Overseas Assignments, Acquisitions and Integration

BANKS Industries is a manufacturing company located in Centervale. A U.S.-based organization, BANKS’s major product line is electronics components. BANKS has just over 200 employees at their main plant in Centervale, but has recently acquired a new subsidiary in China. This acquisition adds close to 100 employees and their expertise in a new line of personal computing devices. BANKS expects these devices to give them a competitive advantage in their market.

BANKS started out as a family-owned organization that has a relatively flat organizational structure. After 15 years of being in business, BANKS continues to be family-owned and has acquired several small companies in the U.S. The acquisition of the Chinese company, which has now been renamed BANKS Components, is the first acquisition outside U.S. borders.

At this point, the acquisition is official and the company is in the process of taking over the operations of the plant in China. All employees have been retained, although turnover and some expansion are anticipated in the near future. Employees in both locations are feeling uneasy regarding potential changes, and some reorganization is going to be necessary. During the acquisition, some key employees of the Chinese company left the organization out of fear that their positions would be eliminated. This has left some upper management and director-level positions vacant, adding to the challenges that BANKS is currently facing.

As the HR manager, you report directly to the owner-president of BANKS Industries. You have a relatively small staff working under you, leaving you to make the majority of the HR recommendations and decisions on your own. You have been charged with identifying some of the challenges and issues in this new endeavor, making recommendations for action, working with employees, and several other tasks related to the acquisition.

Overseas Assignments, Acquisition & Integration

Consider the challenges of posting U.S. employees to overseas locations. You will develop a 25 – 30 slide presentation to make recommendations on the HR-related challenges. The PowerPoint presentation should include a title slide as well as a slide with references in APA format. A minimum of five scholarly references should be used, which may include direct reference to relevant laws and research. Be brief and professional on your slides, but use the notes feature to go into more detail regarding the topics. Consider your audience, so be sure that your text and background has enough contrast, that you limit animations and other distractions, and use graphs and tables where appropriate. Address the following in your presentation:

• Identify and explain anticipated challenges and at least three common reasons why overseas assignments might fail.
• Propose solutions for each of the reasons you identified.
• Recommend special training for the employees going to China to increase their chance of success, including your justification for your recommendations citing scholarly references.
• Determine how to select and train the acquired employees. Will you need to terminate some employees and hire replacements?
• Identify challenges of integrating employees and issues which might create conflict.
• Prepare the selection, retention, and separation plans.
• Develop the new organization infrastructure; that is, the organizational chart
• Address the different employment laws in each country.