Identify the compelling arguments for and against one of the following policies in a developing country. Include the perspective of the host country itself, the MNE, and the local workforce affected. Choose one
Child labor is a major problem in many developing countries of Asia and Africa. Child labor occurs is places where there is poverty and lack of education facilities. In many countries parents need to pay for education which they cannot afford. While some children at times even work to pay for their own education. They don’t have a healthy upbringing. They can be prone to various air-borne diseases due to direct contact with hazards chemicals in factories. The tasks that the children do are physically demanding. This make them crippled and week as an early age. Most children even die at the early age with not enough nutrients to help them take such a physical toil. Most go to work in order to come out of that plight of poverty. Though the children are exploited and made to work lengthy hours with less pay they still serve as a major contributor to the family income. Many international communities have put of policies and law to curb child labor. International Labor Organization (ILO) has created several conventions that 175 of its members can adopt. While some are taking drastic steps to abolish child labor completely. The route is not child labor itself but it is the way companies and societies operate by exploiting these workers and taking advantage of their plight. Severe measures may be counterproductive as they do not change the underlying causes of child labor and can worsen the situation of the child workers by driving them to more hazardous work in the informal sector. This underlines the importance of a broad rather than a restrictive approach to child labor in codes of conduct. In India alone 85% of the workforces in agricultural industries are children between the ages of 6 to 14 years. The Child Labor (Prohibition & Regulation) Act 1986 of India was the culmination of efforts and ideas that emerged from the deliberations and recommendations of various committees on child labor. The Act aimed to prohibit the entry of children into hazardous occupations and to regulate the services of children in non-hazardous occupations. Various measures have being taken by the government to reduce child labor by introducing special school with free education and nourishment by providing food. This introduction has led to reduction of child labor practices in most parts of the country. From the point of global ethic many of these ethics collide with government priority in attracting and retaining MNEs. One biggest fear that government has with taking action against the unfair practices is loss of investment from the MNE which would eventually lead to economic downturn for the country.
Most MNE who have offshore there company operation of the supply chain and production of their products to sub contractors in developing countries like India, Honduras, El Salvador etc. many multinational have been accused for condoning to practices like minimum pay with lengthy hours, child labor and unsafe work environment which are against the law in their home countries. In the 1990 there was huge public uproar which resulted in action by NGO, government and UN bodies. Many western consumers boycotted the product produced by these MNE. With MNE brand reputation and corporate image at stake they put in place their own code of conduct even with the sub contractors. Though it was a Public relation stunt the code of conduct included no child labor, minimum hours and pay. The HR roles in compliance to the code of conduct for MNE would be regular cost- benefit analysis and even performance review system for employee. Some other roles would be trying to improve condition of workplace, introducing safety measure to do various difficult tasks. MNE could also provide education and food to the labors. This could help improve standard for the host country would help MNE to promote it Social corporate responsibility to the community. Many NGOs around the world work toward the cause to eradicate child labor which is a very good global ethical cause. The biggest constrain for such NGOs is that they do not have enough funds to fund this cause. MNE participation could be a very good global ethical cause towards improving the condition of child laborers. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1099079877269/547664-1099079934475/547667-1135281552767/Child_Labor_issues.pdf. www.indianembassy.org/policy/Child_Labor/childlabor.htm.
What HR policies would you recommend be reviewed—through the ‘lens’ of religious diversity and inclusion— in order to assure your HR policies are well-aligned with your stated ethical standards and demonstrating inclusion of your growing Muslim population.
With growing population of Muslims around the world joining the work force, it becomes necessary for HR practitioners to understand and accommodate some of their religious practices in order to retain employment. It is also important to note the Muslim practices differ from culture to culture and there is numerous interpretation of the faith in the religion. Some important guidelines could be:
Prayer: Both male and female is expected to pray five times a day. The typical prayer takes 5 to 15 minutes depending on the individual. In the company Muslim employee should be provided with neutral space for their prayers. It could be any seldom used room. This will make the Muslim staff feel at comfort that they have somewhere private and clean to say their prayer. if staff is required to be committed to the desk space this may be done through allocating proper use of break times.
Muslim men mostly go to mosque on Friday afternoon at 1 or 2 pm. In order to accommodate this it is preferred to give them lunch breaks during that time durations. Some time for fulltime employees in order to do the 40 hour per week. Some companies let their worker work over time from Monday to Thursday while leave them early on Friday.
Dress code: Muslim men employee should be made aware in advance any strict guideline regarding facial hair or follow health pr hygiene procedures. Some companies try to compromise on religious grounds. Muslim women are required to wear a hijab over their head and to dress modestly. If the company has a uniform or a certain dress code there should be a policy in place to permit the wearing of hijab. Now day many airlines companies allow there air hostess to wear a hijab over their hair.
