How to Develop Effective International Assignment Policies
Posted on 18. January 2010 by International HR Forum
Author:
Alan Freeman – LOF International HR Solutions
During a recent conversation a colleague shared some frustration she was feeling. “I’ve read lots of articles and attended conferences where we’re told what we “should” be doing with our International Assignments (“IA”) policies on the basis of what everybody else is doing with theirs. What I’m not hearing is how to go about structuring our program in a way that really makes sense for our company. Where do we start? Who should be involved? What steps are necessary?”
“True”, I said. “We hear a lot about best practices such as keeping the spouse happy, increasing flexibility, controlling costs, keeping exceptions to a minimum and conducting benchmarking studies to find out what everyone else is doing. That’s all well and good but if your company sells luxury consumer goods in the best department stores in the largest cities of the world, do you think that practices that work well for mining companies in rural West Africa or at 14,000 feet in the Andes Mountains will be relevant and useful?”
“Exactly – they wouldn’t!” she said, “so what should we do?”
Five Secrets to Reduce Benefits Cost, Part 3
Posted on 14. January 2010 by International HR Forum
Author:
George Bashaw – Atlas Global Benefits
I didn’t know you have kids. Seriously, aren’t you single? I need to see some documentation.
Ok, that is a bit overboard. However, if you want to get serious about saving money on benefits, a dependent audit may be a bumpy but lucrative road. This blog is the third in a series of five techniques to lowering your benefits cost without changing your plan design or carrier. Prior posts in this series include Know Your Claims and Duplication of Coverage.
Secret Three: Dependent Eligibility Audit
The intention of a dependent eligibility audit is to ferret out those who are ineligible for benefits. Examples of ineligibles may include non-resident step children, college grads who may feel like dependents but technically are not, or the classic unemployed ex-husbands who will not get off the couch, but like an old hound, you feel sorry for them. Joking aside, these people add up quickly. Finding one ineligible participant in your plan can save up to $6,000 per year. Finding a slew of them will have a noticeable impact and go straight to the bottom line.
Communication is Key
Caution! People get a pit in their stomach when they hear the word audit. Second, they do not like sharing personal information. Therefore, the way you deliver the message about the audit is key. In other words, you do not want to blast out an email today saying “proof of your dependent status is due by the close of business Friday.”
Five Facts About International Schooling
Posted on 13. January 2010 by International HR Forum
Author:
Liz Perelstein – School Choice International
Most companies sending employees overseas offer some kind of cross-cultural training. But we rarely think of cross- cultural training for school children, even though education can be a make or break issue for many families considering an overseas assignment.
As you can see from the facts below, even expats who send their children to international schools encounter cultural differences that may be significant, and may clash with family customs. Schools – local and even international – are a microcosm of the culture they inhabit. Without understanding the host country’s educational system children can be disadvantaged in the admissions arena, in academic performance and in the ease of transition.
Consider these facts:
1) Did you know that 8th graders in Belgium, Korea and Japan do not use calculators in math classes?
Curriculum differences like these make it hard for children trained on calculators to adapt to local mathematics instruction in these countries.
International Employment Law “Quick Facts”: Brazil
Posted on 7. January 2010 by International HR Forum
Author:
Mariana Villa da Costa – Littler Mendelson
Happy New Year readers! We are excited to launch a new series of posts on the basics of global employment law called “International Employment Law Quick Facts.” The series will bring basic, but important information on what an employer needs to know when hiring someone in a different country, using an easy to follow Q&A format. We will capture information such as definition of employer and employee, requirements for written employment agreements, consequences of discrimination and harassment in the workplace, minimum wage requirements, etc.
We will kick off 2010 with the first country in the series – my native country of Brazil. I would be more than happy to get suggestions from you, readers, on which other countries you want to see next! Add a comment, or send me a note to let me know your suggestion. We will try to publish upcoming installments in this series based on what you request, so keep checking back!
Q. What are the definitions of employee, employer and independent contractor?
Base Salary – Not So Basic!
Posted on 6. January 2010 by International HR Forum
Author:
Chuck Csizmar – CMC Compensation Group
Ever find yourself confused when asked to provide an international employee’s annual rate of pay? Compared to the US, you will find scant uniformity between countries as to when and how monies are paid to employees, and this diversity can lead to confusion, misreporting of data and the potential for internal equity squabbles. It is especially a concern when a US Manager attempts to hire a foreign local national without being certain of country-specific pay practices.
