Migration and Human Resource Management

Figure 1- Migration (Brink, 2016)

Past decades have witnessed growing international migration due to emergence of integrated open economic system and push and pull factors from both home and host country. United Nations (2013), estimates there are currently 232 million migrant workers worldwide and it is to be increased higher in future. In organizational point of view, migration can be result with skilled and non-skilled employees, which have been a contemporary opportunity and challenge for HRM on managing talent pool by aligning with migration laws.  

Impact of Migration on HRM

Beechler and Woodward (2009) stated, skilled migrants play an important role in talent pool via contributing for company competitive advantage. But as migrant talent pool is included with both skilled and non-skilled employees, non-skilled employees are a contemporary issue for host countries’ HR by comparing to skilled-employee migrations, as companies will not be able to get expected output, healing for training costs and other expenditures which HR has been utilized. Apart from that HR will have to utilize finance for rapid training as employee performance evolution will resulted with gaps in every time on this category.   

According to Phillips (2013) in 2012 Microsoft's HR has spent $8 million on lobbing and filed a 33 reports mentioning migration. Which can be identified that, due to migration though being a profit center is the main goal of HR, as migration generates costs for HRM on procedures practicing for retaining skilled migrants for a long time period, it will pull HRM for being a cost center. According Bloom & Reenen (2010), survey done on Fortune 1000 companies, it has been figured, companies’ HRM allocate more financials on training (language, cultural, and operational) and migrants’ personal benefits (schooling, medical, accommodation facilities and etc.) in order to align them with new environment.

According Connell and Burgess (2009) research done among Canadian multinational companies, they used to pull skilled workers from developing countries for low wages. It can be analyzed that developed countries pull skilled employees from developing countries for cost advances, which entitle costs on developing countries’ HR on retain skilled employees within the country, on practicing employee retention programmes. By considering all above, it can be analyse that main challenge for HR in term of migration is to take advantage of skills and labour power of migrants by minimizing tension created by diverced workforce in aligning with migration laws. 

References

Beechler. S., and Woodward. I. (2009). The Global War for Talent. Journal of International Management , pp- 273-285.

Bloom. N., and Reenen, J. V. (2010). Human Resource Management and Productivity. Cambridge: Working Paper, (19), pp.160. 

Brink. (2016). Global Migration Continues Despite Anti-Immigration Trend. The Edge of Risk , pp- 2.

Connell. J., and Burgess. J. (2009). Migrant workers, migrant work, public policy and human resource management. International Journal of Manpower , pp- 412-421.

Phillips. P. O. (2013). Special Interests Battle Over Immigration Reform. OpenSecrets.org , pp-2-9.

United Nations. (2013). Department of Economic and Social affiars, Population Devision. New York: NY Author.