Importance of Effective Staffing Processes

Importance of Effective Staffing Processes Going global was considered to be a great achievement few years ago, but today, it is part of a companys survival strategy and rather an essential element to de-risk the business from a single country shock. Going global has become an increasingly important business strategy because of that most businesses face challenges of localized economic policies and competition. The advances in information technology and telecommunication that scholars consider it as second revolution have caused tremendous changes in global business and increased the volume of trade between nations. Multinational companies have been playing major role in the process of moving goods and services around the globe. When companies go global and operate in different countries, policies relating to employee hiring, training, compensating and maintaining are largely affected and human resource managers are required to have a global perspective of business to effectively formulate and implement human resource policie s. This piece of research paper addresses the importance of effective staffing process for a company when operates in other countries and explains main elements of international human resource management in relation to hiring, training and compensating the employees. This paper explains main modes of global staffing in relation to managing expatriates and analyzes various selection factors for global operation. Need for effective Staffing for Global Operation In recent days, managers of large multinationals have been realizing the significance of human resource practices to ensure the profitability and competitive advantages of their business. Human resource management has become more involved in helping international organizations and these organizations necessarily require to develop global strategies with major focus to hire, manage and retain best employees in order to ensure competitive advantages. As Briscoe, Schuler and Claus (2008) stated that the impact of a companys international activity on human resource varies according to various factors like stages of internationalization, the global nature of the particular industry and specific choice of the firm etc (p. 29). Large companies that have been operating in its home country often suddenly become global and as a result its existing human resources start working in different conditions with no previous experiences in international operation. Likewise, companies need to hire, train maintain and retain talented employees to be able to work in multinational conditions. Stahl and Bjà ¶rkman (2006) stressed that global staffing has become a critical issue in international management for the following reasons:- There has been growing awareness that the success of international business mainly depend on recruiting the qualified senior and other managers. Staffing is more complex in international contexts, The performance of expatriates has become a problem and empirical evidences have shown that poor performance of expatriates in international firms are more costly in both human and financial terms. Global staffing has become important due to the need for MNCs to develop multicultural international workforce (p. 141). Staffing for Global Operation In global staffing, companies need to choose from various types of global staff members and need to have specific approaches and strategies to global staffing. Global staff members are selected from among three different types: expatriates, host-country people and third-country nationals. Expatriate is a person who belongs to the country in which the organization is headquartered and not a citizen of the country in which the company operates. A host-country national is a citizen of the country in which the subsidiary company is located. A third-country national is a citizen of a country, but works in another country and employed by an organization headquartered in a third country (Mondy, 2008, p. 150). As Deresky (2011) pointed, a firms managerial staffing in other countries, depending on its stage of internationalization, and situational factors falls in to one or more of the basic four staffing modes, namely ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and global approaches (p. 329). Each staffing modes present different and unique HR management challenges as well as opportunities. More specifically, when an organization uses citizens of different countries for its staffing, different tax laws and other significant HR-related factors may apply and therefore it highly recommended that HR professionals need to be knowledgeable about the laws and customs of each country that its workforce belong to. The four different modes of international staffing are detailed below: Ethnocentric approach When companies hire expatriates to staff their high-level foreign positions, it uses ethnocentric approach. The company focuses on using home-country nationals to staff most of its senior managerial positions for its global operation. The basic perception of this approach is that home-office perspectives and issues are likely to take precedence over local perspectives and issues and therefore these expatriates will be more effective in representing the views of home-office (Steers and Nardon, 2006, p. 277). Deresky (2011) emphasized that ethnocentric approach is more likely to be used when an organization is at its internationalization stage or at strategic expansion. It is used mainly for filling the key managerial positions with people from headquarters, who are known to be parent-country nationals (p. 329). In the ethnocentric organization, home based policy, practice and even employees are viewed as superior and same time foreigners are often viewed as second class citizens. This approach is very appropriate when the company is in its early stage of setting up foreign subsidiary and there is greater need for control (Scullion, 2006, p. 18). Parent-country nationals are well familiar with companys specific goals, policies, technology and operation and they now the procedures to get things done from the headquarters. It is one of the major advantages of ethnocentric approach. More over, this approach is normally used when a company faces inadequate local-skilled managers. This approach is a strategy to fill this gap and develop international managerial skills (Deresky, 2011, p. 329). This approach requires relatively