Similar different religion have different festival holiday. Like for Muslim Ramzan-id is time to take a break. Companies must have definite polices regarding religious holiday leave (paid or unpaid). If there a policy is it clearly explained to employees through employee handbook or information packets during orientation. There are situations when such an accommodation is possible but the employee is not aware which may lead to dissatisfaction. It also important the management to take in to account employees various religious holidays when planning a meeting, workshops or dinners.
Thus taking into account important religious practices and diversity into consideration Human Resources can maintain, retain and develop a diverse work culture. This helps to individualize work force, increases performance and even motivates employee to give back to the company. Identify 1 conflict that is likely to arise from managers and 1 conflict that is likely to arise from co-workers, with regards to HR policy accommodations you might make for your Muslim workers. For each of the 2 potential conflicts, suggest an approach or means of resolving the conflict.
According to EEO According to EEO Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits workplace discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, and country of origin, race and color. Such discrimination is prohibited in any aspect of employment, including recruitment, hiring, promotion, benefits, training, job duties, and termination. According to the act Employers must reasonably accommodate employees' sincerely held religious practices unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on the employer.
Accordingly one conflict that is likely to arise regarding the religious practices accommodation Muslims worker could take frequents breaks in order to do prayers services or prefer to leave early on Friday to attend mosques. This would be conflict with the manager as at times if he has to delegate some work to the worker he need to wait for him to finish his prayer service. Similarly leaving him early on any Friday because he needs to go to the mosques, this could bring more work load on other non-Muslim co-workers when any deadlines have to be met. This is one reason that HR managers did not place any policies in place to accommodate their religious practice.
But according to EEOC “if an employer's workplace policies interfere with its employee's religious practices, the employee can ask for something called a "reasonable accommodation." A "reasonable accommodation" is a change in a workplace rule or policy to let one engage in a religious practice. An employer is required to provide workers with such an accommodation unless it would impose an undue hardship on the employer's business.” This means the employer is not required to provide an accommodation that is too costly or difficult to provide. Whether an employer can accommodate ones religious practices will depend upon the nature of the work and the workplace. Usually, employer can allow using lunch or other break times for religious prayer. If require additional time for prayer, employer can require one to make up the time.
Second conflict could be women wearing hijabs or men with beard especially in the hospitality and tourism industry where looks, dress code and personal hygiene are very important. Accommodating their religious beliefs hinder the company standard, brand image and corporate culture that it boosts. If a female worker is allowed to wear the hijab while working on the front desk she violates the company’s dress code and presents a wrong image. Similarly even in retail stores where sales associates have to be a fashion statement for the company. Accommodating religious practices hinder the purpose of having female employees. Some of these companies have notion that it would affect customer’s preferences. Such notion about customer preference real or perceived does not establish undue hardship. So HR manager need to do an exception in its dress code and let Muslim women workers wear her hijab during work time as a religious accommodation.
Reference: Bahrain case, Article Islam in the workplace http://archive.eeoc.gov/facts/backlash-employee.html http://archive.eeoc.gov/facts/backlash-employer.html
Make an argument for the benefits of having and targeting women as corporate leaders for MNEs. Include data that suggests this may be in the best interest of your company.
The glass ceiling not only holds back women, it holds back business competitiveness. Women are given chance to show case talent at middle management. But there is under-representation of women at the top positions. Studies reveal that companies with more women at the top outperform their peers financially. Former CEO of Xerox Anne M. Mulcahy brought the company out of bankruptcy by introducing many new products and technology in the market. In her tenure Xerox became a stronger, financially sound company, serving a broader base of customers. Similarly In 2007 Nooyi's first full year as CEO, revenue increased 12% to $39.5 billion.
In most cases only male managers are given an opportunity to take up global assignment looking at the track records. Numerous studies have shown that women’s success level in expatriate assignments is no different than that of their male counterparts. In fact women inherent personal attributes make them better suited then men for various assignments. One reason is women understand diversity and cultural aspect in doing business with other countries better than men do. By not having women in leadership roles is a missed opportunity for the company to have an inclusive culture that attracts diverse talent. Many people of color and younger generations consider homogenous firms “strange.” Having women at the helm especially women of color speaks volumes in a company’s favor.
Secondly women as leaders do not showcase self interest. But they work with motto” what they can do for the company”. In today global world women have the business skills need to succeed like team work and partnering with others. Though profits is important priority they believe in bring changes keeping the corporate social responsibility in mind. The biggest example is Indira Nooyi CEO of Pepsi co. she believes in the philosophy Performance with Purpose, which is focused on balancing strong financial returns with giving back to communities worldwide. Performance with Purpose is premised on offering a broad array of choices for healthy, convenient and fun nourishment, reducing environmental impact, and fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace culture. Looking at fortune 500 ranking of 50 most powerful women Indira Nooyi topped the chart in 2008 as No 1 women, delivering strong profits on $43 billion in sales. Her August deal to buy Pepsi's two biggest bottlers should produce some $300 million in annual cost savings.
