Critical Literature Review: How can the term ‘Human Resource planning’ be linked to best work practices in a successful Indian Multinational?
Introduction
The present research question examines how the practice of Human Resource planning is counted as one the best practices in a successful Multinational.
A successful H.R management in a multinational company usually means appointing the perfect person that is suitable for the job that the company is looking to fill and at a suited time.
‘Human assets are as key source of sustainable advantage because of causal ambiguity and systematic information making them inimitable’ (Coff, 1994).
The daily reality and the challenges for HR managers in India are surely at variance from challenges faced from the West side. These challenges can classify as Internal and External Challenges.
Internal challenges would include the companies having to search for strong talents that take them abroad and undertake leadership both overseas and in India. Another internal challenge the companies face would be the cultural difference between employees that work together towards achieving a common goal. For example, Indian managers that are sent abroad might not straight away or at all, understand the cultural of the country that they are sent into and might even fail at their job, leading the company into a loss.
External challenges faced by Indian multinationals would include ‘Liquidity Shortage’, this occurs when a company might face losses because of less popularity of their products and therefore less demand. A slow economic growth could also be an external challenge that the Indian multinationals would face.
Therefore, this paper reviews the literature on Indian multinationals focusing on Human Resource planning strategies.
What is a Multinational Company?
‘A Multinational Company (MNC) is a company has facilities and other assets in at least one country other than its home country’. Such organizations for the most part have a unified head office and smaller workplaces in different nations. If a multinational is large enough, they usually have a budget to surmount those of small countries.
Campaigners of Multinationals say they are making fruitful openings for work and innovation that would not be accessible in those nations, generally. On the other hand, the critics argue that they often create job losses for in their home countries, exercise undue control over governments and do an injustice to the developing nations etc.
With a population of over a billion and growing, India is seen as the next big thing in this industry. Many Indian Multinationals are expanding their global footprints and securing natural (mines or oil fields) or intellectual ones (intellectual properties). Another reason that the Indian companies are choosing to go multi-national is simply because their dominant markets are in other parts of the world.
In the past two decades, the HRM has seen many developments in its research and practices. Indian Multinationals are now looking to find a link business strategies and enhancing performance.
India is also one of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and also has one of the fastest growing economies of the world. While the world is busy focusing on India growing IT industry, many Indian Multinational are becoming leaders or partners with other industry leaders.
Steps to having a successful human resource planning
The key to accomplishing the right Human Resource technique is to first recognize the issue ranges. Once a company knows where it is lacking, it can attend to the problem quicker and avoid any financial or emotional costs.
In Indian Multinationals, there is often a problem of ethnocentricity, where the countries end up focusing only on the problems that occur in the headquarters of their home country and often neglect those of occur in their foreign offices, which sometimes leads the companies overseas branches to suffer losses.
There are many Indian companies that going international for the first time and do not much experience in how to plan a successful human resource strategy. They quickly realize that they would need trustworthy and calculating managers in their overseas offices that would lead the company even in the absence of superiors.
The solution for such multinationals would be to mirror companies that have successful human resources strategies already in place and have a lot of experience of recruiting, training good managers all across the globe.
1.1 Recruitment
The selection process is probably the most important process of Human Resource Management. The companies have to make sure that they select and recruit the right person that is fit for the job and add value to the company with their skills.
If the person they recruited is not a perfect fit, it could harm the company in many ways the company couldn’t be able to afford.
A company’s human resource strategy should include a recruiting and selection strategy that will attract and retain quality employees. A well thought out strategy will always lead the company to filling the position with the right employees.
1.2 Training and Development
The effective practices related to training and staffing within organizations can lead to positive organizational performance (Delaney and Huselid, 1996). In a study of over 1000 companies, the use of eminent work practices such as recruitment and selection, training etc. can lead to employee retention as well as long-term corporate financial performance of a company (Huselid et al, 1995).
It may sometimes seem that learning and training are the same theories, however learning may many times occur outside training and sometimes a great deal of training can fail to yield learning. ‘Training involves relatively permanent changes in cognition, behavior, and affect’ (Kraiger et al., 1993).
1.3 Monitoring, Control and Feedback:
Once the Human Resource management plan is in place and the positions have been filled by the right people and once they have been trained by the company, the next step that the organization takes is to Monitor its employees, Control their work and then get a Feedback to improve and improve.
Monitoring of the employees is a crucial process within an organization. When the organization is in doubts about the work of a specific employee, they can always know before time through monitoring.
Human Resource controls are put in place to control certain employee behaviors, performance and also to enforce existing policies and develop new policies and measures. Organizations can use different types of control tools for the employees such as performance appraisals, discipline, employee observations etc.
For example, RMSI was been ranked the best company in India in the 2009. Gagan Jyot, vice president of Human Resources stated that ‘the employee’s involvement in company’s business decisions, leadership through mentoring and coaching are the big takeaways at RMSI’.
Conclusion
As I wrote above, for a multinational to do well overseas, it needs to have a workforce that is efficient, well trained and get add value to the company. Although the human resource planning may vary from multinational to multinational, it is however, very crucial for stability and sustainability of the company. Through having an active and effective HR plan, the company will have in turn an effective way of meeting the requirements of staff.
A well sought out HR plan can also have improved communication between various divisions, which can create an effective, and a successful working environment.
References
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