Any of these models makes it more likely that an HR professional is going to have to consider how he or she can best provide policies, practices and services to a diverse set of employees located in potentially very different locations and operating environments.
What works well in the home country may be a disaster in another for all kinds of reasons,
as will be outlined later on. Without a deep knowledge of what is appropriate in one environment versus another, it is easy to make some fundamental errors of judgement and poor decisions around people management.
The differences between IHRM and HRM involve:
• being unpredictable and influenced more by external factors
• requiring more functions
• having continuously changing perspectives
• requiring more intervention in employees’ personal lives
• being more risky.
What do we mean by ‘international’?
Throughout the Toolkit we have used the term ‘international HRM’ to refer to any HR professional who is working in an organisation which operates in more than one country.
However, when we refer to different types of organisations this definition does not work so well, and we debated which definitions to use to explain the different international structures within which an IHRM professional may be working.
We have included below our own definitions and these are used throughout the Toolkit.
We recognise that some organisations will be a hybrid of the types listed here.