To a US employer, the term “annual base wage” or “annual salary” is simply the cumulative amount of payroll dollars (regular paychecks) dispensed over a twelve month cycle. However, in many parts of the international community, it’s a bit more complicated.
Numerous countries consider statutorily required or common practice holiday (vacation) pay and Christmas (December) payments as part of what they term “basic salary” – which they report as a monthly calculation. So what is the annual salary?
Intercultural Training Best Practices
Posted on 5. January 2010 by International HR Forum
Author:
Michael Tucker, Ph.D – Tucker International
[Editor's Note: We are very pleased to introduce Dr. Michael Tucker as a guest author. Dr. Tucker is the Principal at Tucker International, a full-service international human resources development company. He is the author of the Overseas Assignment Inventory (OAI), and Tucker Assessment Profile (TAP), which are validated instruments used to assess, select, and develop personnel and their spouses for international assignment.]
Your company is embarking on a new venture in a new market. Management has asked you develop a program for assessment and intercultural training for the team that will be deployed there from all over the world. Where to start?
International HR Forum Year in Review 2009 – Best of Expatriates and International Assignments
Posted on 28. December 2009 by International HR Forum
This is the second of our three-part “Best of …” series, where we will feature links to our best posts on selected topics. This part is focused on Expatriates and International Assignments. We will publish one more “Best of …” posting, featuring content about Leadership Development and Cross-Cultural topics, before the new year. If you missed the first post about Compensation and Benefits, you can take a look at it here.
Overcoming Common Global Recognition Fears
Posted on 21. December 2009 by Derek Irvine, GloboforceOne of the most common concerns I hear when talking with large, global organizations about employee recognition is the cultural factor: “People are different ‘over there.’ I’m afraid of offending ‘them’ so we prefer to not implement formal recognition.”
People, that’s just laziness talking. And, as with all acts of laziness in the corporate world, it will cost you in terms of employee loyalty, customer service, productivity and you will ultimately see the negative impact on your bottom line. But I do understand the underlying fear as we’ve heard the horror stories of recognition gone wrong (public, individual recognition in an area where private, team recognition is more appropriate or sending a fleece sweatshirt with the company logo to an employee in Nairobi).
Five Secrets to Reduce Benefits Cost, Part 2
Posted on 21. December 2009 by International HR ForumAuthor:
George Bashaw – Atlas Global Benefits
I developed five secrets to lowering your benefits cost without changing your plan design or carrier. Out of the five, I am confident at least one will help you. I posted the first one last week. Here is number two:
Secret Two: Duplication of Coverage
Every year, I find a new plan that has duplication of coverage, where a company is paying for a benefit more than once. This is most common in very large companies, and ones that that have experienced multiple mergers.
Ten Tax Tips for Twelve-Thirtyone: Year-End HR and Payroll Actions for Global Mobility
Posted on 11. December 2009 by International HR Forum
Author:
Claudia Howe – Global Mobility Tax, LLP
Wow! Where did the year go? Now that it’s almost over, HR and payroll professionals are working hard to finish out the year. In the world of expatriate compensation and taxation, here is a reminder list of 10 things to do before December 31 (for our international readers, I realize this will be a bit US-centric, but hopefully useful nevertheless): Read the rest of this entry »
Preparing Your Company for a Global Pandemic
Posted on 9. December 2009 by International HR Forum
Author:
Mariana Villa da Costa – Littler Mendelson
Over the last decades, we have seen new infectious diseases appear, some of which could kill millions of people within days: mad cow disease, bird flu, SARS, Hantavirus, Ebola, dengue fever, and most recently, spread of the H1N1 “swine” flu. In 2009, the World Health Organization declared H1N1 a pandemic. As of November 15, WHO reports that H1N1 is present in over 206 countries and territories globally, and over 500,000 cases have been documented. The pandemic raises many HR issues, especially for global employers. Why? Read the rest of this entry »
Immigration and HRevolution
Posted on 6. November 2009 by Inflexion Point
News flash – sourcing talent can be tough. Sourcing talent across international borders can be even tougher. And as many of you are painfully aware, coping with immigration and visa processing for talent is just not something that gets HR professionals excited. It can be complicated, time consuming, and the application process can be very competitive.
