Introduction

Human resource is a product of the human relations movement of the early 20th century, when
researchers began documenting ways of creating business value through the strategic
management of the workforce. The function was initially dominated by transactional work, such
as payroll and benefits administration, but due to globalization, company consolidation,
technological advances, and further research, HR as of 2015 focuses on strategic initiatives like
mergers and acquisitions, talent management, succession planning, industrial and labor relations,
and diversity and inclusion.
In startup companies, HR duties may be performed by trained professionals. In larger companies,
an entire functional group is typically dedicated to the discipline, with staff specializing in
various HR tasks and functional leadership engaging in strategic decision-making across the
business. To train practitioners for the profession, institutions of higher education, professional
associations, and companies themselves have created programs of study dedicated explicitly to
the duties of the function. Academic and practitioner organizations likewise seek to engage and
further the field of HR, as evidenced by several field-specific publications. HR is also a field of
research study that is popular within the fields of management and industrial/organizational
psychology, with research articles appearing in a number of academic journals, including those
mentioned later in this article.
In the current global work environment, most companies focus on lowering employee turnover
and on retaining the talent and knowledge held by their workforce. New hiring not only entails a
high cost but also increases the risk of a newcomer not being able to replace the person who was
working in that position before. HR departments also strive to offer benefits that will appeal to
workers, thus reducing the risk of losing corporate knowledge.

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Human Resource Management

Human resource management is a function in organizations designed to maximize employee
performance of an employer's strategic objectives. HR is primarily concerned with the
management of people within organizations, focusing on policies and systems. HR departments
and units in organizations typically undertake a number of activities, including employee
recruitment, training and development, performance appraisal, and rewarding (e.g., managing
pay and benefit systems). HR is also concerned with industrial relations, that is, the balancing of
organizational practices with requirements arising from collective bargaining and from
governmental laws.

Staffing
Staffing is a term used in the sphere of employment. It has been applied to more than one aspect
of the working environment.
Staffing is the process of acquiring, deploying, and retaining a workforce of sufficient quantity
and quality to create positive impacts on the organizations effectiveness.
According to this model: Acquisition comprises the recruitment processes leading to the
employment of staff. It includes human resource planning to identify what the organization
requires in terms of the numbers of employees needed and their attributes (knowledge, skills and
abilities) in order to effectively meet job requirements. In addition the selection techniques and
methods of assessment to identify the most suitable candidates for a particular job.
Deployment involves decisions about how those recruited will be allocated to specific roles
according to business demands. It also concerns the subsequent appointment to more advanced
jobs through internal recruitment, promotion or reorganization.

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Retention deals with the management of the outflow of employees from an organization. This
includes both managing voluntary activities such as resignation, and controlling involuntary
measures whereby employees are managed out of the organization through redundancy programs
or other types of dismissal. The overriding objective is to minimize the loss from the
organization of valued employees through strategic and tactical measures whilst enabling the
organization to reduce employment costs where circumstances dictate.
Staffing is also used in a specific sense to refer to the management of employee schedules.

Various staffing approaches

The IHRM literature uses four terms to describe MNE approaches to managing and staffing there
subsidiaries. These terms are taken from seminal work of Perlmutter, who claimed that it was
possible to identify among international executives 4 primary attitudes

Ethnocentric,
Polycentric,
Geocentric ,
Regeocentric.

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Ethnocentric
The ethnocentric staffing policy reflects the belief that principles & practices used by homeoffice country are superior to those used by companies in other nations. Thus, given its success
in the home-country market, there is a little need to adapt principles & practices when transferred
to foreign markets.
Polycentric
The polycentric outlook holds that staffing policies ought to adapt differences between
operations in home country & host country. It sees the effectiveness of the business practices of
foreign markets as equivalent to those in home country. This approach motivates the company to
staff each operation from headquarters in home-country to each foreign subsidiary with people
from local environment. Thus, this approach is a key feature of multi-domestic strategy.

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Geocentric
Unlike the ethnocentric & polycentric approaches, geocentric staffing policy is not tied to a
particular home or host nation. Instead, it scans the whole world looking for best people around
to place them on key jobs in the organization. This approach enables the MNE to build the
requisite cadre of international executives who can move between countries & cultures without
forfeiting their effectiveness.
Regeocentric
This approach reflects the geographic strategy & structure of the multinationals. Like geocentric
approach, it utilizes wider pool of managers but in a limited way. Staff may move outside their
countries but only within the particular geographic region. They are not promoted to
headquarters position.

Performance Management
Performance management (PM) includes activities which ensure that goals are consistently being
met in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management can focus on the performance
of an organization, a department, employee, or even the processes to build a product or service,
as well as many other areas.
PM is also known as a process by which organizations align their resources, systems and
employees to strategic objectives and priorities.
This is used most often in the workplace, can apply wherever people interact schools,
churches, community meetings, sports teams, health setting, governmental agencies, social
events and even political settings - anywhere in the world people interact with their environments
to produce desired effects. Armstrong and Baron (1998) defined it as a strategic and integrated

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approach to increase the effectiveness of companies by improving the performance of the people
who work in them and by developing the capabilities of teams and individual contributors.
Training and development is a function of human resource management concerned with
organizational activity aimed at bettering the performance of individuals and groups in
organizational settings. It has been known by several names, including "human resource
development", and "learning and development".

