What are the difference between traditional Asian and Western human resources management ?

1. What are the difference between traditional Asian and Western human resources management ?

There are many differences between these two different system: the traditional Asian system and the Westsern Human resources management system.

Regarding Human Rights which is something that Human Resources has to take into account those are not respected in Asia: there are not equalities regarding work. The idea in Asia is that people should work as much as they can so they will gain more money, the hierarchy is more than important and it’s why Human Rights are not respected. You’re not equal at all with your colleagues and also you don’t have anything to be secure at work. Regarding your health, there is a lack of importance gave to this important aspect of the work. Asian workers don’t have individual protection equipment, companies are not following a safety management policy and regarding oustide the company, asian workers don’t obviously have decent living conditions which can be an obstacle regarding work.

In Asia, the company and the different governments have decided to lower the cost as much as possible regarding human resources and also regarding their employees. Their wages are as low as possible so the company can make the biggest profit as possible. In the Western countries this is not what they’re focus on even though some wages can be quite low, they’re focusing more on the well being of their employee so they can be as hardworking as possible.

Regarding labour law, as we know in Western countries there is quite a lot of laws that have to be followed by the company or they will have some problem in justice. For example in France: the SMIC (the minimum wage) and the 35 hours work per week are regulations, if a worker do more than 35 hours it will be overtime than in Asia there is no low regarding those kind of issue. Workers there are working as long as they can to earn enough money to live, there is a legal minimum of course but after workers are paid due to their overtime so the idea is that asian workers are working the most as they can. There is also no social policy at all in the company we’re working on and that is quite an important problem for Western companies because social policy has to be part as the company through the Human Resources department and it is important that this point change so Western and Asian companies can work together. By not having social policy, there is no formal process, this means that if there is any problem of any kind this can be difficult to resolve it without a type of process and it can be hard for the company to resolve it. The Human Resources department is only used for administrative task than in Western countries this department is working on the social policy, the wages, the schedule… This is another important difference between these two part of the world, they’re not planning and organising their company the same way.  

In Asia there’s also no open ended contract, there is only temporary contract so temporary staff. In Asia, it is too costly to create open ended contract and by having temporary staff the idea is to decrease the turnover. In western countries you’ll find more open ended contract because it represents a certain amount of the contract in those countries. By using only open ended contract, there is an idea of lowering the costs, because it is less costly to hire only people with ended contract regarding the company. As people are not staying in the company for long, in Asia there is no team work, no team motivation because at the end the employees are not staying in the company forever whereas in Western countries it is more than important to create a good climate between the employees. This also mean than in Asian countries there is no really a possibility of evolution due to first the idea that people are not having open ended contract and also by the fact that the power is only in the hand of supervisors: they are the only one that can decide whether or not the employee should be promoted. Western countries are totally the opposite: evolution is one of the main goal of Western workers, a lot of company are starting to give the decisional power to every employees in the company and not only to the supervisors.

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