Imagine you are part of a HRM team and need to make staffing decisions for a new production facility recently purchased in a developing nation. Currently, your company produces and packages a product in two locations in North America; the new production facility is in a strategically located country within a major geographic region and will distribute throughout the region from that facility. In order to get the production facility up and running, your team has to address the question of staffing, including the factory workers, managers, and the director for the facility. Discuss what information you need, what options you have and what recommendations you would make. Address the following questions from a global strategic perspective as compared to a domestic perspective:
How should a company evaluate and develop a newly-acquired local workforce?
Do you retain and retrain employees or find new employees?
When is it important to have local managers and a local facility director?
If you don't have in-house candidates for senior positions, what do you do, especially if managers do not want to relocate from their home country?
How is learning enhanced with multiple locations?
How do you use personnel from successfully productive facilities, on short term assignment, to help upgrade the skill levels in new facilities?