little effort by headquarters to monitor and recruit home country people for filling higher managerial positions. This approach provides quite broad experience for home country managers in relation to improving their long term career. This approach has many disadvantages as well. It may inhibit the opportunities and development of the talent of local managers as they have less up-ward mobility and this causes decrease to their loyalty to the subsidiary (Deresky, 2011, p. 329). More over, employee commitment to the organization may be negatively impacted as local managers feel they are trapped under a glass ceiling and with less chances of moving to the top of the firms managerial positions (Steers and Nardon, 2006, p. 277). Expatriates in foreign countries have been found to be less effective as well (Deresky, 2011, p. 329). Polycentric Approach A polycentric approach staffing policy and management philosophy oriented toward staffing positions with local talent. A polycentric-oriented firm staffs its foreign subsidiaries with host country nationals and its home office with parent-country nationals (Gary, p. 379). Deresky (2011) noted that polycentric approach, in which local managers from host-country nationals are hired to fill important positions in their own country, is more applicable when implementing a multinational strategy (p. 329). As these managers are normally familiar with local culture, competitive demands of the local market, the major foreign subsidiary is usually some what independent. Local managers are its major advantages. The major advantages of this approach includes a strong familiarity of business operation and management with local social custom and culture, language fluency and costs that are relatively less than in an expatriate assignment. There wont be foreign adjustment problem for an employee or his dependent family members. Though it is a multinational country, the heavy use of host-country nationals throughout the countries it operates from top management to lower positions can significantly win the support and confidence of local government and people because they see that its operation is benefiting its people (Vance, Charles and Paik, 2010, p. 173). This approach is good in those countries that have a policy and legal requirement that a firms employees must be comprised of a specific proportion of its citizens (Deresky, 2011, p. 329). When a firm takes polycentric approach, it is found that the business faces difficulty in coordinating activities and goals between subsidiary and parent company. another disadvantage is that the managers ion headquarters of the multinational companies will not gain necessary overseas experience required for higher positions in the firm (Deresky, 2011, p. 330). Regiocentric Approach With regiocentric approach, a firms recruitment for its international operation is done on a regional basis (Deresky, 2011, p. 331) and the managers are selected on the basis of the best in the region with international transfers that are restricted to regions (Scullion, 2006, p. 23). Bogardus (2004) stressed that regiocentric approach takes a somewhat larger operational view than that of polycentric approach as it covers a trade region like European Union and allowing managers to move between business units in various countries of the same region (p. 235). In this staffing approach, a mix of Parent-country nationals, host-country nationals and third-country nationals can be used depending on the specific needs of the company. The regiocentric approach has recently become more popular as many multinational companies are choosing to organize in regional basis. One of the main advantages of this approach is that it reduces the need for costly duplication of support services (Scullion, 2006, p. 23). Wood (2009) argued that most multinational companies regiocentric rather than truly international and majority of their sales and operations are concentrated on the region (p. 300). When it comes to the corporate level, the regiocentric approach is may be limiting as ethnocentric approach as multinational companies are failing to understand the features of the regions outside of their home-region. The regional structure may also lead to the mergence of silo-mentalities as regional managers will be trying to hold and protect their top talent within the region rather than allowing them to develop outside their region (Wood, 2009, p. 300). Geo-centric Approach- Global Approach The geo-centric or global approach to staffing is method by which the firm seeks to place best-qualified person in to each position regardless of the country they belong to. The business thus focuses on building an international management team and its members are free to move in to the geographic area (Bogardus, 2004, p. 235). As Peng (2008) noted, the geocentric approach can be said to be Color-blind because the color of the passport of the manager doesnt matter. This approach focuses on finding the most appropriate and efficient managers from Parent, or Host or Third country nationals (p. 440). In geocentric approach, the firm requires to consider various important factors like cost, foreign business practice and cultural variations. The global staffing approach considers best managers and they are recruited within or outside of the company. Their nationality is never considered. The main advantages of geocentric approach include its provision of greater pool of qualified managers and this in turn helps develop global executive base. When third-country nationals are staffed, they cause bringing more cultural flexibility and are likely to be skillful in more than one language than parent-country nationals. One of the main advantages is that the company can reduce its expenses by recruiting managers and employees from a country where normal pay is relatively less than some other countries (Deresky, 2011, p. 330). Selection Process for Global Assignments Cultural Adjustments Cultural awareness Cultural adaptability Diversity acceptance Global experiences Personal Characteristics Emotional stability Ambiguity tolerance Risk taking Stress coping Organizational Requirements Organizational knowledge Technical abilities Job-related skills Communication skills Language capabilities Non-verbal awareness Coaching and listening Conflict-resolution skill Personal/family concerns Personal life demands Family considerations Financial economic concerns Career development Selection factors