HRM Assignment: International Expansion of Grevillea Motels

Question

Prepare a report on HRM assignment analyzing the four countries that Grevillea Motels is aiming to get a close understanding of cultural differences and HR activities of the countries.

Answer

Executive summary
The aim of the report is to analyze the four different countries such as Canada, Germany, India and China that Grevillea Motels is planning to get a close understanding of cultural differences and HR activities of the given countries. Grevillea Motels is one of the known motel chains in Australia and is recently serving rural areas. At present the motel is running 100 outlets all over the network and are planning to move overseas markets. Cultural profile of Canada and Germany is seen to be very close to Australian culture, while India and China have a very different culture than Australia. Grevillea Motels needs to implement changes related to various HR activities such as strong termination policy, parental benefit policies, rules related to drugs and alcohol and a strong sexual misconduct policy to effectively manage staff. The HR activities that Grevillea Motels that may require change is related to different HR areas such as minimum holiday entitlement, working time regulations, minimum wage and discrimination policies. Specific changes to the HR activities that is required by Grevillea Motels need to implement while operating in India are policies and procedures related to women employees. The HR activities that Grevillea Motels has to change in China is related to legal, industrial relations, business etiquette and ethics and loyalty and recruitment.

Introduction
Grevillea Motels is one of the known motel chains in Australia and is recently serving rural areas. The motels were started as a single-family unit in Cobar 50 years ago and has been operating for long. Since its launch the motel has expanded only in Australian region including rural areas of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia. The major goal to the company is to support local communities with their operations and processes and this is the reason they operate in the rural areas. At present the motel is running 100 outlets all over the network and are planning to move overseas markets. The company is planning to progress in the international market with effective policies to increase their recognition and improve their image in the competitive hospitality sector. The motels are now planning to expand overseas and seeking to approach with an appropriate HR policies and procedures so that they can succeed in the new market. The purpose of the report is to analyze the cultural profile, socioeconomic factors, government issues and concerns and other HR activities that needs change in comparison to Australian economy by revieing the strategic pillars and bio of the company.

Country Specifications

Member 1- Canada

Cultural Profile of Canada
Cultural profile of Canada is seen to be very close to Australian culture. This can be seen from the five cultural dimension of Hofstede such as power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation and indulgence. In relation to power distance, it is seen that Canada and Australia scores low. This means that individuals and superiors in the organizations are always accessible and rely on each other. Further, Canada and Australia are high in individualism, which means that employees are expected to be self-dependent and appreciated based on merit. Further, Canada and Australia scores moderate in masculinity, which means in both the countries people keep a work-life balance where they want to enjoy personal pursuits and work hard professionally. In relation to uncertainty avoidance, Canadian and Australian score low, which means that both the companies accept new ideas and innovation in companies (Hofstede, 2020). Likewise, in long term orientation, Canada and Australia is a normative society and has strong respect for traditions and seek to achieve quick results. In relation to indulgence it is seen that both Canada and Australian culture has high positive attitude and give importance to leisure time.

Socioeconomic Factors of Canada
Socio economic factors shows the present condition of the society such as gender, educational level, income level and employment. In relation to gender, it is seen that the number of male and female living in Canada are almost similar that is 18.68 million males and 18.91 million females (Statista, 2020b). In relation to education level, it is seen that women in Canada are still underrepresented in work. However, in 2018 70% of the women aged 25-34 years has received tertiary qualification in comparison to 53% men (Oecd, 2020). This shows that Grevillea Motels has to change their usual recruiting operating where they have to recruit more female employees in comparison to male employees and add this factor in their recruitment process. Further, in relation to income level it is seen that there is a gap in income where maximum number of Canadian earns between $50,000 to 74,999 and less number earns over $250,000 (Statista, 2020a). This means that Grevillea Motels has to change their income and reward processes that represent minimum inequality and make change their pricing policy by adding few premium service packages because median annual family income in Canada is high.

Legal Concerns in Canada
In relation to legal concerns, it is seen that businesses operating in Canada face various kinds of threats and concerns legally such as disgruntled employees, discrimination and harassment cases, harassment, immigration audits, copyright and patent issues and dissatisfied customers (Chan et al., 2015). This means that there are various regulation and common laws that put employees at safer sides and make it important for the businesses to treat their employees respectfully. In Canada, legal ramifications due to discrimination has been serious issues in Canadian workplace that every workplace has to protect themselves from various discrimination issues (Nanda, 2020). Further, every business in Canada has to make sure that the employees are legally allowed to work in that country. Along with it there are patent litigation and lawsuit from dissatisfied customers.

