International Human Resource Management
Abstract
This paper is a report about Nike Human Resources in the global market. It discusses how the theories and concepts surrounding International Human Resource Management were used by the company to attract the best workforce. It concludes that the company manages to remain relevant in the existing competition by embracing modern practices. For instance, in order to solve employment problems, Nike is urged to use e-recruitment as well as online interviews. The best strategy to grow in the global market is having motivated employees. Nike’s HR has achieved this by ensuring that the selected employees are engaged in areas where they can perform best. The procedures for staffing, recruitment and selection are very critical and interdependent. Each stage contributes immensely to the result. The company recruits from various sources, including advertisements in newspapers and on the company website. The latter is mostly meant for internal recruitment.
Keywords: global staffing, e-recruitment, selection
International Human Resource Management
Organization Background
Nike is a corporation that was established in 1964 by Philip Knight and Bill Bowerman (Harrison, 1997). It was founded as an importer of Japanese shoes and later grew into a world leading supplier of sportswear, both athletic footwear and equipment. It became Nike, Inc in 1978. The slogan “Just do it” was coined by Gary Gilmore (Harrison, 1997). It is based in the United States, with its headquarters in Oregon. The products are sold in more than 160 countries. It usually operates on retail stores both domestically and overseas. The manufacturing is done by independent contractors, while designing, development and marketing are done by Nike. Discussion of the global human resource practices shows how significantly it influences the growth of global corporations as applied by Nike to carry out proper HR functions in a successful and motivating manner.
HR for Global Markets
Human Resource comes out as a strategic and effective management of people, who are the most valuable resource that firms have. The global market is a real issue as the firms are growing to build and operate their plants overseas. HR has got an outstanding duty to manage a workforce that is diverse in terms of cultural background, the level of skills, religious beliefs, race, language and environments. A multi-national corporation that applies the concepts and theories of International Human Resource Management is deemed to succeed. The global market is full of needs that should be met. Reaching the overseas market is demanding. The host country may pose challenges that human resource department from the parent country finds critical to deal with.
Theoretically, HR should be concerned with the general well-being of the employees. The main aim of human resource is to help the organization to realize its goals by ensuring that it attracts and maintains the best employees. HR manages the workers, bearing in mind that they have varying needs and targets to achieve. Practically, the theoretical goals are achieved through various processes that are laid down by the human resource. Attracting the best employees and reducing the turnover is an integral part. HR ensures that the working environment is conducive and motivating to the workers. The department must come out to face the reality that is facing the firms in the global market.
Nike, Inc is an international corporation that depends much on the functionality of the Human Resource department. The practices of the firm in its headquarters and in the host countries should be the same. Some of the functions of HR include:
- Planning and organizing the workforce
- Selection and Staffing
- Recruitment, induction and orientation
- Managing different skills
- Training and development
- Appraising and compensating employees.
Staffing
The global organization requires human resource professionals who can apply unique methods in staffing. There are global staffing approaches that come into play when engaging employees in an international corporation. These include ethnocentric approach, polycentric approach, geocentric approach and region-centric approach (Scullion, & Collings, 2006). HR applying a geocentric approach that involves engaging workers based on their skills and not nationality is appropriate for multinational firms like Nike (Scullion, & Collings, 2006). The firms need diverse skills that must be provided to enhance success. Nike, Inc is a designer, distributor and a marketer that requires employees with different skills. HR has the duty to ensure that the host countries fulfil the mission of the corporation. Due to a dire need for the skilled workforce, the corporation has contracted the services of Kelly, Inc to engage skilled employees.
Ethnocentric staffing means hiring management of the same nationality as the parent corporation. HR management in Nike embraces this approach. The company gives its employees international exposure in order to maintain culture and ensure continuity of business in the host countries. On the other side, human resource of Nike, Inc can provide employment to the nationals of the host country through having a contract with the staff management of the company. The corporation has enjoyed rich knowledge and skills from the nationals of the country. They are well conversant with the cultural diversity of their customers.
Recruitment
Recruitment involves intense search and obtaining potential and appropriate job seekers for the firm to choose the best. Human resource managers on the global arena have the most challenging task; they devise methods and strategies to come up with the best workforce. It is the HR managers’ duty to come up with the ways of attracting the best workers since poor methods are likely to attract weak job applicants.
HR managers are supposed to be well informed about the Internet supply and demand prospective recruits. They are required to understand the external labor market conditions, identify the best channels of attracting potential employees and finally, determine appropriate methods of assessing the best technique to be used in recruitment.
Nike Human Resources is very helpful in attracting the most innovative people worldwide and helping them to succeed in their career. Various international corporations have different procedures for conducting recruitment. Competition is real, and it depends on how a firm handles recruitment. Getting the most competent workforce is a big boost towards competing favorably with other businesses in the international arena. The well-known brand enables the company to attract many potential employees.
Recruitment can be done internally, externally and through an external contractor (Schreuder, & Coetzee, 2006). Internal recruitment is when preference is given to the firms’ employees. This can be done through dissemination of some jobs. New post is created and provided to the existing employees. External recruitment takes place when a company places an advertisement on its website, newspapers or magazines to attract employees. The external contractor is involved when the business requires professionals for the created posts. Many international corporations are embracing recruitment of volunteers to fill the deficit.