Some of the soft skills and team building skills they bring into the organization make women a better leader. Female leader’s attention to the personal side of business and their skills in building interpersonal relationship may give them an edge over male leaders. Women are more stable, dedicated, task oriented and better at all intangibles that can help the organization. They think deep before any decision making. At times they take advices going one or two level down in management before coming down to conclusions whereas men have ego when asking for opinions from their subordinates. Some other benefit for the company to be seen with different perspective could be first Customer trust companies products and services if internal decision makers and external stakeholders look like customers. Having women on the top brings that trust building from customers. Secondly there is a diversity initiative by companies through women advancements. This helps them build a corporate image of company that boost diverse work culture and is broad minded in many aspects. http://www.hbs.edu/centennial/businesssummit/global-business/managing-human-capital-global-trends-and-challenges.pdf http://www.pepsico.com/Company/Leadership.html#block_Indra%20K.%20Nooyi. http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_47/b3708145.htm http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0909/gallery.most_powerful_women.fortune/index.html.
What specific HR policies, systems, or practices that you would put in place to support such an initiative?
In order to help support the initiative to have women as corporate leader position two parties have to work hand in hand the women and the MNC. Women should be brought out of the glass ceiling and given chance to participate in global assignments. From a HR stand point some pre assignment strategies would be the selection criteria for global assignment. Through training and policies management need to come of the stereotypes of gender bias. A starting point is to train selection decision makers to avoid the bias that female managers do not desire expatriate assignments and/or that dual-career issues would impede a female manager from succeeding in a foreign assignment.
Women lack of networks makes it hard to function in a male- dominate corporate culture. These networks are vital to learn about foreign assignments. Clearly, MNCs need to make a more concerted effort to insert women into the relevant informal and formal organizational networks. Companies may thing before assigning women to specific countries. At time there is perceived risk of sending women to environment which are hostile for women progress. But at times opposite is true expatriate women are given respect and treated as a foreigner and not like the local women. They bring more success to the company then their male mangers in those countries.
Women should be a part of mentoring program during all phases of the female expatriate experience, but particularly during female managers’ early career and foreign assignment preparation periods, is highly correlated with success in expatriate assignments. Barrier to the success of women expatriation is lack of mentors or coaches during the process. Performance appraisal, both formal and informal, should also be geared toward performance development and enrichment.
Some other strategies like continued mentor even after post assignment should be put in place. Repartition is also a very important process. MNC could lose good manager with international experience if there repatriation is not handled properly by the H.R department.
Reference: Journal of Business Ethics (2008) “The Expatriate Glass Ceiling: The Second Layer of Glass by Gary S. Insch, Nancy McIntyre and Nancy K. Napier”

What objections do you anticipate receiving, and how would you counter them?
Most objection that come in the stereotype male dominate world are some of the common myth that women will not fit in roles for international assignment. And gender basis one very important reason for glass- ceiling take place in corporations. As in today global economy there is a need of senior management to have international exposure. Due to glass ceiling many companies loose competent women talent by not providing them the exposure to global assignment. This has lead many companies to revises some of it selection training and recruiting policies to include women in such assignment.
First myth is that women are reluctant to accept global assignment with other responsibilities at home like husband and children. But this issue can be addressed as there are available solution for the family if there need to expat with her. This can also be overcome by sending them on small short assignment if family cannot expat along with the woman. If children are very small other external help is readily available to help with raising the children like nanny etc.
Some other myths are as below: * Women in dual-career relationships find int’l assignments too difficult * Gender prejudice in host country prevent women from success * Women expats would feel lonely and be victims of sexual harassment * Women more likely to be crime targets.
While some women might object to assignment in host countries where local women are not given much opportunity. They feel they will be treated like the local and not taken seriously. But it is important note that these are some perception. Most host country personnel take up these managers firstly as a representative of the company; secondly as foreigner and as a foreigner they don’t treat them like the local women. Many such host countries women succeed because of their ability to adapt to better life as outsiders than men in various assignments. To counter some of this object ion it is necessary to understand the benefits of having women at in international assignment. Keeping benefit in mind some of myths need to be overcome by providing more knowledge about the assignment in hand and about the host country. In countries like India many MNC provide car and local driver for both the expatriate and the spouse. This is a very important precaution measure that company takes to provide safety for the expatriate in the host country.