Contemporary leadership approaches and practices

HR Leadership

President of the Company

VP of Human Resources

RE:

Multiculturalism as an HR Issue

In view of our organization's recent decision to send interns to other countries, it is first necessary to understand some of the basics of human resources within the international context. It is first important to remember that the idea of work, jobs, and labor vary from country to country, culture to culture, and even within cultures. Within the United States, and to a lesser extent, most of the First World, the idea of "work" and a "job" are tied to a person's internal view of themselves and their contribution to their own personal growth, as well as the idea of career growth. Career is much more than an economic term, far more than earning money, and ties more to psychological factors than simply "making a living." In other countries, the idea of human resources and labor are often at odds within a particular culture or socio-economic unit. For example, manual labor, or repetitive labor that requires only basic skills (e.g. assembling circuit boards or sewing) is usually viewed as only a means to an end, whereas some countries also have a burgeoning class of workers that are educated and have the ability to take higher paying positions that are, at times, at odds with the First World countries themselves (e.g. using Indian workers at 1/2 or less wage for Customer Service, Data Entry, etc.) (Reddy, 2008).

Since much has been made recently regarding the outsourcing of numerous customer service, order and banking centers to India, we will focus on India as a paradigm for relocating a business to India. Further, our model will assume that our company plans to open a customer service "help" line for a software product in one of the suburbs of Mumbai, on the southern coast of India. The choice to relocate the facility is primarily based on finances; rents, employee costs, and overhead are 80% less than in the United States, even with the relocation and external expenses involved with U.S. Managers (Davies, 2008).