And given today’s environment, it’s unclear whether demand is increasing or decreasing. Just last week the Wall Street Journal ran a story about the economic downturn causing a slump in H-1B applications, while this week BusinessWeek countered with a piece stating that the H-1B lull in visa applications is only temporary. Confused yet? I know I am.
Like many traditional HR processes, this one may be ready for something new. So over the past few months we have been exploring the immigration processing world in intimate detail.
I know you’re jealous. 
Perhaps not surprisingly, we’ve found that the majority of services in this area are provided by law firms. And although there are many such firms offering services, there seems to be little variation in what’s provided.
So this is where you come in. If you’re an HR professional who deals with visas and Green Cards for your organization, we’d love to get your thoughts and opinions on the process. As an added bonus, we’ll donate $5 to a selection of charities for each survey completed.
It should only take you ten minutes to complete (I promise!). This is your chance to be heard and mature the market while helping those in need. If this isn’t your cup of tea, please feel free to forward this link to your (lucky) colleagues - http://bit.ly/imsurvey.
Stay tuned as we’ll be posting an update on our initial findings in the next few weeks!
Thanks again for taking the time to participate in our survey. Let’s keep the conversation going.
The Development of Human Resources in India
Posted on 11. October 2009 by HumanRaceHorsesIndia is Amazing and Complicated 
I visited India in 2007 on a business trip. I went to 5 cities in 7 days. The sites were overwhelming and astonishing. The cities filled with riches and poverty. Very few places that I have traveled have impacted me so much immediately upon arrival, or left such a lasting impression. I hope to go back someday and spend more time there. Since that isn’t in this year’s travel budget, I try to stay connected to the country by utilizing social media to build connections over there. My wife still does business with a few people there, and I have many connections through LinkedIn and my blog.
It is through one of those connections that I bring you today’s post.
I am happy to post another post as part of the “Over There” series of guest bloggers I am trying to present. This week, we travel to India to hear from business consultant and blogger, Gautam Ghosh who brings us a some history on the development of the HR function in India.
Human Resources in India
HR in India is a comparatively new function – in fact, the free capitalist market in India is a comparatively new idea.
It may be tough to imagine, but capitalism was seen as a vehicle of oppression by Indian freedom fighters. That’s because colonialism arrived in India under the guise of a trading firm – The East India Company.
That is why India’s freedom leaders embraced socialism and government owned enterprises were the organizations that thrived between 1950 and 1990.
However there were some large private organizations which had existed from the 19th century which were Indian owned – traditional trading houses that had ventured into manufacturing and marketing goods. One of them particularly, the Tata group (http://www.tata.com ) was a pioneer in people management principles. The Tatas looked after their employees, often building civic amenities where their Steel and Motor plants existed.
Eventually with the dawn of competitiveness in the 1990s – such paternalistic measures had to be cut back, but yet the human hand of such firms is quite visible.
However, it was the Public Sector Units (PSUs) which in the 1970s explored cutting edge OD concepts starting with T-Groups and Organizational Change initiatives – driven by HR thinkers like Udai Pareek, TV Rao and others. In fact, Dr. Pareek was one of the first people to be certified as a facilitator by the NTL of the US. As he writes (http://www.isabs.org/mem4.shtml) some of the OD stalwarts from the US – like Doulas McGregor, Warren Bennis and others were involved in the development of HR and OD as a discipline in India.
Post 1991 when liberalization took place – liberalization being the word for opening up the protected economy and letting external businesses come in that businesses and along with it HR really took off.
New Indian organizations started in the 1970s and 1980s suddenly took flight, particularly in the area of IT and the new business of Business Process Outsourcing. Old MNCs like IBM and Coca Cola (which had been kicked out by an extremely socialist government in the late 1970s) came back to the country – and along with them came the blue chip Investment Banking and Management Consulting firms.
When the times boomed India faced a perpetual talent crunch, the same talent being vied for by different industries – young, English speaking – they wanted to mould that talent to meet their needs and money (as usually happens) became the differentiator for people to join – along with the promise of heady growth.
