More and more businesses describe themselves as "global" or "international" as their commercial reach expands. At the same time, technology and social media have made the world a smaller place. This creates signifi cant challenges for human resources professionals – for example, in managing compliance issues and a mobile workforce − and getting it wrong can severely damage a business and its reputation. Enforcing the legal and moral standards in one country may lead a business to instant and damaging criticism in another country.
Managing Global Compliance
Consistency in compliance protects business reputation, reduces legal exposure and assists effective management.
The problem is that legal and moral standards around the globe remain materially different. For example, in the UK, discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation is both socially and legally unacceptable. However, homosexuality remains a criminal offence in a number of African and Middle Eastern countries. Even countries considered to have an approach similar to the UK's may have quite different legal protections. For example, U.S. federal statute provides for 12 weeks' unpaid maternity leave, compared with 39 of 52 weeks paid maternity leave in the UK, with individual U.S. states having their own laws.
Employee Mobility in a Dangerous World
Global businesses need a global workforce with employees travelling as, when and where the business needs them.
The problem is that different areas of the world carry different risks. Some present health risks (e.g. the recent Ebola virus outbreak), while others present risks to religious or personal freedoms (e.g. religious beliefs or sexual orientation) or to people of certain racial, national or ethnic origins. Employers are often inhibited from properly assessing these risks by data privacy laws, which can prevent them from accessing relevant information about their employees.
Protection in an Imperfect World
Some simple steps will reduce the practical and legal risks involved in managing HR issues across a global business.
1. Take advice from local lawyers. This will help to identify the extent and limits of legal protection available to employees and the legal impact of enforcing current corporate standards overseas. This is simple but many employers do not do it, preferring risk incurring to the up-front costs of preventing it.
2. Treat overseas businesses and employees as a resource for understanding local culture and moral and ethical standards. Many businesses treat their culturally or geographically remote outposts as "the problem." They are both the solution and the reason the business is able to call itself diverse.
3. Ensure a full understanding of the risks to the personal health and safety of employees sent to work overseas, whether arising from confl ict, disease, environment or political factors. Use 1 and 2 above to create a risk profi le for the various overseas business units, identifying corporate, commercial and personal risk factors.
4. Have the diffi cult conversations with employees to establish a risk profi le for a particular individual in a particular jurisdiction. If employees refuse to disclose information, make it clear that this is at their own risk.
5. Train management and staff regarding risks and expectations of employees.
6. Get as close to harmonisation as possible in corporate policies and practices across the business but accept that there will be differences and make allowances for these.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
