¶ … Organizations with administrative offices in the United States of America, China, Japan, and other regions of the world have set up operation bases in foreign nations. These organizations have various interest in oversees countries. Some of these interests include provision of security services, infrastructure development and provision of aid. The functions of these organizations are to satisfy foreign policies of nations. With emphasis on the United States of America, the U.S. Department of State's mandate is to implement and formulate the president's policy on foreign countries. The organization has a task documented in the constitution on foreign policy (Taylor, 2000). The organization representation includes the secretary of state who acts as the president's advisor. The objective of the organization is to promote a free, prosperous, and secure world through implementing the president's foreign policy.
Foreign affairs responsibilities in the U.S. are representing the United States of America government abroad. These responsibilities centers on the provision of assistance, foreign military interventions, programs in countering international crime, training programs and other forms of programs. Programs funds come from the foreign affairs budget, and they assist in paying for consultancy services, payment of foreign employees' salary and benefits, as well as payment of other services in foreign countries. The budget, leadership, and quality of employees are crucial in protecting and promoting the interest of the country. These activities promote stability and peace in regions of interest, creating new jobs, helping developing nations have stable economic environments through investments and export channels, and joining nations together to address common problems.
Multinational Organizations
When considering multinational organizations, the point of contention is the interest of these organizations. Multinational organizations have come into operation because of globalization. Like the foreign interest of States policies abroad, multinational organization have their interest. These organizations borrow their mode of operations to that of foreign policies of the state. Since they have branches in multiple countries, they traverse many challenges related to cultures, language barriers and other problems (Taylor, 2000). They have to work under certain defined laws, and respect laws of sovereign states they operate. Multinational organizations in their operations need to have high human rights standards, and follow environmental standards.
Multinational organizations employ foreign workforce in their areas of operations. In foreign missions, it is advantageous for organizations to enjoy services of foreign consultants and employees. By employing foreign consultants, multinationals have a low operation costs as well as an advantage in relation to the culture of the country. A global workforce is term used to describe foreign workers. These refer to a pool of international employees. These employees include those connected by the international network, telecommuting workers, migrant workers and those in continental assignments (Dowling, Festing & Engle, 2008). The field consists of approximately 3 billion available workforces from all corners of the earth. This pool of the workforce was a result of globalization, which has emerged since the 1970s. The driving factors for growth in multinational organizations include border movements of goods and services, capital and advancement of technology.
Pre-Departure Training for a Multinational organization's Workforce
Training is a very essential part in preparation of workforce teams for international missions. Training involves the technical aspects, management training, information on domestic, language training and cross-cultural training. Technical training assist the employee understand the attitudinal and cultural conditions of a place, the level of technology and leadership skills. Management training relates to training on administrative procedures, investment, government and business relationships, communications, as well as spans of controls. Cross- cultural training dwells on culture, how to adjust to new cultures. Language training prepares employees to adjust in their workplaces.
Components of Pre-Departure Training
Cultural awareness
The following are the four basic components of a pre-departure training program for multinational organizations: language instructions, practical assistance, cultural awareness, and preliminary visits. Cultural awareness program is necessary since it fosters appreciation with the culture of the host community (Ferner, Almond & Colling, 2004). These programs need to be set according to the country of interest, the purpose of transfer, and the duration of the assignment. For an organization, the management team needs to consider the following contents: the program should consider briefing workers on cultural and environmental orientation of the people, train on language, sensitivity training and consider field experiences.
Preliminary Visits
Preliminary visits are essential tools in orienting international employees. The program provides the expatriates and their families' adequate preview of conditions of their assignment so that they can assess their suitability and interest on the same assignment. This program serves...
Preliminary visits are very crucial since it motivates employees while giving them time to commit and consider their tasks.
Language Training
Language training is another very important step in a pre-departure program. This training prepares employees on their mode of communication in host countries. However, this is not the case for English-speaking countries ignoring the fact that knowledge of other languages is essential. Expatriates need to understand the English language since it is widely used for business, but ignorance of other languages is expensive for organizations. The ability of expatriates to speak a foreign language improves their negotiation skills and effectiveness. Therefore, an organization needs to adopt a corporate language strategy upon human resource activities. This procedure might mean standardizing the reporting system.
Practical Assistance
Practical assistance for an organization assists in relocation of workers. The process provides expatriates and their assistance in understanding their new location. A prosperous multi-national organization needs to have a practical assistance program. These programs need specialists who can direct and educate expatriates and their family members on a host location. The skill and experience of the specialists counts a lot since the individual need to be knowledgeable on language training, as well as local orientation.
Recruitment and Selection of Expatriates
Multinational organizations' recruitment and selection process follows various processes. Like a conventional organization, multinationals have the same recruitment processes. The process starts with advertisement of positions in either print, or other forms of media. It follows the selection of individuals fit for an interview. The next step involves test to measure the aptitude tests, analytical and language skills of expatriates. Individuals who pass the previous stages proceed to take speech tests. This step involves a one on one interview with a panel of department heads. After this step, expatriates undergo training and then sent to their respective locations.
How to Asses performance of Expatriates
Completion of Assignment method
Since international assignments have become common and individuals are taking up international assignments, there is a need for the management to have criteria for measuring performance. To date, the most popular criteria for measuring performance of expatriates include the completion of assignments abroad, performance on the assignment and cross-cultural adjustments of employees. Completion of assignment criteria is a behavioral assessment of the outcome of expatriate performance in foreign missions (Dowling, Festing, & Engle, 2008). The success of the performance of an expatriate in this situation considers the whole duration of the assignment. Performance is measured for the entire period the person stays in the host country. However, in some scenarios, the expatriates may terminate the assignment and request to go back to their home countries.
Some multinational organizations send employees on foreign missions without clear goals on how to perform. Therefore, the lack of a clear goal makes it hard to measure performance of the employee. Organization for instance may recall their employees on foreign mission because of some problems terminating a contract. Another problem that may arise involves the management recalling an expatriate to another location before completion. Personal problems may also interfere with the performance of the expatriate (Dowling, Festing, & Engle, 2008). For these reasons, it is a recommendation that performance forms be used to measure performance of employees despite their location. The use of these forms for measuring performance has success in many organizations. Many organizations use forms to measure performance of expatriates. This form has scores that grade performance of expatriates with respect to goals.
Cross- cultural adjustment
Cross-cultural assessment, on the other hand, measures the performance of expatriates in relation to their adjustment in host nations. This is a measure of the extent at which, expatriates are psychologically comfortable living in foreign nations. Cross-culturally comfortable expatriates, demonstrate the ability to adjust to host norms, behavior, and culture. This means that they can adjust to the lifestyle of host's nation easily. On the other hand, there are those expatriates who tend to show signs of homesick, stress and depression (Ferner, Almond, & Colling, 2004). It is clear that maladjusted expatriates tend to terminate their assignments as compared to their counterparts. A multinational organization needs to have a system for measuring cross-cultural adjustment of employees.
Performance on Assignments
Multinational organizations would love their employees to complete their assignments and culturally adjusted, these does not mean that they are not interested in their performance. Multinational organization would love to measure the performance of their organizations. This therefore, means that the management teams need to formulate feasible methods of measuring performance. Research on the field of managing expatriates suggests that maladjusted employees tend to…
