‘Global mobility is core to talent management'

This, the second and concluding part of an interview with Patricia Milligan, President, Human Capital, Mercer Inc, and Anupam Prakash, Partner and Regional Leader, Cross Border Consulting,focuses on talent mobility and the development of a global standard of management.The first part of the interview was published last Monday.

How important is the issue of talent mobility in the HR universe and does it address any particular section of the workers?

Talent mobility is a core HR process. You should be able to build a mobility map and identify what part of your population demands to be mobile. We're seeing higher and higher percentages of the workforce fit on the mobility map, and the fastest growing section is saying ‘I'm-mobile-whether-you-like-it-or-not'. It says I am going to be part of the global workforce whether my company sponsors me or not. And that is where technology can help because it can ask the question and help build people profiles. You can ask the millennial: What is your expectation of working out of your home company? When do you want to go? How open are you? To what countries would you like to go? This process should be built into the talent management system so that you get a good sense of what percentage of your workforce has a global mobility expectation. That whole process is an important part of talent management. In the past, mobility sat to the left of talent, and was managed by the team that managed expats … now, it's a core component of talent management.

The second slide in my presentation showed the difference between my generation and the millennials. The earlier generation did not get the huge global assignments; it was only the Managing Director. The new generation expects those global assignments constantly. I think global mobility is one of the biggest changes we've seen in talent management and is core to the agenda of talent management.

You also said talent and performance management should be the core concerns of line managers and not just the HR manager. What happens to the HR function in such a scenario?

It's like asking what happens to sales and marketing because line managers are responsible for revenue. Sales and marketing and finance are still critically important to the organisation but their job is to ensure that line managers know how to execute revenue, finance plans. I think HR's job is to coach line managers to ensure that they know how to be good talent-builders and good people managers. So you move from the doer to the coach and I think you will still have impactful centres of excellence. So if you consider HR as owning the centres of excellence be it workforce analytics, talent management, or compensation training, I think the power of HR will go up because it will be the knowledge manager of the centres of excellence, but the line will have to execute the programmes.

That will be one of the biggest changes for the line managers. They will have to be able to develop a human capital strategy and our job will be to coach them to do that.

I don't think that it is threatening HR at all. It is quite exciting that you become a player-coach. And then you could have centres of excellence and you ensure that the technology allows the line manager to be world-class at talent management.

You mentioned that making a meaningful contribution to society is part of the value proposition for today's workforce. Did this idea not appeal to older generations of workers?

I have a strong view that the millennial's passion for making a meaningful contribution is no different from prior generations'. But their passion to contribute to the community and other global causes is actually more palpable than other generations. They are committed to an environment society, they have a voluntarism culture that you did not see … you saw it in the Sixties but it wasn't as accepted to demonstrate that at work. If you really look at how much the millennials want to be able to work for a company that is actually making the world a better place, it's a huge part of the value proposition. If you look at whether the organisation allows the employees to meaningfully contribute to the community, I look just at our environment and how much people want to contribute to, say, the Avon walk for breast cancer or AIDS awareness issues or the habitat for humanity. It bodes well for the world that that generation wants to contribute and does not want work to be the reason why they can't. When we do employee research and employee listening we find that corporate social responsibility, working for a green organisation and an organisation that gives back to society, are very important factors in whether or not young people think it is a great place to work.

One of the delegates at the seminar raised the issue of a global standard of leadership as distinct from a management style that is affected by local cultures. But is it possible to take culture away from the discussion?

I don't think anyone will say it is possible to take culture away, but I think creating a new set of global leadership norms is absolutely do-able and it is happening. If you look at the best research that is being done by academics on global leadership, … we are seeing a change from, say taking Western leadership attributes and understanding how they work in Eastern cultures. It's saying that a big part of a leader's responsibility is being a member of a global team and what are the leadership competencies you need. And some of the softer side. Leadership actually revolves around empathy, ability to effectively listen and manage ambiguity. To coach rather than direct. Some of those softer leadership attributes are emerging as important attributes of a globally mobile leader. So I think a body of research says if you simply take leadership competencies from the West and East and try and transport them you are not really creating the next generation of global leaders. I don't think you can take culture away and I think it may take a decade to create a global leadership model that says it is a global standard and if you can't work to these standards then your chances of being an effective global leader are limited.

Prakash: Country culture cannot go away. It is so deeply embedded in us. Why not? Country culture has to be recognised so that when we meet a colleague or a supplier from another country, we should understand where he is coming from and understand why he said some of the things he said, so that we do not misinterpret and take wrong decisions or make wrong assumptions. So we have to educate ourselves and be open and absorb and learn about other cultures and give room for play for cultural nuances or cultural differences. That is very important to be a global company.

(Concluded)

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