THE WAR FOR TALENT

The war for talent has become a global war, as business is becoming increasingly global. Companies operate across borders offering their products and services, they establish offices, plants and project sites all over the world. It is only natural that labour follows suit and has become increasingly mobile. This increase in Diversity at work has become a key topic in Talent Management Strategies as the new global configuration of teams requires a special attention on the right way to attract, develop and engage work forces around the world.

Never before have workers travelled abroad so often, whether on short trips or in order to establish temporary (or even permanent) residence in a different country. Travel, transport and communication is easier than ever, so moving people is easy to do and keeping in touch with far away officers is as easy as calling someone in the same building at a different floor. Culture has a lot to say here. Building a platform to manage the Human Capital in organizations is crucial to compete effectively and survive through the years while providing an engaging work environment.

As companies expand their reach and grow as organizations, the need for the right talent in the right place at the right time has become the main bottleneck for this expansion. Even after the financial meltdown of 2008, what we see now that six years have passed is that companies are sitting on huge amounts of capital. They also have easier access to capital than ever before. Yet, large portions of this available capital are still lying unused in a slow-growing world economy. Financial institutions and organizations in general are still reluctant to invest and take risks, afraid that a recurrence of the 2008 crisis might catch them unprepared; there is a certain lack of confidence lurking in the economy, and that lack of confidence can be translated to a lack of confidence in the success of ambitious projects carried out by the people available. To increase confidence you need better people, more capable, more talented, more experienced, and this is driving the demand for talent to even higher levels. In this context, organizations must see their workforce from a different perspective, everybody has talent, however the key question is: Talent for what? Taking advantage from the existing human capabilities in an organization requires creative ways to make it happen.

Talented people are a scarce commodity and even as unemployment levels remain high in Europe and in the US, the best people are commanding high levels of compensation, and they are difficult to attract and retain. The hunt for talent has become global, as the local hunting grounds do not supply enough quality in sufficient numbers. So, companies are searching for engineers in Vietnam to carry out projects in Africa; they are sending American managers to China in order to develop young management trainees, while Chinese students go to the US for academic studies.

15 September 2014, Fernando Lanzer Pereira de Souza with input from Miguel Gurrola and Egbert Schram

“Are you really taking advantage of the global Human Capital in your organization to achieve greater results?”

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Unfortunately, this search for talent across borders is not always bringing the expected outcome in the medium to long term: sometimes companies are not successful in identifying and attracting the right candidates; and even when they are, often times the people hired and deployed end up not being so successful in practice, after all.

The very important missing part in the puzzle is culture differences. This affects the success rate both in the recruitment phase and in the deployment. When identifying talent many international companies fail to realize that in different cultures different behaviours are expected from candidates. MBA graduates from the United States, for example, learn that they should display self-confidence and assertiveness, they should show a “can do” attitude. When a Scandinavian company is conducting selection interviews, however, this same behaviour may be perceived as arrogance, for in the Scandinavian cultures people are encouraged to show modesty in interviews. The reversal situation is that an American company might find Scandinavian candidates to be simply “too shy” for the job they are recruiting for. Because of these intercultural misunderstandings, many fine candidates end up being rejected for the wrong reasons.

Besides that, in the attraction phase other mistakes might happen. A German company might make an offer stressing the structured aspects of the job; a Dutch candidate might find this rather unenticing and even boring, since having more autonomy would be preferable. Companies often make the mistake of assuming that people around the world are motivated by the same things; in practice, motivating factors can be quite different from one culture to another.

Things get much more complicated when it comes to sending talent from one country to another. Many executives who do well in a certain environment end up disappointing everyone, including themselves, when trying to perform in a different culture exactly in the same way that they performed successfully in their home culture.

Expats have expressed in a PwC survey that changing their behaviour and coping with culture differences are the two greatest challenges they need to face when moving to an assignment abroad. It’s no wonder that so many such assignments fail, also because even if the expat does adapt, the adaptation of his or her family may still be an issue. The way people are managed at work is different from culture to culture: the expected behaviour is different in terms of communicating, running meetings, setting priorities, delegating, providing feedback and many other work-related situations. Outside of work there are equally important differences in expectations, demanding certain behaviours that the expat family is not used to. This can cause a lot of frustration and result in performance failure, early repatriation, serious family issues and career disruption.

Successful global companies prepare their staff and their families, not only for going abroad, but also for working with people coming from abroad to a host office, becoming more effective hosts. This makes life easier for everybody and delivers better results for clients and in terms of shareholder value.

The preparation needs to begin with the selection process for an expat assignment. Not everyone who performs well in certain cultures is equally prepared to do well in certain other cultures. A cultural assessment is a necessary part of the process, evaluating the culture characteristics of the host country and of the different candidates, to see if there is alignment or a potentially dangerous mismatch. An American might do very well in Australia, for example, yet have great difficulty in Mexico. There needs to be an understanding of personal competencies and of the

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job’s cultural requirements before decisions are made.

Some Americans do great in Mexico, while others may fail miserably; why the difference? Besides any obvious specific circumstances, the difference may very well lie with intercultural competencies, or the absence thereof. These are basically four sets of competencies that are required of expats and especially of those who are moving to a very different culture: Sensitivity, Communication, Gaining Commitment and Managing Uncertainty. These competencies can be assessed and they can be developed. Doing so greatly increases an expat’s probability of success.

Informing a candidate about his or her own competencies and about the home and host countries’ culture differences is an important requirement for success. This will allow the potential expat to assess the situation and decide for him or herself whether they really want to live abroad or not. More importantly, does the candidate´s family feel at ease with the upcoming challenge? How will they cope with them? Some people are ill-informed about a host country and later feel very disappointed when their expectations turn out to be untrue; in such cases, it is much better to know what the host country culture is like, before diving in.

Many highly talented people receive tempting financial offers to work in the Middle East, for instance, where many well-paid expats are stationed. However, some people will not accept the offers, no matter how good they may be in terms of finance, because the lifestyle and the work environment of the host country rubs them the wrong way in terms of what they value. And yet, for some, this is exactly what they are comfortable with.

In the Anglo-Saxon culture many people believe that talent follows the money, so they emphasize financial reward as a motivator. Others say that people follow the challenge. In practice, research shows that young people consider their main attraction point to be the challenge, an opportunity to demonstrate what they are capable of doing; the second most important attraction aspect is the opportunity to learn (you might say that it is the possibility to learn how to become more capable of facing future challenges successfully); the third magnet for young talent is the opportunity to advance their careers (you might say that this is linked to the previous two factors: it encompasses taking on more responsibility, which involves bigger challenges and more learning opportunities). Financial reward only shows up in fourth place as a magnet for young talent.

In terms of culture, what does “a challenge” mean? For some, growing a business from scratch is a more attractive challenge, for other cultures it might be to get things organized. The point is that attraction factors can have different significances in different cultures. It is important to understand which motivational factors are more effective in some cultures and not in others.

Besides that some people score very high on the fourth intercultural competence, Managing Uncertainty, while others score low. This basically means that some people find it very easy to operate in a new and unknown environment, while others feel greater discomfort in doing that. Therefore, some people are more motivated to work abroad, while others are more motivated to make a difference in their home turf.

In a global marketplace, managing a global talent pool, it is absolutely necessary to take culture into consideration. If you do not do that, you are pretty much committing Talent Management Suicide! At the end of the day, as Geert Hofstede says:

“The world is full of confrontations between people, groups and nations who think, feel and act differently. Understanding the differences in the way leaders and followers think, feel and act is a condition for bringing about worldwide solutions that work”.

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Itim International improves the effectiveness of Talent Management Strategies in Organizations. Our unique research based tools and methodologies in both National and Organisational Culture

help organizations to manage Talent Management Strategies in a more effective way.

The Authors

Miguel Gurrolaitim International

Fernando Lanzer Pereira de Souzaitim International

This principle is definitively applicable to Talent Management Strategies and Systems in order to succeed in having the right talents in the organization. In a Global environment, a talent Management Strategy not being able to consider key variables from National and Organisational Culture as a basis can dilute its effectiveness easily.

Are you really taking advantage of the global Human Capital in your organization to achieve greater results?

About itim International

Egbert Schramitim International

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