For the last two and a half years I have been working in a French owned company and since we are learning about ‘western European” culture I figured I would share my experiences a bit. Firstly, the French have a much different work schedule than Americans.  It is common for a French worker in France to stay in our office there until 8 or 9 P.M.  In America this is unheard of, that is not to say that it does not happen when we need to get things done but it most certainly is not a common place.  Conversely, it is also common for the French to take a two hour lunch in the middle of the day whereas most Americans in my office eat at their desks.  This issue really confused me when I first started working there, I just couldn’t understand how anyone could want to spend almost 12 hours a day at work but then I realized that in Europe it is common for new employees to received 4-6 weeks a year of vacation.  Additionally, our office close down for almost the entire month of August.  Obviously, this is far greater than the average in America of 2 weeks of vacation to start a new job.  I guess when you take everything into perspective it balances itself out.

Another interesting aspect of working with the French is that I learned a good amount about their education system.  In fact, the French government only charges about $2,000 a year for any public Universities in France.  Now, this isn’t to say that the cost is that much different as the French income is taxed at a higher rate than American income.  However, what this cheap schooling does is put Americans at disadvantages when competing with foreign student for jobs abroad.  This is because it is common for many European students to hold multiple Master’s degrees.  This is due to the low cost of the degree but also to the fact that it only takes one year to complete a Master’s degree in most European countries.  A good global leader would take advantage of this fact and put a higher emphasis on hiring employees with more prestigious degrees in Europe.  From a cross cultural perspective it is common for most students from EU countries to diversify their education and get degrees from Universities in multiple countries (Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014)). This allows them to learn to work with and do business with multiple cultures.  In addition, most Europeans speak more than 3 languages.  A joke I learned when I was in Europe was: what do you call someone who speaks 3 languages? Trilingual.  What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual.  What do you call someone who speaks one language? American.  As an American I can agree with this joke, we do not do a good job as a culture of learning multiple languages despite the increasing diversification of our own country.

I also find it fascinating and intriguing that the modern American leadership concepts came from the European Renaissance (PSU WC OLEAD410 L12).  These concepts include self-awareness, leadership self-identity, leading by example, etc. basically, all of the transformational leadership theories.  These concepts have been around in America sine the American Revolution which used Liberty as its rallying cry.  Liberty was ones rights to be free from oppressive authority such as the European monarchies had become.  This concept of Liberty would shape how we picked our leaders as we only looked for those who would liberate the people (PSU WC HIST020).

In conclusion, Western Europe and America have many similarities but at the same time are very different.  From the way we work day to day, to our education system a good global leader must account for his or her team’s backgrounds and then adjust their leadership style to fit with what works for that person’s culture.  If you are in America this means doing more than giving directions and managing, it means being a leader, liberating your team and leveraging time tested renaissance leadership theories to continuously improve your team.

 

 

 

 

References:

Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing cultural differences. Oxon: Routledge.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2016) LER201 Employment Law

 

For this week’s blog post I will take a Human Resources Leader perspective on the issue of discrimination in Japan. Japan as a nation is one of the only countries in the world to not have any laws against discrimination.  As we learned in the video there clearly is some form of discrimination going on against Koreans specifically by the Zaitokukai movement.  This movement is represented by Japanese wartime rising sun flags, protests, rallies, political parties and the Zaitokukai.  The Zaitokukai believe that the Korean’s are trying to invade Japan, and are given special privileges by the government.  Whether or not these claims are substantial or not I have no idea but what I can tell you, from a human resources perspective, their most certainly is discrimination in Japan specifically on Koreans by the Zaitokukai.

It is my belief that a good global HR leader should teach his/her team about cultural understanding and sensitivity when doing business in Japan.  The Human Resources leader would do this because entering a country that is lacking in discrimination laws leaves the door open for member of the leader’s team to be discriminated against.   The Human Resources leader would be smart to do some sensitivity training prior to the trip to Japan and teach the team how the culture does not recognize discrimination to prepare those members of the team that are in a protected class in America so they know that they do not have the same protections when doing business in Japan.  The good global Human Resources leader would also be wise to create an awareness training for anyone in the company doing business in Japan, or even relocating there to understand how drastically different their experience may be in terms of equality.

