Global Assignment
This article covers meaning, importance, steps & example of Global Assignment from HRM perspective.
What is Global Assignment?
Global assignments are business projects which are allotted to some employees outside the home country. Global assignments are employers assigning their employees on projects which are globally implemented. Global assignments are mostly taken place in multinational companies and may involve employees to relocate from their current country to a different country where the assignment is assigned.
Since globalization has taken place rapidly and the world has become more connected, it has become a very common phenomenon. Many countries face skill shortage or require an expert for a particular assignment so they would hire the person with the requisite skills or knowledge from other countries and pay the person a hefty compensation as demanded by the person.
Steps in Managing Global Assignment
Some steps in managing global assignments & international projects are:
1. Evaluating objectives of the international project
2. Identifying team members & giving pre-requisite training
3. Pre-departure preparation of activities & work to be done
4. On job activities on global assignment at international location
5. Project completion
6. Evaluation & reassignment if required
Importance of Global Assignment
Global assignments as identified by experts in international human resource management are of three types
1. Technical assignments: Employees may be assigned global assignments if they have the technical skills that are required by the MNC for a particular assignment and the MNC is not able to find anyone as capable as that person internally and in that particular country, if a person is located within the MNC in another country then that person is sent on a technical assignment.
2. Developmental assignments: Developmental assignments are typically used to develop a project or concept that is new to a different location or develop skills in a different location which is not implemented in that location, it is also used by institutes to bring in faculties from different parts of the globe to give the students an exposure to different perspectives and cultures and their thoughts on the scenario of the subject.
3. Strategic Assignments are global assignments in which a key partner is sent to launch a product in a key location, develop the market or get necessary changes in the business strategy or even sign Memorandum of Understandings and Joint Venture deals.
Advantages of Global Assignments
Some advantages of global assignments are
1. Skills and knowledge which are not available in a country can be brought from other countries.
2. MNC’s are able to get their projects done more effectively and not having the problem of talent not being available.
3. Employees may be motivated to join an MNC which assigns global assignments to its employees regularly.
Example of Global Assignment
Here is an example of global assignment for a hypothetical organization Company A. Company A could not find a person who could communicate in French, German and Hindi in their main headquarters in USA as they felt that there would be a gap in understanding if the language is translated to English, and then to either of these languages. So, since they did not find the any person who had proficiency in these three languages in their headquarters and started finding for a person with the language skills throughout all their office. Company A found a person in their international office in India with the knowledge in these three languages. So, they assigned her the project under a global assignment and she was asked to relocate to the main headquarters located in the United States for the duration of the project.
Hence, this concludes the definition of Global Assignment along with its overview.
Browse the definition and meaning of more similar terms. The Management Dictionary covers over 1800 business concepts from 5 categories.
Continue Reading:
