HRM and Culture
Human resource has the advantage of decision making capabilities, unique skill sets, and valuable knowledge. This therefore, enables companies with best practices of human resource management to have a competitive advantage over their rivals who do not. The resource based view creates a perspective where employees are viewed as resources thus making it easy to explain strategic management of a company. There are best practices of human resource management used to enhance organizational performance. Selective hiring is among the best practices of HRM. This implies being sensitive to issues such as gender. This paper seeks to discuss human resource management and culture in relation gender. The arguments are developed from the Korean woman case.
Alignment of HR practices to the business strategy of the company
In the case of the Korean Woman, women in the country are gradually making changes to organizational culture. A lot of progress has been made to increase the number of women employed to both private and public companies. Hiring opportunities for women in senior positions is also gradually changing especially in the government institutions. However, in the private sector women are hardly seen to rise to higher ranks. According to the case, this problem is specifically common among the top companies in the country. Only 8% of working women in these companies hold senior managerial positions.
SK Holdings is a giant telecommunication company in Korea. Just like any other company large in the country, SK Holdings is grappling with issues such as traditional perceptions about women, the need to open up business to compete globally, and hierarchical business culture. Hiring women is generally a problem because of a misconception that women are not determined and tenacious as men. The business strategy of the organization is not aligned to human resource management practices . For instance, the company only employs men with the perception that they are the right people with the right business and work related attitude to achieve its strategic goals . For a woman to fit into the organizational culture, she has to be able to achieve at least what all the men are able to achieve. Park Myun one of the female employees in a managerial position at the company was only able to get ahead because of she could achieve over 120% of what her male counterparts did .
However, it was established later that hiring men and focusing a lot of attention on male employees is not helping the company achieve its strategic goals. It can be noted from the case that Choi Dong, a 30 year old woman who joined the company’s research arm was able to successfully advocate for a change in policy in the company in the dislike of her immediate boss . After the incidence, the company’s managers were able to appreciate the role that women can play to help improve customer service .
Good customer service is one of the strategic goals major that organizations seek to achieve in order to increase revenue. This means that the company did not align its strategic goals with human resource best practices. By failing to consider women for important positions within the company, it failed on ensuring that customers are served better. This definitely could lower the company’s competitive advantage if it was in a different environment where its rivals do selective hiring which takes into accounts gender balance.
The case of Korean woman also talks of organizational culture at Samsung Electronics . Even though the company relied mostly on male workers, the culture that existed in the company was not the right culture to achieve its strategic goals. Sonia Kim, a female manager in charge of TV marketing at the company was able to do something that her male colleagues could not . It was hard for the male colleagues to initiate a new approach to marketing that would increase its marketing effect . There was a culture where men would overturn decisions made during the day when they are out drinking . However, the practice began to stop when women generally made complaints to the management regarding the culture . From this situation, it is evident that women play important roles in an organization that can actually define the culture of that organization.
Best practices in human resource management seek to create an environment for easy communication. The employees have to be able to communicate to the management without too many barriers. At the same time, the management needs to be able to communicate to the employees while giving room for feedback. The human resource management at Samsung electronics seems to create a culture that removes top down communication barriers . Employees can complain over an issue that does not seem right to the company’s strategy for achievement of its goals and appropriate action be taken to correct the situation. Therefore, this is one aspect about human resource management practices that is effectively aligned to the company’s business strategy .
Having a competitive advantage through hiring and promoting women
The company has a business strategy to increase its operations to foreign market. Being a multinational company therefore, one important consideration is having women represented within the potential group of employees. Women generally play a critical role in economic development of emerging markets. As international companies face a problem of labor shortages in emerging markets, women basically represent a segment of the labor market that is untapped . Women within the emerging markets are educated and skillful, however their potential is generally not considered by companies. Therefore, if the company decides to employ female employees especially in foreign emerging markets, it places itself at a competitive position above its local rivals.
Corporate strategy is essential in gender equality promotion within the work place. Even though this seems to a major challenge for human resource management promotion of gender equality serves as a means of competitive advantage . The company should therefore have promotion of gender equality as one of its main focus in its corporate strategy. Improving women representation at all position level is achievable through creation of flexibility with regards to working hours and contributing to the cost of child care .
Increasing the female representation in the places of work contributes to the company’s competitive advantage in numerous ways. It creates an organizational environment that is diverse thus increasing t different perspective towards work. Considering the fact that the company seeks to have a global operation, women representation is part of diversity creation necessary to improve the working environment. Management has to value a variety of insight and opinions into work issues .
Different companies can benefit a lot just from exploiting the gender discrepancies within the local market . The focus for many companies is just to hire highly skilled and educated women who are may be overlooked. It is firstly ethical to hire in such as way that shows a sense of diversity. It is also sound business practice to hire women who are highly competitive and qualified as the men. The company will is offered competitive advantage every time it recruits talented employees . Female talent is just as equal as the male talent. In addition, when the company increases female representation especially in the managerial positions, it will initiate a culture where other companies begin to appreciate female talent. Sometimes, the male recruits are offered jobs and they end up being underutilized.
