FEM is delighted to confirm that Laura Rodriguez, Global Director, Talent Mobility at Johnson & Johnson will be joining us for a Mobility Masterclass on 'Mobility’s changing role in facilitating immigration program management', at the FEM Americas Global Mobility Summit 2018 on May 23-24 at the Loews Coronado Bay Resort, San Diego, CA.
"Someone is always doing some part of Mobility better than you are. The Mobility community is very collaborative – leveraging the knowledge and experience of so many experts in one place a few times a year is well worth the time away from the office. For me, attending the FEM Conference falls under “thinking time” and “thought leadership and development”.
Rosie Perkins, FEM's Marketing Manager spoke to Laura ahead of the Summit...
FEM: How long have you been involved in the Global Mobility sector?
LR: My interest in global mobility dates back to my graduate school days. While working on an International Business Management degree, my focus was on global HR. During my career at Johnson & Johnson, I gravitated to HR roles that supported country clusters, regions and finally to enterprise Talent Mobility. I joined Talent Mobility in May of 2010 and really enjoy this HR specialty.
FEM: What changes have you seen in that time?
LR: We have gone from a primary concern for consistency, control of exceptions, compliance – and the ever present cost - to designing policies for increasingly varied talent and business objectives. We are now more focused on differentiated investment for prioritized business and talent needs and agility of response to the rapid changes occurring globally. I am happy to say that we are more advisory and are partnering in the shaping of solutions with our businesses, rather than recipients of “move orders”. We have also shifted the singular focus on cost to a conversation about investment optimization and understanding the value outcomes of those investments (ROI). We must still do all the basics well, but are challenged to apply new technologies to the transactional and to leverage our subject matter experts for helping the business enter new markets and build new capabilities.
FEM: What tip would you give to someone new to the industry?
LR: Master an understanding of the fundamental component pieces of mobility as quickly as you can. Also, become a student of business and economic trends. In our space, what is happening half a world away (i.e. in government economic policy, labor laws, talent development, immigration etc.) is potentially a disruptor. With the development of more technology for mobility, excellent research sources and information feeds, it is now easier to monitor market trends. Understanding trends - both from a needs and a solutions perspective - will help you creatively adapt your program to the changing needs of your business. It’s also important to learn to speak about mobility in the language of customer experience and business impact – not mobility speak.
FEM: What do you think are the 3 greatest challenges facing Global Mobility professionals today?
LR: Catching up on the technology enablement of our work and designing for experience and agility are two that quickly come to mind. Mobility processes have long cycle times and long supply chains. Building an excellent employee, family, HR or Business Leader experience requires integration of both internal and external partner processes, technology tools and strong program management. The collaboration across sub-specialties is not a “nice to have” – it is a fundamental requirement. I would hope that in the next few years we see more AI and digital solutions coming to bear on our work; that our tools efficiently address repeatable tasks and free us to engage in higher value work and new services. That means a third challenge – Retooling and Reskilling.
FEM: Why do you think your Mobility Masterclass on ‘Mobility’s changing role in facilitating immigration program management’ is such a challenge for Global Mobility and why is it important that the audience understand more about the subject?
LR: I think most would agree that Immigration, like Tax, is an especially complex service to deliver across the 190+ countries in the world. It has only increased in complexity over the past few years, as some countries pull in the direction of more protectionist postures while others are liberalizing/incentivizing immigration to meet projected skill gaps. Immigration compliance is the first compliance hurdle; so it is critical to deploying talent. As countries make changes to visa and permanent residency requirements more often, remaining in a “case file management” posture becomes less effective. Case file management sits at the individual employee level – which is where we have been focused in traditional immigration services management. Today we are having more trouble predicting when or if a visa will be approved. We need longer lead times and alternative immigration strategies. Mobility staff and tools need to be equipped to forecast where we may have future immigration challenges, what employee categories or businesses those challenges will affect and a point of view on alternative solutions well in advance of legislative impact. We need for immigration what we have had for some time in the relocation program management space – enterprise level data that we can analyze and contrast to business strategy to inform better decisions. It’s time to talk about what that could look like and ways we can achieve it.
FEM: What is the one message you hope delegates take away from your session?
LR: That this is a great opportunity to deliver new, value-added services to our businesses, with important and relevant impacts to their business plans. Also that we have a responsibility to address company sponsored visa Employee Experience. As the immigration space has become more complex, employees considering international moves are becoming increasingly confused and anxious, as are their families. Accepting an assignment or relocating to another part of the world is challenging enough, even when everything goes right. We owe it to the business and to our employees to bring the considerable talents of our function, partners and stakeholders into play to deliver a positive experience.
FEM: Why do you think it’s important for global mobility professionals to come together at the FEM Americas GM Summit?
LR: Someone is always doing some part of Mobility better than you are. The Mobility community is very collaborative – leveraging the knowledge and experience of so many experts in one place a few times a year is well worth the time away from the office. For me, attending the FEM Conference falls under “thinking time” and “thought leadership and development”.