Nike as a global firm is not left out in this competition. For instance, Adidas brings a lot of competition to Nike. To get the best, the company has gone a much higher as far as recruitment is concerned. The advertisement for a vacant post is placed online. A job seeker is expected to fill in an application form online. The procedure includes the following steps:
- An applicant visits the company’s website
- Then he or she presses an appropriate connection, where all the required details for the post he or she wants to apply for are given
- After filling in the form, the applicant uploads a scanned passport and sends it.
Nike employees can easily view the job opening from the website. For a position to be created, the job request is received from the HR department and then discussed within the central resourcing team. When job requisition is completed and approved, it is then posted on the system and application is invited. E-recruitment was developed to solve the hiring problem (Cullen, & Parboteeah, 2014). Nike has a powerful brand that attracts many potential employees. A high volume of applications has over time piled pressure on the Human Resource department. ActiveRecruiter has helped the company to manage the recruitment process faster. Nike has embraced this solution because it is flexible, simple and less costly.
ActiveRecruiter usually makes a match between the job requirement and the competencies and experience of the applicants. The company has a pool of readily available job applicants for the open position because their details are retained in the e-recruitment system, which has indeed provided a solution to Nike (Cullen, & Parboteeah, 2014). It has reduced the cost of recruitment significantly.
Selection
Selection is the process of gathering information to evaluate and decide on the right candidate for a given post. An interview is the most rampant method used when conducting selection. International assignment is very critical as factors such as competency for the job, personality traits and family issues come into play. The expatriates’ ability to adapt to the new environment is also considered. Getting the right employee is useful as it reduces staff turnover, saves time and costs.
The selection process relies heavily on the type of personnel required. It also depends on the source of recruitment and the method to be used as well as on the number of job applicants and the organization. For instance, Nike uses Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology over the telephone when screening job applicants (Schreuder, & Coetzee, 2006). The process may include the following:
Preliminary Interview
The initial interviews aim at eliminating those who do not meet the minimum requirement. At this stage, job applicants are required to give information about their educational background, the salary expected, skills and knowledge relevant to the advertised job.
Application Form
Information is sought from the candidates by filling in application forms as blank spaces are provided.
Psychological Test
A written exam is administered such as an aptitude test. It is usually used when the number of applicants is high. It is used to verify applicants’ behavior, attitude and performance.
Employment Interview
Employment interview is the best way to find out whether the employee fits the job by obtaining information such as educational background, training and work interests.
Medical Test
A medical examination is delivered to determine the fitness of the job applicant. It can help to avoid the spread of contagious diseases and placed people in the right job depending on their fitness.
Reference Check
The employing firm can take contact references provided by the candidates. The addresses given are useful in this stage. The people noted in references are contacted to provide more information about the applicant.
Final Check and Approval
HR department gives its recommendation, and approval can be contributed by the management and the executive officer.
Appointment Letter
This is presented as an offer of employment. It mentions the job, ranks salary and the date of appointment. One is put on probation for some time, for instance, a year or two. After that, confirmation is given. Employees are then inducted; they are introduced and accepted into the system.
The process should be fair, transparent, cost effective and peaceful. The questions used in the interview should be related to the job requirement. Selection is a crucial function of the Human Resource department. No corporation can achieve its goals without selecting the right people (Dale, 2003). A wrong choice can lead to wastage of finances and time. Screening is used to eliminate unqualified applicants at every stage of selection.
Nike as a multi-national corporation is not left out in practicing the best selection method. It embraces intensive interview process for each potential employee. Different types of interviews, including online interviews are used for selection (Bohlander, & Snell, 2007). A fair and rational process is provided for all candidates. Nike hires both talented and fit people. Once employees are selected and hired, they are given enough time to do soul searching and interview so that the existing workers make certain they have taken the correct decision. The company allows the newly hired employees to try and fit in the job that gives them satisfaction. Such practice has contributed significantly to motivating Nike employees. As Phil Knight puts it, the unique way of working together with employees makes it successful (Phillips & Gully, 2013).
Recommendations
Due to the unavoidable significance of employees in the success of a corporation in the global market, such functions of the HR department as staffing, recruitment and selection need to be taken seriously. Therefore, making the following suggestions concerning Nike’s HR is appropriate.
Staffing
Given that staffing coordinates recruitment and selection, it should be done using the best way to enhance efficient human resource since it determines achievement of targets (Dale, 2003).
Recruitment
Nike should advertise specific criteria that are relevant for the job to attract the best applicants. No company wants to end up with low-quality candidates. The modern methods of recruitment need to be used, for example, online recruitment that includes social site and website. Since a wrong choice can cost the company a lot, the HR should hire those who can do the job and not the people they like. They should avoid the hollow effect. It will ultimately lead to high job performance (Philips & Gully, 2013).
Conclusion
The global market is an arena that is full of competition. Firms that have expanded and become multi-national corporations experience what real competition is. Nike’s HR uses the modern methods of staffing, recruitment and selection. The concepts and theories that revolve around management of human resource are of great help in understanding what takes in the companies. In this report, the following findings can be derived:
- Staffing, recruitment and selection are interdependent
- Recruitment is revolutionised into e-recruitment
- Employing wrong employees is costly to the firm both financially and in terms of time
- Employing right people for the right job motivates employees and also the HR department
In the global market, it is learnt that Nike’s HR plays a role that propagates the companies to the greatest levels. Employees form a part of the success of a firm and require a lot of knowledge to manage right from recruitment. When the whole process of getting workers is done well, then the company’s goals can be achieved.