Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/65226
Change Management The extended field change team played a critical role in bringing these differences to light by gathering all of the local impacts in their geographies using a toolkit provided by the centre team. They identified many singular impacts that otherwise would have likely been missed and saved much time and travel costs. Here is one for Korea: • To minimise frustration and engage the right translator, employees need to be able to answer the following question in English: What language do you speak? Kit Choi, HR director for The Coca-Cola Company in China and Korea, recalls "even with the different language prompts, we were challenged by plant employees coping with the language barrier. We translated materials into local languages, produced step-by-step reference guides on what to expect on calls, and conducted face-to- face training." Takeaway 3: Build once, but tweak more times in many ways. A more well-known change impact from moving to global HR BPO is language support. The team knew early on for Asia-Pacific that there were several language hurdles. • Phone menus are only available in English, Japanese, or Chinese. • Employees who do not understand these languages will need to know to hold for an operator. This was partially managed with a prompt for Korean, Bahasa, Thai, and Vietnamese assistance in their native language. Figure 2 While it is a best practice in most HR BPO implementations to use the same communications and training for all members of each stakeholder group (employees, managers, and HR professionals), occasionally an exception is needed to ensure maximum impact. Successful tweaking stems from understanding how different cultures communicate, then customising languages or formats around that approach. See Figure 2 for an example of the same communication that global teams in Asia and Europe tweaked to deliver the same content, but in a different format with different messages highlighted. [14] HRO TODAY GLOBAL | WINTER 2012