Human Resources for Global Activities

To be successful, every business needs plans to staff, train, appraise, and compensate their employees. Carefully trained employees and managers are essential to run a business smoothly. Depending on the goals of the owner, they may choose to employ ethnocentric, polycentric, or geocentric staff. This paper will use the regulations in China and apply them to a startup company in that country. It will also entail how Chinese businesses typically train and appraise their staff and retain skilled staff throughout the lifetime of the company. A fair compensation must be in place to keep staff satisfied. The following research will show how China businesses run and operate their Human Resources. Keywords:  Staffing, Training, Development, Appraisal, Compensation Human Resources for Global Activities Staffing Creating any business, more so a global business, it is important to understand staffing. Staffing is a task carried out by the human resource department.

This involves examining the goals of a business, deciding what needs to be done to achieve the planned results and then finding and hiring the very best people to take on those responsibilities (Fortis Blog 2013). There is an array of skills that are needed to be fulfilled by potential employees such as, verbal communication, teamwork, organization, time management, marketing, and customer service. Due to stricter hiring regulations in China the use of secondary staffing is discouraged to avoid employer related liabilities (Lewis 2013). In that case, I see it more fit to use an ethnocentric approach to staffing in this country to reduce the problems caused by hiring and potentially firing foreign employees. An ethnocentric approach to hiring means that the business will only take in employees of the businesses home country ethnicity.

For example, if someone wanted to open a car wash in China, they would only hire Chinese employees to work at that car wash. If they were to use a polycentric approach, managerial positions would only be filled by host country ethnicity employees. For example, if locations of the car wash were also in India, Indian employees would be hired. If a geocentric approach was used, employees would be hired where ever they originate. Training and Development After selecting employees to hire, to prepare them for the tasks they will be completing within their position, they will need to be properly trained. To be able to do this, you may need to use existing workers to step in so that new workers can be alongside the job in action. A professional development plan allows you to record employees’ performance and development. Correctly training staff improves productivity, quality, customer and employee satisfaction.

Two approaches have been found to improve sustainable development performance: strategic approach and operational approach. If there are issues financially within the company, the strategic approach may be used. The operational approach involves changes made at the production level to become most efficient. Research has also suggested that employee training can improve business performance. This is because training increases employee knowledge and skills for the job. Regarding China, they generally face more challenges than their western counterparts on many issues of sustainable development (Cai, Huang, Ji, Liu, Zhu, 2012). It is difficult for Westerners to conduct business with China because they have a long history of being exploited by foreign countries. Hierarchy plays a big part in business culture making leaders and managers more distinguished compared to lower employees.

In Western society, they would freely make suggestions or disagree with our boss or manager. In China, that is a big offense and they expect you to not point out others’ mistakes and give credit for others’ excellent work. Business also takes longer in China, they like to make strong relationships before closing deals as Westerners tend to move on with things quickly. Lastly, another challenge to doing business in China is that the government plays a significant role in your assets. Companies typically must negotiate with the state, therefore slowing business processes. Performance Appraisal Even after employees have been trained it is important to keep up on their performance. To maintain a hard-working staff, you will need to appraise your employees work and behavior and point out what changes employees will need to make or give credit for work well done. Angelo S. DeNisi and Robert D. Pritchard describe this as a formal event that occurs once or twice a year to evaluate employee job performance based on a certain criterion. Western countries are more argumentative in comparison to the Chinese culture.

The Chinese may evaluate their employees based on respect for the higher ups. For lower status employees in China it is harder to say no or disagree with your management as it can be taken as offense. Unlike Western countries where employees can disagree and criticize management without as much punishment. Appraisals may look at the organizations goals and relate that to how employees are behaving. Depending on the position, management may want to spend more time in areas regarding that position while appraising that employee. They also should point out different achievements the employee has made and potentially provide an award to keep the employee motivated. Compensation A key factor in work loyalty is compensation. Compensation describes the cash award paid to employees in exchange for the services they provide (Butteriss, 1999). This doesn’t just include their salary or wage but also incentives, commission, as well as company benefits.