for Global Employees Source: Mathis and Jackson, 2007, p. 250 The selection process for an international operation must provide real pictures of the working conditions to which the employees are to be sent. In international staffing, the HR managers thus require to prepare a comprehensive analysis of the job to be done in relation to the skills and talents of the employees to be recruited and selected. Some of the more significant factors to be considered in analyzing the suitability of an employee for a given task or job are his ability, personal characters, communication, ethical and moral perspectives etc. The multicultural perception of the managers or employees to be selected are also highly important. The figure above depicts main factors to be considered in selecting global staffs. Mathis and Jackson (2007) emphasized that cultural adjustments, personal characteristics, organizational requirements, communication skills and personal or family concerns are key competencies for successful global employees (250). Many companies in recent days focus on pre-employment screening to ensure their knowledge in the specified area and to know their experience in the same field. Training and development for expatriates Expatriation alone may not yield success, but they are to be trained and developed. Employees at all levels and at all field almost require training to improve their knowledge and enhance their work-experiences. When it comes to international staffing, training is more critical element to the organizational success. Expatriates inevitably experience unique cross-cultural encounters that they were probably not prepared by any pre-departure training. Pre-departure training helps expatriates foresee various cross-cultural encounters and prepare accordingly (Kà ¼hlmann, 2001, p. 12). Expatriate-managers and employees are found to have multiple relationships and they require to maintain relationships like family relation, internal relation, relation with host government, relation with headquarter, local and global relation etc. Because of these factors, it is important that expatriates need to be trained with cultural training, language instruction and getting accustomed with every-day life (Deresky, 2011, p. 337). Cross Cultural Training Cross-cultural training is perhaps more complicated than language or instructional training. The cross-cultural training is aimed at helping the expatriates improve their skills and ease adjustments to the new cultures and customs by making them able to reduce culture-shock. Some expatriates experience anxiety and despair about their un-knowingness of behaving to an unfamiliar culture. This culture-shock can be overcome with the help of cross-cultural training. Mead (2005) detailed that a cross-cultural training aims to teach a) what values are important within other culture, b) how that particular culture is being reflected in history, politics and economics and c) how such cultural values can be expressed in behaviour and attitudes (p. 400). The expatriates who attended cross-cultural training will be able to improve their social relationship, management styles, managing structures, strategic planning and management skills, knowledge in newer technology use etc. Conclusion This piece of research work has highlighted the importance of global staffing and analyzed four basic modes of internal staffing, namely ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and geocentric. Advantages and disadvantages of each of these approaches are detailed. This paper has addressed basic factors that can determine how successful are international employees and are required to be considered in selecting international employees. training and development, especially with cross-cultural training are more critical factors when it comes to the employee-development of the expatriates. This paper has highlighted the importance of training and development to the expatriate employees and managers.

Unity and Diversity of Indonesia :: Conflict History Bond Papers

Unity and Diversity of Indonesia From "Sabang ‘till Merauke" is the name of a song dedicated to Indonesia’s many islands and it’s diversity. It’s numerous chain of islands contained in the thirty-two thousand miles dividing two oceans, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Sabang is a small island just off the coast of Sumatra; Merauke is a small village near the border of Papua New Guinea. Indonesia’s 13,677 islands inhabited by 350 different ethnic groups, and more than 200 different languages. Consequently this part of the world gave many different cultures, traditions, and way of lives (1). Despite this diversity, Indonesia today has a common bond that united them all into one nation, one language, and one people. Due to this diversity, conflicts are unavoidable. However, the people of Indonesia have been able to overcome their differences. The spirit of musyawarah (to deliberate or confer), mufakat (to agree), and gotong-royong (mutual assistance) that have been instilled by their fore-father have helped in achieving peace between the people's groups. We have yet find this quality in any other nations of the world. I. INTRODUCTION I have been away from this country for almost two decades. Being born and raised in this country, I felt a longing to return to my birth place and become a part of the people once more. My desire to contribute my experience, knowledge, and the skill, that I acquired in my life time is the dream that fuels my motivation to return to Indonesia. In relation to the globalization that are taking place today, I am confident that Indonesia will be a nation that able to contribute to the world for the good of all people. Relating to the National Standard for Geography, this writer is very interested in knowing and understanding the followings;  · The physical and human characteristic of the place.  · The people perceptions of the changing complexity that are influence by culture and experience.  · The characteristics, distributions and migrations of human populations  · The process, patterns, and functions of human settlement.  · The changes in meaning, distribution, and importance resources. II. THE COUNTRY The largest country, both in area and population, in Southeast Asia is the Republic of Indonesia. It consists of 13,677 islands that cover 741,101 square miles (1,919,443 square kilometers) of land along the equator between the Indian and Pacific oceans.