Specific Changes to HR Activities
There are other specific changes to HR activities that are required in Canadian business division in relation to various HR policies such as formation of strong termination policy, parental benefit policies, strong discrimination policy, rules related to drugs and alcohol and a strong sexual misconduct policy (Skrzypinski, 2020).

Member 2- Germany

Cultural Profile of Germany
Culture of Germany moderately aligns with the culture of Australia in areas of power distance, masculinity and uncertainty avoidance. Germany is low in power distance where employees and managers work together and this aligns with culture of Australia where workplace communication is informal. Similarly, culture of Germany aligns with that of Australia on the basis of masculinity where both the economy is moderately masculine and moderate on uncertainty avoidance. This means that like Australians, German employees aim at achieving success and goals in life and prefers to take new innovation and chance to a certain extent (Hofstede, 2020). However, Germany is moderately individualistic, while Australia is a highly individualistic society. Likewise, Germany is a pragmatic country where tradition is adapted to changed conditions, while Australia is a normative society with close hold on traditions. German culture is restrained and does not put much emphasis on leisure time, while Australians highly prefer leisure time with others.

Socioeconomic Factors in Germany Impacting Grevillea Motels
Grevillea Motels needs to bring some changes to their usual operations while entering into Germany for their business expansion based on the socioeconomic factors that prevails there. Employment in Germany is seen to experience an increase in female employment by 13.6% compared to only 7.9% increase in men employment even though women employment is still less than men (Europarl, 2020). This means that Grevillea Motels has to change their HR functional area in Germany and include more of women employees and reduce the gender pay gap. Additionally, digitalization and artificial intelligence is at a rise in Germany and this has increased automation in jobs. Thus, Grevillea Motels has to change their operational areas such as marketing, housekeeping and front office department and make it highly automized by adopting new technologies.

Government Issues or Legal Concerns in Germany
There are separate legal concerns in relation to labor market of Germany such as the issues in maternity protection, low wage growth, discrimination issues and data privacy breach. Each of these legal concerns has separate laws in Germany such as the Federal Data Protection Act, the General Equal Treatment Act, The Working Time Act, the Maternity Protection Act and others (Leglobal, 2020). Grevillea Motels has to reduce such legal concerns in their internal work environment in their German division. Moreover, there are other government issues in Germany that companies should know when employing staffs such as increase in aging society, increase cross border risks political crisis and issues between Christian Democratic Union and Alternative Fur Deutschland (Connolly, 2020). Thus, Grevillea Motels has to analyze and form new policies to deal with aging society and political risks.

Specific Changes to HR Activities
The HR activities that Grevillea Motels that may require change is related to different HR areas such as minimum holiday entitlement, working time regulations, minimum wage and discrimination policies. The minimum wage of German employees is 9.19 euros per hour and Grevillea Motels has to abide by this legal alarm when employing people in Germany (Connolly, 2020). This is because Germany has strong laws against these HR areas.

Member 3- India

Cultural Profile of India
Cultural profile of India is very different from that of Australia in relation to various cultural areas such as power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation and indulgence. In relation to India, it is seen that Indians prefers hierarchical society with huge difference between managers and employees and collectivistic society with preference for social gathering and employee relationships. However, Australians prefers close connections between managers and employees and an individual society with minimum interdependence. Further, Indians are a feminine society with close liking what they do and keep themselves away from any kind of innovation or risky decisions. In this ground, Indian society aligns with Australian culture to some extent (Hofstede, 2020). However, Indians prefers to hold on their past along with accepting the present and a restrained society, while Australians are quite different as it has a normative culture and high importance on leisure time. This means Grevillea Motels has to adopt huge changes while opening their outlet in India.

Socioeconomic Factors that will Impact Operations in Grevillea Motels
Indian is a multicultural country with population from different cultures such as Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jain, Sikh, Buddhists and others and each culture has the right to participate. This means that Grevillea Motels has to change their HR operations and implement recruitment from multiple Indian culture rather than only sticking to one culture as it is doing in Australia (Sharma & Singh, 2015). Secondly, proportion of women in employment is increasing in India with 20.3% of women are participating the total labor force and this is increasing over time (Statista, 2020). This means that Grevillea Motels has to change their employment operations and recruit female employee along with male employees. Further, 46.21% of students in India are found ready to get a job or employable in 2019 and holds technical skills in various information technology and programming (Thehindubusinessline, 2020). Grevillea Motels will have to change their employee training requirement in India and focus on other operations.

