Ethics of Global Business

Expatriate HR The author of this report has been asked to consider a situation where a number of expatriates will be brought on to work with the company at a new subsidiary that has just been established. As part of that new subsidiary being brought online, there is to be a designing and implementation of a comprehensive human resources program that covers two out of four major points. Those points will be recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management and reward and compensation.

For the purposes of this report, the main focuses will be performance management and training and recruiting and selection. The selection of those two items will be justified, the challenges of implementing challenges related to the same will be explained, it will be explained the benefits that will rise as part of the programs and a few other things. While there are other important facets to running the human relations dimension of a business, picking the right people and managing their performance post-hire are probably the top two.

Analysis In this report, the basis for the words and points to follow is an Australian company that is expanding into the country of China. Indeed, many companies in the West leverage the resources and people of China due to the much lower cost of labor and otherwise delivering goods to retail outlets in a company's home market as well as in other countries. For example, the Australian company in question for this report may also ship to New Zealand and the United States in addition to Australia.

As noted in the introduction, the choices made from the four high-level topics were recruitment and selection and performance management. The reason for this is simple. Training and development is important but a huge part of making those things a worthwhile focus and investment hinge on the right people being selected because only the right people will perform at the right level, hence the other selection being performance management.

As for reward and compensation, there is always the question of what "carrot" a person will follow and how much "stick" will be necessary to garner the performance that is optimal and desired. Indeed, the more self-motivated and ready to go a person is, they better hire they will be because they will naturally perform at a better and higher level than someone that is just looking to punch a clock and earn a check (AHRC, 2016; Queensland, 2016).

When it comes to basic work that does not require a lot of experience and training, the willingness to work hard and be a good employee is a huge part of picking who to hire and who to pass on. However, the challenge is finding those people among the rush of applicants that are sure to come in a country that is populated as China. However, the industry in question is not one that is basic or low-level.

Indeed, mining is a very taxing and labor-intensive job and a good many applicants, even if they think otherwise, are not cut out for it. With that in mind, the people that are hired will need to be experienced in the mining industry or they have to be very willing to learn. They must be in good physical shape and they must be ready, willing and able to follow all safety and other guidelines to the letter.

The Australian company in question here has to make sure that they follow the ethics and rules of the mining industry just like they would if they were mining back home in Australia. This would be true if the people in China were just contractors or of a contracted company just like if they were a subsidiary, the latter being the case here (Kerley & Murray, 2016).

Even if the wages and safety standards (or the enforcement thereof) is lower in China, Australia businesspeople cannot allow themselves to be complacent and lackadaisical about safety. If one wants proof of that, they can look no further than Apple and some of the conditions that existed in their contracted (not their own) factories in China. Worker suicides were common (more than ten) and the overall safety level at the factory was abysmal.

Even though Apple was not the owning and controlling company of that factory, they still caught a lot of flak for doing business with them and were openly questioned about what they knew, what they should have known and, regardless, what they did about either circumstance (Apple, 2016). Even with those facts, the reason for mining in China as compared to other places is obvious.

The Australian parent company can still pay a wage that is good relative to the area while not paying as much as they would if the mining was back in Australia. Doing otherwise would defeat the purpose of going overseas unless the real problem is lack of new mining sites overall, in which case paying a premium might be called for (IISD, 2016). As performance management, there needs to be a natural order of things when it comes to employees as they work in the mind.

Regardless of what a person's job is, there needs to be a minimal level of compliance and/or production for that person. Of course, bad things can happen and production can be slowed down. If the employer is fair, they will probably take that into account.

There is also the idea of not allowing employees to take safety shortcuts or otherwise engaging in subterfuge to portend the illusion that they are meeting the minimum standard or even excelling even they are not and/or should not be indicating as such due to the regulations and guidelines that are being ignored.

Again, the standards should be concrete and without ambiguity but they should also be reasonable given the conditions, safety considerations and other factors that affect how much can reasonably be done in a day without compromising the safety of workers or the quality of the output. The mining industry in particular is fraught with danger and problems as there can be unexpected explosions, collapsing of tunnels and other very dangerous events that can literally kill people.

As such, all safety guidelines (and those of an Australian standard unless the Chinese ones are more stringent) should be followed without fail and in every instance even if it is a drain on the bottom line and production levels in general. At no point should money and profit be placed above human safety as doing so plays into the hands of anti-business and anti-capitalist people everywhere, not to mention it is soulless to do (AHRI, 2016).

