Literature Review

Cultural background of a person defines his or her characteristic features. The personality of an individual is largely determined by the society he or she has been brought up in, the customs and traditions followed by the individual in his lifetime (Stahl & Tung, 2015). All of these significant characteristics becomes important when an individual has to work in a Company that has an international presence. Human resource management in the international context usually refer to the management of human capital in the big macro firms (Young & Ghoshal, 2016). A firm might have its presence scattered over different nations of the world. One of the major aspects of an international Company is the diversity of the cultural background of the associates working in that Company (Young & Ghoshal, 2016). Working for a firm of an international stature is very different from that of a national presence. In a national firm, an individual will feel at ease as he/she is surrounded by people coming from the same, or almost the same cultural background. There is no language barrier and the work culture is familiar. However, in the international context, there are major differences. People have to work alongside other people who may not even speak the same language. Their food habit might differ and in general, the entire work culture might vary (Morschett, Schramm-Klein & Zentes, 2015).  This paper seeks to discuss the role and duty of a human resource practitioner within an international context. It is the duty and obligation of the human resource practitioner involved with the concerned Company to make the associates of that Company feel comfortable and welcome. The Companies of Google, Deloitte and Apple have been selected for this purpose and a case study analysis has been done in order to determine what were the measures undertaken by the human resource practitioners of the concerned Companies. The paper finally concludes with certain recommendations and the significance of the role of a human resource practitioner.

In the contemporary globalized world of today, the private businesses are on the path to expand their business worldwide. The more they expand their production activities, the more they will be able to generate higher revenues (Morschett, Schramm-Klein & Zentes, 2015). It is due to such mindset that the concept of multi-national companies emerged. These companies have a presence in most of the countries of the world and they hire people living there as their associates. This situation poses an internal problem to the concerned company. The Company has a certain way of life. The rules and regulations of the Company is usually a reflection of the home country where the Company was initially established (Ahammad et al., 2016). As such, the work culture of the Company might be in great variance to the people living in other parts of the world. The native people of a particular country have their own cultural background, on the basis of which their entire life, so far, has been shaped (Brewster et al., 2016). A situation might also arise where an individual will be required to travel to the home country of the concerned Company and work there. In such situations, the adjustment to work culture becomes all the more difficult as many people of diverse background will be working together in a Company, based on a foreign land (Mitchell, 2015).

Language Diversity

This is the sphere where the role of a human resource practitioner becomes significant. The main responsibility of a human resource practitioner is to look after the wants and demands of the associates working in the concerned Company (Samaha, Beck & Palmatier, 2014). Moreover, the human resource practitioner has to devise means and methods to motivate the people to work. The main issues, which have to be tackled by a human resource practitioner, are overcoming the language barrier, maintaining and harmonizing cultural diversities and creating a suitable and comfortable work environment for all the associates working there (Reiche et al., 2016).

Language barrier is one of the most concerning challenges that may be faced in a Company with an international presence (Brannen, Piekkari & Tietze, 2017). The Company operates on the basis of the of the laws and regulations of its home country. However, the comprehension of such rules and regulations might not be possible for many associates who come from other countries. It depends on the human resource practitioner to make such associates understand the required rules and regulations to be followed while they work (Bratton & Gold, 2017). For this purpose, the human resource practitioner can undertake certain training programs whereby they give lessons in language to the associates not familiar with the required language of the organization.

Cultural diversity of the associates is the most common issue faced by a company with a global presence (Belizón, Morley & Gunnigle, 2016). The multinational companies usually pay more than an average national company and this feature attracts majority of the working population of a nation to work in such Companies (Welch & Björkman, 2015). Since the Companies have a global presence, people of various cultural backgrounds are integrated into such Companies (Brewster, Chung & Sparrow, 2016). This proves to be challenging for the human resource practitioner as it is his/her duty to ensure that all the associates work together harmoniously in a comfortable work environment. The human resource practitioner can organize monthly events where a particular culture’s music or dance can be showcased. This will help the other associates to know his/her colleague better.

