HR practices are usually developed with the objective of providing employees with discernible guidelines, supporting the organization’s employment actions and giving the organization structure. The underlying reasons for HR practices might be similar in different organizations, but there cannot be a proposition for one-size-fits-all practices. The culture that a business is subjected to is likely to influence the operations involved (Andresen & Nowak, 2015). Similar HR practices may not produce similar results for different cultural contexts. Culture encompasses a collection of traditions and beliefs that affect behaviour, frequently without conscious awareness. Human resource managers are expected to follow the law irrespective of where the business is located, but the local culture in addition to the culture of the business is likely to create specific challenges for HR. What an organization does in certain cultures might not be effective in another culture due to the differences that exist (Walsh, 2015). These differences might be exhibited in areas such as hiring decisions, determining the corporate structure, workplace environment among other things. Examining specific HR practices would help to have a clear understanding of the impacts of cultural differences. In this case, there is an analysis of recruitment and selection and performance appraisal.

When it comes to recruitment and selection, a company might have a culture of recruiting employees that fit exactly with their values and the expected level of competence. This aspect might not hold when the organization is subjected to a different culture. Among the reasons might be that the people upholding the type of values that such an organization is looking for are limited. Another reason might be that for a workforce to operate effectively in that culture, there is a need for more rather than just upholding the company’s values and bearing the relevant competencies. There might be the need of hiring people with the experience of working in a certain industry, employees with the ability to speak a certain language, extroverts and those that can handle stress due to the customers’ and business environment dynamics (Al-Kassem, 2016). This would lead the organization in rethinking its recruitment and selection process. There will be a need for not concentrating on what the organization has been looking for in its home culture since it is likely to result in failure. The company will be forced to adapt to new ways to ensure there is the desired success.

Most of the times it has been established that having a diverse workforce helps in efficiency. This is due to the level of creativity and innovation that is involved as every employee can bring something different to the table. As a result, this is something that organizations are on the look-out for during the recruitment and selection process. The HR department ensures that it recruits a workforce that is as diversified as possible to help gain benefits from the synergy that comes with this aspect (Karim, 2013).  However, there are cultures that might make diversity problematic. These are cultures where instead of diversity working for the company, it comes as a disadvantage. There are people who cannot work with “certain” people as it has been like that for a long time. Putting such individuals in a similar workplace environment would work to the disadvantage of the organization. This is because there would be increased conflicts that make it difficult to actualize the desired objectives (Karim, 2013).  As a result, an organization is forced to change its recruitment and selection process with regards to diversity in order to cope with the prevailing cultural context.

Apart from the people’s culture, the culture of the business also affects the recruitment and selection process. There is no single business culture that can be regarded to as being the best. However, some cultures tend to be superior compared to others. A relationship between organizational culture and recruitment comes in with regards to selection, attraction, and retention. When it comes to attraction, culture is more of a brand image that the company projects. This helps in attracting people that will thrive in that environment. Some organizational cultures might be viewed as being favourable in given countries and undesirable in other countries given what the people involved believe in. This means that a company might fail to attract the best available work force in a given country due to the same organizational culture that helps in attracting the best talent in the parent country of operation (Kehoe and Wright, 2010). Even if the company succeeded in recruiting such employees, it might be problematic to retain them for the forcible future. This works to show that what works for one culture is not necessarily likely to work in a different culture when it comes to HR practices. There is more that needs to be done by the HR department to help determine what will work in some situations and what will not work.