HR today in India stands at a cross roads – primarily driven by the HR talent shortage – which is caused by very few good institutes offering HR education (http://www.gautamblogs.com/2007/08/hr-talent-shortage.html)
Larger MNC and large Indian firms can afford and pay for highly talented HR professionals – and HR salaries are climbing to new high levels
However there is a huge market in the Small and Medium sized enterprises whose growth is being hampered because of critical HR competencies/ talent missing
Some organizations are looking at building their own HR talent pools – specially those with a huge internal recruiting workforce, since in India for an undergrad recruiting is easy to start a HR career – and in looking to get higher level managers from other functions (like the CFO http://www.gautamblogs.com/2006/04/mohandas-pai-takes-over-as-infosyss-hr_26.html !) to head HR
So if you’re an HR professional looking at your next career challenge- why don’t you head to India? We’re still growing at around 6% of GDP J and some industries are still clocking double digit growth!
About the Blogger – Gautam Ghosh
Gautam Ghosh is a HR consultant and social media geek. He blogs at http://www.gautamblogs.com and you can follow him on Twitter http://twitter.com/gautamghosh and Facebook http://www.facebook.com/HR.Blogger
Before turning a consultant he’s worked in various Learning & Development and OD roles in organizations like Hewlett Packard, Dell and Deloitte in India.
HR Professional beaten to death in India
Posted on 24. September 2009 by HR LoriYet another tragic case of HR being made the violent target of business decisions.
From CNN:
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) — Angry workers beat to death a human resources vice president after he laid off 42 employees at an auto-parts manufacturing company in southern India, police said Wednesday.
Roy George was vice-president for human resources at Pricol, the auto-parts company. Some four to five workers, belonging to a union not recognized by the company, barged into his office and beat him up with iron rods, said N. Kannan, a police superintendent of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu state. George, 47, died from his head injuries Tuesday, Kannan told CNN.
Police have arrested nine people and are expected to round up more.
My heart goes out to Mr. George’s family.
There but for the grace of Mr. George, go all of us.
Competencies of HR professionals in Singapore
Posted on 21. September 2009 by Gautam GhoshThe largest ongoing study of the competencies of HR professionals across the world conducted by RBL Group and The University of Michigan, came up with six key findings that constitute the competencies of HR professionals.
I got the following press release from the Singapore Human Capital Summit 2009, a premier conference on managing and developing human capital (or human resources), organized in Asia. Three studies focusing on HR in Asia will be released between now and the beginning of the conference on September 29th.
Over the last 20 years, The RBL Group and the University of Michigan have conducted the largest ongoing study of the competencies of HR professionals across the world with a database of more than 45,000 people from North and Latin America, Europe, Australia, China and India. In the most recent round of their global research, The RBL Group found that six categories or factors constitute the competencies of HR professionals:
- Credible Activist,
- Culture and Change Steward,
- Talent Manager / Organisational Designer,
- Strategy Architect,
- Operational Executor and
- Business Ally.
The preliminary findings of the Singapore study revealed that while local HR professionals do the best job at being a credible activist, they need to strengthen the rest of the competencies, especially the Business Ally competency, in order to add greater value to business results. These findings are similar to the global results.
Another finding showed that the impact local HR professionals can have on business results and their personal performance is noticeably greater than the impact of their global HR counterparts (by up to 12 per cent) when they can harness these competencies effectively. This is despite the finding that they are rated consistently lower in all categories of HR competencies compared to global findings. This may indicate that the expectations on local HR professionals by their business partners are greater than elsewhere in the world – their line management colleagues expect them to be better and to contribute even more than their global counterparts.
Commenting on the implications of the findings, Professor Dave Ulrich, Partner and Co-founder of The RBL Group, said: “With a higher expectation by their line management colleagues, HR professionals in Singapore need to more effectively translate their business knowledge to strategy formulation and implementation for business success.”
Professor Wayne Brockbank, Partner of The RBL Group and principal investigator for this study, added: “Singapore HR practitioners also need to have greater knowledge and skills at aligning their HR activities to create effective business cultures and to be a more effective change management agent. Essentially, they need to understand their roles and agendas through which they create more customer-focused organisations. The internal clients of Singapore HR professionals expect them to add greater value. The HR community in Singapore has a mandate to develop greater knowledge and skills that enable them to add greater value to the business.”
