National Culture in Labor Market

Question: An HRM has to deal with such changes systematically and efficiently and motivate the employees to work to and achieve the desired goals of the organization. Answer: Introduction: It has been observed from past years that due to globalization business transactions are increasing along with initializing new markets like BRIC, some international and domestic level organizations intense competition has also been observed with increased interest and it will invoke requirement for HRM studies. The report will focus on addressing configuration of human resource management on different national contexts. This report focus on the approaches of culture with regard to labor market and employment data of two countries Singapore and America, also examines about cultural and social tradition of both the countries with regard to their impact upon development of employment relations and HR practices in Singapore and America respectively. In the report we also review cultural conceptualizations of both the countries and describe mechanisms due to which culture can influences in the human resource management design. Each country has its own culture which will affect the working of the organizations and will also decides the HRM policy and strategy regarding to human resource planning i.e. recruitment, selection and retention methods and strategies. Report discusses the strategies regarding to training cultures in Singapore and America and management of training and development. There is evidence that according to the culture strategies related to HRM also differs. There are various elements both internal and external to the organization that directly or indirectly affects the business enterprise and the employees of the company in each country. There are rapid changes in the society or the external environment like technological changes or sometimes climatically change. An HRM has to deal with such changes systematical ly and efficiently and motivate the employees to work to and achieve the desired goals of the organization. National Context: Singapore: Singapore community is very diverse having four official languages. They use English as their official language for business and politics. Their societys structure is built upon fundamental values like respect, honesty and group harmony and same applied over in business by Singapore people as their organizations are very group specific. Human resource is the greater resource of the country (Barnard and Rodgers, 2000). Structural changes in Singapores labor market: I had been observed that due to structural changes in the labor market of Singapore prior to 1997 financial crises in Asia, rate of job vacancies get higher than the rate of unemployment in Singapore (Mills, 2003). However from 1997 unemployed people had persistently outstripped as compare to the vacancies and this gap had increased since then and unemployment rate increased from 2% to 5.2% in 2003 (Chew, 2004). In 2007, due to the strong growth this declining unemployment rate somewhat get stable to 3% ( Chew and Teo, 2008) which is fluctuating but remained same up to 2010 and gradually trending downward from then. This can be happened due to the package introduces for increasing the workers employability through heavily subsidized training and retraining programs and this will help in retaining the workers. In order to increase their growth Singapore welcome d various multinational companies and their cooperation has been used to improve the human resources in the country (Chew and Goh, 1997). The country is mostly depends on foreign investment in terms of indorsing training program and facilities to promote them through incentives (Tan, 2004). As a result of this from last two decade, due to the formal on-job training system, human resource in Singapore had vast improvement in their skills. National Culture in Singapore: Singapore is known as industrialized nation in Southeast Asia and was also achieved great success in economies. But it is the fact that its cultural tradition still plays important role in all business activities. According to Hofstede (1984) Singapores national culture experience high power distance and in this cultural there are strong inequality between leaders and their subordinates. This country also known as nanny state there people are habitual and supposed to perform only the told work not else. People have Kiasu mentality means uncertainty avoidance attitude and have fear of losing (Thangavelu et al, 2011). This attitude is often competitive and emphasize towards getting the best deal for individual. But except from competitiveness, Kiasu attitude lead more towards fear of losing than desire to success. Singapores prosperity have underpinned by common norms and values which contain the tripartism practices, national unity and harmony in racial and religious perspectives (McC arthy, Mitchell and Piggott, 2002). It has been observed that the countrys many business activities has been influenced by Chinese population. But in current year it is observed that societies in Singapore are getting shape by western values and their younger generations are influenced by western culture. An HRM has to balance between the internal problems and external problems of the environment. The external environment comprises of the working condition taking place outside the organization. The external environment has significant effect on the working of HRM (Hui, 2010). America: As a result of globalization and rapid changes in technologies America which is known as worlds largest economy also faces increased competitive pressure in HRM development. Due to this pressure organizations in this country enhanced concern relating to engagement is strategic planning which is a process of anticipation in future changes due to business environment situation (Applebaum and Henderson, 1992). Business components are aligned in such a way that it will promote the effectiveness of organization. Labor Market flow: It is concluded from the evidence that American labor markets flexibility have become less while looking in broader sense. Organizations in America are focusing on competitiveness and HR department contributed up to the bottom line in this context and for MNCs performance of HR department is evaluated against the establishments of the parent company (Beechler and Yang, 