Briefly Describes the Difference Between Sans and Nas System Essay

Briefly describes the difference between Storage Area Networks (SANs) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) system? Storage Area Networks (SANs)| Network Attached Storage (NAS) system| A SAN is a dedicated network that provides access to various types of storage devices including type libraries, optical juke boxes and disk arrays.| Network Attached storage system are networked appliances which contain one or more hard drives that can be shared with multiple heterogeneous computers.| A SAN is a local network of multiple devices that operate on disk blocks.| A NAS is a single storage device that operate on data files| A SAN commonly utilizes Fibre Channel interconnects. | A NAS typically makes Ethernet and TCP/IPconnections.| Identify and briefly describe each of TCP/IP’S five layer? The basic structure of communication networks is represented by the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) model. This model is structured in five layers. An end system, an intermediate network node, or each communicating user or program is equipped with devices to run all or some portions of these layers, depending on where the system operates. These five layers, are as follows: Application layer Host to host or transport layer Internal layer Network access layer Physical layer Physical layer: The physical layer covers the physical interface between a data transmission device and a transmission medium or network. This layer concerned with specifying the characteristics of the transmission medium the nature of the signals the data rate and related matters. Application layer The Aplication layer, determines how a specific user application should use a network. Among such applications are the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and the World Wide Web (WWW) . Host to host or transport layer The Transport layer, lies just above the network layer and handles the details of data transmission. Layer 4 is implemented in the end-points but not in network routers and acts as an interface protocol between a communicating host and a network. Consequently, this layer provides logical communication between processes running on different hosts. Network access layer: The Network layer specifies the networking aspects. This layer handles the way that addresses are assigned to packets and the way that packets are supposed to be forwarded from one end point to another. Internal layer This internal protocol(IP) is used in this layer to provide the routing functions across multiple networks. The function of the internal layer is to allow procedure to take in order for data traverse of multiple interconnected networks to take place. This protocol is implemented in both the end system and routers. Contrast the major characteristics of WANs with those of LANs & MANs? WANs| LANs| MANs| Its is wide Area Networks| It is Local Area Netwoks | It is Metropolitan Area Networks| It consist of a number of interconnected switching modes| Lan is a communication networks that interconnected a variety of devices and provides a means for information exchange among those devices.| It occupies a middle ground between LANs and WANs.| | | | How many quantization levels are needed to represent each of the following sets of symbols characters or states? a) The uppercase alphabet A,B†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Z 8*26 = 208 bits b) The digits 0,1†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.9 8*10 = 80 bits c) 256 different colours 8*256 = 2048 d) 10000 Han characters 8*10000 = 80000 e) Four billion computing devices 8* four billion = 32 billion Commonly, medical digital radiology ultrasound studies consist of about 25 images extracted from a full-motion ultrasound examination. Each image consists of 512 by 512 pixels, each with 8 bits of intensity information. a. How many bits are there in the 25 images? 25 Images 1 Image = 512*512 pixels 1 pixel = 8 bits 8*512 = 4,096 *512 = 2, 097,152 * 25 images = 52, 428, 800 bits in the 25 images b. Ideally, however doctors would like to use 512*512 * 8 bits frames at 30 fps (frames per second). Ignoring possible compression and overhead factors, what is the minimum channel capacity required sustaining this full-motion ultrasound? 512*512 = 262,144 * 8 bits = 2,097,152 * 30fps = 62,914,560 bits c. Suppose each full motion study consists of 25s of frames. How many bytes of storsge would be needed to store a single study in up comprossed form? 600 MB = 629145600 bytes *8 = 5,033,164,800 512*512=262144* 8 bits = 2,097,152 * 30 fps = 62,914,560 *25 sec = 1,572,864,000 5,033,164,800/1572864000 = 3.2 Do some online research on the characteristics of software as a service (Saas) platform as a service (Paas) and infrastructure as a services (Iaas) write a short paper describe the different between these services and identifying some of te major providers of each type? Saas- SaaS or software as a Service refers to the delivery of applications over the Internet as a service that can be accessed by users. Instead of users having to install and maintain software, they simply access this through