International Staffing

Companies today are becoming aware of how competitive the environment that they work within is. As the market expand in today's economy, national boundaries disappear. Major multinational corporations are now coming up with plans for international human resources, management. The term IHRM means to put into place the capabilities of human resources, but over an international field. Many companies want multinational IHRM policies, but this has its own challenges. One of the most important difficulties is cultural differences. Staffing can become difficult when culture comes into play. This is only one of the challenges to staffing a company internationally.

The expatriate problem becomes important when considering international staffing. An expatriate is a person who leaves their country and works in other countries. Workers on expatriate assignments often face the following problems.

One of the first unique challenges of international staffing is the expatriate problem. Expatriate are citizens of one country working in another. Common problems with the expatriate assignments are:

Helping their families adjust

Change of lifestyle

Change of type of work

A drop in performance

Leaving for other opportunities

Difficulties returning to their home country

Adjusting to a new environment

Learning a new language

Expatriate failure is a common problem, and to prevent this, companies need the best employees to send abroad and must be able to give them intense training and development. This employee must expatriate with background in potential cultural difference. It is also difficult to train international staff thoroughly enough. People who are sent abroad to work need to know as much as they can about the culture and the country that they are going to. International recruiting is also not easy. HR departments must be particularly responsive to the cultural, political, and legal environments both domestically and abroad when recruiting internationally.