13 January 2020
One of the genuine benefits of the current international uncertainty is that it opens up the need to rethink our approach to international employment.
Old global mobility models that are rigid and resistant to change - and increasingly fit neither the way businesses are internationalising nor the way cross-border work is evolving - leave people confused and running unnecessary risks.
Monolithic, linear business organisations have developed global mobility management models that are not always readily adaptable for newly internationalising businesses. These new businesses, increasingly driven by millennial leaders, will be looking for more nimble and progressive management solutions.
Global mobility is perceived as complicated, expensive, and hard to manage because of those old models that apply to a different reality. We now need solutions that offer organisations ease of understanding, ethical cost-saving opportunities, and practical manageability that requires a new mind-set.
Cross-border coordination and communication
Companies are composed of people who interact with one another and with a complex, dynamic environment. With businesses behaving as if they are complex adaptive systems and individuals embedded in higher-level systems (such as teams, business units, companies, industries, national economies, and societies), changes in any system can cause unintended and unpredictable effects in others.
Interactions between individuals or systems are becoming even more complex because employees, companies, and economies are more connected as a result of digitisation, and because production is starting to be organised in dynamic multi-company ecosystems rather than traditional static supply chains. Therefore, mechanical approaches to change management are increasingly inadequate. Instead, leaders need to be more realistic about what can be known and controlled directly.
How might we rethink global mobility against this backdrop?
A good place to start is the global mobility decision-making network and how it influences the management of cross-border employees.
- What are the basic entities in terms of people, groups, teams, third parties, things, facts products, etc.?
- What is the nature of their links?
- What kinds of connections are they – how does information flow, interactions, collaborations, etc.?
- For example, are decisions taken at HQ, regional, business unit or country/local level (or a combination that differs from time to time)?
This needs to be a conversation about:
- The effectiveness of an organisation’s international cross-functional coordination and communication, and
- Whether key decisions relating to elements of global mobility are based on a centralised or decentralised model.
In practice, corporate HQ and local entity leaders benefit from collaboration rather than being siloed.
Intercultural awareness
Each company exhibits a different corporate culture, signalled by and reinforced in their respective compensation systems. The same logic applies across industries – different cultures and different compensation systems.
- When considered from a strategic perspective, organisations could customise compensation systems to help create a culture and attract a workforce that possesses the values, knowledge, skills, and abilities that support the organisation’s strategic goals and objectives.
- Strategic flexibility in international reward systems starts with understanding the strategic intent, but this is not always fully appreciated - what is the organisational global mind-set?
- Businesses should increasingly consider a shift away from using a balance sheet to keep expatriates economically whole or relying on stereotypical notions of differences among nations. The focus, instead, might be on understanding and leveraging differences within and between nations. The focus on differences helps managers think in terms of shaping a common mind-set and creating and energising a workforce with the shared values and capabilities necessary to achieve success.
Strategic flexibility means that companies achieve a competitive advantage by customising multiple reward systems. So an adaptive, more flexible approach is required – one that creates a total value of employment consistent with local conditions, while at the same time forging the common mind-set required by business priorities.
Rethinking collective learning
Financial returns alone are ineffective in creating the common mind-set that creates people’s willingness to share the insights and tacit knowledge required to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage. Thus, an adaptive approach is required.
As companies expand their international operations, global mobility systems will need to align with constantly changing international strategies and objectives of the companies. The changes in international business practices warrant a change in traditional global mobility thinking (focused on corporate culture and business strategy rather than national culture and local conditions).
- Do the people with global mobility knowledge and expertise possess the decision rights that enable the business to make use of what they know?
- If not they may need to consider how to reallocate decision rights to those with the specific knowledge and relevant information,
- However, where to start?
If you are an employer either already operating cross-border or thinking about expanding overseas, and wish to know more about the options for global mobility systems, please fill out our contact form here.
