HRMT Essay: Impact Of COVID-19 On Multinational Enterprises

Question

Task:
Prepare a HRMT essay on the topic “The COVID-19 pandemic has offered new opportunities for MNEs to be more successful on an international scale”.

Answer

Introduction
It is evident in the present context of HRMT essay that international business learnt to rethink boundaries and to manage physical distance in the upheaval that has been caused by the Covid-19 global pandemics. The future of business has completely changed. On the international scale multinational enterprises (MNEs) have more opportunities as they have the scope to access remote working of experts who are situated near local setups. According to the opinion of Caligiuri et al. (2020), human resource management has shifted its attitude towards well being of employees to ensure that a "people-based" talent crisis does not hold the organisation back. Change in both modes of doing business and of hiring people and training them along with the parameters for selection will have to change to give international human resource management a new direction.

Discussion
MNEs have seen growth support in their business as there has been technology support in business processes during the Covid 19. In these pandemic times, swift and effective decision making was essential for far-off organisations to develop their destroyed logistical processes and only talented managers in the MNEs with organisational technology-based support have been able to reduce the ambiguity of the Covid- 19 crisis. However, certain IHRM issues are also showcased including the lack of possibility of capturing the new opportunities, the vast market growth with technological advancement, and facing financial crisis by the MNEs. Hiring techniques have completely been changed and Flexi timing, as well as work from home opportunities and gig working, has ensured that there are more talented individuals who have been able to join the mainstream work. This untapped resource has been key in creating local opportunities in host countries and has also made MNCs try and standardise their recruitment policies to ensure that there is uniformity in their services across many nations. In these pandemics, the MNEs like Dell, American Express has realised the power of flexible work hoursdue to having more than 50, 000 employees globally.Talent management related efforts have seen a sea change in these times, training and performance management goals had to be standardised by the MNEs like Microsoft, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines and many other companiesto ensure that in the face of remote working organisations will only thrive when they are not doing cost minimisation but ensuring to retain talent who will be the competitive cutting edge.

MNEs always had to fuel their global operations with the help of expatriates in the host country. However, this led to a lot of difficulties and conflicts on the cultural front. The Hofstede theory clearly shows that cultural conflicts are difficulties that must be dealt with. According to the opinion of Chiu et al. (2018), as there are cultural differences associated with worker mindset, hence when working with a global workforce, knowledge sharing will become a major hindrance as the collectivist approach may not be successful in power distance-based societies which may represent the major chunk of employees. Cross-cultural teams will have these small issues and hence human resource policies will have to be formulated to provide a structured code of conduct when working in such diverse teams in remote access in these pandemic times.

The recruitment processes in this covid times led to more remote hiring for handling local projects. To ensure that remote working is possible without an expatriate situated at the site of work, MNEs had to understand and evolve their recruitment processes taking into consideration cultural differences that ensure the effectiveness of the leadership. According to Dheer, Egri, & Treviño (2021), it has been observed that some societies are less interested in displaying obedience, so in the hiring process and the training process of managers, these aspects must be focused upon. The cultural aspects of reporting have become extremely difficult with regards to the fact that with remote reporting, it becomes difficult for managers and subordinates to grow. However, this global pandemic has provided the opportunity for talented managers and skilled gig workers to become a part of the organisational growth story as distance and location has ceased to be the bar. Moreover, the local responsiveness is pretty higher for adapting the current turbulent business environment rather than the global integration.

The AMO theory is suggestive of the fact that organisational success is directly linked to the three pillars related to human behaviour that are ability motivation and opportunity. In these pandemic times, it became essential that HR policies and practices are taken up that will ensure that there is enhanced performance on the part of the employee. Motivating through providing training opportunities has been a major shift in the IHRM policies, as technological advancements had to be gained in a small period to get all the various functions to start working. In the opinion of Szulc & Smith (2021), individual functioning is dependent majorly on one's abilities and it is important that to leverage the individual efforts towards building a successful enterprise, systems and processes must be put such as incentive structures growth opportunities that will help the organisation to get the benefit of the talents.

Mergers and acquisitions are a natural exploration of growth opportunities and MNEs of repute will ensure that their resilience can be proved through their aspiring to enter opportunities in blue ocean territory that is low priced buys at the current moment (El Dessouky& Al-Ghareeb, 2020).

Many cash-rich organisations will invest in covid hit sectors to reap the benefits of purchasing at a low price. However, this will only be possible if human resource policies and are aligned with strategic goals and positive governmental support. As poor governmental support and trade relations between countries can prove to be a major challenge in such scenarios. Here also the strategic role of human resources will be present as company executives will have to put their understanding and energies is aligning their abilities towards achieving the organisational vision. Challenges involved in the processing of mergers and acquisitions will be associated with a longer time to process all business as due diligence without physical inspection will not be very lucrative (Forbes, 2021). Some barriers to mergers and acquisitions in these covid times will also lead to improved localisation-based investment thus providing more employment opportunities for the local people and leading to growth in that region of the company’s market capitalisation rather than entering the international markets by SMEs.

Conclusion
It can be concluded that the global pandemic has created massive destruction to the infrastructure and economics of the international business dependent MNEs, however, it has also ensured that more resilient organisations develop the ability to hone the skills of a talented pool of human resources both at the local level and through information technology-based solutions like remote access working. Talented workers will get more opportunities and international human resource management decisions associated with recruitment and training will go through a sea change. Efforts to retain talent who shall be the key to success through innovative thinking and skill and knowledge will be the point of emphasis. Covid 19 and its impact on business will be a long-drawn process and there will be the need to also develop strength through local business enhancement. The pandemic has ensured that along with global integration through technological resources the organisations have observed latent opportunities in local business growth as well. Standardisation will have to be maintained to ensure that MNEs maintain the global standards of quality to thrive during a pandemic situation at both global and local levels.

Reference List
Caligiuri, P., De Cieri, H., Minbaeva, D., Verbeke, A., & Zimmermann, A. (2020). International HRM insights for navigating the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for future research and practice.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7266413/

Chiu, C. K., Lin, C. P., Tsai, Y. H., &Teh, S. F. (2018). Enhancing knowledge sharing in high-tech firms: The moderating role of collectivism and power distance. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management.https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/CCSM-03-2017-0034/full/html

Dheer, R. J., Egri, C. P., &Treviño, L. J. (2021). A cross-cultural exploratory analysis of pandemic growth: The case of COVID-19. Journal of International Business Studies, 1-22.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41267-021-00455-w

El Dessouky, N. F., & Al-Ghareeb, A. (2020, November). Human Resource Management and Organizational Resilience in The Era of COVID-19: Theoretical Insights, Challenges and Implications. In 2020 Second International Sustainability and Resilience Conference: Technology and Innovation in Building Designs (51154) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9319967/

Forbes. (2021), Harroch, R. (2021). The Impact Of The Coronavirus Crisis On Mergers And Acquisitions. Forbes. Retrieved 28 July 2021, fromhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2020/04/17/impact-of-coronavirus-crisis-on-mergers-and-acquisitions/?sh=39d56146200a.

Szulc, J. M., & Smith, R. (2021). Abilities, motivations, and opportunities of furloughed employees in the context of Covid-19: preliminary evidence from the UK. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 632.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.635144/full