Human resources management and cultural factors

Therefore, while entering into the Indian market, Starbucks must also adapt to HRM concepts and practices that are parallel to the Indian culture by keeping in view the social and cultural factors. These factors are as following;
Language issues: Indian middle-class population (target market of Starbucks in India) is perhaps a very educated one. Language barriers can almost be neglected in most of the areas since English is generally spoken as well as Hindi1. However, there are some states in India where local languages are given more preference.
Gender Issues: India is generally considered as a male-dominated society where women are thought off as the sole care-takers inside homes. While attempting to build a homogenous workforce, Starbucks’ HRM may face serious gender issues since men generally do not feel comfortable while working under women’s dominance in India.
Religious practices: As discussed earlier, India is a mixture of various different societies comprising of thousands of ethnic, cultural, social, and religious groups. Perhaps, all people from various religious backgrounds may not get motivated to work with the use of a single strategy and there is a possibility of people from various religious backgrounds may not work together in teams and groups.
Vacation Issues: While hosting people from numerous religions, India enjoys several religious, cultural, and social occasions. Vacations and holidays for these events can hamper HRM practice with a great effect. For example; on Diwali2 day in India, millions of Hindus enjoy a vacation while members of minorities are asked to serve in their place which at times becomes impossible.
Pay Issues: Being members of a conservative society as a whole, the majority of Indians become loyal to the company in which they work and it is a general tendency that they build their careers while working for the same organization throughout their lives. They value more to ‘respect and status’ then to the money. In such a situation, Starbucks’ HRM has to have such tailor-made HRM policies so as to deal with people with such a mindset. Surely, buying key employees by offering greater salaries won’t work in India.
Methodological Issues: In the western world, organizations implement their work according to their license and their employees maintain the same. In India, a recognizable amount of deviation can be found since a greater magnitude given to private associations than to practical suitability and evenhandedness. This practice generally comes in direct conflict with the international HRM and can be termed as a vital cultural factor for practicing HRM in India.
Conclusion:
The degree and intricacy of the challenge of multiplicity in managing people in the Indian workplace, while bearing in mind the challenges for HRM, is certainly not an easy task due to the presence of above listed cultural factors. Since modern HRM techniques were primarily made-up in the west to handle human resource issues faced by western countries, applying them in any other region while having different cultural backgrounds may not answer the question properly. Definitely, human behavior is very much affected by culture. Before entering into other regional markets, global companies must configure their HRM policies and practices in order to avoid the local and cultural issues relating to it while not indulging in discrimination. Certainly, Starbucks is no exception to that (Limitations of Western HRM, by Arun Kottolli).