Performance appraisal, on the other hand, has the ability to be affected by cultural differences too. Organizations usually conduct performance appraisals to help evaluate employees’ skills, growth, and achievement within the scope of their employment. Executing appraisals in different cultures might not come along with similar results. This is because there are cultures where the appraisals tend to focus less on specific job performance and focus more on how employees fit within the company’s culture and their organizational citizenship (Dusterhoff et al., 2013). This works to the disadvantage of some employees who are hard workers; something that can be demonstrated in their job performance but they are lowly rated due to other factors. There are cultures where one’s career path is solely determined by the parents. Children do not seem to have the autonomy to define their career path as they grow up. The parents seem to have decided what they ought to be doing at every stage of their life. This is usually based on what other relatives have been doing or what they deem to be a lucrative career for their children. The parents also prefer some careers based on the availability of networks in their circles (Pichler, 2012). When the children take on such careers, they might work hard at all times to ensure that their job performance is exceptional. Given that these careers were not of their interest from the word go; but a choice from their parents, they might be judged inappropriately as not demonstrating the desired body language or charisma. As a result, having a performance appraisal that focuses on other aspects rather than job performance comes out as being unfair to such employees.

Performance appraisals are also perceived differently in different cultures. This means despite the objectives that the HR management has in mind, the outcome will always be contrasting. There are cultures where appraisals are viewed as a witch-hunt activity whereas in other cultures people embrace them as avenues of enhancing career development. Where appraisals are viewed as witch-hunting mechanisms, employees always feel uneasy when this period approaches. Such aspect is likely to affect their productivity during the period (Ivancevich and Konopaske, 2013). The employees are busy thinking of the managers that they are not in good terms with, and how they might take the opportunity to settle their scores. This is something that comes out to be true in some instances. There are managers who take advantage of the appraisals to settle scores with employees that they are not in good terms. This shows that despite the good intentions of the HR department, there are managers that tarnish the productivity of the appraisals within the organizational spectrum (Jackson et al., 2012). In cultures where appraisals are used fairly, there is a benefit to both the organizations and employees. Employees benefit by way of career development since they are able to identify their areas of weakness and make the necessary adjustments.  The organization benefits from the increased productivity since every employee wants to be rewarded for their input towards the success of the organization. This shows how cultures can determine the efficiency of performance appraisal based on the perceptions of the people involved.

Conclusion

Human resource practices are usually developed with the objective of ensuring that a positive environment has been created in the workplace. This means that the practices established are usually in good faith most of the times. Regardless of this aspect, the practices may fail to deliver the desired results more so for companies working on the global spectrum. The practices might be very successful in a given culture, but present contrasting results when applied in another culture. This is something that the human resource management team should be privy of.  There is the need of doing due diligence before implementing a HR practice in a certain culture. Conducting studies to understand the effects that might emanate is highly recommended. The management should not work with the assumption that because a certain practice is working in other markets it will also work in the current market that is being ventured. People in different cultures have been subjected to different circumstances and are likely to react differently to similar practices. Trying to understand a culture before making any implementations will help the management to actualize success with the HR practices that are brought forward.

References

Al-Kassem, A. (2016). Recruitment and Selection Practices in Business Process Outsourcing Industry. Archives of Business Research, 5(3).

Andresen, M., & Nowak, C. (2015). Human Resource Management Practices Assessing Added Value. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Dusterhoff, C., Cunningham, J. and MacGregor, J. (2013). The Effects of Performance Rating, Leader–Member Exchange, Perceived Utility, and Organizational Justice on Performance Appraisal Satisfaction: Applying a Moral Judgment Perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 119(2), pp.265-273.

Ivancevich, J. and Konopaske, R. (2013). Human resource management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Jackson, S., Schuler, R. and Jiang, K. (2014). An Aspirational Framework for Strategic Human Resource Management. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), pp.1-56.

Karim, M. (2013). Recruitment & Selection: ‘Psychometric’ and ‘Social perspective’ model. GRIN Verlag.

Kehoe, R. and Wright, P. (2010). The Impact of High-Performance Human Resource Practices on Employees’ Attitudes and Behaviors. Journal of Management, 39(2), pp.366-391.

Pichler, S. (2012). The social context of performance appraisal and appraisal reactions: A meta-analysis. Human Resource Management, 51(5), pp.709-732.

Renwick, D., Redman, T. and Maguire, S. (2012). Green Human Resource Management: A Review and Research Agenda*. International Journal of Management Reviews, 15(1), pp.1-14.

Walsh, D. (2015). Employment Law for Human Resource Practice(5th ed.). Cengage Learning.

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