Solution

Question 1

From the reviewed literature, there lacks a universal common definition of globalisation. Nevertheless, WTO (2023) identify globalisation as international-based integration in commodity, capital and labour markets. Further, as evidenced in Pieterse (2019), globalisation is categorised into economic, social and political categories. Since Mid-19^th century when the initial phase of globalisation emerged, it has over the years been in an increasing trends. All these trends have had their positive and negative implication with equal critique.

It is true that the peak towards a great globalisation has peaked over the years. However, in the next few years, it will record a significant decline. To support this assertion, IPSOS (2023) survey had hypothesised that globalisation has already achieved its peak and characterised by world of protectionist policies, shorter, secured supply chains and increased priority on nationality and local community. In Saudi Arabia context, the outcome of this is establishment of small, secured supply chains and an increased priority of nationality and local community creating small, less globalised landscape. Further, as a result of (re)globalisation after the pandemic, Olivié and Gracia (2020) report hypothesised that Post-COVID 19, there has been an increase in the globalisation aggregated with the top countries taking a greater share of the global economy.  For instance, in Saudi Arabia, the high-level increase in the aggregate of globalisation is an evidence of globalisation with the opposite being contraction of globalisation.

Also, comparing the past globalisation statistics such as in Elcano (2023), it is evident that stagnation of globalisation strategy from mid-2010s has been evident. In years 2014, it reached to approximately 15,500 points which account for a  15,300 and 16,300 points increase. This is with 2022 reporting an exceeding globalisation with an all-time high of 16,700 points. In Saudi Arabia case, the increase in globalisation has been noted to coincide with the exit from the COVID-19 pandemic health crisis. The trends of globalisation continue to be at their peak despite the Ukraine and Russia political conflicts and international trade and financial tensions.

Despite of the globalisation being at its peak, there has been evident plateauing of the trade openness internationally in the past years. To support this trend, IMF (2023) note that there has been an increase in the number of trade restrictions internationally in past few years. In particular, in year 2022, the report indicate that 2845 trade restrictions were imposed.  The increased trade restrictions have a negative implication on globalisation. According to Kataryniuk et al. (2021), this is even worsened by current and future trade tensions of world largest economies which is United States and China and complicated by Russian invasion of Ukraine. All these issues in globalisation have contributed to immense disruptions in financial, food and energy flows. This is a continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic which had similarly contributed to economic insecurity and leading to supply chains increased resilience owing to pandemic exposure of people to vulnerability in different nations.  For organisations, the best practice has been ensuring they are balancing lower production costs with unstable supply chains. The result of this is input made in stabilisation of supply through nearshoring which is in some instances demonstrated as an input of supporting localised communities.

Retreat from Globalisation Impact on Employment Markets

Retreat would impact employees pursuing specific roles as opposed to workers in specific firms, sectors and skill groups– through retreating of globalisation, Stofkova and Sukalova (2020) note that there is a possibility of existence of instability and volatility of jobs for employees. The rationale of this is that particular job roles could contribute to increasing the country with a different country seeing a reduction in the jobs in similar job activity. For example, in Saudi Arabia case, the data entry or the computer programming job roles for instance could significantly contribute to the issues with reduced globalisation. This would be the case in labour-intensive and the capital-intensive industries and sectors. This is the case as in KSA labour market, the world economy has significantly been opened. This is with the international trade to KSA GDP reaching to approximately 76.2%.

Retreat of globalisation would impact on the skilled workers particularly in the service sector– Before the beginning of retreating of globalisation, it had disproportionately immense implication on low-level skilled production or assembly workers. In Saudi Arabia for example, this include ensuring that the process impact how they are well positioned in executing their functions. To support this, Khan et al. (2021) argue that the majority of the employees in Saudi Arabia had eligibility on government support programs leading to an increased financial challenges. Nevertheless, some of the different low-skilled service sector jobs have a high-level unlikelihood of hindering the scope of globalisation trends today.

