Background

HLE originated in Dartford, England in 1987, as a small engineering company founded by two Imperial College London civil engineering graduates, Louis LeChat and Michael Horace. After successfully winning a small contract to work on the Channel Tunnel project in 1989, HLE grew from strength to strength, finally being acquired in 2005 by the Stairway Engineering Group, a collective of French, Belgian, Dutch and British engineering firms operating in the European railtrack sector.

Today, HLE is one of the leading European providers of automatic railway route setting systems.   Over the past five years, firms in the Stairway Engineering have been bidding for contracts in Eastern Europe and, in particular, in Russia, where there have been an increasing number of prospects for growth.   In 2009, HLE narrowly missed being one of the firms in the Stairway group to work on Imeretinsky Kurort, the train station built for 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.  Since then, HLE have been looking for opportunities for growth in the East.

In March 2016, Robert Plant was appointed Head of Personnel Development at HLE. Plant was primarily chosen for the role because of his fifteen years of HR experience in the engineering sector.  Prior to joining HLE, Robert Plant spent five years with Airbus Europe, gaining a deep understanding of international employment regulations and providing support for employees from North Wales to Cadiz, Spain, based in global locations including China, Saudi Arabia and the USA.

Yesterday Robert Plant received a call from the Stairway Engineering head office in Brussels.  Alain Durand, Director of Joint Ventures, Mergers and Acquisitions informed Robert that a decision had been taken at board level for an eight-year joint venture with a Russian government backed firm to work on a proposed new railway network in Kamchatka, Siberia.  HLE have been chosen to lead the operations and Robert Plant has been tasked with the recruitment of a Quality Compliance manager.  This position must be filled within the next four weeks.

Congratulations!  You have just been hired by HLE to join the international staffing support team.   There will be six tasks for you to complete over the next few weeks!
Task 1

HLE is keen to hire a Quality Compliance manager as soon as possible.  You receive a message asking you to write a job specification for the role of Quality Compliance Manager.

Following his telephone conversation with Alain Durand, Robert Plant scribbled down some notes about the Quality Compliance manager role.  You have been sent the notes he made to help you write the job description:

• Candidate must be familiar with joint venture’s objectives and targets
• Travel to France, Germany, Russia will be necessary, including 3-4 month stays in Siberia to oversee the project
• First joint venture in Russia – so important!!! But no HLE has prior experience of working in Russia!  Does the candidate need to speak Russian?  What about other experience of international assignments?
• Job description doesn’t need very precise technical competency – what about administration tasks?
• Performance target? Performance management?

You may use the template provided on Blackboard help you set out the job description.

Task 2

The position has been advertised internally across the Stairway Engineering Group and a shortlist of candidates has been made. This morning you received an email from Robert Plant’s office asking you to work through the shortlist and discuss each of the shortlisted candidate’s profile.  You MUST draw upon the appropriate expatriate selection criteria literature to justify your responses.

Task 3

When you come into work this morning, you are expecting to hear about the selection interviews for the Quality Compliance Manager role.  You check your emails and find this email from Robert Plant to all staff:

Dear all,

I’m delighted to let you know that George Connor has been appointed as Quality Compliance Manager and will be leading the new HLE project in conjunction with the Russian government at Kamchatka.  As many of you will know, George has been an engineer with HLE for over 20 years and worked on some of our biggest projects across Europe, including our award-winning railtrack project in sub-Saharan Africa. I know you will join me in congratulating George on his success.

You were not told about the selection process that HLE uses to recruit candidates for this level of final selection; nevertheless, you were very surprised that none of the short-listed candidates were chosen for the Quality Compliance manager role.

When you talk to your colleague about the choice to hire someone who was not on the shortlist, your colleague just smiles and replies: “Well, George Connor and Robert Plant go way back!”.

Using your understanding of expatriate selection from Harris and Brewster’s (1999) work, analyse the selection process that was used to recruit George Connor. To what extent does this selection process fit with “best practice” expatriate selection as well as the strategy needs of the firm?

Task 4

George Connor is to be briefed for his new role as Quality Compliance Manager later this week.  Today you are asked to conduct some brief research into Russia which will be used as part of Connor’s briefing.  You have been asked to submit a 600 words report which outlines the following:

• Brief overview of country e.g. population, languages, infrastructure
• Short introduction to the Kamchatka region
• Russian business culture/norms

Your report needs to be formally set out and properly referenced.

Task 5

Someone in your office tells you that Aline Jacques, who was originally shortlisted for the role of Quality Compliance Manager on the HLE assignment in Russia, might also be joining the project, but as a technical analyst. It seems that Robert Plant is worried about sending Aline Jacques to Russia.  Robert Plant is not sure that this assignment is quite right for a woman because of the risks involved.  To what extent do you believe that females should not be considered for some international assignments?  Please draw on academic sources to justify your response.  500 words.

Task 6

Robert Plant has been impressed with your work so far. Today you have received an email directly from him asking you to help with the preparations for the briefing sessions for George Connor and Aline Jacques.

Your task is to draft a full day programme, in order to prepare George and Aline for their assignment. The day is expected to last between 9am and 5pm, with breaks for refreshments and lunch.  The programme should include a range of different sessions that will give the two individuals a realistic impression of what they should expect when they begin working on the project in Siberia.  You should also think about specific information that each individual will be interested in and where they might find sources of support.

You have been given the following information about the international assignees:

George Connor (54) – George has been with HLE in the UK for 24 years in a number of different roles.  He has worked on around 20 international projects and gone on at least 7-8 international assignments, lasting between 6 months and 2 years to countries including Tanzania, Kenya, China, Poland and France.   George is married with 2 sons at university.  George’s wife, Claire, usually accompanies her husband on any trips longer than 1 month.  Claire is an illustrator for children’s books and works remotely. 

Aline Jacques (32) – Aline is Belgian.  She has been with Railtek, Belgium for 4 years.  Railtek, like HLE, is part of the Stairway Engineering Group.  This will not only be Aline’s first experience of working for another firm within Stairway, but also her first real international assignment.  She is currently on secondment to Railtek’s London office but has been commuting back and forth from Brussels, spending only 1-2 nights per week in London. Aline speaks English, French, Dutch, German and some Portuguese.   She has never visited Russia before.  Aline is married with 2 young children.

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