The Corporate Guide to Expatriate Employment

In an exclusive extract from The Corporate Guide to Expatriate Employment, edited by Jonathan Reuvid, Stephen Asher, of specialist taxation and accounting practice Frank Hirth, discusses the need for developing employment strategies and gaining greater understanding of the national cultures of countries in which your organisation operates.

Despite the investment in human capital strategies – including global talent management theories, benchmarking of best practice and performance management tools – in reality there is no 'one size fits all' solution. Instead, managers have to address the operational implications of business needs, international diversity, differences between countries in terms of culture, regulations and administration, and the complexity of the resultant environment.

In addition, the largest multinational enterprises represent only a small percentage of the total number of organisations sending people to work in foreign locations. This is best illustrated by the results of a number of surveys that have consistently shown that a much larger number of companies, including small ones, are now competing in the international marketplace.

Furthermore, whereas large companies have tended to dominate the global business scene, today many small companies operate from greater varieties of business sectors and headquarter locations. Indeed, from available data it can be seen that over 90% of the expatriate populations of international organisations comprise between one and 500 individuals. The very largest expatriate populations of over 500 assignees represent less than 10% of the market.

The rest of this article can be read at Relocate Magazine - Developing your Cross-Border Employment Strategies

Remote cross culture training launched

Intercultural training organisation Farnham Castle International Briefing and Conference Centre has launched iCulture, which it describes as a new live, web-based training and coaching solution that allows simultaneous group and one-to-one delivery and mentoring of all its intercultural training and assignment briefing programmes over the internet.

According to Farnham Castle, iCulture has a number of advantages in addition to increased convenience for geographically dispersed employees. These include: the elimination of the cost of travel and associated expenses and environmental impact relating to attending on-site training sessions; increased flexibility on the timing of sessions - including weekend tuition for the benefit of families requiring a country briefing before a move abroad, for example; and more efficient use of employee time, as individuals are no longer required to take valuable time out of the office to attend on-site training.

"Today we live and work in an era where workload, time, budget constraints and the increasing need to be environmentally sensitive are having an effect on the ability to ensure individuals receive the training and coaching they need. However, remote delivery through iCulture now provides a valuable alternative to face-to-face delivery and one we anticipate will prove particularly popular with organisations around the world," explains Jeff Toms, director of marketing and client services at Farnham Castle.

For further details, see www.relocatemagazine.com.

Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business with a Global Mindset

A new book from cross-cultural training experts Charlene Solomon and Michael Schell (of www.cultural wizard.com), Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business with a Global Mindset, looks at seven readily recognisable behaviours and explains what they mean, how to interpret them, and most importantly, how to respond to them. Published by McGraw Hill at £25.99.

Click the link for more about Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business with a Global Mindset