Going Global Practical Applications and Recommendations for HR and OD Professionals in the Global Workplace J-B SIOP Professional Practice Series by Kyle Lundby, Jeffrey Jolton and Allen I. Kraut_6 doc

Shifting Role of Human Resources The human resources business partner model, as described earlier,has to adapt to meet the changing business challenges which willcontinue to evolve, for

HR in the Global Workplace 103The challenge is that often you are not just dealing with the locallanguage but the local dialect For a lower-skilled, less-educatedemployee population, ensuring that the level and meaning arecaptured is a challenge.

One way to address this issue is to have in-country employees asreviewers to translate and retranslate, or validate, the message con-tent The original translation can be completed by a translationservice (these services tend to employ local country nationals).The translation should be followed with a back-translation by

an in-country employee to ensure that it matches to the inal meaning The original translation can also be completed

orig-by an in-country employee, however the back translation is keyand should be performed by a different in-country employee.Nuances in languages are usually seen here It is possible to saysomething multiple ways—all of which may be correct The deci-sion then is which translation to accept Sometimes it is best toaccept the employee translation over the translation service as itassumes employee buy-in to the process and the creation of aninvested employee stakeholder Translation and retranslation take

a great deal of time Expect some back and forth as translations arevalidated This does take time and should be explicitly plannedfor in any project plan

It is critical that messages are not ‘‘lost in translation’’ andthat the intended message or purpose of the initiative is what

is communicated in the end One of the authors was involved

in a situation where a translated performance evaluation formimplied that the goals and objectives were optional and notnecessarily formal or enforceable (oh, the subtleties of language)

In this European country it was actually easier to operate thisway because if goals were optional you did not need to get buy-

in or approval from the unions or work councils However, itwas critical to the performance and success of the organizationthat employees understood their job and its required goals andassociated objectives

Legal Issues

As programs are designed, it is always easy to assume that they willwork everywhere Even with thoughtful due diligence and globalrepresentation, sometimes country-specific regulations or legal

104 Going Global

issues may stand in the way Assumptions tend to get challenged

in a global environment A case in point—one of the authors wasresponsible for creating a global employee relief fund The fundwould be used for employees in economic need after a disaster(natural or otherwise) resulting in a loss or hardship In a globalorganization, a tsunami in Asia not only affects local employeesbut it also provokes compassion from fellow employees all aroundthe world The goal of the program was to raise funds throughdonations from employees, with a match from the organization

It would seem easy enough in concept, however, not so easy inimplementation It was discovered during the implementationphase that some countries do not allow money to actually leavetheir country, thereby making donations impossible to collect.China could solicit donations and raise money from employees,but the money could not leave the country and be part of the

‘‘global’’ account The money had to stay in China and could beused only for Chinese employees in need Technically this was

in conflict with the mission of the program where the goal was

a global fund to which all employees could contribute and alsoapply for a relief fund grant In addition, though donations tocharities are considered tax deductible in most countries, this isnot universally the case Local tax laws had to be identified andcommunicated with the rollout of the program which created anadded level of complexity

Ethics and Compliance Issues

The economic turbulence of 2008 and 2009 has shed new light

on ethics and compliance issues Whereas almost all tional organizations have ethics and compliance programs (asmandated by their local country’s laws), cultural issues affect howthey actually operate In order to develop and implement globalethics programs and hotlines, organizations need to address somechallenges, including how to communicate a consistent businessethics policy in many languages If organizations are implementing

multina-a globmultina-al hotline, the hotline services must be locmultina-alized to conform

to local language and cultural norms Another development inrecent years is that organizations now have to address interna-tional data privacy laws, including whistleblower guidelines and

HR in the Global Workplace 105data transfers (EthicsPoint, 2009) Data privacy laws have madegeneral business as well as HR-specific operations more challeng-ing Outside the United States, multinational organizations musttend to the often conflicting requirements of local governments.France, Belgium, Spain, Canada, Germany, Ireland, and Japanare just some of the countries with differing data privacy laws thatmust be addressed Global organizations must be aware that manycultures are extremely wary and some are averse to the practice

of whistleblowing In addition, what is considered unethical orillegal behavior can vary widely, further complicating attempts toadopt a uniform ethics program The data protection require-ment and language barrier in many multinationals can make

it very difficult to capture information about, and investigate,possible misconduct

