Global HR

Strategic HR Review

ISSN: 1475-4398

Article publication date: 21 June 2011

893

Citation

Nolan, S. (2011), "Global HR", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 10 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2011.37210daa.001

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Global HR

Article Type: Editorial From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 10, Issue 4

The theme of this issue of Strategic HR Review is global HR. Managing people across different cultures, jurisdictions and geographies is highly challenging from an operational, tactical and strategic perspective. This issue contains case studies and research papers that discuss ways of tackling the challenges of managing a diverse and dispersed workforce, as well as lessons that can be learnt from observing HR practices in resilient markets, such as in the Asia-Pacific region.

Tracy Phillips discusses how Microsoft Advertising addressed a global development need in her case study feature, “Creating a coaching culture across a global sales force”. Having identified sales managers as key to its growth plans, the company discovered that there was a need to help them learn to lead their sales teams, rather than manage, and to empower rather than instruct, and this meant learning new coaching skills. As a result, a global development program called “More Than Coaching” emerged, with the aim of developing sales managers’ coaching capability in such a way as to lift global sales performance. An intense program combining workshops with one-to-once coaching and peer action learning groups, and involving observation and assessment, was delivered across five continents, in ten countries and encompassing 22 nationalities. The author shares how the learning and development team worked with an external provider to create and implement a program flexible enough to be effective across such a diverse base of participants while meeting the core corporate requirement of assisting sales teams to improve performance in a highly complex and competitive marketplace.

In “Lessons from the East: next generation HR in Asia”, Claire McCartney discusses the findings of research to identify the leading edge HR practices that will shape HR’s future. The second part of this two-part research project focuses on HR professionals in the Asia Pacific region. In light of the sustained performance of companies in that region during the economic crisis, compared with European and North American counterparts, the author looks at the lessons to be learned and shared with the West. The Asia-Pacific region faces specific challenges – the demands of high growth, a highly diverse market and extreme competition for talent. Innovative ways of dealing with these challenges in the short and long term, in addition to HR strategies that embrace flexibility, have been developed, with insight-driven HR a key component of success. Four next practices for HR emerged from the research. They are innovative solutions based on deep insight, developing loyalty and retention, leveraging the challenges of culture clashes, and being well positioned when the growth curve flattens. While context is key in the identification of these approaches, and must be kept in mind, there are lessons to be learned in the West from the entrepreneurial practice of Asian HR leaders.

In “Leading beyond borders: insights and case studies from IBM’s Global Chief Human Resource Officer study”, Andi Britt and Dr Nina Kreyer share the results of this global study. They highlight three key leadership challenges – the development of agile leaders, being able to anticipate and nurture the necessary workforce skills and capabilities, and enabling global collaboration and knowledge sharing. While seen as critical to the future, organizations are struggling to address these areas effectively within their current global leadership strategies and structures. The authors put forward selected case studies to demonstrate how some organizations are successful in tackling these challenges in a marketplace that is now growth-driven, rather than cost-driven, and is dependent on tapping in to new sources of talent and expertise across different geographies and cultures. They also share the five actions that their research and experience have highlighted as being common to successful leaders who are able to challenge the way they do things in order to make the most of an increasingly dispersed and diverse workforce.

“The ethics challenge: establishing an ethics ambassador network to help embed an ethical culture”, by Judith Irwin and Katherine Bradshaw, addresses the challenges of maintaining a consistent and effective approach to ethics across a multinational organization. The authors share experience and research to discuss how HR can play a key role in overcoming the challenges of implementing and maintaining a global ethics program, such as the varying perceptions of what ethical means and the impact of culture, language, legislation and local and historical context. They suggest that the creation of a network of ethics ambassadors provides a solution to these challenges by taking into account local sensitivities and promoting the global ethics culture in a way that is best received, and is most practical, on a local level. A case study shows how Airbus, a multinational aircraft manufacturer, has set up an international network to embed its ethical values, including “integrity is everyone’s responsibility,” across the organization.

“HR’s global impact: building strategic differentiating capabilities”, by Professor William Scott-Jackson, Scott Druck, Tony Mortimer and Jonathan Viney, looks at the role that HR plays in developing and successfully implementing strategy within a global environment. The authors aim to go beyond operational issues of global HR management by proposing a model that HR can use to contribute to global strategy. The model is based on the resource-based view of the firm and providing HR professionals with a framework for helping organizations implement global strategies that are valuable, rare, inimitable and under their own control through talent management processes that help leaders achieve a balance between local and global priorities. This is achieved through the identification of the capabilities and associated behaviors that will enable the organization to achieve competitiveness on a global scale, and the use of those differentiating strategic capabilities (DiSCs) to recruit global leaders with the experience and ability to help local operating companies support global initiatives. The authors conclude with a case study that demonstrates how a global service company successfully encompassed its global DiSC model within a local operating company.

Sara Nolansaranolanshr@emeraldinsight.com

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