1994). Companies in America are fast in decision making and leaders gives freedom to their subordinates so that, they can talk their ideas and great ideas are taken into consideration. It shows that hierarchical system is not popular in America, but also has some error due to adaptation of this system. Roles and responsibilities are divided individually and hence performance of each member is very important in team as it directly linked to companys goal (Abramson, Keating and Lane, 1996). Company in America believes in Return On Investment and do not concern themselves on how it is going to be achieved and also spend t heir less time on process establishments. Americans have high risk taking attitudes, once they took the work though there is 70% probability of work accomplishment; they achieve it as close to 100%. American organizations have multiculturalism as they have different nationalities and it improves their business as they have plenty of ways to think. Corporate Culture: As compare to any other culture Americans give less preference to personal relationship while it come to business approach, they took business first. Americans always try to invest in those companies where they think higher value of profit than lowest price (Tayeb, 1998). They always believe in being direct, i.e. they are not believed in confusing the terms. Their Yes means yes and No means no and may be termed as the person have not decided yet on the deal. They always want to come straight to the point and the way impress them is explaining why product or service is best in understandable way. According to Hofstede (1984) American culture does not believe in power distance, as we talk above, there is no hierarchical culture and leader treat subordinates equally and their ideas are also taken in to consideration. Another cultural dimension of Hofstede is uncertainty avoidance. Americans do believe in taking risk in business and they can prove their decision true, though the probabil ities are less. This is the part of attitude of the people and hence human resource power is more in American business and organizational culture. Manager and HR Policy Recruitment methods: In order to search and hire appropriate and qualified employees for particular job role us very important process and at the same time using appropriate channel are vital. Companies in Singapore and America use different methods in order to recruit best candidates for their companies. The methods like online advertisement, professional associated advertising and print media advertising are used as per the job role requirement (Arudsothy and Littler, 1993). Online advertising is most cost effective method and it is also possible to reach towards more people through internet advertising. It is also the easer as well as faster response producing method in comparison with the other traditional methods. To find the potential jobs Singapores job seeker using this channel mostly is found through the survey (Begin, 1995). Professional Association Advertising method is used to recruit well qualified candidates for very significant job role. Such candidates are sourced through placements which are company specific and hence have high educational qualifications, key technical skills in comparison with the candidates recruited from non-professional channels (Castells, 1992). Print Media Advertisement is traditional way of recruiting and it also reach towards large people. The companies having less developed brand uses this method. It is not fair to discard the importance of traditional method though online advertisement is utilized by more people. Selection methods: For selecting highest performing and well qualified candidates amongst the applied applicant various selection methods are used. Such methods are used to select the candidates from either large or small intake. The process will start from first reviewing resumes and applicant forms of the applicants and most of the applicants are getting disqualified if their resumes do not meet the requirement of job role. Next method used is testing of skills the short listed candidates then go through further test like personality testing, skills testing, and testing of essential skill required for job role. Next is Cognitive testing and Singapores norm online tests are used under this selection method and are also high validity method (Choi, 1995). Then the common selection method is through personal interviews. It is an effective method as the candidates are getting selected on the basis of their knowledge, because through various interview questions their knowledge is keenly tested. The intervi ew questions are depends on the job role and knowledge required for the position. Motivation and Retention Strategies: Employees have the capacity to work but many of them not have a desire to work willingly. The organizational manager helps employees to work freely, capably, efficiently and passionately and this is when the employees contribute their best to the achievement of goals of the organization. A Manager can buy employees physical presence in your work place but he can never buy his willingness to work (Deyo, 1992). It is rightly said that human beings have great potential but they use only a part of it when working, efficiently and contribute their best to the organization. Motivation is an internal state that energizes activities of humans which directs them towards achievement of objectives (Dore, 1973). It is a series of actions in which people are inspired to take action to achieve desired goals. Motivation can also be called as a will power to work and achieve goals of the business enterprise. Hence with the above explanation in general term means drives, wishes, want and alike forces. We say that a manger motivates his subordinates then it means that he will satisfy theses drives and desires and induces which he hopes, will satisfy these drives and desires and induces subordinates to act in the desired manner. Pay and reward strategies: Rewarding the employees does not mean just increasing the salaries but to motivate the employees in real manner it is vital to find right reward program (Tan, 2004). It is essential for strategic direction on any business and also defines unique work culture of an organization. The reward program is depend on level of total reward affordable to an organization, also the reward program is key to get