How many countries are involved in making a pair of jeans? We exist in a globalized world as evident by the production chain of many common goods such as clothes, cars and even food. This question (of which the answer is nine) was the starting point of FEM’s latest event on how HR can enable their organization to develop a ‘global mindset’.
The event held in Shanghai on 6th September was an interactive workshop facilitated by r. Shi Bisset, the Founding Associate at SB&A and Senior Fellow of the international think tank “Conference Board”. It was aimed at assessing the impact of the globalization of business on HR and Global Mobility professionals’ work and sharing the solutions in this changing working scenario.
The workshop was divided into two sessions and involved group activities to favour the exchange of experiences among the participants. The varied professionals all came from different industries but shared the same need of becoming more strategic and culturally knowledgeable as they help build a multicultural team in their company, locally and globally.
Due to this business environment that is becoming more and more complex, are words like “cross-cultural” and “localization” sufficient not to describe the strategies organizations should implement to tackle the challenges they are facing? In the past successful factors for the expats’ selection were limited to strong language skills, extensive cultural and organization knowledge, positive personality traits and of course a history of business success. Nowadays though such an assessment is often insufficient and even can cause assignment failures. Could many of the participants have imagined that one of the leading assignment failure reasons across all nationalities was as personal as factor as the inability of the spouse to adapt to the new location?
It is evident that there is an importance to develop a global mindset based on being self-aware of who you are, recognizing what you do not know and being interested in learning and knowing the others. Everyone belongs to a culture dimension which is influenced not only by their origin but also by their experience, working environment and generation and each person should be encouraged to look at it in order to understand where they are positioned on this scale since this influences how they communicate with others.
For this reason, a global mindset cannot be developed from one day to the next and it has to come from the inside. As a consequence it was discussed how a new responsibility has arisen for HR and Global Mobility professionals: they should become able to observe and pay attention to any of their corporates’ leaders who have an impact on global business and even offer a consultative support to the business.
With a new philosophy growing and the business environment changing and complex the workshop aimed at getting the conversation started and a global mindset programmes can start to be put in place especially among the younger generations who have adaptability on their side. When younger generations are guaranteed sustainability and traceability and the corporate’s senior management is involved this will contribute to create awareness about differences and needs of the business.
With the success of the first two events the next edition is planned for November 2016.
For more information about FEM Shanghai Chapter and/or to show your interest in participating to the next event, please feel free to contact Cecilia Cinquina at Cecilia.Cinquina@sterling.com.
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