Future of Global HR Management

With the economic events of 2008 and 2009 behind us, we wonderabout the future and the implications for global HR management

Shifting Role of Human Resources

The human resources business partner model, as described earlier,has to adapt to meet the changing business challenges which willcontinue to evolve, for the immediate time being, with uncertainty.However, all this uncertainty can be to an HR professional’sadvantage HR can define the future based on predictable trends(such as demographics or business growth) but it can also step

up to the challenge of defining its own future HR has evolvedover the last several decades as businesses have evolved Theadministrative and transactional roles of the past have given way

to a strategic business partner model Some are advocating thatthe next evolution of the role will take us to an internal consultantmodel (Vosburgh, 2007) where HR is not pushing an HR agendabut instead helping clients in their respective businesses to solvedifficult business problems

Globally, the HR function is in different places in its tion In many of the Asian countries we still see remnants of atransaction-based HR function as they are still technically in the

evolu-106 Going Global

first generation of a free enterprise system Multinational nizations need to ensure that their global HR professionals havethe skill sets to support their organizational clients for the future.Creating world-class HR talent globally should be a top priority ofevery chief human resources officer

orga-Emerging Economies

As global markets expand, what are the implications forhuman resources? Will there be special focus on the BRICeconomies— Brazil, Russia, India, and China? For the last severalyears these countries have been identified as emerging economicpowerhouses and, for many multinational organizations, thesecountries have been a focus for economic growth It is predictedthat by 2035, the combined gross domestic product (GDP) ofthese four countries will become bigger than the G7 (Kowitt,2009) This has huge human resource implications as HRprofessionals will have to select, develop, and retain employees

in these emerging economies for years to come They will have

to balance expatriate staffing, which will be necessary for theexploding growth, with cultivating and nurturing local talentdevelopment

Our growing global service economy continues to put thespotlight on talent Talent acquisition, retention, and develop-ment are even more critical in a service economy than in atraditional manufacturing economy

Identified Needs

A survey of over 4,700 executives by the Boston Consulting Group(2008) found that managing talent and improving leadershipdevelopment were consistently top concerns globally In NorthAmerica, survey participants perceived the critical challenges to bemanaging talent and demographics, improving leadership devel-opment, managing work-life balance, and transforming HR into

a strategic business partner In Latin America, the top two future

HR challenges identified were managing work-life balance andmanaging talent In Europe, managing talent and demograph-ics emerged as key challenges In Africa, executives identified

HR in the Global Workplace 107managing talent, work-life balance, globalization, and diversity

as major future challenges The key HR challenges in ing Asia (China and India) were identified as managing talent,improving leadership development, becoming a learning organi-zation, and managing work-life balance Executives in EstablishedAsia (Singapore, Japan, South Korea) were primarily concernedwith managing globalization, talent, and improving leadershipdevelopment In the Pacific Region, executives named managingtalent, improving leadership development, managing demograph-ics, managing change, and cultural transformation as critical HRchallenges We are beginning to see some shift in priorities asnow managing the work-life balance of employees seems to begaining importance, especially in countries where work councils,

Emerg-or unions, play a huge role in the labEmerg-or market

a global supply chain, as evidenced by trends such as the slowfood movement This has implications for talent resources as well.Though it is still too early to conclude whether the pendulum hasswung in the other direction, if we do begin to see an increasedemphasis on localization, then we will probably also begin to see adecrease in talent mobility with increased emphasis on identifyingand growing local talent

Human Resources as a Decision Science

For human resources to continue to evolve, we need to maintainfocus on human capital as the differentiator of organizationalsuccess A key correlate is the ability to measure success Thesuccessful HR function of the future will have the ability tomeasure key metrics and become more of a ‘‘decision science’’(Boudreau & Ramstad, 2007) thereby measuring its impact onbusiness outcomes rather than HR activities The focus needs to

108 Going Global

shift from the services that HR provides to the business decisionsthat HR informs and supports

Human Resources professionals will also become more aware

of capital markets and the role that intangible assets such ashuman capital play in sustaining those markets The investorcommunity is now interested in such HR practices as successionplanning, leadership development, corporate culture, and execu-tive compensation as data points in buy-or-sell decisions (Ulrich

& Brockbank, 2009)

In conclusion, if HR is successful in harnessing the strengthsand talents of its employees, it stands to reason that the enterprisewill be successful Understanding our global complexity, the value

of human capital, and the value that the human resources functioncan provide to meet the business challenges can create an excitingfuture Organizations are not productive or profitable if they donot have the right talent in the right roles aligned with the businessstrategy Human resources professionals are the best positioned

to create this alignment and help an organization succeed bybringing its business strategy to life globally

References

Boston Consulting Group (2008) Creating people advantage: How to address

HR challenges worldwide through 2015.