VIEW THE FULL AMERICAS SUMMIT AGENDA HERE
About Laura:
Laura provides Program Management direction to meet Johnson & Johnson’s changing business needs, identifying trends and emerging capabilities to enable the company’s global workforce strategy. J&J’s Talent Mobility function provides services to employees and managers in over 60 countries around the world, and also manages the International Development Program and U.S. Relocation Services. Laura has 30 years of HR experience within the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies. Her most recent positions include HR Transformation and Operations Director for Latin America, Director of Business Services for the Puerto Rico Operating Companies and Latin America and Asia Pacific HR Director for the Global Pharmaceutical Sourcing Group.
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What is Enterprise Mobility?
Enterprise Mobility is the deployment of mobile technology across an organization working outside the workplace and communicating through mobile and web applications.
The shift is generally seen in the companies that are dependent on field services and field operations to offer services to the end consumers. However, the trend has shifted to the companies who were practicing the same old traditional central office model.
According to a survey:
“40% of businesses surveyed are working on improving their mobility strategy for individual productivity gains, team collaboration, and increase customer engagement. While to extend the benefits of business mobility to customers, 71% of the companies moving towards business mobility is, developing and deploying customer-facing apps focused on improving the customer experience”.
In a separate study by Microsoft, 1 out of every 3 employees are completely mobile and 1 out of 2 employees say they are expected to get work done no matter where they are.
In short, enterprise mobility can offer better customer services in an effective manner and increases the opportunities to expand the business. In the following, we are listing down some key benefits of mobility particularly with regards to boosting your business performance, productivity, and security.
1. Security
Businesses (big or small) exchange sensitive company’s data on a regular basis including client lists, sales information, financial data and much more. However, the information is often left on the employee devices, which might risk the security and privacy of company’s confidential data.
No doubt, the BYOD offers greater benefits for the workforce but if it is not managed well, it can possibly give illicit personnel accessibility to data in case the device is stolen or lost. Moreover, it is possessed by the risk of being attacked by mobile malware.
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Businesses can benefit from enterprise mobility features including separation of personal and work data, secure communication through VPN and remote wipe abilities to secure data by removing the information from a mobile device.
2. Generate Bigger Revenue
Over the last decade, e-commerce has been simplified through the evolution of mobile apps. The opportunity is not limited to any specific business or community as you can leverage it to increase productivity and revenue by integrating mobile apps for the company.
For example, an online movie ticket service provider can offer exclusive user experiences to the consumers by smearing a blend of mobile apps and beacons. It will allow consumers to find the exact location of theater, view-building facilities, order food, purchase a ticket and buy parking tickets using just one app. Thus, it can offer consumers to do more than just buying a movie ticket.
Considering the above scenario in an enterprise context, mobile apps make things easier for employees by assisting them with features like editing documents and mobile customer relationship management. The enterprise mobility can help employees work closely with each department flexibly without restricting them to place or time.
According to a 2014 IDG study:
“Organizations implementing technologies, such as EMM to support a mobile infrastructure, reported increased productivity by 50% and increased employee morale by 39%”.
3. Improved Employee Productivity
Mobile apps help in modernizing the traditional paper-driven processes and systemize them to avail simplified workflow. The approach is much smarter than the older one, facilitating the workforce to enhance data accuracy and allows users to collect data such as location, pictures and time.
For instance, if we take waste management organization as an example, the company can form devise advance functionalities like optimization of trucking directions. It will enhance the efficiency of truck drivers who drag the waste in trucks. The app will help them to adopt the best route that is less time-consuming.
It will not only save the commuting time of each truck but also lessens the number of vehicles required in a particular area.
4. Better Communications
Most of the times, companies need to provide customer support to the end consumers. This requires to give permission to the employees to access corporate data from their mobile devices and assist customers with real-time information.
For example, a health organization can facilitate employees to access a number of enterprise apps like asset management, map navigation and patient engagement apps from mobile devices.
Similarly, a hospital can use a mobile app to change an emergency room into an ICU room by examining and submitting details like bedside documentation, order entry, image capture and retrieval. The app allows the patients and family members to learn about the equipment in the room, ask a question to the staff and check details about the doctor.
5. New Data Give Updated Insights
Connectivity in mobile apps and sensors offer an amazing visibility in status and health of equipment. Internet of Things and Mobility drives a radical change for a manufacturing unit by assisting them with high tech supply chain tracking systems and prognostic maintenance.
The manufacturing unit’s owner allows plant manager to enter the data of production, inform them timely about equipment, data visualization, and line efficiency at a cheaper cost than traditional paperwork.
For instance, a car-manufacturing unit can develop smart production process by facilitating comprehensive offerings of IoT. The plant manager can use sensors to identify real-time production blunder in the production plant.
Moreover, the application of mobility along with IoT guides manufacturers in reducing work reducing scrap rates and enhancing the troubleshooting capabilities. In this way, the company can lower down the cost of production.
Conclusion
In today’s competitive environment and prioritizing customer-centric approach, going mobile for industries and organizations have become essential. It allows employees to stay productive, maintain security, and keep employees prolific without incurring extra cost.
Going for Enterprise Mobility Management to manage mobile devices along with their applications, security, content, and configuration can offer businesses to embrace the mobile trend and take full advantage of a number of business benefits.
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