Soft Skiils

Building a global workforce

Abhay Valsangkar on the essentials of global talent management

Once merely a concept, global talent management has now become an essential pre-requisite for successful global companies. As a result of the economic power shifts and changing demographics, more and more enterprises are establishing world-class practices and a balanced approach to develop a sustainable multi-national talent base.

Global companies now have to build a strong and globally deployable workforce for effective execution of their business goals and to remain globally competitive. It has become essential for them to bind all the employees together and induce a closely knit environment across all the world-wide locations of the company. The role of talent management has thus evolved and is getting further strengthened owing to the demands of ready access to skills and effective management of operational and labor costs in some geographies.

Constituents of a global workforce

Sans doubt it is the ‘people’ or ‘talent’ that is the most valuable asset of a company and a key differentiator. ‘Talent’ collectively determines an organization’s and economy’s productivity and the quality of the output. At a macro level, productivity or efficiency is vital for the economy, but quality is the decisive metric of effectiveness and provides a competitive edge in the global scenario.

Evidently, consistent quality of output depends on the kind of investment that is made in the human capital. A significant investment is already being made by corporates towards training and development; facilitating employees to deliver output that is high on quality. However, it is the foundation that needs to be strengthened.

The education system needs to be continuously aligned with the emerging and dynamic demands of the industry. Industry relevant concepts and processes such as effective quality management and Six Sigma should be introduced at educational institutes. Especially since these established concepts are practiced across industries and employees are expected to be are aware of them and their relevance to managing business operations effectively and efficiently.

Towards this end, a definite way to keep students abreast with the industry is ‘focused industry-academia relationship.’ Still at a nascent stage, encouraging this initiative through increased touch points between academia and industry will help scale the quality of output to global standards.

Besides curriculum revision on an ongoing basis, behavioral skills training at engineering and business schools are recommended to prepare students find their feet in the corporate world with confidence. A major component of such skills is effective communication and influencing skills.

Given that people work in teams and experience the interplay of cultural sensitivities has led to the evolution of communication skills. It goes beyond the confines of traditional written and verbal communication, including in its purview the understanding of human dynamics and sensitivities affecting the work environment.

The human resource team works closely with the senior management for creating appropriate leadership behaviors and values, which then cascades into an organizational chain, establishing a culture. While this might contradict the cardinal rule that the culture of a company is based on the collective behavior of its constituents, the larger role played by the leadership in this area needs to be understood and leveraged to establish the right culture. Leaders have a greater influence on culture creation and hence, it is imperative that it starts at the top. This aids in cross-pollination of ideas and ensures that diverse geo-teams are united in their approach.

Suggested approach

Currently, there are no specific training models to build a global workforce; however, there are many initiatives institutionalized to foster a global culture within an organization. Successfully creating a global workforce can be achieved by a combination of behavioral and management training, and leading by example. Behavioral training involves modules such as conflict resolution, power of influencing and negotiating skills, time management and team building. Effective employee recognition programs and fair communication channels are components of team building initiatives.

Neutral communication channels and opportunities for employees to interact with senior management directly are important. Such forums serve as ideal platforms for the senior management to display their leadership behavior and lead by example.

Key challenges

With cross cultural teams working together from different time zones, challenges are inevitable. Some basic challenges that are relatively easier to address are accent comprehension, articulation and communication styles. More serious and sensitive issues that need to be dealt with caution are inter-cultural diversity, power connotation, keeping up deadlines and time schedules that might differ because of the distance and, cultural and social diversity.

Conclusion

The vision, mission and values of a company have a direct bearing on building a global workforce. While the vision represents the goal, mission indicates the path that should be followed to achieve the goal; it is the values that provide the energy and zeal to achieve the goal. All three together run like a common thread inspiring and motivating employees across geographies to work closely in good spirit.

Abhay Valsangkar is Senior Director, Human Resource, Symantec India