When it comes to globalization, we’re safe to say that it changed some aspects of our lives, and the employee recruiting field is no exception. The concept works in order to unify the world’s economics, but it comes with many cultural and socio-economic challenges, especially for the human resources management departments of any multinational corporation. Here are some of the positive and some of the negative effects that globalization has on employee recruiting in the 21st-century:

HR professionals redefined

Despite the fact that HR and recruitment professionals make up just 1% of the UK workforce, they’re a vital part of any organisation. It is true that globalization has entirely changed the way an organization works, but none of a company’s departments were affected as much as human resources was, given the fact that they have to manage the workforce. But luckily, new technology available today, is really helping HR professionals to manage the processes involved in globalization.

And once with the use of new technology comes bigger responsibilities for the HR professionals, who have come to play a larger role in a company. In the past, one such job implied the administration of employee benefits and payroll, but today, a human resources professional should be able to develop programs in order to train the workforce by using strategic planning.

This is an example of a positive effect that globalization had on employee recruiting, considering the fact that many people had and still have the opportunity of growing professionally.

New technology

Global workforce in a company is not something easy to handle. Fortunately, there is available software on the market meant to help human resources employees to complete their tasks. More so, there are numerous companies out there that can provide such software.

The tricky part is that even though the new technology is meant to make everything easier, someone still has to learn how to operate the systems. And given the fact that these systems are designed for helping HR professionals, they are the ones that have to put time and effort into learning how to use new platforms. A global company relies on such software in order to manage a worldwide workforce, so HR employees have to take the responsibility of learning how to manage this software and fit it into their already busy schedule. All of this means that today’s HR professionals need to be more skilled than ever, and ready to adapt to the fast pace of the changing world. With new challenges come higher standards, and professionals from 30 years ago could very well be considered underskilled by today’s standards. For this reason, it is often necessary to continually educate and train not only your employees, but HR managers as well. Advanced degree in HR management is something that’s expected as a minimum, the same way that workers with a college education are a new norm, compared to few decades ago when higher education was considered a luxury.

New tech is always welcome, but it comes with bigger responsibilities. This being considered, in the case of globalization, software adaptation is not an entirely positive effect, nor an entirely negative effect.

Cultural differences

The idea of running a business on global workforce automatically implies learning how to deal with cultural differences. Of course, everyone in one such company should be able to accept any co-worker that has a different culture and should learn how to communicate with them. But the real challenge comes for the HR professionals, who have to make sure new employees fully understand the parameters of their employment. A human resources employee has to understand how the recruitment process works in different countries and to adapt it best for the global workforce that is meant to enter the company.

Most of the times, cultural differences could represent a tough situation, if not handled the right way. On the bright side, there should be no problem if a well-prepared HR professional takes action. More so, these tough situations could be the perfect opportunity for HR employees to learn about a variety of business approaches and choose from the best ideas and methods in the world.

The practice of outsourcing

One effect of globalization are changes in the business world, like the immex program that enables foreign companies to operate in Mexico. So why is that helpful? Well, manufacturing and running a business in countries like Mexico, that allow social injustice, is way cheaper than running businesses in the United States or other, more industrialized countries.

Does it benefit the UK economy?

Yes and no. On one side, it does benefit the UK economy, if we talk about: increased trade, greater choice of imports, lower costs for firms or increased capital and labour mobility. On the other side, globalization had some negative effects on the UK economy, such as: monopoly power of multinationals, structural unemployment or tax avoidance.

In recent decades, it was more than obvious that globalization is not necessarily an improvement. Some people substantially benefit from this process, but an increasing number of people are constantly left behind.

Considering everything, globalization has its positive and negative aspects, but one thing’s for sure: it is inevitable. Globalization affects business, environment and society. It represents the opportunity to grow professionally for a lot of people who are given the chance to work, but it can also be a burden sometimes, especially for HR recruitment. The only thing that we can do when it comes to globalization is to use the resources of the world in the best manner possible for both business and society.