Government Issues or Legal Concerns in India
Indian faces various issues that the government has to address from time to time such as such as environmental issues, women safety and empowerment, rising rapes, dowry and attacks on women and waste management. This is because India is seen to produce 42million tons of waste in a year that causes congestion and more than 3,59,849 crimes are recorded by National Crime Records Bureau (Jacob, 2020). Thus, the Motels in India has to focus on these issues of the government and contribute with a positively in these areas to operate in the region successfully.

Specific Changes to HR Activities
Specific changes to the HR activities that is required by Grevillea Motels need to implement while operating in India are policies and procedures related to women employees (Sharma & Singh, 2015). This means that the Motels has to form new policies related to women empowerment for the protection of women employees. This is because women safety is one of the most evident issue for Indian government and women employees are increasing in India.

Member 4- China

Cultural Profile of China
Cultural conditions of China are different from Australia on various aspects such as power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation and indulgence. The only cultural aspect in which China is similar to Australia is masculinity where both the societies are moderately masculine in nature where success is appreciated and decisions are made on the basis of merit. However, China is high on power distance and respect hierarchical structure between the managers and the employees compared to Australia that value communication between employees and managers. Moreover, Chinese people value interdependence and close cooperative teams at work and avoid taking risky decisions at work. Whereas, Australians are highly individualistic in nature and consider individual performance than group performance and prefer taking risky decisions at time. Lastly, Chinese culture is seen to realize that truth depends on situation and time and a restrained society with restrictions in indulging by social norms (Hofstede, 2020). However, Australians holds close connection with their traditions and prefer leisure.

Socioeconomic Factors in China
China today is considered as upper-middle income country with most of the people are still living below upper middle income poverty line that is US$5.50 income per day. This means that Grevillea Motels needs to revise their HR operations and set the wage rate that will help China to move above upper middle income poverty line. Secondly, it is seen that China is facing huge income inequalities even after it has improved over last years (World bank, 2020). This is because the low paid labor has reached its limit and has caused huge imbalances in economic, social and environmental sphere. This means that Grevillea Motels needs to change their recruiting process and maintain equality among their workforce to built economic, social and environmental balance. China is facing immediate challenges on domestic demand and private consumption since the Covid-19 pandemic due to slow growth of household incomes along with constraints on supply side (The Guardian, 2020). This means that Grevillea Motels has to change their operational activities in several areas such as supply sourcing, pricing and marketing strategies.

Government Issues or Legal Concerns in China
The government of China is facing number of issues in the economy on political and environmental grounds that is highly impacting the business. China is considered to be facing political instability from past many years due to lack of law enforcement and bad behavior of enforcement officers. Further, there are other government issues such as land disputes and environmental issues and the government is trying to deal with these issues. Moreover, the government is also facing environmental issues due to high chances of neglect from Chinese public and businesses (The Guardian, 2020). In relation to society the Chinese government is facing high problem of poverty.

Specific Changes to HR Activities
The HR activities that Grevillea Motels has to change in China is related to legal, industrial relations, business etiquette and ethics and loyalty and recruitment. Chinese legal regulations are very different from that of Australia and this makes it important for the Motels to abide by Chinese regulations. Moreover, Grevillea Motels has to form policies and procedures to handle unionization because it is prevalent in China. Chinese are loyal to each other than to the companies and this makes it important for Grevillea Motels to form new termination and different work culture that will help in handling strong employee relationship (Eusmecentre, 2020). The Motels need to change their recruitment strategy because there is lack of references and high brand preferences among potential employees in China.

Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be stated that Grevillea Motels has to form most of the changes while entering India and China than while making international expansion in Canada and Germany. This is because the cultural aspects of India and China are very different from Australia, while the cultural background of Canada and Germany is similar to Australia. This can be seen from the analysis that the culture of Australia is open like Canada and Germany, while India and China have various restrained and restricted cultures. Based on cultural differences it is seen that Grevillea Motels has to bring various kinds of changes in their HR activities as well as in different operational areas. This will help in handling the differences in thinking of the employees that the Motels will hire in each of these overseas regions effectively without much conflicts.

References
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