Boudreau, J., & Ramstad, P (2007) Beyond HR: The new science of human

capital Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Christensen, R (2006) Roadmap to strategic HR New York: American

Hewitt Associates (2009b) Foot on the gas: Managing human resources

in the Middle East.

Hofmeister, J (2005) Global and local balance in human resources

leadership In Losey, M., Meisinger, S., & Ulrich D (eds.), The

future of human resource management Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Kowitt, B (2009) For Mr BRIC, nations meeting a milestone Money.com, June 17, 2009.

CNN-HR in the Global Workplace 109Rucci, A J., Kirn, S P., & Quinn, R T (1998) The Employee-customer-

profit chain at Sears Harvard Business Review, 76, 1, 95–112 Ulrich, D (1997) Human resources champions Boston: Harvard Business

School Press.

Ulrich, D., & Brockbank, W (2009) The HR business partner model:

Past learnings and future challenges People and Strategy, 32, 2, 5–7.

Vosburgh, R M (2007) The evolution of HR: Developing HR as an

internal consulting organization Human Resource Planning , 30, 3,

11–23.

World Federation of Personnel Management Associations (2005) Survey

of global HR challenges: Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Yeung, A (2005) Becoming business partners in Chinese firms: lenges and opportunities In M Losey, S Meisinger & D Ulrich

Chal-(Eds.), The future of human resource management Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

PART 2

Attracting

and Selecting

Employees in the Global Workplace

CHAPTER 5

Recruitment in a

Global Workplace

Mukta Kulkarni and Mathian Osicki

The only thing worth more than a bright new idea is a

bright new hire.

—Nakache, 1997

Attracting human resources to an organization not only mines the future composition of the organization’s workforce,but also the long-term ability of the organization to meet itsstrategic goals A good recruitment procedure can function as asieve, to filter people from the available talent pool Attractingthe right candidate is important not only in booming marketswhere organizations compete intensely for scarce talent, but also

deter-in recessionary markets where organizations have to sift through alarge number of applicants who are vying for relatively fewer jobs

An Employment Management Association report indicatesthat, on average, organizations spend $1,000 recruiting a nonex-empt employee, about $7,000 for an exempt employee, and over

$23,000 for executive-level employees in the external labor market.Recruiting efforts therefore have to be targeted toward attractingthe right candidate, not only given financial implications, but alsobecause they feed into consequent selection processes If recruit-ing strategies don’t help identify a sizable and suitable pool oftalent, even the most accurate selection process will be of little or

no use (Fisher, Schoenfeldt, & Shaw, 2006)

113

114 Going Global

Despite the importance of the recruiting function, a recentsurvey of 50 CEOs of global organizations paints a grim pic-ture This survey indicates that even for top management-levelrecruitment, strategies are ad hoc, vague, and heavily reliant onsubjective evaluations The consequence is that about a third ofnew hires leave after three years of being with the organization.What is more surprising is the fact that most CEOs do not see thesituation as it is (Fern´andez-Araoz, Groysberg, & Nohria, 2009).Suboptimal recruitment, and the consequent unavoidable subop-timal hiring, especially at strategic levels and for key positions,can cause serious financial setbacks for an organization or, worse,ruin it Sometimes organizations search too narrowly and try tofind candidates from within their own network, only to realizetoo late that their decision was flawed (Fern´andez-Araoz, 2007).Indeed, a study by the Center for Creative Leadership shows thatone out of four executives selected is the only one considered(Fern´andez-Araoz, Groysberg, & Nohria, 2009) This may wellhave been the case with appointing Jill Barad at the helm ofMattel, or Douglas Ivestor at the helm of Coca-Cola Both wereasked to leave after about two and a half years (Charan & Colvin,2000; Morris, et al., 2004) Could the organizational stories havebeen different had they cast a wider net and attracted and siftedthrough other candidates?

