The organization’s strategy
Singhania and Partners’ business strategy falls under the international business strategy. Briscoe, Schuler, and Tarique (2012) explain that the international business strategy involves importing and exporting. A firm may open an overseas office that is used as a sales office. Singhania and Partners office in New York may be considered a sales office (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2011). The firm’s business strategy would have the characteristics of a multi-domestic business if it had operated in several countries and focusing on the high needs and demands of different countries independently (Briscoe, Schuler, and Tarique, 2012).
The firm’s business strategy involves focusing on its core business. Its core business is corporate law. As a result of focusing on corporate law, the firm has strengthened its position in handling cross-border business deals (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2011). Later, the firm included a litigation section because of its growth potential. The firm offers exceptionally high quality services as a way of marketing their products.
Five Ihrm Practices
Recruitment and selection
The firm recruits from the domestic market because Indian law prevents foreigners from practicing law in India (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2011). An international business strategy requires a diverse workforce, which has been limited by the Indian law. The managers consider the contribution that an employee makes to the firm.
Cross-cultural adaptation
Singhania gained experience in international legal firms’ organization that enables him to organize the firm to international standards (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2011). The firm shares knowledge with other firms in different Indian states. The firm has adopted the latest technology and infrastructure to manage its business. They enable it to provide high quality services.
Briscoe, Schuler, and Tarique (2012) identify human resource information systems as one of the tools for managing the workforce to international standards. The firm has taken measures to create a work-life balance environment. Projects are assigned to more lawyers. It allows them to find time for their social lives. Increased concern over employees’ social lives is one of the factors in IHRM (Briscoe, Schuler, and Tarique, 2012).
Management development
The firm creates leadership positions from its workforce. Mohotra and Singhania are managers, and founders (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2011). In the litigation section, Arvind has been made partner. He is one of the pioneers in the firm. The partners head different sections of the firm.
Evaluation
The firm carries out evaluation based on the work that an employee has completed. They are carried out when the need to do so arises. The firm also conducts annual performance appraisal. There is the case of a new employee whose salary was increased by fifty percent based on the work he had done, even before he received his first payment (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2011).
Compensation
The merit-based compensation plan utilized by the firm makes its employees feel satisfied with their job. The amount of work that the firm assigns to employees, relative to salaries, makes the firm to have among the highest compensation rates in the industry. In the case of Seth, who left for a company with a higher pay, he might have realized that some firms reduce the number of lawyers and increase their salaries (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2011). As a result, the few retained lawyers are overworked. It makes Singhania and Partners to have a better working environment than companies that may seem to have a higher pay.
Practice to be improved
The practice that can be improved is training for cross-cultural adaptation. The information available indicates that the firm relies on Singhania’s cross-cultural experience (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2011). The firm can select a few lawyers to study abroad. Another option that the firm may use is to hire a few lawyers that have studied abroad and train them locally. Hiring lawyers who have trained abroad on their own personal resources is less costly than sending lawyers abroad to train using the firm’s resources.
Recommendations
- The firm should identify abilities early through its recruitment programs. One of the options is to recruit from particular universities. It can also recruit more associates, and select a few that matches its competitive strategy.
- It can use the promotions rate and promotion wait time to improve career development opportunities in the firm.
- The firm can use compensation selectively to retain critical talent. The firm can reward critical talent with compensation rates that are higher than major competitors and pay common employees average wage rates.
Impact on organization
Early identification of abilities creates an advantage over the need to use higher compensation rates to attract highly skilled lawyers from other firms. Shanine, Buchko, and Wheeler (2011) explain that IHRM practices can be easily imitated. As a result, they cannot be considered a competitive advantage. However, creating a workforce that fits the firm’s expansion strategy can create a competitive advantage.
Singhania and Partners will use less effort to attract talented lawyers when they are identified early. A higher promotion rate will increase employee retention. It will be able to create a competitive advantage by accumulating top performers in an industry experiencing shortage of highly skilled lawyers. The firms that are able to retain the top performers are likely to be dominant.
References
Briscoe, D., Schuler, R., & Tarique, I. (2012). International human resource management: Policies and practices. New York, NY: Routledge.
Cullen, J., & Parboteeah, P. (2011). Multinational management: A strategic approach (5th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Shanine, K., Buchko, A., & Wheeler, A. (2011). International human resource management practices from a complex adaptive systems perspective: An exploratory investigation.International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(6), 1-6. Web.