The nature of an international human resource practitioner can be of several types. One of the types is that of Ethnocentric (Welch & Björkman, 2015). In such a scenario, the multinational Company will operate on the basis of the rules and regulation followed in the home country. The promotions, appraisals and termination of the employees are done based on the Company Law of the concerned home country of the Company. Moreover, the Company is usually managed by the nationals belonging to the parent country of the concerned Company. The entire operational structure of the Company is highly centralized with the real power lying in the hands of the office of the Company, situated in the home country (Belizón, Morley & Gunnigle, 2016). This is the most common type of multinational Company. In such situation, it is the duty of the human resource practitioner to find a balance between the employers and the employees. The human resource practitioners can make arrangements so that the cultural diversity of the organization is maintained, such as ensuring leaves during the important cultural days and allowing people to wear their cultural attire once a week.

Cultural Diversity

The methodology that has been employed in the paper is case study analysis of three chosen organizations, that of Google, Apple and Deloitte. The main purpose of choosing these organizations is their dominating global presence, all across the world. These three chosen companies are based nearly in every nation of the world and they are popular among the working population of the globe. Their work culture is found to be suitable by most of the associates working in the concerned Companies. The multinational Companies are considered to small societies in themselves and hence, an analysis of their work environment is essential.

Google is a well known multinational company whose main function is to disseminate knowledge in this era of information technology. The organization of Google follows an inclusive policy with respect to the various existing cultures of the world. This Company has an office in almost every nation of the world and hence, the associates working under it belongs to diverse cultural background. However, recently Google has faced a struggling challenge with respect to discrimination against cultural background. There has been an allegation that Google is discriminating against the white male associates working in the Company (Festing, Knappert & Kornau, 2015). The white male associates initiated a protest to this regard when they were facing violent threats and harassment within the organization. The employers of Google took immediate steps to address this issue. Protecting the welfare of its associates is the main priority of the Company (Lozano & Escrich, 2017). Google set up several measures that prevented the white male associates from being harassed anymore such as increasing vigilance in the workspace, ensuring that the concerned associates have someone to approach when an incident of such nature arises in the future. The human resource practitioner aims to resolve this issue by warning the perpetrator or terminating the job. All of these effective steps and measures helped the organization to maintain a healthy work environment based on cultural diversity.

The organization of Apple is one of the most first emerging global organizations in the world and now it has a dominant position in the global economic market (Deresky & Christopher, 2015). However, this organization faced allegation with respect to discrimination in the work environment. The organization of Apple is believed to employ only white males. The Diversity Report of Apply of 2016 revealed that around 30% of Apple’s employees are female, while 11.7% are Latin American and 8.6% are African-American (Gully, Phillips & Castellano, 2017). It is the role of the human resource practitioner to ensure the presence of a diverse cultural background. In such a scenario, the human resource practitioner expands the operations of the business into those areas where the organization is not dominant, and interviews and recruits people from such areas. This not only leads to promotion of multiculturalism in the organization, but also creates awareness about the organization in such places.

The significance of maintaining and promoting diversity in culture is felt in an organization while structuring the work ethos. It not only depends upon the human resource practitioner to look after the wants and demands of the associated working in the company, but also depends upon the Chief Executive Officer (Chen & Hamilton, 2015). He or she has the duty to ensure that the rules and regulations formulated for the company is aligned with the common interests of the associates (Akey et al., 2016). The organization of Deloitte faced this challenge in the recent times. The people at the management level was not able to create a harmonious relation with the associates working in the Company due to language barriers (Shen, 2018). The human resources practitioner had to restructure the work environment for the convenience of the associates to ensure that they are being treated fairly. For instance, many workshops were arranged which tried to provide new measures to the associates to speak a common language. Similarly, many training programs were organized for this purpose for the employees. This helps them to overcome the language barrier by learning the basics of a commonly spoken language in the organization (Shen, 2018).  This helped to alleviate the problem to some extent and now, the associates feel more at ease in their place of work.

Work place Diversity

The increasing aspect of globalization is fast revolutionizing the world in a number of ways. The private businesses are trying to expand their production and setting up their base throughout the globe (Fitzpatrick & Sharma, 2017).  Their main motive is profit accumulation. The contemporary dominant power structure of the world is that of capitalism and this has further facilitated the competition between the different private organizations. They all aim to acquire a prevailing position in the global economic market so that their customer base can widen. The more customers they have, the higher will be their revenue generation (Steele & Derven, 2015).

