Human Resource Management Policies UK/ Japan - Assignment Example

Human Resource Management Policies – UK/ Japan If we want to examine effectively the strategies followed in industries of different countries, we should first refer to the role of culture in the differentiation and the development both for the individuals but also for the corporations. According to Soutar, Grainger and Hedges (1999, 203) ‘culture is an important idea as it deals with the way people live and approach problem solving in a social and organizational context’. Moreover ‘what managers do in West Germany, in Britain, in the United States, in Japan or in Brazil is exactly the same. How they do it may be quite different’. The human resource strategies followed by the European countries (i.e. and the UK) were explored by Gooderham, Nordhaug and Ringdal (1999). According to their views (1999, 507) ‘despite their very different assumptions, both rational and institutional explanations of organizational structure and management practices predict similarity among firms that operate in the same industry within the context of a simple country’. Specifically, for the UK labour market (and for its human resource management) the main issues seem to be: flexibility, quality and competitiveness. Casey, Keep and Mayhew (1999, 81) who studied the workplace in Britain under the application of the above variables, they came to the conclusion that: ‘in many UK organizations flexibility has become synonymous with deregulation and the opportunity to cut labour costs. Moreover, the danger of UK’s approach regarding the workplace is that there are a lot of high performance models which the work organization and people management find difficult to adopt and operatioanlise’. It is also noticed that a practice that have been proposed in order to gain a competitive advantage, i.e. the reduction in costs could be possible proved as leading to the opposite result. Cornelissen J.P. and Thorpe R. (2001) examined the external communication disciplines of the UK companies and found that ‘the importance of the organizational relationships and processes between departments within communication organization cannot be doubted’. Moreover, the ‘managers of an organization are considered as having a lot of organizational dimensions and environmental parameters that should take into account when designing an organization’s external communication’. In UK business area, and most specifically in Britain based international firms, three are the points (regarding the human resource management policy) that should be mentioned: ‘a) international staffing, b) international recruitment and c) a variety of issues surrounding the problem of shortages in international managers’ (Scullion, 1994, 86). Moreover, it seems that in UK the most important issue for the human resource management is the ‘procedure of the recruitment’. A problem that should be identified regarding this issue is that according to Scullion (1994, 86) very few British companies can claim to have a truly international top management team’. Another problem that is usually appeared is that of the ‘assessment of knowledge, skills and competencies that have been considered as necessary for the effective operation of the organization’. Moreover, the above issues have created the necessity for ‘managerial skills and competencies needed to deal with the complex HRM issues’. In order to confront the above problems, the human resource management has to be flexible, with the specific knowledge and the ability to understand the cultures of people of other countries (especially across Europe) which seems to be its ‘weak point’ (Scullion, 1994, 87) As for Japan, the major problems that the Japanese human resource management has to face are those of gender discrimination in the workplace, the level of wage (regarding the age criterion) and the mode of employment (mainly the part-time and the temporary employment). At a first level we should notice that the position of women in the Japanese labour market continues to face problems which are related not with the absence of the relevant rules (see the Japanese Equal Employment Opportunity Law) but with the lack of will for their application. Liu and Boyle (2001) examined the above issue and tried to develop an ‘explanation of how international treaties can affect change, even for groups with little economic or political power (389). At a first level, they propose the application of ‘the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (‘CEDAW’) which was first introduced in 1979 and until today 161 have ratified its content’. Japan ratified the above treaty in 1985. Although the full application of CEDAW needs a series of formal procedures in order to take effect, this legislative text changed the conditions of employment for women in Japan. More specifically, ‘by affirming and extending the international principle of non-discrimination to women, CEDAW legitimates claims against not only direct discrimination but also the indirect