This isn’t to say that people in Japan are all discriminating and not being held accountable for this discrimination it is to say that the Japanese, as a culture, do not believe that they treat anyone differently and thus do not recognize discriminating characteristics in work groups.  The good global HR leader would know this prior to doing business in Japan and ensure the company is protected from potential legal cases that may arise while doing business in Japan as well as ensure the company employees are prepared for what to expect when doing business in Japan.

 

References: Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing cultural differences. Oxon: Routledge.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2016) LER201 Employment Law

Leadership is something we all strive for yet hardly understand. In Managing Cultural Differences they talk about how out of all of the leadership studies done and books written there is no definitive clear profile for a good leader.  This is because a good leader depends on the culture that leader is in.  One person could be a very good leader in one organization and fail at another or vice versa.  However, there is one key similarity between every culture in the world, the need for leadership and the constant pursuit of leadership by its people.  For this week’s blog I will walk you through what my organization did to try to bridge the leadership gap at all levels.

As a first time manager I quickly realized that the organization lacked developmental opportunities for anyone under a director level. At a Director level you were put into mentor programs, given succession planning and invited to manager’s conference which was a weeklong strategic event where all top leaders met and went over business objectives.  However, for middle management and individual contributors there was a lack of resources or thought.

I sat down with a group of my peer and discussed what we could do to change this not only for ourselves but for everyone else in our same situation in the company.  We decided to start a business resource group for professional development.  The goal of the group was to not only attacked people at our level but also directors and sr leaders for us to network with and create formal and informal mentorship opportunities.  We presented our idea to the Director of Diversity & Inclusion who loved it and suggested we find an Executive Sponsor.  We soon found a very energetic and enthusiastic executive sponsor who got behind the idea.

Next we needed to form the group; we would put together a board that consisted of a chair, a vice-chair, treasurer, and diversity rep.  The board formed sub committees for technology, community relations, communications, recruitment, and business development.  Each subcommittee chair was tasked with building their own committee and then reporting to the board on their activities.  We then decided to put together a bunch of lunch and learn series but at a high level that dealt with leadership concepts such as self-identity, self-awareness, values, dealing with adversity, emotional intelligence, etc.  To get these concepts we polled the executives and everyone at a VP level in the organization on what they considered to be the top 4 attributes they looked for when hiring or promoting someone into a leadership role in their departments.  We then showcased these attributes during our lunch and learns as topics for the presentations or incorporated activities to build these attributes into our group events.  Finally we held a kick off and are in the process of putting together a charity event to raise money for a scholarship in the group’s name.

Overall I was successful in bringing together board members from all different department within the organization and working towards a collective goal of cultural synergy around leadership and professional development.  I did this by leveraging everyone’s want for personal growth and development.  But from a global organizational scale what we really did was build a stronger workforce that enable people to get to a leadership level quicker by infusing them with the knowledge, skills and abilities that my organization has deemed needed for good leadership.  The group chairs have become stretch opportunities for high potential employees the organization want to test and thus now require appointment rather than nomination.  While we didn’t realize it at the time what we had done was leverage a leadership need of the organization into a globally synergized culture by bringing together like minded forward thinking employees and giving them an opportunity to showcase their skills.

 

 

 

As I read about this week’s lesson on change management, I struggled to remember a time where I made a significant change to an organizational process.  I thought about the two years I have been with my current organization and all of the mergers and acquisitions we have gone through.  I thought to myself is my entire time here simply maintaining the status que?  Then I realized the job I was hired into didn’t exist until I was bought on, and that the job I am currently doing is a large change for the organization, in essence my entire first year with the company was change management….

I was brought onboard in my current role as Supervisor of Talent Acquisition to implement a centralized recruitment function for my company.  This was a concept I was extremely familiar with as I came from an environment that was completely centralized and Talent Acquisition was the main hiring method for the US, Canada and EMEA.  There are two main forms of internal talent acquisition, centralized & decentralized.  Centralized recruitment is when one central department recruits for the entire organization.  This method streamlines the recruitment process by implementing consistent practices and procedures throughout the organization.  It also allows the organization to ensure that the same standards for talent selection are used company wide.  The decentralized model is when recruitment is done at the field level and primarily regionalized.  Most times the people doing the recruitment are Human Resources Managers or the regional department head.  As you can imagine this model allows for several different hiring processes to be established company wide and more often than not creates an environment where several different people have the same job title and very different regionally specific skills.  It also makes the recruitment process unmeasurable and hard to control.  At the time of my hiring the company was completely decentralized.

