HROTodayGlobal

Sourcing The Global-Local Sweet Spot To navigate the continuum requires attention to choice, change, and control. By Gino van Puijenbroek and Floor van der Horst These days many HR organisations are faced with the question of where they should position themselves on the global–local continuum. They wrestle with what to organise on an aggregated level (regional or global) and what to keep local (country or operating company level). Many HR organisations are struggling with this challenge. They run into various questions: How to find the optimum between global and local? What are the organisational objectives (e.g., HR operations, HR business partner) to consider? Which processes are suited for global standardisation? How should the choices made be implemented to gain the benefits initially expected? (See figure 1) Sample For this article seven HR executives have been interviewed. Most of the interviewed companies are listed (See figure 1). Accordingly cases have been made anonymous. All seven companies operate in a highly international setting. The "smallest" company is present in 21 countries; the biggest operate in around 100. Furthermore all firms are either busy with structuring their HR organisation to match the prefered position on the global-local continuum, or have gone through this process. In addition to the interviews a focus group session was organised to discuss the results. Participants of the sessions were several of the interviewees combined with other people that fulfill senior positions at within HR. Company by industry Bulk liquir storage FMCG High Tech Electronics Asset Management & Maintenance Healthcare Industrial conglomerate Figure 1 FALL 2011 | www.hroglobal.com [15] Job title HR Director Director International HR operations Global HR Transformation leader Global compensation director EVP HR VP HR Services SVP HR # Countries 31 24 25 100 21 100 79 # Empl 6,500 33,000 25,000 120,000 9,500 112,000 93,000 Highlights • HR organisations are increasingly confronted what to organise locally and what globally • The same drivers often trigger the discussion: - Lower cost, quality remains at an acceptable level - Higher investments required for state-of-the art HR - SHEQ becomes increasingly important - RIsk reduction - Talent scarcity • Each organisation might find a different equilibrium, based on numerous factors. However, a clear trend towards a global approach is observed • Processes heavily influenced local law & regulation and customs remain local, other processes will become increasingly global • For customer interaction the front-runners are moving towards regional models for their HR SSC's whereas the businss partner role remains predominantly local • IT is being organised globally and vendor management is an untapped reservoir • Moving from a multi-country to a global approach is a process that has to be manages carefully and requires a stages approach in which data, organisational structure, and key influencers play an important roles • Feedback mechanism are essential to keep the HR organisation on the sweer spot which is not nessarily a static position

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