One of the most fundamental aspects of the success of a business with an international presence is to ensure that the employees of the concerned organization is satisfied and working to their full potential (Chen & Hamilton, 2015). It depends upon the human resource practitioner to look after the needs of the employees so that they feel privileged and taken care of. For instance, the human resource practitioner can organize seminars and workshops which discusses the importance of multiculturalism within an organization. Also, the establishment of an efficient communication system among the associates will help to overcome the languge barrier to a great extent.

The maintenance of the culture of an individual is indispensable. The cultural background of a person is what makes the person; shapes his entire personality. It gives a form to his inherent characteristics. The maintenance of such cultural background of an employee’s becomes significant in a formal work environment (Belizón, Morley & Gunnigle, 2016). An individual spends an average of half of his/her lifetime working in an organization. It is the obligation of the human resource practitioner of the concerned organization to create a work environment, which caters to the harmonization of the diverse cultures of each associates.

Taking into account the organizational examples of Google, Apple and Deloitte, it is observed that a comfortable work environment is the primary need of every working individual.  Employees are, undoubtedly, motivated by monetary benefits, but the place they are working in, is also important. A supportive working environment, where the management takes care of the needs and wants of the associates, is accommodating to their issues and provides quality guidance in the fields where the respective associates can improve their work, is the prime requirement of every associate (Belizón, Morley & Gunnigle, 2016). Google was able to resolve the issues pertaining to cultural diversity in the work place by initiating more associate friendly reforms. For instance, it set up a grievance cell within the organization where the white males, or anyone for that matter, who are being discriminated against, can go and lodge a complaint. Deloitte followed a similar strategy where the human resource practitioner gave utmost importance to the maintenance of the cultural diversity of the associates involved. The language barrier has been largely removed due to the diligent activities of the human resource practitioner to organize important training sessions for the same. It tried to ensure that the different customs and traditions followed by the associates and their individual beliefs are respected at all times and there is no infringement, on part of the organization, in their cultural background (Welch & Björkman, 2015). As far as the organization of Apple is concerned, the cultural issue with regard to employing more people who are not ‘white’ and also, employing more female associates, is yet to be solved. Although the human resource practitioner took up steps to create offices in the developing and under developed nations of the world, and recruit people of such regions, the decision of the top management with regard to expansion is yet to arrive.

Methodology

The role of a human resource practitioner involved with an organization which has an international presence, is to ensure that a friendly and accommodative work culture is maintained in the concerned organization (Chen & Hamilton, 2015). Throughout the day, these human resources practitioners devise new means and strategies for this purpose. They continually formulate new policies and rules, such as organizing more training sessions, organizing seminars on the importance of multiculturalism within the organization and allowing people to wear their traditional attire once a week. The employees favor working in a comfortable work place where their beliefs and values are allowed to be upheld.

Based on the literature review and organizational examples, there are some important areas where the human resource practitioner can work upon to promote cultural diversity in the work place. For instance, the human resource practitioner can take up certain initiatives whereby the most important cultural festival of the different associates can be celebrated, albeit in a small scale, within the work place. Moreover, there can be days when the associates can be encouraged to wear their traditional cultural attire to the office. Overcoming the cultural divide within the organization is the main objective of the human resource practitioner.

Conclusion

In conclusion, to ensure the efficient production of the employees in their place of work, the maintenance of cultural diversity has been priority by almost every private organization of the world. This issue becomes all the more significant in the context of international business, which has a presence in other parts of the world. The human resource practitioner of the concerned organization takes up the initiative to promote a work environment, which is conducive to the working of the associates, employed in the said organization. The happiness and satisfaction of the employees is of utmost importance because to the organization because without their hard work, the production level of the organization would stagnant, even deficit in the worse case scenario. This would result in the generation of less revenue, which goes against the primary motive of the private players. Thus, in order to maintain their dominating presence in the international economic market and promote cultural diversity, the organizations are restructured in a way which meets these two essential objectives.

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