The research question addressed here is whether tension-centered theory can be used to develop a conceptual framework for analyzing and enhancing work-life initiatives in MNEs. The analysis is centered upon relevant bodies of research, with background information from the results of https://adprun.net/ qualitative research on this topic involving managers at 27 MNEs (Bardoel, 2016). Whether an employee moves to another country, wants to break into a new industry or wishes to create their own startup, they can tap into their contacts to access the people and knowledge they need.
More recently, although women continue to provide most childcare, men’s participation has expanded in developed nations (Bianchi, Robinson, & Milkie, 2006; Craig & Mullan, 2011), increasing the value of work-life initiatives that respond to the caregiving commitments of men. Very differently, workforces are aging in many developed nations (Bardoel & De Cieri, 2006), which expands the value of work-life initiatives that help retain older workers while facilitating caregiving commitments to the elderly. Someone who already has experience managing international projects or traveling several times a year can easily transition into a new role at a multinational firm. Multinational companies inspire confidence and employees tend to expect opportunity to advance, especially if relocating is on the cards. This is the process of identifying and tracking high-potential employees who will be able to fill top management positions when they become vacant. It is a plan that managers can follow, implement, and customize to meet the needs of their organisation, division, and/or department.
For managers, it is reasonable to conclude that consideration of the three axes of tensions around global work-life initiatives, and of the five potential responses considered here, will often be of value. Ignoring the potential for tensions may invite the creation of irrelevant, ineffective, low-value programs. The findings also suggest that absent a corporate culture that is open to discussion of tensions, work-life initiatives may exacerbate existing tensions and global HQ may not even recognize that it is creating problems, or at least not in a timely fashion. A further implication of this possibility is that monitoring of global work-life initiatives may be valuable. The strategies of spatial separation, temporal separation and synthesis are not mutually exclusive, and “can be combined in practice” (Poole & Van de Ven, 1989, p. 567).
- Even in a remote work environment, many companies choose to bring team members together during retreats or conferences.
- Your source of funding for the expansion could mean different tax rules depending on location.
- Startups are all the rage right now, but there’s still something to be said about working for a multinational company.
Data laws are the most frequently changing due to the sheer vastness of the capabilities, but local and federal laws pertaining to hiring, payroll, wages, time off, and things of the like aren’t only talked about in the United States. In addition to the legal factors, experiencing a major data breach can get your company blacklisted overnight. Data compliance laws exist to protect people’s information, both personal and financial, and failure to comply with U.S. and foreign data regulations can be a death sentence for a young company. KnowledgeCity understands these difficulties first-hand, as we’re a growing company with employees all around the globe. International compliance is a stiff task, but one worth taking seriously, as penalties can be high, with fines large enough to stop global expansion in its tracks. Are there certain issues that impact employees in one region or country more than others?
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A major advantage of these temporal separation policies is that they allow for feedback and learning over time. Bardoel (2016) found an MNE in banking that pushed out flexible work arrangements, encountered resistance in operations in a different nation, and discovered that managers wanted field training in managing flexible work. While English is for the most part the international language of business, it’s not smart to only hire candidates who have English fluency.
The different foci of the different levels of HR in an MNE can potentially lead to tensions in work-life management (Dowling, 2009). When your organization’s workplace expands globally, your HR department will need to understand the hr challenges in multinational companies ethics of different cultures around the globe. “Encourage teams to take time at regular intervals to learn more about the cultures represented on the team and in the places where the organization does business,” Beckham recommended.
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Expanding your organization overseas is already difficult enough already, your company can dodge international human resources issues by preparing the human resource team well and giving them the resources they need to succeed. Organizations that have expanded their business to other countries may face international HR challenges due to cultural differences, time zones, and the failure to maintain legal compliance with labor laws. Human resource officers must excel at communication and devise strategic management systems to oversee employees all over the world.
The first couple of decades of this century have seen the rapid expansion of our global community. The tools of the digital landscape have brought our geographically disparate world closer together than at any other point in our history. While the data industry is not quite in its infancy anymore, it can still feel like uncharted territory. Changes in compliance rules are frequent, but last year, the European Union created the biggest regulatory set of rules relative to data, called the GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation. The GDPR has become a strong indicator of the direction the rest of the planet will likely take with legal regulations surrounding big data.
Growth and Development Opportunities
Relatedly, evaluations of supervisors might include explicit measures of support for work-life (e.g., proportion of employees using flexible work arrangements). Many studies have concluded that line manager support is crucial in terms of employee work-life outcomes (e.g., Crain et al., 2014; McCarthy et al., 2010; Sánchez-Vidal & Cegarra-Navarro, 2012; Thomas & Ganster, 1995). Similarly, managers might put subtle pressure on employees not to use work-life policies for fear of being seen as poor workers (Waters & Bardoel, 2006), particularly if the employees are women (Williams, 1999).
According to the United Nations (2019), as of 2018, flows of foreign direct investment (a measure of MNE activity) were below levels found in 2007. Nonetheless, the value of merger and acquisition expenditures within the total has basically been on an upward trajectory from 2009 to 2018 (from less than $300b to $816b), suggesting that individual MNEs are becoming larger over time. Further, most of that expansion was driven by mergers and acquisitions with investment flowing from developed to developing nations, such that cultural differences may be increasingly relevant to MNE operations.
Forming a healthy work environment remotely is one of the most important international challenges for HR professionals to conquer. It may be difficult to motivate teams to reach business goals and build genuine connections amongst different departments. If the work environment is not addressed before building teams across the globe, your organization’s efficiency and retention rates will suffer significantly. Navigating cultural differences in the workplace is essential, and global HR has a critical role to play. But a robust and diverse workforce can offer a global business huge advantages — and an attuned Human Resources department can help a company leverage these strengths. But while so much policy around cultural difference focuses on potential issues or frictions between colleagues, experts agreed it’s important not to overlook the major upsides a culturally diverse workforce offers.
That is, to the extent headquarters support local innovation in work-life programs, the more innovations are likely to occur. However, there is no obvious reason to expect those ideas to be coherent at the organizational or strategic levels, which may simultaneously reduce their usefulness in terms of synthesis for global operations, and even create new tensions (e.g., around religious practices in one society). The organizational context for MNEs is characterized by the constant need to respond to global competition and technological innovations which often generate pressure on employees in terms of the patterns and demands of work. At the same time, the contextual and institutional environment in which employees live has undergone dramatic changes in the recent decades (Hein, 2005).
Logically, this approach is prior to the opposition strategy, since it may take time to identify tensions. Alternatively, if information flows are poor within a facility, local managers might have difficulty identifying relevant tensions if the only evidence available is indirect, as in poor quality or low productivity. Work-life management per se is increasingly acknowledged as an important aspect of HRM (De Cieri & Bardoel, 2015; McCarthy, Darcy, & Grady, 2010; Ryan & Kossek, 2008). Work-life management practices refer to those practices in organizations that are introduced by firms to facilitate employees’ ability to meet work and non-work demands (McCarthy et al., 2010).
The paper aims to trace the challenges that multinational companies (MNCs) face as they grow out of their national borders into foreign countries and how they attempt to transfer human resource management (HRM) policies and practices across their subsidiaries for a best-fit HRM model. For example, if a corporation has spent many years developing global work-life policies, and a strong commitment has been developed (e.g., at IBM, Childs, 2005), it will be easier to mandate standardized work-life policies across all geographies of the MNE. If employees are often moving between countries within the MNE, the value of a consistent approach will be enhanced.