HRM textbook

584 PART 5 EMPLOYEE RELATIONS
are upping the numbers of short-term assignments they make. This lets them use
lower cost short-term assignments to replace some long-term assignments
that require supporting expats (and their families) abroad for extended periods.
Fifty percent of the companies Mercer surveyed are also replacing some expatriate
postings with local hires. With an eye on cutting costs, many employers were
reviewing their firms policies regarding such things as housing, education and
home leave, along with expatriate allowances and premiums (cost-of-living
allowance and mobility/quality-of-living premiums). 41
OTHER SOLUTIONS The choice is not just between expatriate versus local
employees. For example, there are other short-term or commuter solutions. These
involve frequent international travel but no formal relocation. 42
One survey found that about 78% of surveyed employers had some form of
localization policy. This is a policy of transferring a home-country national
employee to a foreign subsidiary as a permanent transferee. Here the employer
doesn t treat the employee (who assumedly wants to move abroad) as an expatriate,
but instead as a local hire. 43 For example, U.S. IBM employees originally from India
eventually filled many of the 5,000 jobs that IBM recently shifted from the United
States to India. These employees elected to move back to India, albeit at local India
pay rates. Other firms use Internet-based video technologies and group decisionmaking
software to enable global virtual teams to do business without either travel or
relocation. 44
USING TRANSNATIONAL VIRTUAL TEAMS Managing internationally may
require the services of a transnational team, one composed of employees whose
locations and activities span many countries. 45 For example, a European beverage
manufacturer formed a 13-member European Production Task Force with members
from its facilities in five countries. Its task was to analyze how many factories the firm
should operate in Europe, what size they should be, and where to place them. 46
Often, such teams don t meet face to face, but work in virtual environments.
Virtual teams are groups of geographically dispersed coworkers who interact using a
combination of telecommunications and information technologies to accomplish an
organizational task.
Virtual teams are popular. Strategic partnerships and joint ventures often require
employees of partner companies to act together as a team, although they work for
different companies and in different locales. 47 To facilitate the merger of Marion
Laboratories and Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals the companies created a global
virtual team comprised of members from production sites in Asia, Europe, and
North America. The team helped overcome potential merger integration problems,
and produced improved productivity and profits. 48
Virtual teams depend on information technology. With desktop videoconferencing
systems often the heart of such systems, communication among team members can
embrace the body language and nuances of face-to-face communications. 49 Such teams
also use collaborative software systems. Microsoft offers a NetMeeting conference
system. When combined with products like Framework Technologies Corp.s Active-
Project 5.0, virtual team members can hold live project reviews and discussions and
then store the sessions on the project s Web site. 50
But the main challenges that virtual teams face are people related. These include
building trust, cohesion, team identity, and overcoming the isolation among team
members. Success therefore depends on various human resource management-related
actions. In particular, train virtual team members in leadership, conflict management,
and meetings management, and to respond swiftly to virtual teammates. 51 Give virtual
team members a realistic preview of the potential for feeling detached. Select
virtual team members using behavioral and situational interviews, where they describe
how they d respond to illustrative virtual team situations. And, use current virtual
team members to help recruit and select new team members; and empower the
virtual team to do its job. 52