| The Importance of Global Workforce Management |
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The hype machine has moved along. The front-page articles in newspapers and the
cover stories of business magazines have shifted to other hot topics.
Globalization has fizzled. The grand dreams of a single market - one GLOBAL
market - segmented and served by any and all companies (regardless of location,
culture, or politics) was nothing more than a consultant’s sales pitch, an
academic exercise, a trendy topic on which to write the next, big, best-selling
book.
Or was it? As multinational companies emerge from the latest downswing in the
business cycle, there is one metric that has become the chief focus of
analysts, journalists and corporate leadership alike: profitable growth
[1] . That
growth is going to be hard to come by, though, as domestic markets are
saturated or stagnant and expenses have already been cut to the bone. It
appears that global markets are going to be crucial after all, as they are more
predictable than innovation as a source of growth. The goal of “profitable”
growth, however, means an opportunity must not simply deliver only increased
market share or increased total revenue, but the optimal combination of
top-line revenue growth at reasonable investment and expense levels. Indeed, if
a company is going to focus on global growth, it will need to manage it
properly to ensure it has the right assets in the right place, working on the
right opportunities, and for the right investment.
The potential for profitable global growth will for a large part be either
facilitated or constrained by the management of the global workforce. Much of
the value in today’s marketplace resides in the knowledge and skills of its
workforce, and the proper deployment and management of these assets is a key
determinant of the value of investment in a corporation’s global growth. Recent
surveys by Cendant Mobility [2]
, Mercer Human Resource Consulting [3],
and SHRM [4] have shown that the use of all
types of global employment alternatives (long-term assignments, short-term
assignments, international commuting, extended business trips, Third Country
Nationals, localization, and local hires) are expected to rise substantially
over the next few years. Regardless of the nature of the global hire,
management of these employees is complicated by a range of factors alien to
corporations accustomed to dealing with a largely domestic workforce. Distance,
time, culture, local employment and tax laws, conflicting regional objectives,
chain of command issues, and more, all contribute to the complexity and cost of
operating a globally diverse workforce. With more visible strategic issues to
consider, though, the management of a global workforce is something to which
senior leadership does not usually pay attention until there is a problem
(usually spiraling costs or turnover). By proactively managing their global
employees, however, a company ensures it is efficiently leveraging the value
within in its workforce towards the key drivers of a profitable global growth
strategy. It also guards against squandering this value on administrative
inefficiencies and poor cost control. To tap the value of it’s global
workforce, the leadership of a multinational corporation needs information, and
that information must be accurate, accessible, rapid, and relevant to the
decisions being made.
HRToolbox understands that this is the future that firms with an emerging global
presence face, and therefore we are developing our solutions based on the four
key pillars of Accuracy, Accessibility, Speed, and Relevance. Our product
development objectives, client service processes, and alliance development have
been and continue to be geared towards delivering to global HR professionals a
single end-to-end solution that will provide the information necessary to
manage the global workforce regardless of company strategy, installed
technology, location of data, or resource constraints.
Visit our Website at www.hrtoolbox.com to learn more about how we are addressing
the issues under these key pillars to provide emerging global companies with
accessible and accurate information when they need it, and in the form in which
it is most useful. Our goal is for HRToolbox to put the information you need on
your global workforce in the palm of your hand.
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