one’ (Liu, Boyle, 2001, 396). Goff, H. (1995) who examined the same issue, i.e. the gender equality in workplaces in Japan, came to the conclusion that in this country ‘gender inequality in the workplace persists as in no other industrialized nation’. As Goff (1995) states in order to protect themselves in such a hostile environment, women use mostly the Equal Employment Opportunity Act (EEOA) of 1985. However, the above legislative piece suffer from lack of sufficient measures that could guarantee its application and as a result ‘Japanese citizens and women’s organizations are calling for its substantial revision’ (Goff, 1995,1147). The human resource policies in Japan has to be in accordance with the ‘country’s conventional labour management practices, the most known of which are the lifetime employment system (LES) and the seniority based wage system (SWS)’ (Watanabe, 2000, 307). Although the above systems have started to face a lot of problem, which are mainly connected with the constantly changing business environment, the majority of the firms operated in Japan still continue to apply them. On the other hand, the increase in the age of workers has made the SWS very difficult to follow and the Japanese firms have already started ‘to search, by trial and error, a new wage model (or models) for their non-factory regular employees, and especially for the managerial class, in order to keep down labour costs and to accommodate various attitudes of workers’ (Watanabe, 2000, 321). Under this context, according to Watanabe (2000) the most acceptable scheme seems to be that in which ‘a stable income base is provided with more equal and annually increasing monthly wages, while competitive incentives for better performance are offered in the form of more drastically varied biannual bonuses’. A phenomenon that can be viewed in the workplaces around the world is the part/time employment. The Japanese marketplace although protected from the conditions of unexpected changes, is however conquered from the part/time and the temporary mode of employment. According to Houseman, S. and Osawa, M. (1995, 10) ‘part-time workers represent a large and growing share of employment in Japan. More specifically, part-time employers are accounted for more than 16 percent of paid employment in 1992, having increased by more than 80 percent between 1982 and 1992’. It should also noticed that ‘public policies in Japan provide further incentives in the form of tax breaks for married women to work in part-time or temporary jobs. But the private sector also seems to prefer the part-time and the temporary form of employment because they can offer reduction in cost. Also, these ‘employment models’ offer the possibility to a firm to hire personnel only when it is necessary (i.e. for the completion of a temporary work)’ (Houseman, Osawa, 1995, 15) One of most severe problems which a human resource policy has to face is the protection of employees when becoming unemployed. In UK, like almost all European countries, the employee is partially covered financially with the provision of a specific monetary amount, the unemployment benefit. This benefit can be granted to the employees through different procedures, according with the country of his/ her residence and the relevant strategy of the company involved. Although the provision of this benefit is very important for every employee that will face the situation of unemployment, according to Spiezia (2000, 74) ‘the past two decades there has been increasing concern that this type of compensation programmes which is established in the large majority of industrialized countries may have unfavourable effects on their labour markets’. According to Schuler and Rogovsky (1998, 159) the human resource management across countries has to differentiate in accordance with the following variables: ‘a) the business structure, b) the legislative and employment relationship context, c) the patterns of HRM competence and decision-making and d) the national culture’ Spiezia (2000, 73) begins from the ‘theory of unemployment according to which unemployment benefits tend to increase the unemployment rate’. The above view is presented as the result of two other theories this of the ‘job search’ and the ‘efficiency – wage theory’. The use of these models could help the interpretation of the current conditions regarding the provision of benefits in cases of unemployment (which is a common practice in the countries of EU, i.e. also in UK). Under the criteria of the first theory ‘the job search’, as Spiezia notices, ‘unemployment benefits cause an increase in the duration of unemployment by reducing the intensive of unemployed workers to search for and accept a job’. On the other hand according to the ‘efficiency – wage theory’ (Spiezia, 2000, 73) ‘unemployment benefits reduce the cost of being unemployed and induce workers to ask for higher wages, so the demand for labour decreases’. On the other hand, Japanese workers do not have to concern about the problem of