Wal-Mart: Human Resource Practices Essay

S., and its culture, therefore, borrows heavily from the American culture, which is well-known for uncertainty avoidance (Reiche & Harzing, 2009).

Expatriate's Language and Culture Preparedness: the success of any international assignment depends upon the employees' ability to interact and work together efficiently towards a common goal. The Chinese, for instance, interact and would be more willing to work with one of their own because of the cultural belief that they share a common vision (Reiche & Harzing, 2009). For a subsidiary in China, therefore, a Wal-Mart assignment would be more successful if an executive management expatriate is well-prepared to learn the new culture, and is working with more host country than home country employees.

Assignment Length: home country employees ought to be the majority if an assignment is due to have a long presence in a host country because of the continued development of trust relationships (Reiche & Harzing, 2009).

Selection Practices: the parent country effect could be outdone by the host country's laws and regulations, especially if the host country requires that MNCs operating within their jurisdictions include a certain threshold of host country employees in their operations (Reiche & Harzing, 2009).

Staff Availability and Skill Set: if a host country lacks qualified personnel to take up work positions in MNCs, the company could bring in more workers from the parent, or third party countries. This is, however, still subject to the host country's legislation, which could, in such situations, force the company to train home country workers (Reiche & Harzing, 2009).

Benefits Offered

Being the largest retailer in the world, Wal-Mart is expected to offer a highly attractive benefits package to its employees.

Well-Being Benefits: the well-being benefits that the company offers include illness protection, accident insurance, fully-covered insurance, disability insurance, vision and dental plan, and consumer-directed health plans such as HRA and HSA (Wal-Mart, 2014).

Financial Benefits: these include 401(k) contributions up to 6% of an employee's salary, and exclusive employee discounts on all traded products at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club (Wal-Mart, 2014).

Whereas the benefits of domestic employees are quite plausible, the author finds issue with the benefits extended to expatriates. The company extends overseas premiums in the form of the cost-of-living, housing allowance, and tax-equalization - but notably, does not include performance-based bonuses. Overseas premiums are extended to ensure that an expatriate leads a lifestyle similar to one they would have led if they were working in the same position in their home country. Performance-based bonuses, the author believes, go beyond just making an expatriate equal to his/her counterparts in the home country; they are more about motivating an expatriate, and having them develop themselves career-wise through better performance.

Conclusion

Wal-Mart is a Fortune 500 Company and the world's largest retailer. In the realm of recruitment, the company advertises its open positions on its corporate website, but also engages in college recruiting and job fairs. Wal-Mart offers attractive competitive benefits to its domestic employees, as well as expatriates. However, the company does not extend performance-based bonuses to expatriates; yet these could significantly improve the success of international assignments by increasing their economic attractiveness and consequently fostering global mobility.

References

Carlson, S. (2004). Wal-Mart Case Study. Rare Thoughts. Retrieved 5 May 2014 from http://www.rarethoughts.com/walmart.html

Haile, S. (2002). Challenges in International Benefits and Compensation Systems of Multinational Corporations. The African economic and Business Review, 3(1), 1-22.

Reiche, S. & Harzing, A. (2009). International Assignments. International…