The use of United States-based human resource initiatives by multinational organisations can create unnecessary intercultural problems. The solution lies in building cross-cultural relationships with overseas colleagues in HR.

Rules often need to be adapted to local cultures

"If one cannot succeed in building relationships with one's own colleagues in HR positions abroad, then shame on that HR person for not doing so," said one international HR manager. "Unfortunately, although the challenges for building relationships can be similar domestically, because of the influences that different perspectives and intercultural communication have on moving things forward effectively, they are magnified overseas."

How effective are diversity programmes?

Still, the trend to develop diversity programmes is increasing because of a need to make the most of diverse ideas from people who have different cultural histories. In fact, many agree that it is politically incorrect to question whether a diverse employee mix automatically translates into company success. Surprisingly, a comprehensive diversity study found otherwise.

The 2002 study was coordinated by Thomas Kochan, professor of management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and sponsored by Diversity Research Network, which is comprised of Business Opportunities for Leadership Diversity, a group of CEOs and HR professionals; the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation; and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The study found that, “there is no reason to believe diversity will naturally translate into better or worse results.” Yet, although it highlighted the fact that companies do not automatically gain an advantage simply by having diverse teams, the study found that those same teams—if managed with what Kochan called an “integration-and-learning perspective”—add value, increase synergy, and can contribute directly to business and strategic growth.

However, Kochan cautioned that companies have to value and integrate the “insights, skills, and experiences” that employees acquire over time as part of their cultural uniqueness. Clearly, the study’s recommended approach fosters relationship-building, which leads to cooperation—an initiative that, by working together, international HR counterparts can help facilitate.

Moreover, according to a manager responsible for global programmes for a large electronics manufacturing company, “product line managers have been moving toward recognising the need to adapt to the multicultural environment by adopting multiple countermeasures, from language and cultural training to the actual hiring of engineers and other personnel who speak the languages required in the target markets.

This trend has grown to the point that knowledge of such language is a prerequisite skill for some hiring, even though not strictly required by the actual tasks performed in the position, but becomes invaluable when the need arises to exercise specific interfaces, either for periodic training on new products or for customer support. Moreover, forced by the need to constantly interact and achieve results and business continuity within organisations that are dispersed throughout the world, successful technical and business communities have learned to adapt to different levels of directness while interacting with different cultures.

This has happened not necessarily by choice or training, but simply because building relationships with counterparts was crucial to achieving specific goals. Out of those relationships emerges a common understanding that takes into consideration the different perspectives that must be reconciled to achieve synergy.

Thus, they have learned these nuances ‘on their own skin,’ and have figured out how to get the job done in a new environment where the familiar management rules could not be applied and new leadership skills had to be honed in order to get people to achieve common goals.” International managers have learned such skills “in the trenches.”

As today’s efforts are tied more closely to strategic goals that involve global synergy development, and HR activities are becoming an integral part not just of local organisations but of these new “dispersed” realities, a similar type of collaboration among HR organisations is becoming vital, and the same type of learning relationship needs to be developed across them.

Relationship building

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD),Wimbledon, London, England, recently reported that developing relationships with international HR professionals in all countries in which the organisation operates is one of the “key competencies that [is] required from the HR function in a global organisation.” Building those relationships can support the development of other key competencies identified by CIPD.

For example, the implementation of formal systems that improve worldwide communication, the recognition that ideas about teamwork vary from one culture to another, and a commitment to foster a global mindset in all employees through training and development that incorporates local and international HR insights, all ensure an appropriate balance between worldwide, regional, and country-based HR functions and activities.

Moving forward, the worldwide Internet population will be greater than one billion, technology will continue to facilitate globalisation, and the collaborative roles of all HR teams also will gain importance; although intercultural challenges sometimes make it difficult to recognise, there are innumerable opportunities for HR professionals ahead. This brings us back to why it is important to consider how to overcome challenges that differences in perspective create among inter-country HR managers.

Overcoming challenges

First, the process of developing better intercultural communication between HR groups in different countries can help them think about their organisations as a single global, rather than multiple local, system; this lays the foundation for positive change.

Second, HR groups need to understand that changes in the workforce can go beyond one’s local area. Multiple perspectives must be considered in order to find meaningful solutions, and common threads can be used to promote synergy in both locations and keep one informed of issues that may not be readily visible.

Third, it must be understood that, because people embody very different life and professional experiences, their perspectives are unique, and, if valued, can be important resources for learning and business growth.

As companies respond to the shift in demand for more effective collaboration across cultures, it should not be surprising that they are beginning to place a new focus on building relationships between parallel organisations, which has become as important as the contribution of knowledge and expertise associated with each position.

Today’s workplaces include multiple cultures, languages, and attitudes, all of which interweave with myriad employee activities influenced by perspectives that are naturally more extensive and difficult to recognise. Finding common threads develops interpersonal relationships and cooperation and stimulates global workplace effectiveness.

Observations and conclusions are bound by individual viewpoints, based on one’s history, memory, and culture. When people who have different backgrounds interact with one another in work situations, their behaviour influences their level of understanding, as well as their underlying perceptions about what is motivating all entities involved—with negative or positive results. Global mobility professionals recognise this as a cross-cultural relationship issue and fundamental driver of failed or successful employee interaction.

Yet, as globalisation and technology continue to shrink the distance between all the players, and we find ourselves close to people and organisations that were previously considered remote, the ability to establish a collaborative relationship among the different internal HR groups is a key strategic objective. This requires the development of skills similar to those used by foreign ambassadors: curiosity, attentiveness, and the motivation to understand the cultural underpinning of others, while reducing our own semantic regionalism.

The success of our industry, of ourselves as professionals, and of the employees who we serve, depends on our ability to recognise the new tools and expertise required to address the needs of people as they march toward a more interdependent world where most rifts have been closed. HR managers who work for the same organisations in different countries have unique opportunities to become ambassadors for change and global understanding.

Internet resources

• Arabian Society for Human Resource Management [based in Saudi Arabia]
• Asociacion Mexicana en Direccion de Recursos Humanos (AMEDIRH)
• Australian Human Resources Institute
• Canadian Council of Human Resources Associations (CCHRA)
• Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)
• China HRM
• European Association for Personnel Management (EAPM)
• European Training and Development Federation (ETDF)
• Federation of European Employers (FedEE)
  http://www.fedee.com/about.html and
  http://www.fedee.com/accession2.shtml
• Foundation for Human Resources Development—Malta
• Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management
• Human Resources Management in Belgium
• http://www.hr2hr.com/main.php?lng=en&page_id=011 and http://www.hr2hr.com/main.php?lng=en&page_id=300
• Human Resources Institute New Zealand
• International Federation of Training and Development Organisations (IFTDO)

Lorelei Carobolante, SCRP, GMS, is a global management consultant, and a member of the Mobility Global Editorial Advisory Committee. She can be reached at e-mail lorelei@carobolante.com.

Reprinted with permission of Worldwide ERC® from the April 2005 issue of MOBILITY

This is part II of a two part series on the role of perspective in global HR, click here for Part I.

Reprinted with permission of Worldwide ERC® from the April 2005 issue of MOBILITY

Subject: Global HR management