International Business as the World

International Business

As the world gets more global courtesy of the agents of globalization and technological progress, many people are increasingly working in countries away from their homes. Globalization has meant that multinationals are establishing several branches across the world in order to boost their operations. In this regard, human resource management has continued to grow extensively due to the need to manage people who are working away from their home countries. Human resource management in this context is certainly inundated with many challenges which should always be addressed in order to have smooth operation in the organizations. Most of these challenges arise out of the fact that different countries across the world demonstrate different employee management methods. Moreover, different areas in the world have varying degrees of risks, standards of living and environmental situations.

One of the greatest challenges arises out of the fact that most expatriates are normally paid more wages than the domestic nationals in the countries they work. This happens especially in developing countries where expatriates come to work in domestic or foreign programs. In this regard, it creates a lot of challenges due to the common feeling among the locals that such special treatment should not be done. However, it must be realized that certain factors necessitate such differentials in the payment of wages. These include the differences in standards of living, the risks involved in the foreign duties and the fluctuations in the exchange rates. Expatriates have to be paid allowances which are in tandem with the costs of living evidenced in their countries of operations.

Due to the fact that taxes have to be paid on the money sent home by expatriates, most people are normally paid tax allowances in order to cushion them against the effects of taxes which might greatly reduce the amount of money they remit back home. In the same way, working away from home normally involves a lot of challenges relating to the aspects of orientation and education. Expatriates have to adapt and learn different languages in order to effectively cope. In this regard, education and orientation allowances are normally included in their pay so as to enable them to address some of these challenges. Human resource managers are therefore normally in a fix regarding the strategies to use in paying the expatriates and those for domestic nationals. In any case, an improper policy might greatly affect the motivation and performance of the local employees which might eventually be detrimental to the organization.