The pre departure training of employees in the firm will be performed to align the employees of the firm with the foreign staffing needs with regards to the business operations. Thus, this training will be required to undergo through various components or stages before it is realized to the employees of the company. To begin with, the most important component to be covered by this employee training program will be the organizational objectives of the firm. The rationale of this component is that employees need to be in full knowledge of the desires and prospects of the organization so as to adopt a working culture that would be significant in accomplishing the organizational objectives. The second component to be covered by the training program would be a needs assessment to determine the specific employee needs (Bratton & Gold, 2007). The identification of these needs would be achieved through an in depth analysis of the most important personnel areas of the firm. This will be vital in providing information about the whole organization as well as the job descriptions of various employee jobs and the assessment of individual employee’s needs.
The rationale behind the needs analysis will be to reveal the gaps that prevail between the employee’s performance and the job needs that are necessary to them. Thirdly, the training program will conduct a selection process after ascertaining that there are some existing needs that require to be addressed for the company employees. Since the company is training employees to meet the foreign company operations, then the selection process of employees will involve a very analytical method so as to select the right employees to represent the company in the international trade platform. The underlying principle of trainee selection process is to ensure quality selection of employees who would benefit efficiently from the training and put the knowledge into active practice. The fourth component in the training program will be the choice of the training method to be applied for the actual learning course. The training would adopt one of the methods which include; on the job training method and off the job training method. Since this is a pre departure training for employees it would be prudent to undertake off the job training method so as to equip employees with ample time for better synthesis of the training.
The justification of this component is to ensure that the training adopts a better method which would be effective in enhancing knowledge and skills to employees. The fifth component of the training will be the actual administration of the training course by the consultant trainers to the employees. The importance of this stage of the training program is to equip trainees with the necessary skills and knowledge that would be important in the execution of the company’s international duties. Lastly, the training program will undertake an evaluation to find out the outcome of the training process. This will be a performance measurement process to ascertain the effectiveness of the training in equipping employee’s with relevant skills that portray the organizational objectives of the company. The expatriates working abroad will undergo continuous performance measurements to ensure that they deliver the organizational objectives of the company. One criterion to be used in performance evaluation is the application of the balanced scorecard (BSC) (Collings & Scullion, 2007). This will involve the human resource management formulating performance score cards which depict the anticipated performance of the employees then matching the scorecard with the actual results to measure performance.
This method of measuring performance has been proved to be workable due to the fact that the management can be able to assign different scorecards to the individual employees. Thus, the scorecard would be able to capture performance under the specific job description of a particular employee. This has been the most important attribute of this performance evaluation method that enables it to be effective. The second method of performance measurement to be used on the expatriates working abroad would be the use of total quality management (TQM) in the business operations. This method is directed at ensuring that employees follow a predetermined quality procedure for the business activities in the company. The method provides specific activities that must be undertaken by employees so as to produce the company’s anticipated quality in the delivery of services and products. This is therefore, a significant method of performance measurement since it would capture any discrepancies carried out by the employees due to the alteration of the set quality for the company (Bratton & Gold, 2007). Lastly, the company would use the traditional performance measurement (PM) method to measure the employee’s results.
This would involve employees signing performance contacts which are evaluated at the end of a given period to access whether the employees were able to achieve their set levels of performance. This would be a viable method of measuring performance because the management can set work targets for the employees to be used as the indicators of performance. Hence, employees would work hard so as to accomplish their targets as stated in their performance contracts. The idea of signing a performance contracts keeps the employees on toes in order to ensure that they achieve the targets and keep the contract going. The recruitment strategy to be used in the recruitment of personnel for the international jobs would be the employee referral schemes where existing employees are given an opportunity to refer a person whom they know can meet the job descriptions. The rationale of this recruitment strategy is that it would save the company a lot of costs attributed to recruitment as well as offer an opportunity of exhibiting the company’s commitment to its employees. Consequently, this method of selection allows the applicants of these international jobs to get a preview of the job requirements from the existing employees therefore making the recruitment process easier.
However, the selection strategy to be applied in the choice of employees would be sophisticated assortment of selection procedures aimed at ensuring quality selection. This would therefore involve structured interviews, unstructured interviews as well as psychometric tests to ascertain the quality of the applicants. The rationale behind this selection strategy is that the company would be able to choose the most competent and skilled employees for the international jobs. The two staffing alternative policies that prevail in the company are ethnocentric policy and the geocentric policy of staffing (Yan & Zhu, 2002). Ethnocentric staffing policy presumes that the company should mostly employ nationals from the parent country of the multinational company. Geocentric staffing policy on the other hand stipulates that the company would employ any person whom is felt as being best for the job regardless of their nationality even if it does not match that of the subsidiary companies. The best alternative fit in this scenario would be the geocentric staffing policy. The rationale behind this selection is due to the fact that this method would be effective in employing the best quality employees for these international job tasks which require higher levels of competence. The provision of high quality mentoring program for international assignees is believed to accrue various benefits to the company. To begin with, the mentoring systems help to facilitate and help the global assignments during repatriation and expatriation.
Secondly, the mentoring systems also help to ensure an ongoing communication with international assignees so as to give them a picture of the state of things about the company in the home country. Thirdly, the mentoring programs also help the international assignees in adjusting to the new foreign work environment. Lastly, mentoring systems help to link the leadership of the organization in the home country with the international assignees. One example of a high quality mentoring system is the buddy system which allows the mentor to create contact and sustain the international assignee in the entire period of the assignment. The system also specifies that the mentor should help the assignee to discover a suitable position before repatriation. The return on investments (ROI) of international assignments would be measured by estimating the maximum benefits or revenue earned from international assignments. This will be followed by another critical evaluation of the costs incurred in the international assignments. Having found these two figures it would be easier to calculate the profitability of international assignments by matching both costs and benefits. Thus, this method is important because it is efficient in determining the rate of return on the investment in international assignees. Hence, the cost and benefit method would be vital in providing the company with a report of the costs and benefits accrued from these assignments hence it would be easier to calculate the overall profitability of the company.
References
Bratton, J., and Gold, J. (2007). HRM: Theory and Practice, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Collings, D., and Scullion, H. (2007). Changing patterns of global staffing in the multinational enterprise: Challenges to the conventional expatriate assignment and emerging alternatives. Journal of World Business, 42(3): 199-214.
Yan, A., and Zhu, G. (2002). International assignments for career building: A model of agency relationships and psychological contracts. Academy of Management Review, 27(2): 372- 390.