unemployment, at least not at the level of their European co-workers. According to Cheng and Kalleberg (1996, 1235) ‘Japanese workers can be considered as having relatively stable relationships with their employers. More specifically they tend to work for the same employer almost all their lives and enjoy numerous internal promotion opportunities’. However, their research showed that the phenomenon of mobility still exists and is usually presented with the following form: ‘men in larger organizations are more likely than those in smaller firms to experience within-firm mobility, while men in tiny firms make more across-firm shifts. In addition, men in professional and technical occupations experience more within-occupation mobility’. Regarding specifically the Japanese service sector there are some points that should be mentioned (Hannon, Sano, 1994, 47): ‘a) the hierarchical structure of the typical Japanese organization does not encourage initiative, creativity and risk-taking, b) unlike many societies, where even those who do not deserve a reward do no hesitate to take it, in Japan many people would be reluctant to take a reward (or to give a reward) especially the most deserving individuals and c) in certain service industries of Japan the number of employees is overwhelming’ From a first sight, Japan seems to have taught to the other countries the lessons required to build a strong and effective human resource management team. Although one could state that there is nothing else to learn from Japanese Companies (Strach, Everett, 2004) the Japanese market will always have an important influence to its European competitors. The reason for that could be very simple its culture, or its geographic position but it seems that there are many more elements that could explain such an interaction. Comparing with UK, Japan cannot prove as having superior management competencies but just showing different approaches. The framework of knowledge, the flexibility, the strong labour unions and the equality in work are an advantage of the British marketplace which may not offer the level of stability that Japanese companies have secured (up to a level) for their employees, but it can prove to have achieved a very important rate of growth which remains in an increase route the last years. The human resources management in these two countries has to be adapted to their particular ‘attitudes’ and culture and to operate in accordance with the conditions that characterize each one of the above marketplaces. References Casey, B., Keep, E., Mayhew, K., (1999) ‘Flexibility, quality and competitiveness’, National Institute Economic Review, 168, 70-84 Cheng, M. M., Kalleberg, A.L. (1996) ‘Labor Market Structures in Japan: An Analysis of Organizational and Occupational Mobility Patterns’, Social Forces, 74(4): 1235 Cornelissen, J.P., Thorpe, R., (2001) ‘The Organization of External Communication Disciplines in UK companies: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis of Dimensions and Determinants’, The Journal of Business Communication, 38(4): 413-433 Goff, H., A. (1995) ‘Glass ceilings in the land of the rising sons: the failure of workplace gender discrimination law and policy in Japan’, Law and Policy in International Business, 26(4): 1147-1168 Gooderham, P.N., Nordhaug, O, Ringdal, K., (1999) ‘Institutional and Rational Determinants of Organizational Practices: Human Resource Management in European Firms’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(3): 507-526 Hannon, J.M., Sano, Y. (1994) ‘Customer-driven human resource policies and practices in the Japanese service sector’ Human Resource Planning, 17(3): 37-49 Houseman S., Osawa, M. (1995) ‘Part-time and temporary employment in Japan’, Monthly Labor Review, 118(10): 10-20 Liu, D., Heger Boyle, E. (2001) ‘Making the Case: The Women’s Convention and Equal Employment Opportunity in Japan’, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 389-401 Schuller, R., Rogovsky, N. (1998) Understanding compensation practices across firms: the impact of national culture’, Journal of International Business Studies, 29(1): 159-172 Scullion, H., (1994) ‘Staffing policies and strategic control in British multinationals’, International Studies of Management and Organization, 24(3): 86-97 Soutar, G.N., Grainger, R., Hedges, P. (1999) ‘Australian and Japanese value stereotypes: a two country study’ Journal of International Business Studies, 30(1): 203-211 Spiezia, V. (2000) ‘The effects of benefits on unemployment and wages: A comparison of unemployment compensation systems’, International Labour Review, 139(1): 73-86 Strach, P., Everett, A.M. (2004) ‘Is There Anything Left to Learn from Japanese Companies?’, SAM Advanced Management Journal, 69(3): 4-17 Watanabe, S. (2000) ‘The Japan Model and the future of employment and wage systems’, International Labour Review, 139(3): 307-325 Whitehouse G. (2002) ‘Parenthood and pay in Australia and the UK: evidence from workplace surveys’, Journal of Sociology, 38(4):381-394 Read More