Importance of Casting a Wide Recruiting Net

Traditionally, organizations could scan their local environmentsfor a relevant supply of talent and be reasonably satisfied withthe results Today though, given uneven employment growth(International Labour Organization, 2009), globalization, andcompetition, organizations have to broaden their scan to includeinternational environments (Schuler & Tarique, 2007) Forexample, given increased technological sophistication andopening up of markets, companies like Dell, Sony, Apple,Zara, Nike, to name a few, have had to develop a global talentpool and conduct recruiting globally to service expandingmarkets (Dessler, 2008) To make matters more complicated fororganizations, much of the global talent pool now lies outside

of the United States and Europe Thirty-three million young

Recruitment in a Global Workplace 115professionals now live in 28 low-wage countries (Despeignes,2005), and this talent is not uniform in availability India andChina, for example, were predicted to face serious skilledlabor shortages by the end of 2009 (Farrell & Grant, 2005;NASSCOM, 2006) Further, available skill sets and numbers donot match organizational requirements in certain parts of thedeveloping or growth economies (Guthridge, Komm, & Lawson,2008; International Labour Organization, 2009), especially formanagerial positions (Ready, Hill, & Conger, 2008).

Given the global nature of business today, organizations have

to create very specific and effective recruitment efforts to build

a deep reservoir of global as well as local talent to staff all theirorganizational levels (Guthridge, Komm, & Lawson, 2008) Toaddress these challenges, global organizations such as Procter &Gamble have mapped a global supply-chain process to obtain tal-ent At the country leader level at Procter & Gamble, for example,there are about 300 executives who come from 36 countries, and50% are from outside the United States The top 40 executives ofProcter & Gamble come from 12 different nations, and 45% arefrom outside the United States (Ready & Conger, 2007)

Consider also the example of Renault-Nissan In 1999, thetop brass of Nissan, then in financial trouble, decided to partnerwith Renault and chose a non-Japanese COO from Renault totransform the organization The COO was Carlos Ghosn, a Brazil-born French-Lebanese businessman It was a bold decision forthe Japanese company, which usually recruited only Japaneseexecutives, and one that transformed the ailing company into asuccessful one (Millikin & Fu, 2005)

It is not only large or multinational for-profit organizationsthat have to cast a large recruiting net to leverage the globallydispersed talent and overcome regional skill scarcity Considerthe involved and successful recruiting strategy followed by Sinaihospital in Baltimore, Maryland This not-for-profit health careorganization reaches out to nurses in the Philippines, spendstime explaining their mission and work, and, after determining

a fit, invites them to join their campus This strategy has helpedthem tremendously in meeting talent demands These examplesdemonstrate how casting a wide recruiting net can effectively fill

a void that a narrower one may not address

116 Going Global

Scope and Outline of the Chapter

In this chapter, we draw upon recruitment research and zational examples to outline various contingencies that managersshould consider when undertaking recruitment initiatives, andoffer specific recommendations for recruiting effectively in theglobal workplace We define recruiting as a process of finding andattracting the right candidates and encouraging them to applyfor certain positions (Bohlander & Snell, 2004; Dessler, 2008).Given our scope, we do not detail internal versus external sources

organi-of recruitment, content and delivery organi-of recruitment messages,effects of recruiter characteristics, or timing of recruitment initia-tives Comprehensive summaries and reviews on these topics can

be found elsewhere (for example, see Barber, 1998; Bohlander &Snell, 2004; Breaugh, 2008; Dessler, 2008)

The chapter is structured as follows First we discuss the notionthat various contingencies have the potential to influence recruit-ing strategies, and how organizations have to be aware of thesecontingencies In the next section we specifically elaborate onexternal as well as internal contingencies that have an impact onrecruiting In each section we draw upon research and organiza-tional examples to identify key lessons and recommendations formanagers The chapter is broadly summarized in Table 5.1

Contingencies to Consider When Recruiting

Organizations function within an external societal and globalcontext as well as an internal organizational context Both theseexogenous and endogenous contexts serve as contingencies thatinfluence human resources practices in general and recruitment

in particular Key exogenous or external contingency factorsinclude the legal, societal or cultural, political, and labor marketcontexts Key endogenous or internal contingency factors includethe size, age, technology, and structure of an organization (Jack-son & Schuler, 1995) To deal with both kinds of contingencies,global organizations typically follow one of three approaches interms of their human resource practices: They adjust practices toreflect local institutional conditions; they follow common prac-tices regardless of which country they are operating in; or theycreate some form of a blend to reflect a combinational of local