Relative wages would be dependent on different structural features of economies– The impact of retreating of the globalisation lead to a decline of the costs of manufacturing. According to Hickel et al. (2022) this implies that the organisations could provide goods in less costs to their consumers. In Saudi Arabia context, this has a major implication in increasing the overall standard of living in the country. This is identified as including factor endowments, configuration of sectoral factor intensity, factor demands and factor intensities of tasks to go through globalisation.

Increased uncertainties and jobs insecurity– As evidenced in Kumar et al. (2019), Saudi Nationals are primarily engaged in the private industries in the past dominated by expatriate employees. This is basically due to less information existing on the tasks organisation within firms leading to challenges in predicting the tasks which could be unbundled and scope of rapid but also the retreat of globalisation implication to the organisation active operations in their highly competitive business environment. In Saudi Arabia context, the outcome of this would be an increase in responsiveness of the employment and wages in economic shocks.

Globalisation retreat impact would impact macroeconomic policies– With Saudi Arabia economy majorly relying on oil and gas products offered to international customers, a retreat from globalisation would lead to reciprocity in terms of other countries they are partnering with. A successful management of their operations would mean that they are aggregating employment and unemployment informed by the macro  and micro policies sent and shocks.

Question 5

In CIPD HR Professional Map, technology development is identified as a core knowledge. In CIPD (2023) this is identified as a process pursued to understand the role of technology and impact it contribute to people function and broader workforce. Therefore, for people practice professionals, the best practice entail acquiring an appreciation of function of technology in improving agility and productivity of workforce and organisations and impact on collaborative working. For Saudi Aramco case organisation, emerging developments of technology has a direct implication in enhancing the efficient, appropriate decisions making of the organisation and maximising the potential and productivity of the employees. For the purpose of evaluating the way developments in technology affect management of people in Saudi Aramco and work as people professional, the examples include;

Artificial Intelligence

Through a successful investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI), organisations including Saudi Aramco leverage on the changing of how individuals work and the forms of employment existing. According to CIPD (2023) for Saudi Aramco, investing in AI elicit a direct implication on intensity or pace of employees working, arguments on people capabilities, enabling tasks implementation in a remote manner or transferring responsibilities for the jobs to be done to a different individual. The implications are supported by Varma et al. (2023) report which identify the AI and other different emerging technologies as assisting in redefining the role of people practice managers and employees. This is while at the same time offering an opportunity to Saudi Aramco in transitioning routine tasks and processes to AI enabled systems and facilitating supervisors and subordinates with an opportunity for spending increased time on cognitive tasks. For Varma et al. (2023), an estimation of 69% of people functions workload would be changing in a drastic manner. This is with an improved fairness in resourcing, due process for HR functions, worker dignity and privacy. For people professionals, the AI has a direct implication on harnessing the overall efficiencies including resourcing, talent management and employees engagement. The people professionals would hence need appropriate skills and knowledge for balancing AI capability with human factors including empathetic, creative, and critical thinking being critical. In overall, priority would need to be in the application of AI for complementing human roles as opposed to operating as their replacements.

Considering the advantages, Forbes (2023) note that the AI has a positive implication on reducing the incurred human error. This include the application of predictive analysis and saving time and resources for accurate and efficient results. Also, any people practice tasks and processes which are repetitive. For instance, in Saudi Aramco, AI is increasingly adopted in enhancing data collection, data entry, clients focused business and responses. For the disadvantages, it is important noting that it is significantly costly implementing AI particularly in Saudi Aramco. In Khanzode and Sarode (2020) report, it hypothesised that organisations in the process of implementing AI incur upto £20,000 millions in implementation. Further degrading of the AI is similarly a popular disadvantage impacting on Saudi Aramco in the process of utilisation of the AI which is promptly degraded. In an event Saudi Aramco management fails in offering capacity development to their employees, their AI systems becomes outdated. According to  Jarrahi (2018( there is similarly a significant challenge of lowering the jobs for humans. For Saudi Aramco for example, this is evidenced by the decreased number of jobs. This is since in both the organisation onshore and offshore, they are in a position of doing repetitive job roles. It is essential noting that AI would lead to creation multiple jobs which are obsolete.

