HR’s Role In International Organisations

In most places there’s a social space where people get together and talk, like the space around the coffee machine. It’s impressive how important these social spaces can be in terms of encouraging people to engage with each other. Sometimes the collective identity of an organisation is almost created in these brief moments. As an effect of international growth, HR is no longer just local. So, what should HR professionals keep in mind when an organisation has offices in several, often culturally different countries and how do they secure the collective identity?

The Challenges of International Expansion

Naturally, several challenges will pop up when expanding globally, and some of them will be landing on HR’s table to be solved. Firstly, distance. People need to travel or use online communication in order to work across borders. Secondly, culture. People need to understand that the company culture and the ways that people work are different from a country to another, even between close countries in a region such as the Nordics. However big these challenges are, the first basic concern for an HR professional working in an global company, is to keep all the employee data in the same place

For example, most organisations will have managers with team members spread out in different countries and often have HR data scattered across many systems. At the same time, it will be impossible to compare team and/or employee performance globally – and therefore also impossible to define which teams have the needed skills for specific tasks or projects. Therefore, it also makes it difficult to see what team or employee needs help with developing their competencies.

How can HR help solve these challenges?

There is not an only solution that fits all organisations. You’ll need to find out what methods are best for your organisation, but it is good to remember the following points:

• Trust that there will be local differences but work to find similarities and build understanding across countries.
• Ensure involving and respecting all people and cultures when making changes in an organisation. Thus, you’ll get everyone on board right from the start.
• Design a general framework for how things should be done to make the HR processes work across borders. However, think of giving local offices and HR departments the power to fill in or adjust those frameworks by themselves. For example, employees in Denmark are often used to having lot of freedom when it comes to making adjustments and decisions themselves – the so-called “freedom under responsibility” idiom – whereas the employee-manager relationship in other countries might be more “procedural” in nature.

Tips from HR in the Nordics

1. Set up right from the beginning.
   If your organisation will expand to more countries in the future, will your system be able to grow with you?
2. Smart reporting tools that allow easy sharing.
   Find a system that allows you to create reports of all your global employee data that can easily be shared with the right people and partners.
3. The key is flexibility.
   A system needs to be flexible enough to be adjusted to the organisation’s global processes with data flowing freely across countries.
4. Note local details.
   Ensure that the relevant languages, currencies & legislations are supported by the system.
5. Request experience in global implementations.
   The system provider should be able to show that they have experience with international implementations, in order to give you with the best possible result.

Does your company have employees in several countries?

Then why not take a look at how Sympa can help you easily streamline all your international HR processes and seamlessly connect to all partner systems, giving you with a smoother global HR ride! Read More