Question

When global companies recruit new employees for their overseas operations, what are the different options for staffing policies available to them? Which option do you think works best and why? NI

Answer 1

There are four staffing policy options available for global companies recruiting new overseas employees. These are ethnocentric, geocentric, polycentric, and regiocentric. International recruiters or human resource professionals use any of these options diligently to choose men and women of character, qualification, and experience who in the future can emerge as more productive employees with good quality. These hires would become invaluable assets for the organizations they are expected to work for and are capable of turning every loss into profit and be part of its wealth creation.

• In an ethnocentric staffing policy, all management vacancies will be filled with employees from the parent country. In this case, there are no cultural or language hurdles to be tackled with and communication is a much easier process.
• In a polycentric staffing policy, host country citizens are hired to manage subsidiaries while headquarters management is by parent-company citizens.
• In geocentric staffing policy, the best ones are hired for subsidiary vacancies regardless of where they are from.
• In a regiocentric staffing policy of overseas recruitment, recruits are selected from various countries lying within the geographic region of the organization.