Robotics

Adopting the definition in Groover (2019) robotics is a process of utilising state of automation technologies for taking on high-volume tasks from the hand of HR teams. The popularity of robotics in management of people practices entail their relevance in enhancing onboarding, payroll management, compliance reporting, offboarding and more. Hence, as evidenced in Hislop et al. (2017) the relevance of the robotics is provision of autonomous guidance/support for the humans to undertake the roles with zero requirements of human guidance. The importance of these robotics system as a future development is the facilitation of 3-D view, hand-tremor filtering, fine dexterity and motion scaling, which is appropriate for narrowing down, inaccessible operative areas. Considering Saudi Aramco case, operating in the onshore and offshore operations, robotics would be appropriate for automation of their entire process. This is with humans pursuing application of multiple electronic data inputs, processes and adding data. The outcome of this in workplace roles would entail venturing new information into another system including the enterprise or customer relationships management system.

For people professionals, the application of robotics has a positive implication on increasing the overall productivity. This would be the case in Saudi Arabia where Autonomous Mobile Robot, and other types of robotics leads to a shift in production for approximately 24 hours with zero interruptions. Further, as evidenced in Parry and Battista (2019) the robotics lead to reduction of the overall risks for employees in their job roles. For instance, for Saudi Aramco, often being impacted by deteriorated environments with a likelihood of collapsing, working with toxic substances or to handle heavy loads would be a significant advantage. The robots are appropriate for performance of the overall job roles, increased occupational safety for various operators in their onshore an offshore operations. Also, Proia et al. (2021) identify on the increase in flexibility which is clearly evident. This is identified as elicited by the multiple robots in the workplace. These lower the tasks which are significantly under increase. In a single industry such as where Saudi Aramco operates, robots are appropriate for different applications hence leading to an increase in how flexibility and cost-effectiveness is enhanced.  This is while new job opportunities being enhanced and promoted. This is with the employees significantly growing and developing the capabilities. For the drawbacks, the application of robotics by people professionals contribute to lack critical thinking. As evidenced in Díaz-Lauzurica and Moreno-Salinas (2019) the critical thinking is a critical issue in solving of skills aiding humans to encounter unexpected issues and ensuring decisions among multiple choices are in place. Further, for Saudi Aramco, this would demand for prompt installation and maintenance programs. This is while ensuring they apply manual labour which is linked to them. The capacity development of employees on application of these robots would lead to immense costs incurred hence lacking cost-benefits. The incurred benefits by Saudi Aramco could lack an appropriate comparison with the challenges or limitations of the process.

Question 10

Considering the CIPD (2022) report targeting 100 organisations and upward of 3,000 staff in UK obtained appropriate findings regarding the introduction of 4 days of working. The four-days every week is noted as a contemporary transition from short-term-based working week in regard to the overall number of hours involved in working. This is while losing nothing in terms of pay. For example, the process entail reduction of upto 35 hours weekly categorised into 5 days to 28 hours weekly categorised into 4 equal days. In line with Forbes (2021), most people being 65% are noted to work for 5 days weekly. Also, 1 in 10 individuals being 10.7% were noted to work for more than 5 days every week with only one in four 26% work for 4 days weekly or lower. Additionally, Indeed (2023) study hypothesised on the existence of large entities which focus on adoption of less hours of work including Microsoft Japan. By adopting this approach, the entity is evidenced to be defined by presence of a substantial increased performance being 50% and 25$ of less costs of practices. Besides, CIPD (2022) note that the challenges linked with unsustainable for everyone, lack capacity to achieve same output and majority of job functions demanding physical existence to implement them.

In supporting the case to introduce a 4-days working week, the various benefits of this entail the following;

Increase in performance– Considering the existing literature reviewed, a major achievement from implementing 4-days working entail significant increase in the level of performance of employees. A case example is Gibbs et al. (2021) as prioritising on upto 2,000 full-time UK office workers with an average time of employees working in traditional-8-hours working days to include 2 hours and 23 minutes. Also, in Mindshare (2019), it is clear that upto 1,500 employees having 60% of the entire respondents evidencing performance scope of work as influenced by quality levels of their mental health. For example, in regard to bolt organisation, they evidence on reduced employees stress, improving mental health and productivity.

