EUROPEAN HRM

Emerging Similarities of HRM in Europe

Emerging Similarities of HRM in Europe

Introduction

The trend of unionization among the European countries is not something new in the history of the world. History has witnessed their formation of alliance since the early era of 1950's. Not before, the establishment of European Union (EU) in 1993, the foundation of European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was formed, way back in 1951. Seven years later, in 1958, another committee was formed, named as European Economic Committee (EEC). There were just six countries involved in the initial stage, and later on seven more countries joined the committees. With the evolution of these committees and the increased number of members, it eventually shaped as a single independent committee, known as European Union. At the moment, there are 27 members of EU.

The prime reason of the formation of these communities was to standardize the system among the countries that are members of EU. The global association among the European countries in terms of their economic and governmental policies has resulted in the free movement of goods, capital, and human resources (Vuontisjärvi, 2006).

Not going into detail of all the areas, our focus is to study the emerging similarities among the European countries with the context of Human Resource Management (HRM). There are various multinational companies operating in the EU member countries, having been working under a different set of HRM practices as of the systems and procedures followed in their respective regional countries. These multinational companies believe that their subsidiaries located at the Europe can be dealt with the standardized approach of HRM practices of EU with serious consequences (Brewster, 1994). However, various studies have found that there is no such European HRM model to follow. Instead, the functions that are followed are characteristically the same among those European countries, and at the same time differ from the practices those companies of other continents follows.

Emerging Similarities

While the fact has been accepted by many multinational companies that there is no HRM model in the European countries, but the functions that these European countries follows are, to a considerable extent, similar to each other. A greater deal of synergy can be seen if we compare the HRM practices among the various European countries. These similarities related to HRM practices among European countries may include the significance of consultation, the role of employer and work in the life of employees, the emergence of flexible work model, and the use of the Euro as a common means of capital exchange (Boxall, 1995).

The significance of Consultation

European countries have a growing trend of consultative approach of HRM. This requires the association from various stakeholders that are involved in the function. The consultation approach also unveils the concept of outsourcing in the field of HRM, which is commonly practiced in the European countries. Europe is, by far, the largest market in terms of HRM consultation approach (Barisic, and Poór, n.d). However, the countries from other continents are also following the pattern of HRM consultation ...