends to maintain the growth and development of the company in the highly competitive market. In recent times, the digitalization of the company has made drastic changes in the operation of HRM and the HRM needs to take initiatives to manage the roles and responsibilities ineffectively. In the initial stage of the pandemic, Covid-19 the food sector has gone through a major crisis and to overcome the challenges the HRM in the international range exploits social media marketing to enhance selling.
During the pandemic lockdown phases, excessively affected dine-in for McDonald’s and the effective customer service through social media helped the company in Malaysia to regain the business (Edeh et al., 2021). The HRM of the company also focuses on marketing through the application, social media and other digital platforms and provides training to the employees all over the world to boost their performance on digital platforms.
Thus, the digital sales exceed 10 billion and 20% of the global sale and the company gains huge profit during the pandemic by following the current trends or with the help of the convergence approach of HRM (Corporate.mcdonalds.com. 2022).
Apart from that, the company focuses on the customer service offices as those employees help the company to meet the expectations of the consumers in online trade and to reduce issues of consumers. In countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, according to a survey related to McDonald’s, 87.07% of people are satisfied with the customer service of the company and 69.83 % of the employees are satisfied with the quality of the food (Jian et al., 2021).
The HRM of the company also implements several technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) in an international range to provide a better experience to the consumer to maintain the brand reputation of the company. Furthermore, AI technology at the global level provides real-time chat options for the consumers, helps to track the delivery timing, real-time conversation and many more which helps the company to be more prosperous in the business.
In the age of digitalisation AI, technology supports managers of the company with rational strategic choices, guidance to recommend products according to the choice of the consumers, data on the purchasing behaviour of the consumers and so on (Cao, 2021).
The HRM of the company also implements a special focus on the application of the company and it helps the company to gain overall profit and attracts the attention of the consumer with lucrative customisable features. The convergence approaches of the HRM help the company to follow the global trends and overcome the organisational changes related to online trade as well as mitigate the issues constructively related to pandemics.
Along with that, McDonald’s in Jakarta achieves success during the pandemic condition to good customer service, creative marketing, and quality of products which boosts the brand image of the company (Tj et al., 2022).
Figure 3: Service and product quality influences customer loyalty (Source: Tj et al., 2022)
International Distribution and Supply Chain
International Distribution of products by McDonald’s is offered in different countries and the distribution is operated through a standardized global supply chain. And with the help of the strategy, McDonald’s has followed the current trends of the convergence of HRM in the global field. The standardized distribution in the supply chain is a lean process with no backup system in which there are two tiers namely, tier 1, suppliers are processors and tier 2 are food producers (Song, 2021).
In McDonald’s the produce is transported to the distribution centres just before the allocation of the products and later distributed to the individual restaurants and chains. The HRM of the company has strategically used the distribution system of the products to be supplied through a particular system to enter the global market to follow the trend of convergence.
The success of the supply chain of McDonald’s is mainly attributed to the commitment of the HRM team to outsourcing the non-core activities to the expert firms within the organization. HRM with the help of the latest technologies such as Data Security, and blockchain integration has made the supplier terms highly rigorous, the suppliers are set to have accountability until the final product is consumed by the consumers globally.
Moreover, with the level of awareness of the legal terms regarding the food quality among the consumers, have not made McDonald’s has not put legal contracts with the suppliers. Among the companies and the suppliers that maintain a long term relationship and also the standardized sustainable resourcing, McDonald’s goes by the policy of “one supplier-one product” (Raj et al., 2021).
McDonald’s is focusing on operating in the extended chain of various branches such as in the US, Vietnam, in the global market, making the company source the raw materials from different contracted suppliers to meet the diversified requirements of products.
For instance, McDonald’s India focused on the standardization and the adaptations of the culture in the company’s products as well as the supply chain. The company has to first study the organizational strategies in bringing convergence to adapt to different kinds of cultures, where cows are considered sacred (Faichuk and Faichuk, 2019).
Figure 4: Sale growth of vegetarian McDonald’s products in India (Source: Faichuk andFaichuk, 2019)
McDonald’s products are always kept off the Western origin, however, when it came to penetrating the foreign market such as India, the company had to stick to an adaptation strategy and not to standardization of products. This adaptation didn’t impact the standards of the quality of the food products used in the US market and the Indian market despite the change in the raw materials. The HRM of the company maintained the ethical sourcing of the raw materials in both countries as a uniform policy to maintain the convergence strategy used in the global food supply chain (Kpoku, 2021).
Figure 5: McDonald’s Sales and Revenue Growth in USA 2020 (Source: Kpoku, 2021)
Quality Management is the management of activities that are involved in determining the policies and the implementation of the policies in the company. The main principles maintained in McDonald’s in terms of quality management are defined by the International Standards of Quality Management (Purwantoet al., 2020).
McDonald’s has a defined set of management teams designated by the HRM for the inspection of the food items and consumer services in various countries such as the UK, USA, and Indonesia. The implementation of the quality management team and policies in the various branches around the globe has helped McDonald’s in running a successful business in the global market.
Additionally, the quality management team makes sure to meet all the basic criteria for the operation of the McDonald’s HRM at a global level which is also one of the convergence strategies used by the company to penetrate the global market. In maintaining the quality management in the company, McDonald’s has been able to have a profound effect on the Chinese market, growing faster in China than in the United Kingdom.