the Internet. This frees them from the management of complex software as well as hardware and explains why SaaS in Australia continues to gain great popularity among users. The applications offered by SaaS are at times referred to as hosted software, software on demand or web- based software. The provider generally manages access to the applications, availability, performance as well as security. This relieves customers of the burden of installing, maintaining or updating hardware or software. To access these applications, all a user requires is an Internet connection. Some of the characteristics Software as a Service will offer you and which will help you answer the question what is SaaS are as follows: It is a multitenant architecture- this means that all users and applications make use of a single, common infrastructure as well as a code base that is maintained centrally. This enables vendors to innovate more quickly thus saving valuable time that would initially have been spent in maintaining different versions of out-dated codes. Allows for easy customisation – every customer is able to customise applications so that they can fit into their business processes and without necessarily affecting the common infrastructure. These customizations are rather unique to each user or company and are often preserved through making upgrades. Provides better access – SaaS improves access to data as you can access it from anywhere as long as you have an Internet connection. This makes it easier for members to collaborate with one another as they can access the same information irrespective of where they are located. Many organisations are turning to SaaS because it is easier to implement and does not require users to pay any up-front licensing fees. It is also inexpensive and hence its popularity with small and medium sized companies. In today’s economy, every business is out to save some money. SaaS seems to be working positively for many businesses and a good number has already embraced it. Although large companies have been a little hesitant to embrace it because of the limited functionality that comes with it, many others have already taken up this technology and only time can tell what its future will be. Major service providers of SaaS are NetSuite, Rackspace, Softlayer ,Go Grid, Microsoft, salesforce etc. PaaS: Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a way to rent hardware, operating systems, storage and network capacity over the Internet. The service delivery model allows the customer to rent virtualized servers and associated services for running existing applications or developing and testing new ones. Major service providers of SaaS are IBM, Orangescape, Google, OS33, Gigaspace. IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service is a provision model in which an organization outsources the equipment used to support operations, including storage, hardware, servers and networking components. The service provider owns the equipment and is responsible for housing, running and maintaining it. The client typically pays on a per-use basis. Characteristics and components of IaaS include: Utility computing service and billing model. Automation of administrative tasks. Dynamic scaling. Desktop virtualization. Policy-based services. Internet connectivity. IaaS is one of three main categories of cloud computing service. The other two are Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). Infrastructure as a Service is sometimes referred to as Hardware as a Service (HaaS). Major service providers of IaaS are Gogrid, Hp. Logicworks, Amazon web services,

Comparison Of Brent Staple s Just Walk On By And Richard...

Comparison of Brent Staple’s â€Å"Just Walk on By† and Richard Rodriguez’s â€Å" Complexion† The articles of Brent Staples â€Å" Just Walk on By† and Richard Rodriguez â€Å"Complexion† comparing the similarities and differences of Staples and Rodriguez s article. Both authors state the scarring effects of racism on the mind juveniles by the use of personal experiences from their youth. Staples and Rodriguez portray in their articles that even at very young ages juveniles can be victims of racism. Such young ages in fact that it leaves scars on them, as it had with Staples and Rodriguez, because they found out the reality behind being black or having dark skin. For example, Staples discovers at the age of twelve what being black is in a racist society, as a white women saw Staples at night walking near her and she ran fearing for her life.In addition, Rodriguez’s first experience of racism was at the age of seven from his mother telling him to put a towel over his shoulder to cover some of his dark skin. Therefore, both Staples and and Rodriguez had to live with the stereotypes and the profiling that comes with having dark skin from a very young age Also, after realizing the devastating effects that racism can cause Staples and Rodriguez had to change and act differently around others. deprived of living a worry free life and being completely themselves all because of racism. Staples had to be self aware about his actions so that they are not taken as hostile in which case he would