Human Resource Aspects In Kenya And Their Implications For Expatriates And Businesses

Performance Management in Kenya

Human resource aspects in a country help in determining the level of foreign investment in a country. For instance, a state which pays its expatriates well will always receive a high number of expatriates. In this article, I choose to use Kenya which is one of the East African countries. The country has numerous tourist attraction sites such as the extinct volcanoes and the wildlife which are major tourist attraction sites. Kenya also has a wide variety of developed structures including lodges, hotels and many people visit the country annually. Kenya is one of the developing countries,and it has worked tirelessly to enhance sustainability and increase its global competitiveness (Wambua 2013, p. 15). In this article, I will look at the different human resource aspects in Kenya and determine their implications for future expatriates and businesses.  

Performance management is the process whereby the supervision of a company works in a close relationship with its employees to achieve it set objective and goals. The administration, with the collaboration of its employees, produces performance expectation and standards through performance planning. In Kenya, most organizations have attempted to change their businesses by shifting from HRM practices to adapt to the changing market trends. Performance management is an aspect that aims at controlling the quality of work done by assessing the performance of employees (Jackson, Amaeshi, and Yavuz 2008, p. 400). Organizations in Kenya have tried to manage expatriates to improve the level of foreign investments in the country. With such commitments, the state can attract more expatriates because there will be a natural understanding between the locals and expatriates.

Expatriates have difficulty when it comes to dealing with abroad assignments given by their bosses. The issue concerning their spouses and children arise whenever an overseas assignment is presented to an employee.  Different companies have different ways of handling this aspect of human resource management. The increase in globalization needs managers to measure the performance to test if the business will survive in the foreign market. Some HR managers may find it difficult to adapt to the Kenyan culture due to the cultural gaps. Muriukistates that (2012, p. 4) most of the expatriates who work in Kenya work as either volunteers, NGO employees or multinational company managers. Kenya allows expatriates to stay with their family members and this will enable them to adapt quickly to the local cultures. The move helps in retaining expatriates hence promoting the links between the country and the expatriates.  

Repatriation refers to the course of returning a person, an asset, and an item which has a symbolic value forcibly or voluntarily to its citizenship, original location or its owner. Human resource specialists have the responsibility to ensure that other repatriation cohorts deliver quality support. Countries with inadequate backing have unclear data which leads to insufficient support from the human resource managers and home. Kenya repatriates expatriates who work in the country illegally to create a healthy working environment (Waris and Latif 2014, p. 2). For other expatriates, the state pays them adequately and educates them so that they can adapt to the local cultures and this improves their retention.  

Dealing with Overseas Assignments in Kenya

COLA implication is an aspect which helps managers to identify how they can manage a healthy working environment between local employees and expatriates by providing an analysis of cross-cultural HRM. Researchers have discovered that expatriates mostly conflict with domestic workers and there is a need to come up with a way of solving such issues. Kenya encourages the existence of expatriates to increase its globalization and skills. The country encourages people to work in other countries so that they can improve their cultural knowledge (Sayo2015, p.13). In other regions such as AUS, the government focuses a lot on training expatriates how to adapt to different cultures to reduce the levels of failure. It is therefore evident that countries are focusing on training expatriates so that they can take foreign assignments easily.

A sudden illness can affect expatriates and primarily due to the different health systems provided in each country and the changes in the environment. Kenya is a region which has numerous diseases which can affect employees. Some parts such as Kilifi have poor sanitation and inadequate health services (Taegtmeyer et al. 2008, p. 305). Some employees also get injuries during their jobs and even infections in the health facilities. The country works hard to make laws on how to deal with sudden illness while working and this can encourage expatriates to come into the country in the future.

There is an increase in the number of multinational companies, but there are also some challenges that accompany this globalization. For instance, employees have to create new communication skills and adapt to the new environments. In Kenya, language readiness is an essential determinant for the success of expatriates(Mendenhall et al. 2017, p. 50). Being ready to adapt to the Kenyanlanguage which is Swahili and English can assist an expatriate to work well with the locals because of easier communication. Any expatriate should, therefore, make an effort to learn Kenyan language before he or she thinks of working in Kenya.

Industrial relations refer to how the managercommunicates with his or her employees. Most of the industries are growing, and HR managers are given new responsibilities as international managers. In Kenya, a lot of research has been conducted to determine what affects the performance of expatriates (Fowler 2013, p. 23). It is because some expatriates return to their homes without even meeting their goals leading to both financial and emotional losses. The country would like to come with ways of retaining employees and other expatriates to increase international relations and increase investment in the country. In such a way, expatriates will be motivated to work in Kenya due to improved morale and job satisfaction.

Risks in the working environment such as sudden illness can lead to employee turnover, and this has a negative impact on HR managers. However, there are numerous personal risks which may emerge for the expatriates leading to increased failures (Saratuki et al. 2016, p. 22). Kenya trains its expatriates and also pay them good salaries, but sometimes the expatriate may underperform despite all the training offered. Expatriates may fail due to various reasons such as lack of expertise, poor adaptability, illness or even family problems. In some major cities in Kenya, the crime rates are high due to the wealth gaps which can lead to repatriation.

Repatriation of Expatriates in Kenya

Induction is the process employed introduced to the new working environment and enhance the productivity of the respective organization (Holtbrügge and Ambrosius2015, p. 278). The greatest challenge for many businesses is to induce and train employees so that they can take international business responsibilities. Companies in Kenya carries out tests to see if the expatriates can be able to do the given jobs. The company believes that training expatriates will increase the level of experience and expertise in the country.

Mentorship is a process where seniors develop positive relationships with the juniors while development involves a continuous improvement in the performance of an employee. Expatriates have contributed to the constantevolution of Kenya, and the countries believe in motivating and developing its expatriates (Holtbrüggeand Ambrosius 2015, p. 282). Kenya identifies people who have the necessary skills to perform different jobs and then monitor and train them so that they can take new responsibilities without difficulties. It is an essential move because it will help in increasing the growth of the country and other countries will accept expatriates from Kenya without problems.

Conclusion

The paper provides a summary of some of the Human resource aspects and their implications for future expatriates in Kenya. It is evident that expatriates are very important to a country because they help in increasing experience and expertise. But there are some challenges which face expatriates such as sudden illnesses, language barriers,and differences in cultural beliefs. But there are some factors which can help in improving the knowledge and performance of expatriates such as development and mentoring of expatriates. To conclude, Kenyacan focus on how to improve its relation with expatriates so that it can increase its productivity and its international relations.

References

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