However, the level of quality management is kept at a uniform rate in China and the UK to maintain the standards set by McDonald’s globally.
The Covid-19 Pandemic has shown a different approach to bringing uniformity in the logistic system change in the company on a global basis all the logistic activities are handled differently. For example, in the companies with the help of advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, blockchains chain to increases the efficiency and transparency of the supply chains (Tisciniet al., 2020).
Moreover, in the UK McDonald’s uses the 3rd Party Logistics providers (3PL) strategy such as Martin Brower which is one of the partners in supplying the raw materials and products to the chains in the UK. Martin Brower is considered to be the most efficient logistics service provider in the UK as the logistic partner of McDonald’s, by creating an extraordinary work environment.
In Vietnam, outbound logistics are responsible for the management of logistic activities starting from the food production to the manufacturing of the final products and the delivery of the products to the consumers (Schlegelmilch, 2022).
In Vietnam sitting down and enjoying meals is part of the country’s culture and McDonald’s outbound logistics in Vietnam maintain the fast delivery of the food to the consumers’ tables. The Outsourcing activity overseen by the outbound logistics team of McDonald’s in Vietnam comes in the system of sit-down, drive-through and restaurants.
In both Vietnam and the UK, McDonald’s is using the latest apps and websites to keep track of the logistics partners of the company in ensuring the smooth handling of the operations and meeting the consumers’ needs in the process. The convergence strategy is implemented by McDonald’s by the HRM team to make sure the Logistic system and the Logistic partners of the company run parallel. The strategies are used to help in the development of McDonald’s in increasing and the penetration of the global market meeting the needs of consumers.
Recruitment, selection, retention and promotion
Recruitment and selection are the prime concern for the IHRM where the employee skills, ability and academic background are the focused areas for HR executives to select and recruit the best talent for the global market. McDonald’s has successfully integrated its HRM strategies with the convergence of human resources and staffing strategies across the global market.
McDonald’s is one of the world’s largest food chains which has a presence in more than 100 countries and employees have to serve around 50 million people daily where the company operates. However, the company is looking for employee satisfaction where more than 70% of employees used to work 8 hours and less to contribute to the company’s profit share and customer satisfaction which originally satisfied the employees in work-life balance.
The company is obtaining the convergence of HRM outcomes in different nations through flexibility, quality and commitment. Flexible working practices enable employees to go the extra mile to execute the best performances to successfully meet the targets which also influences the empowerment of individuals along with successful team building.
Diversification in the employment market along with labour force diversifications are the emerging trends of the current age where a diversified employee force may make growth in the national economy through the inclusion of all the social classes into the workforce (Su et al., 2022)
McDonald’s has integrated its HRM strategies throughout the world to enhance the delivery excellence from the employee with proper alignment, training, the scope for personal and professional development, salary and other compensation to retain the best employee within the workforce. On a specific note, McDonald’s used to hire employees based on the environment adopted by the organisation to serve and satisfy the consumer.
The convergence of HRM strategy by Mcdonald’s followed in almost the same way where 30 hours a week was considered full-time employment. In the UK and globally McDonald’s HR strategy revolves around employee performance evaluation where different market strategies in several markets have engaged the employee performance to gain a positive profit margin.
On the other hand, McDonald’s has made a distribution agreement in Turkey which engages in supply chain, operations, finance and marketing management along with the HRM where both global and local strategies incurred cost-effectiveness and efficiency to converge its policy globally (Hamza and Karabulut, 2021).
It has been noted that the cycle of promotion, salary and increment as well as compensation remains the same for McDonald’s wide stretched global operation with centralised decision making. The incentives are given to the employees based on their performance which is further categorised as cash-based as medical and annual allowance and non-cash-based incentives such as access to gifts and certificates and free food.
The convergence of HRM strategy helped McDonald’s to centralise command and decision making for global employee management as well as engage in operational activity to fulfil the customer’s zeal for food. Apart from that, McDonald’s is engaged in green HRM practices to make the business sustainable and viable to gain market confidence and satisfaction through employee engagement in environmental causes for McDonald’s (Sims, 2019).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it may be concluded that in the age of globalisation HRM faces huge challenges to manage roles and responsibilities as the company’s performance is dependent on the activities of HRM. McDonald’s is a well-known fast-food giant and the HRM of the company follows a convergence approach to follow the contemporary trends for that reason, the HRM has taken several initiatives.
Along with that, the company brings effective changes in the trading and recruitment programme to manage a diversified work culture, focusing on supply chain issues to maintain the position of the company in the global competitive market.
Recommendation
There are some recommendations for the company which may help the HRM of the company in future to follow the global trend effectively and maintain the growth and development of the business. HRM of the company should follow Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory as the HRM manages a huge number of workforces worldwide as this theory provides the notion of reading different cultures of different countries.
On the other hand, the company takes several initiatives to enhance sustainability in the business process whereas the company should hire efficient managers who may monitor the progress according to the taken initiatives. HRM should provide language training as language barriers often create issues in the diversified work culture and especially the employees who belong from the rural area of the countries.
HRM takes the help of technology such as AI and the company should hire experts to overcome technical issues such as violation of privacy or data as this is important to meet the expectations of the consumer. In addition to that, the company should appoint efficient managers to handle the supply chain issues as the company works in a wider network and strong relationships with suppliers boost the whole business process.
References
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