The performance management at the mine in China should absolutely include the safety and regulatory guidelines. People that do not meet production should be scrutinized or even punished but people that do not follow safety guidelines should be cracked down on even harder. The Chinese government, whether it be a domestic company or a foreign one, is less than enthused when a company skirts safety guidelines to the extent that people die as a result.

Hiring people that glom onto this idea and that continue to keep the worksite as safe as possible is going to be a challenge in China. The dual focus of safety and production performance may be a hard thing to pull off given some of the cultural and business difference that exist in the country. Even so, the Australian parent has a moral, ethical and legal imperative to do things by the book and with safety always in mind.

If there is a potential for a blast, for example, production needs to be shut down until this is alleviated. Taking risks of an unnecessary nature will be outright banned and anyone playing games and risks with people's lives will need to be coached or dismissed. It will need to be made clear to the workers, Australian and Chinese alike, that compliance is not optional and that safety is key.

Making money for the business is important and this will come so long as the Beijing mining operations are operated in the right way. However, all of the workers involved have a right to a safe workplace and they also have the right to go home to see their families rather than getting hurt or killed because someone could not or would not follow the rules, for whatever reason. Creating and upholding a culture of both production and safety compliance is the main challenge here but it is possible.

People with the requisite experience and safety knowledge will have obvious favor and, regardless, anyone that does not follow the guidelines is subject to termination. This goes double if they have been told the right way to do things and they still will not do so. Again, hiring the right people and managing the performance of the same is the one and only way to run a safe mine and thus these are the things that should be the primary focus (AHRI, 2016).

The benefits of this dual-pronged approach are going to be obvious and apparent. To identify the easy ones right away, there is the fact that production will be maximized and people will be judged fairly for the same while at the same time keeping the mine worksite as safe and as efficient as possible all at the same time.

However, there is another benefit that will reveal itself both in Australia and in China and that is the fact that the Australian company is creating and upholding a high standard even though the prevailing and local laws do not necessarily require it. This falls under the banner of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and this is something that has strongly emerged in the West including in Australia, Western Europe and North America.

Indeed, corporate social responsibility is all about saying that simply complying with the bare minimums is not enough and allowing for the cutting of corners in an industry that is already unsafe by nature (mining) is even worse. It is not an everyday occurrence, but there have been many stories in the news over the decades about mining collapses and explosions. Sometimes, there are people trapped as a result of these events. Sometimes they are able to be rescued but sometimes they end up dying.

There is always the possibility of an accident at any mine site but it is something that should be mitigate and avoided at all costs. If the Australian parent does this in the China subsidiary and it is obvious that they have a culture of compliance and safety, this will win them huge plaudits in both China and Australia alike. What cannot happen is the Australian company even seemingly exploiting the people in China using methods like lax safety management, low wages and otherwise deplorable conditions (ACCSR, 2016).

The final vein of thought when it comes to benefits is something that is rather obvious to some but sometimes does not get mentioned. As mentioned before, the general idea is to conduct operations in the most productive and expedient way without anyone getting hurt or harmed (let alone killed) as a part of doing the job.

While mining is a job that is debilitating and disabling for a lot of people, the Australian parent needs to stress that such harm, whether immediate or long-term, is going to be mitigated or even prevented through the use of whatever technology and safety equipment that is available. Whether this be respirators, explosive gas detection systems or anything like that, the Australian parent needs to ensure that all available technology is used to ensure that people leave the firm as healthy as they entered it.

It should not be a foregone conclusion that the people who work for the mind are going to get sick and eventually die or have to retire. Whatever can be done to prevent this will need to happen. With that in mind, people that know the safety protocols will be favored and they should also be the sort of people that end up leading the subsidiary, whether it be Australian people working in China or locals that are hired on the spot in Beijing (ACCSR, 2016).

High-risk industries like mining are the kind that requires that both physical and mental standards are kept to a certain level with absolutely no deviation. Just because someone is eager and really needs the job does not mean that they could or should be hired. The standard must be set and it must be enforced consistently and without fail. If this does not happen, it causes the corporate culture of safety to degrade due to lack of knowledge, lack of commitment or lack of physical ability.

Any of those three are going to be a drain on the performance of the company and that cannot be allowed to happen. One sidebar that has not been mentioned in detail, but really needs to be, is the fact that Chinese culture and Australian culture are obviously very different. This, in and of itself, is not.