competitive advantage, better to focus on staff which must win battles. Recognizing the good work done by the employee, small celebration of particular employees achievement achievements, taking employees views on some project is also good for employees motivation and also considered as reward by employees. American society has change the pattern and behavior of education because more females are getting into higher education. Human resource development also helps in understanding what exactly the organizational goals are and what type of candidates and employees will fulfill the companys requirements. It is the job of the human resource manager to help and motivate the employees with which they both will be in win-win situation and the employees are equally enthusiastic about their work (Frenkel, 1993). They should also support the work culture of the organization they are working with. Training, Culture and management: It is the duty of the manager to understand his core job and to make it understand to his subordinates this will help him to analyze his job and to relate it to the potential of the human being or his employees. It will also help the manager to identify the skills required for the profile which will make him understand whether to hire skilled, experience or fresher for that particular job profile. It will help the manager to identify the compensation that is to be paid to the employee. It will also briefly define what exactly the training and development should the employee or the candidate should go through for better performance. Thus the manager will understand whether the candidate needs some special certification or he is well qualified for the job. If the manager hires experienced candidate it will incur less expenditure in training and quality purpose (Endo, 1999). After doing certain type of examination internally it will help the human resource department to judge the candid ate and to select the best. It will also help to decide what type of quality candidate is best suited for the profile. In todays generation female workers are preferred but still gender equality exits in the society and in the organization. Male employees tend to earn higher than the female employees. Interest copulation issues are main factor in decreasing the skillfulness of women at workplace (Endo, 1976). In show to dodge get in productivity amongst women pinch and also to hoard their push level so that they perform a given task to best of their capabilities is important that organization takes suitable steps in this regards and also frame suitable policies. About conduct requirement suit breeding to its guild, supervisors and administering people at different levels on how to decrease this discrimination along with bringing harmony at workplace and increasing overall motivational level of employees at workplace (Fay, 1996). Power, Scope and Influence of managers: A human resource manager has to work under multifarious pressures. There are various elements both inside and outside the organization that directly or indirectly affect the business enterprise and the employees of the company. There are rapid changes in the society or the external environment like technological changes or sometimes climatically change. An HRM has to deal with such changes systematically and efficiently and motivate the employees to work to and achieve the desired goals of the organization. An HRM has to balance between the internal problems and external problems of the environment. The external environment comprises of the working condition taking place outside the organization. External environment of the organization is an important part and factor in the nature of human resource management. Balance scorecard is a method which is used by human resource managers to measure the performance of the employees. They can use this to measure only the quality and quantity performance but it is not possible for them to measure the satisfaction of the employees. Human resource managers should use various employee engagement programs and functions where they can have an open house discussion and take a feel of employee satisfaction level. They should try to make their employees as comfortable as they can at their work place. The major areas which need to develop in todays human resource management are the attrition rate. Human resource management in todays organization needs to concentrate on attrition rate of the employees. The organization should treat the employee as their asset and not their liability. The organizations should value the employees and show them how important every employee is to the organization. The company should involve various techniques in their organization which will make the employee value himself and view the organization as their long term goal. Human resource management is defined as organizing, directing, planning and controlling. This department takes care of all the functions related to welfare of the staff and employee. Conclusion: In this report first we discussed about the managerial choices gets shape due to cultural values across the national context in Singapore and America and how they differ in respect to human resource practices. It is also get clear from the report that cultural factors according to the country can only serve as one among the several characteristics and it influenced by the human resource practices and policies as per the contexts. We also explain how cultural sources in both countries effects and describes mechanism which affect HRM design. The report also observes that social pressure is related to employees working in the organization and they differ country wise. It is related with the attitudes and behavior of the employees. The employees should be properly motivated in order to attain the goals of the organization. If they are not properly motivated they wont function properly and hence unable to achieve the goals. Important business strategy of any organization in any country is to integrate the management of human resources with its investigation in order to get competitive advantage. It has been concluded from the report that countries like Singapore are influenced by their national factors, and many times those factors and cultural influences are become big hinders in terms of developing HRM practices in those countries. 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