So much has changed around the world in the last 12 months and even just since 20th January when the new President took office in the USA. Although during his campaign Donald Trump had talked of building a wall between the US and Mexico and a possible ban of Muslim travellers, no one had quite expected the sweeping measures that have resulted in restrictions on seven countries – and the confusion that has ensued.
With elections due later this year in France, Netherlands and Germany, there may be more dramatic upheavals in immigration and trade and financial agreements on the way. Beyond events in Europe, business is increasingly looking further afield to emerging markets in order to gain that competitive edge, and of course, sending employees and business travellers to those developing countries can present a completely new set of challenges.
The Global Mobility function is very much on the front line in these situations, so if you’re a GM or HR professional, how can you plan, and manage the myriad risk and compliance issues in 2017 and beyond?
To address these issues, FEM has conducted a global survey for our annual Policy in Practice Report: Managing Risk and Compliance in an Uncertain World and organised a London Chapter Meeting of the same title on Wednesday 15th February where we will present the Report’s key findings and examine best practice with a panel of expert speakers.
Topics will include:
- How is risk defined and how exposed to it is your organisation?
- What are the greatest concerns? Are they financial, operational, reputational or simply the security and safety of employees?
- How can you manage the operational and planning challenges of moving employees to developing countries, especially at short notice?
- How can you manage and ensure immigration compliance for cross-border employees?
- As tax goes digital, how do you integrate the reporting of tax, social security and immigration - enable your assignees to be compliant - and make it easy for them to get on with their day jobs?
- How can you communicate and co-ordinate action across the business?
Our speakers are drawn from a range of industries and backgrounds to best address the broad scope of issues:
So we have tax and immigration experts, Sarah Dyce, James Egan, and Steve Wade, from EY, Mustafa Bharmal, from Honeywell to talk about ways to co-ordinate action across disciplines and departments, Ed Sides from Statoil to discuss the challenges of moving employees to difficult locations at short notice, Selina Jones-May of WorleyParsons to share some of the work that she has done on these issues and Alex McSporran of International SOS and Control Risks, whose previous roles in the Australian Intelligence Community and posting to Afghanistan gave him invaluable experience in dealing with difficult and dangerous situations.
We would very much welcome questions in advance, but you can also ask about your most pressing concerns on the day.
To illustrate the disparity in terms of preparedness among those we surveyed for the Policy in Practice Report, I’d like to share two anonymous responses to the question “How does your organisation manage risk and compliance?”
Source A: “There is no awareness regarding these subjects as the HR generalists responsible have a policy like: 'I do not know, so I'm not responsible. In case I'm responsible, I fire the responsible person reporting to me.’”
Source B: “We have strong collaboration with corporate tax, the corporate security team, data privacy teams and occupational health teams, so we feel we have a good handle on these matters.”
So which quotation best reflects the situation in your organisation? Perhaps, like Source B, you have a robust set of policies and systems in place and have high levels of co-operation across the business – if so, we’d love to hear about it.
If however, you’re still trying to persuade your organisation of the importance of risk management and battling against the kind of attitude in the quotation from Source A, then our meeting may be able to help.
If our PIP survey results are anything to go by, then your organisation’s position is probably somewhere in between the two, with notable strengths in many areas, but perhaps some room for improvement in others.
So please do join us at FEM’s London Chapter Meeting for an exclusive preview of our PIP Report and to engage with our carefully assembled panel of experts as we explore the issues and learn from examples of best practice.
The event is free to attend for corporate representatives and HR professionals, so please do invite your colleagues too.
Send any questions to me, Claire.tennantscull@centaurmedia.com or Marianne.aronsen@centaurmedia.com
You can register here to attend
When:
Wednesday, 15th February 2017
8.00AM - 10.00AM
Where:
EY, 1 More London Riverside, London SE1 2AF
See full details and more information about our speakers at:
https://www.forum-expat-management.com/rooms/28-london-chapter/posts/14460-fem-london-chapter-meeting-15-01-17
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