1) Jerry Irelan,(Aug 11,2010), Cost Containment and Human Resource Challenges

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5656362/cost_containment_and_human_resource.
html?cat=3

2) Julia Velixon, (Dec 4,2010), HR’s expanding frontier : From local to global strategic partner
http://www.mercer.com/HRexpandingfrontier

3) Lance Jensen Richards,(2011), How does HR Face the Challenge of Globalisation? Going Native in
a Rapidly Changing Environment
http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/?p=457

4) Dr Katherine Jones , (2011),Managing human capital: the executive’s dilemma

http://www.hrmreport.com/article/Managing-human-capital-the-executive8217s-dilemma/

5) Han van der Pool, (April 8 ,2010)How Top Companies Manage Talent Development
http://internationalhr.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/how-top-companies-manage-talent-
development/

Question 1(a)
Based on our review and analysis from five articles, we find that the three main HR challenges
currently faced by companies or HR practitioners in United States of America are competing,
recruiting and staffing globally, managing talent or human capital and containing cost.

In a competitive global marketplace especially in United States, it is very crucial for many
organizations to expand business in global markets. This influences the number and kind of jobs
that are available and requires that organizations to adapt to set of issues related to managing
people working under different business conditions in different geographies, cultures, and
environments.

For instance, when McDonalds opening their market in Asia, the company was forced to adjust
to the culture of the Asian people and how the Asian people were adapting to some American
culture by introducing a small portion of burger. They need to change their business models
from their country of origin in order to be successful in Asia market.

Naturally, the culture of ethnic will affects their behavior on the job and the environment
within the organization and it is influencing their reactions to work assignments. Therefore, the
HR practitioners need to anticipate with these changes.

The company’s management needs to understand the factors that can determine the
effectiveness of various HR practices and approaches. They also need to focus to adjust and
cope to the new situation and make the best policies and procedures to effectively adopt,
implement and maximize HR practices for the new organization changes. HR functions such as
staffing, training, compensation, and the like have to be adjusted to take into account these
differences.

Meanwhile for the managing talent or human capital, the organizations have to do a good job
of managing human capital such as the knowledge, skills and capabilities that have value to
organizations. Managers must develop strategies for identifying, recruiting and hiring the best
talent available. By developing these employees, it will help them to generate new ideas and
generalize them through the company. This situation will encourage information sharing and
may benefit the organizations.

Based on ‘How Top Companies Manage Talent Development’ articles written by Han van der
Pool, it stated that leadership is the most important condition for success in organizations. To
build human capital in organizations, managers must continue to develop superior knowledge,
skills and knowledge within their workforce.

They need to recruit the best and prime of the prime talent available and retaining top talent.
HR executives need to identify challenges such as creating an image of the corporation as a
good place to work while serving the current workforce, and retaining and rewarding star
performers.

Thus, to be a successful organization, the organization must continue to invest in leadership

development despite the economic situation and the strategic issues which companies face.
Besides that, the organizations administration has to find ways of using the knowledge that
currently exists within their firm. HR managers and line managers each play an important role
in creating an organization that understand the value of knowledge, documents the skills and
capabilities available to the organization, and identifies ways of utilizing that knowledge to
benefit the firm.

For example, the Shell Oil Company, the United States based subsidiary company, they supports
investment in developing skills capital because this organization believe that their human
capital is so important to have an ability to manage huge projects in extremely challenging
environments. Thus it shows that human capital is the company most valuable assets because it
has tremendous impact on an organization’s performance.
The last main HR challenge currently faced by US Companies is containing cost. Since late 2009
to 2010 United State is facing the major economic problems. Thus, this situation has affected
many companies. As a result, many firms are under extreme pressure to improve their
productivity in order to maximize the profits in low budget. Lots of companies also downsizing
their businesses by eliminate some job position to strengthen their companies’ future position.

In this situation, the HR managers need to select personnel that are the most competent to stay
in the organization. Every business needs top notch managers to manage workers effectively
and workers who are optimistic concerning change and are readily trainable. Johnson and
Johnson have been taking this approach by cutting down 900 positions on March 2011.

There is another approach of cost containment which is outsourcing meaning they hire
someone outside their company to perform business processes that could be done within a
firm. Drug companies such as GlaxoSmithKline are outsourcing their research and development
functions to smaller firms that can be cheaper. Outsourcing is changing the way HR
departments operate as well. Cost containment is very important as organizations need to take
approach to lowering labor related cost especially in economic problems situation.