Guest Blog - International Resourcing
International Resourcing
Guest blog from Gateley Plc.
Re-engineer International Resourcing
International employers need to prepare for the impact on international resourcing of the changing nature of work and employment relationships.
International resourcing is more than expatriate programme management; the rapidly changing human context of internationalisation also needs to factor in.
Investment in human capital
In addition to the technical knowledge and skills related to a job role, an individual will need to demonstrate an ability to operate in an increasingly complex and diverse international workplace and show a high level of cultural literacy, requiring a talent management approach that is able to evaluate an individual’s cultural background and their cultural intelligence.
Weaknesses in international resourcing
International resourcing is about handling the key challenges facing organisations in building a talent pool of internationally mobile individuals and building the infrastructure to support them. How do you attract, recruit, develop and retain talented people to meet immediate and future strategic international objectives and business needs?
Preparation and planning
International talent management should be a key part of preparing and planning for international assignments. Across industry sectors and sizes of organisation there are differing perspectives on what constitutes talent; some focus on gifted high-flyers and others take a broader perspective. It incorporates areas such as performance management, management development, succession planning, and organisational capability.
Key issues that limit the effectiveness of international resourcing
- Lack of strategic vision.
- Lack of a coherent operations strategy.
- Lack of performance metrics and monitoring mechanism.
- Lack of co-ordination with back-office operations strategy.
Key to the development of a solution is reconciling all the aspects of international resourcing, such as, strategy, policy, tax planning and operations (including employment law, immigration services, HR, and tax planning).
Reconciling the interdependencies between the various aspects can multiply the impact of the improvements in each, for example, cost savings and service improvements will be a multiple of what would have been achieved if each aspect was improved individually.
Building an international talent management system
A framework for building an international talent management system can based on the following approach:
Step1 - Define your strategic talent – identify strategic types of expatriate for your organisation.
Step 2 – Identify your key drivers for cross-border employment.
Step 3 – Determine your core objectives and ensure a balance of global and local needs.
Step 4 – Design practices and policies that fit your organisation – including workforce differentiation/segmentation, assessing the suitability of an employee for an assignment and also intercultural training / support, career development planning, global leadership development, international reward planning, performance management appraisal, repatriation and termination planning.
Summary
Outside the larger multinationals, international resourcing often focuses on expatriate management with no or very little time devoted to the talent management that drives successful assignments. An explanation is a lack of capacity or senior buy-in to the strategic role of global mobility. With the pace of international business transformation continuing to accelerate, a more strategic approach will benefit even the smallest organisation.
For further information on Global Mobility click on the link: Global Mobility - Gateley Plc
