Equality and Diversity (Coursework Sample)

Equality and diversity in human resource management of multinational companies
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Diversity and equality in multinational companies is one of the core objectives that the human resource experts seek to achieve for the purpose of streamlining operations across the borders. The policies touching on the diversity in MNC’s business process involves use of diversified skills, culture, talents, personnel and human resources to achieve a common goal in the corporation that has ventured into overseas markets (Morgan, Kristensen and Richard 2001). MNC’s also need to focus on improving equality by treating all its employees fairly and justly regardless of their nationality, sex, culture, religion, personalities, etc,. This is necessary especially when dealing with different types of cultures as the organization seeks to establish itself in foreign country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (The BBC and Diversity 2011)
Saudi Arabia and India are two Asian countries have a different approach to many things. The Indian culture for instance is quite conservative and has religious uniqueness and history. This makes them have different views from the rest of the world when it comes to various aspects of life, business, and money. The Saudi people also have strong religious beliefs and outstanding culture (Kirby, Erika & Lynn, Harter 2003). This makes the people of Saudi Arabia very conservatives and gender sensitive. Women play very specific roles in the society, which are also limited and according to their religious beliefs and teachings.
Human resource management in the Saudi Kingdom is quite different, in that most of the employed foreigners and there is an evident gender imbalance in the job market. Women rarely take up jobs due to the cultural and religious beliefs touching on the roles of women in the society. Women do not get equal opportunities like men in Saudi Arabia. It is notable that locals demand higher salaries compared to foreigners, resulting to inequality and lack of diversity in the HRM of most MNCs. This calls for MNCs to adopt policies that will help improve diversity and equality within the human resource, e. g., increasing salaries of local employees and creating more favourable roles for women in the organization. However, in India HRM has evolved towards strong focus on productivity of employees (Johnson, Linda & Johnstone 2000). The HRM focuses more on competitiveness and ethical process of achieving the company’s goals. India is focusing more on quality and skilled labour due to the high competition brought by the foreign companies established in India.
In India, the process of selecting the best employees is moving towards outsourcing. This is where an expert company recruits employees for other firms. This improves effectiveness and saves time and commitment by the company seeking employees. In Saudi Arabia, recruiting is also gaining new tactics like recruiting process outsourcing. Online based recruiting of employees for Saudi companies is also gaining prominence. This is due to high rate of foreign jobseekers looking for jobs in Saudi firms. This has led to the process becoming more modernized and diverse in it approach (Evans, and Lorange, 1989). It is however not favourable to women, especially foreign female employees in terms of better rights, contracts and other privileges. This problem needs to be looked at more by the MNCs by providing policy guidelines to safeguard women from harsh and weak labour laws so that equality and diversity in human resource is promoted in multinational corporations.
Due to high number of expatriates in Saudi Arabia, there is increased investment in the training of local people to enable them get jobs rather than all jobs going to foreign employees. The government is promoting vocational training and generally the level of education. Saudi is also trying to adapt policies that will help at bring in investors to the country (Egan and Bendick 2001). This however, has not encouraged more women to seek employment in areas where men have dominated. India on the other hand is well known for its developed training and education system. This is due to the competitiveness in the labour market in India that demands high quality skills from the employees, thus creating good environment for MNCs to design good policies on diversity and equality in their HRM strategies.
Remuneration and reward to employees in Saudi Arabia is not that bad, especially for foreigners seeking jobs in Saudi Arabia, something that MNCs have failed in addressing inequality in salaries, regardless of nationality although it is among countries that pay employees well. However, India does not pay well compared to Saudi Arabia. This is mostly due to high population and therefore high number of job seekers. This is why multinationals open up subsidiaries in India because the labour is cheaper for MNCs thus promoting diversity and equality (Edwards, Tony & Ferner 2004).
The minister of labour mostly announces public holidays in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi people observe public holidays on such days like Idd Ul Fitr, which is celebrated by all Muslims. In India, several holidays include the May Day, a national bank holiday, which is just among the holidays that make India the country with the highest number of public holidays. The holidays are also days when workers do not go to work. The two Asian may have public holidays but in some cases, privately employed workers may do not have any holiday, especially foreign employees in Saudi Arabia. This violates equality values in HRM (Egan and Bendick 2001).
There are plenty of opportunities in India especially cheap labour. The population is high and education levels are not bad hence providing MNCs a good place to invest and minimize human resource constraints in the organization. Saudi Arabia also has opportunities for growth of the MNC’s however, there are many challenges ranging from human resource, skilled labour, cultural dynamics, and furthermore strict laws that are strange to MNC’s in their HRM activities (Bartlett and Ghoshal 1998). These differences in culture and adaptability in the two countries makes them differ in terms of growth of HRM and generally the success of MNC’s who are positioning themselves globally...