According to research studies, an increase in female representation especially in the managerial position, increases return on assets. Firms enjoy performance benefits when they increase hiring of women for senior managerial positions. Companies that begin operations in foreign markets that still straggle with gender equality in the work place, have a competitive advantage over the locals companies . They experience a lot earning benefits that are relatively large compared to those of the local market. Within the emerging markets, improving female representation into the work force is not enough as the discrepancies do not only deal with employers but also the clients. Having women in the leadership of organizations will require the clients to change their perceptions about female leaders .
Plan for recruiting and retaining women in the company
Recruitment strategy
The first consideration in the plan is promotion of equal access to work and promotion with regards to gender . This will give women the opportunity to apply for any position within the organization based on their qualification and skills. Promotion of equal employment opportunities is in line with the standards for global and national labor and human rights. After the company has identified its employment needs at all levels, job descriptions can be established. The job descriptions have to take into account the abilities of both male and female potential employees .
Promotion of equal access to work also involves equal payment for equal work, creating a safe environment for female workers, taking into account the well being of female workers, protecting the health of all employees, and supporting equal opportunities for all employees . In the process, the human resource management team needs to ensure that all important labor and human rights policies that deal with gender equality in the work place are implemented . Even when an organization has had a culture of discriminating against women, it is the responsibility of the human resource management team to make regular communication reminding employees of the principles . The human resource management team is also responsible for educating employees and managers on the policies of gender equity in the work place.
Retention strategy
The main idea of a retention strategy for women employees is to create loyalty and avoid turnovers. A strategic organizational culture works effectively to create high retention for employees in general . However, due to the differences in needs between male employees and female employees, different strategies will have to be employed to create high retention for female employees. Retention for female employees mainly focuses on three essential areas.
The first area is representation of women in senior managerial positions . For all the managerial positions available for the company, at one female candidate has to be invited for the interviews. At the same time, for all recruits in senior managerial positions at least one third of the recruits have to be women. Flexible working condition has to apply for all female managers . This means that they can be allowed to work during part time working hours. With all these factors in place, the company will have an improved image among women. It will be seen as being friendly to women hence develops a competitive advantage over its rivals .
The next factor to consider in the retention plan is part time employment. Female employees should generally have the right to change the number working hours that suit their needs . Employees can chose to save their working days in order to go on a long term leave. However, this should not be in conflict with the interest of a department and the operations of a department. The final important thing to consider is the child care program. The cost of this program will be contributed by the company. It is going to be part of the employee benefits especially for the female employees. The child care program will provide female employees with the opportunity to have their young kids taken care of during working hours.
Obstacles and challenges in increasing female representation
Generally the barriers to the corporate advancement of women have to do with their role in the homes and families. The burden of rearing children is still placed on women. Women will be expected to focus on both their jobs and taking care of their children. Such a challenge is not faced by men since they only get to focus on their careers while leaving issues to do with family care to the women. Even with policies in place to address this need, sometimes it becomes difficult for the women to balance all their responsibilities.
The second impediment to the improvement of female representation in the work place is poor implementation and enforcement of government regulations. Despite establishing legal regulations to protect the rights of women, implementation and enforcement of the policies is weak especially in developing market economies . The challenges in this case come when the laws and policies are tied to specific situations. For instance, policies regarding the child care in some emerging economies are only bound to companies with over 500 employees . Some of the policies also target industries where female employees dominate. This will prove a challenge to the organization if it intends to begin operations in foreign market where the issue has not yet been addressed .
Improving the visibility of women in the company
In order to improve the visibility of women in the company the human resource management team has to ensure that qualified and skillful women assume leadership positions. The recruitment process has to be sensitive to the local context of the market. Female employee recruitment has to be done in an effective manner while providing necessary support and communication to the female employees .
The second approach to improving visibility of women in the company is through employee engagement. Women employees can be assigned responsibilities just as the male employees . They should be trusted with duties that are more challenging. Their skills have to be exploited in order to achieve the best out of them . The human resource management team serves the role of identifying untapped skills in all the employees and creating opportunities where the female workers can use their skills in line with organizational goals .
Training programs and seminars should focus on the female employees as well. While conducting employee training for specific managerial positions, the human resource team needs include female workers . The company should have policies that give women the opportunity to advance their careers. If a female employee seeks to pursue further education in order to qualify for a promotion or a higher position, the company should be able to support the employee .
Inside networking is also important to encourage participation of women in company projects . The company can establish development networks where various women come together to connect with other employees as well as themselves . Such a practice helps provides a common ground in which every employee gets to interact with each other as well as with the management .
Conclusion
This paper has developed a sound argument that women representation in the work place offers a diverse environment that has potential for competitive positioning of a company seeking to operate in a foreign market. It has discussed the issue of human resource management and culture in relation gender. Human resource has the advantage of decision making capabilities, unique skill sets, and valuable knowledge. This therefore, enables companies with best practices of human resource management to have a competitive advantage over their rivals who do not. The resource based view creates a perspective where employees are viewed as resources thus making it easy to explain strategic management of a company. There are best practices of human resource management used to enhance organizational performance.
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