HR Considerations and What HR

¶ … HR considerations and what HR measures Wal-Mart HR considerations Entering the retail market in India represents a significant challenge to Wal-Mart as this implies interacting with a different culture and its specific customs, values and norms. Consequently, for ensuring its success on the foreign market, the company will have to learn about the Indian culture as this is "the software of the mind" as Geert Hofstede (2003) used to say. Therefore, it should pay attention to several HR considerations.

First of all, it must decide the number (percentage) of Indian employees that the U.S. organization will hire and the jobs that will be offered to them. The latter implies a deep knowledge of the cultural background. For instance, in his memorable study, Hofstede (2003) asserts that India has a high Power Distance Index.

This means that there is a significant degree of inequality within the society and that people witness and accept the gap between those who have it all and those who have to settle for their humble condition. This cleavage that divides the Indian society could have an impact on the people's availability for managerial positions. Secondly, Wal-Mart has to analyze the host country's workforce agencies, websites, universities and opt for an assemble encompassing those alternatives who best contribute to acquiring the most valuable employees.

Moreover, when posting the job announcements, Wal-Mart will have to elegantly infer that the vacancies are not offered because thus the labor costs are lower or the company looks trendier if it encourages diversity, but because the organization genuinely believes that India provides an important pool of talented professionals who may have a decisive contribution to the corporation's success. Thirdly, the job requirements should perfectly mold over both the company's needs and the specific of the Indian culture.

Therefore, the announcements should hint at both the possibility of receiving permission to participate in family events (which are important and occur during working hours) and the job satisfaction and quality leadership which appear to be the most important reasons generating loyalty to the employer (Belani, 2006). 2. HR measures The HR measures that will be put in place will take into account several issues.

Firstly, as entering the Indian market implies an ample recruitment process, Wal-Mart's HR department could use a recruiting metric encompassing the following indicators: the vacant period, the performance of the new hires, managers' satisfaction, the turnover rate for new employees, and the financial repercussions of inadequate hires (http://www.strategy2act.com/solutions/hr_metrics.htm). Secondly, job satisfaction seems to be essential to Indian employees.

Therefore, this can be measured with the help of a training and development metric comprising: learning opportunities (the percentage of those who are content with the learning opportunities in the organization), on-the-job learning possibilities (the percentage of the staff being satisfied with the on-the-job learning), the chance to use skills (the percentage of those employees who apply their knowledge and abilities), taking part in meaningful work (the percentage of those who consider that they are engaged in activities that effectively contribute to the organization's laudable performance) (Belani, 2006).

For the two measurements above, the company could use the method of the balanced scorecard. This implies listing the characteristics measured and establishing the weight and the performance of each, at the same time. The latter items can be inferred by administrating two questionnaires in which the employees are asked to state the importance they assign to each characteristic and the mark they attribute to.