Increase in staff satisfaction– Taking into account of Wideman and Hofmeyr (2020) study, it is clear that there prevail a direct correlation of employees satisfaction and flexible working plan and work-life balance opportunity. From the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the different organisations have been operating with a prioritisation of improving physical and mental wellbeing of their entire staff. In the study, it concluded that most employees preference would be for 4-days working which is an appreciation of flexible working, low tedious job functions and a lot of working in home time. In line with Aziz-Ur- Rehman and Sddiqui (2019), the result of this is to increase the entire wellbeing for harnessing staff satisfaction and as such a high retention level.

Reduced employees turnover-According to PWC (2023) study, approximately 55% of all employees are currently comprised of the Millennials and the Generation Z. This category of the employees are found majorly advocating for 4-days working arrangement. The trend Is part of their role of improving mental and physical wellbeing due to emergence of pandemic with employers having top prioritise on employees flexible scheduling with increase in work-life balance. As evidenced in Rodriguez-Sanchez et al. (2020) as offering flexible working scheduling for increasing the employees incentives to stay for long in their organisation.

Attraction of best and talented employees– For the various noted benefits which identify an increase in flexible working plan, capacity to attract immense talents is attained. This is noted in Goh and Okumus (2020) identifying significantly qualified professionals possess a possibility to apply new jobs in entities which fail to provide rigid work hours. By popularly advertising for 4-working schedule, they attract significantly talented professionals and growth in their overall talent pool. On the other hand, there exist sections of implementing 4-days’ work in inappropriate operations.

For the areas of consideration to support case against the implementation are;

Inappropriate method for all in an organisation setting– According to CIPD (2022) study, it note that the employers who have lowered work hours with 40% evidence a significant issue being unstable for entire individuals in organisations. For supporting the process, Bolisani et al. (2020) argue that 4 days working week is noted to be a stress-free practice. Besides, realistically, this lead to increase in workload and pressures and as such increasing levels of burnouts and stress levels. Focusing on South Korean case report, upto 2,000 employees work for long hours and end up suffering mental health and burnout challenges According to eLearning (2023), extending the hours of work and increasing the risks of being anxious and depressed negatively influence people and organisation practice.

Difficult to implement– To implement the 4-days working week is a significant challenge pursued and can call for a lot of changes to process and procedures to be pursued (Waizenegger et al., 2020). The result of the process can entail employers having the likelihood to struggle for  management of their entire workloads. In line with Collins et al. (2021), the most appropriate strategy is managing overall challenges faced in inclusion of employees in making decisions and flexible working plan implementation.

Also, the strategy could be challenging in regard to alignment with their organisation culture. It is a significant limitation to convince employees and employers equally to embrace short-term based work week. Additionally, for cultures where hierarchical structure and traditional work patterns are merged together, this could be a hindrance to introduce new strategies for working.

Task demand employees availability-For different job roles pursued in an organisation, it is not appropriate to implement the 4 days of working successfully. For instance, CIPD (2022) offered appropriate instances for security guards and retail who could face issues to working 4 days weekly and hence noted to be inappropriate. To solve the issue, entities can set their priority to be to provide the staff with relevant facilitation and support system for guaranteeing sufficient employees practices to be able to work for approximately 5 days.

To conclude, taking into account t of the 4 days week attempt evidence an opportunity to test and learn from new workplace strategies. In COVID-19 pandemic, it is noted to have influenced need to transition to remote working successfully. For positives noted, increase in flexibility can contribute to a lot of employees to be facilitated and included in working days in a time of 4 days. Some of the jobs are however not relevant for the 4 days working plan or misaligned in various cultures and issues encountered for success in the program implementation successfully.

The resistance to change by employees is identified by individuals being reluctant to adapt change. This is identified in CIPD (2022) as employees being overt or covert in terms of lacking willingness to adopt to organisation change. The resistance process is evidenced by resisting to change through micro-resistance, language change and general reasons. Through the change process facing an increased resistance, employees can also be blaming those who fail in participating in change therefore increasing the motivation levels. The causes of resistance of change by employees are;

Cause 1- Lacking enough information and awareness for change importance–

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