Multinational performance management

The most challenging aspects for a firm operating internationally is how to manage the
performance of its various overseas facilities. Performance management is a process that enables
the multinational to evaluate and continuously improve individual, subsidiary unit and corporate
performance, against clearly defined, set goals and targets.

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The multinational has specific expectation for each of its foreign subsidiaries, in terms of market
performance and contribution to total profit and competitiveness. When evaluating multinational
performance following should be considered..
1. Whole Versus Part
A multinational is a single entity that faces a global environment, which means that it
simultaneously confronts differing national environments. Integration and control imperatives
often place the multinational in the position where it decide that the good of the whole is more
important than one subsidiarys short term profitability.
2. Non-Comparable Data
Frequently, the data obtained from subsidiaries may be neither interpretable nor reliable. Physical
measures of performance may be easier to interpret.
3. Volatility Of the Global Environment
The turbulence of the global environment requires that long term goals be flexible in order to
respond to potential market contingencies. An inflexible approach may mean that subsidiaries
could be pursuing strategies that no longer fit the new environment.
4. Separation By Time & Distance
Judgments concerning the congruence between the multinational and local subsidiary activities
are further complicated by the physical distances involved, time zone differences, the frequency
of contact between the corporate head office staff and subsidiary management and the cost of the
reporting system. It is often necessary to meet managers personally to understand the problem
fully.

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5. Variable Levels Of Maturity

Without the supporting infrastructure of the parent, market development in the foreign
subsidiaries is generally slower and more difficult to achieve than at home, where established
brands can support new products and new business areas can be cross-subsidized by other
divisions.
6. Control & Performance Management
Performance management is the part of multinationals control system. Through formal control
mechanism and communication the feedback and appraisal aspect, performance management
also contributes to shaping corporate culture both formally and informally.

Thus by adopting a performance management approach, multinationals are drawing on a number

of human resource management functions to realize performance goals set during the
performance appraisal process.

Domestic & International Hrm

IHRM is all about acquiring, allocating & effectively utilizing human resources in multinational
organizations.
DOMESTIC HRM
Staffs

are

placed

INTERNATIONAL HRM
within

the

national

Staffs work outside their national boundaries.

boundaries.
Less number of Rule and Regulations to be

Very high number of rules and regulations

managed.- mostly employment and taxation

which are related to taxation, employment rules,

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rules of the home country.

language translating services, work permit etc.

There is uniform policy in administration

Broader Perspective- Management has to be

done according HCNS, PCNS and TCNS.

No special attention into the personal life.

Confined to crche and cultural interactions.

Special attention to personal life of expatriate

employees-

cultural

training,

schooling

of

children, employment opportunity for spouse.

Challenges are confined to the situation of a
particular country.

IHRM management has to be ready to face

challenges like underperformance of expatriate
employees, diplomatic relationships between
host country and parent country, currency
exchange rates which are variable and may
impact the benefits of TCNS and PCNS.

Special Training is not required for Socio

Cultural adaptation.

pecial Training for expatriates so that they might

not face unnecessary hassles in the alien socio
cultural environment.

Standardized work practices

Standardization is an adoption choice that confronts the multinational in other areas of its
operations which applies to the management of global workforce.

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Factors influencing the standardization

Host Country Culture & Workplace Environment

Culture acts as a moderating variable in international HRM. It includes group of people sharing
common goals, values, attitudes & beliefs. Work behavior is culturally determined to the extent it
is contained in the role definition & expectation. Standardization of the work practices involves

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behavior modification through corporate training programs, staff rotation, rewards &
promotions. Thus culture has a strong bearing on the behavior of the employees.
Mode of Operation
A multinationals ability to impose standardized work practices is not only affected by cultural
differences that may create resistence to change from subsidiary staff. One managerial choice is
the form of operation that the multinational uses. Entering via an acquisition may provide the
multinational with market advantages, but its ability to transfer technical knowledge, systems &
HR practices may be restricted.
Firm size, maturity and international experience
Key factors influencing international operations are the size & maturity of the multinational. A
smaller multinational, a relative newcomer to international business, may not have the same level
of ability or resources, and an alternative mode of operation such as a joint venture would be an
attractive proposition.
Subsidiary mandate
Linked to the issue of size & maturity of the multinational is the position of the subsidiary in
relation to the rest of the organization and its mandated role what is expected of it in terms of
contribution to global activity. Recently, their has been considerable interest in looking at the role
of the subsidiary. Centers of excellence at the subsidiary level can be viewed as an indication of
how some multinationals are recognizing that level of expertise differ from headquarters.
Global or local work practices & HR
The analysis of HR & workplace standardization v/s. adaptation reflects the convergence
divergence debate. Forces for standardization are mainly internal to the multinational driven by
the need for control and to sustain competitive advantage. Host governments though may

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encourage standardization through the transfer of foreign work practices & processes. Forces for
adaptation comes from external constrains that the multinational confronts in its various markets.

Conclusion
Human resource management is a function in organizations designed to maximize employee
performance of an employer's strategic objectives.

International HRM is HR practices of

multinational firms. Above mentioned components are usually practiced in Int. HRM.

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