When I was hired I was tasked with building a centralized team and then creating a global talent acquisition process for the organization.  We did business in 22 states in the US as well as 4 provinces in Canada.  As you can imagine this was no small order, I need to scan the current environment to determine what was being done and then meet with the regional business leader to understand what their needs were.  The CHRO told me when she was hiring me that they had little to no data around talent acquisition and the main concern was to eliminate potential liabilities to the organization.  Having several different recruitment processes and no way of tracking the recruitment efficiency left the organization vulnerable to despaired treatment in the hiring process as well as potential discrimination risks.  In addition, not having control over a process that impacts the entire organization is a bit scary for Human Resources.

To start I scanned the entire environment and met with the regional business head to determine how recruitment was being handled at the site level.  I also wasn’t too familiar with 2 of the 4 provinces we were recruiting in and made it a point to get out to their sites to meet with leadership and understand what is customary in their regions.  While I didn’t realize it at the time I was taking a very geocentric approach to my change management by evaluating each country and region and formulating a holistic plan of attach.  My goal wasn’t to optimize the program for each region but to create a holistic geocentric strategy that would be effective for the organization as whole.  As Dr. Moran & Dr. Abramson said “the organizations & leaders that adapt a geocentric mindset are the ones that achieve the most effective and performance enhancing learning” (Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014)).

Next I met with my Sr. Leadership team to present my findings and recommendations.  What I found was that while as regions each business was doing OK with their recruitment as an organization we were well behind industry averages in time to fill (87 days, industry average is 55) and Cost per hire (not currently being tracked, industry average is $5,200).  Even worst, our candidate experience varied from site to site and our job description were not consistent.  For instance, in Canada a Project Manager was assigned to manage engineering project whereas in the US they were managing a treatment facility (we called them projects).  This not only caused confusion for our external candidate but internally we could not share talent because we didn’t know where it existed or couldn’t identify common jobs. It was my recommendation that to harmonize the process we would need to implement an applicant tracking system, harmonize job titles and descriptions and move to a completely centralized model.  While I didn’t know it at the time the approach we took was very similar to Lewins 3 stage model for change (PSU 2017).

The unfreezing process was as follows: First we picked a system to implement and then pulled together focus groups of our highest volume hiring managers.  We presented to them the benefits of a centralized model and solicited their help in picking a communication strategy.  Ultimately we decided to go with a phased implementation by region. The change process stated at the regional leadership meetings where the idea was presented at all of the regional leaders.  Next a top down communication method was used to communicate the change.  We enlisted “culture clubs” that would push the idea of change and promote the move internally.  The culture clubs main goal was to encourage the managers at their sites that the change would make the process quicker and ensure they were receiving the top talent available.  At the time we had a turnover rate of around 11%, this is high for the utility industry and during most exit meetings it was revealed to HR that the main reason for the change was a lack of career mobility.  We ensured the teams that if we had a central system which all jobs were posted that this would allow for more transparency in our hiring and greater internal mobility options for the employees.  The clubs were a success, mostly because the people we chose to part of these clubs were in the same demographic that we were seeing most of the turnover in (mid-senior level and under 40).  We next launched a series of internal communication to promote the change that focused on the individual benefits and business benefits of the change.  Finally the refreezing phase started with a phased implementation.  We started in the closest region to our centralized location as to ensure the most hands on experience.  The implementation was a yearlong process as we wanted to ensure that we could generate a buzz from our successes and get the other area that were not centralized excited about “joining the club”.  It was a success!  We hired candidates directly from our competitors and were bringing on people in high level positions that made immediate business impact.  Additionally, we had employees changing business units, managers, and regions like never before.  By the time we got to the last region the organization was buzzing and they were excited to join the centralized model.  We are now a year into full centralization and we have heard from many managers that they couldn’t imagine going back.

So there you have it, by using the model of freezing our current process, changing behavior and then refreezing we were able to successful shift the way my organization hires talent.  We brought the time to fill number down to 44 days and now know it cost us $2,473.21 per hire.  The approach we took was geocentric and mindful of how our Canadian counterparts did their hiring but also took mindful to the overall organizational impact of the change.  By enlisting our culture clubs and executive sponsor we were able to get top down buy in and create an environment where we value internal mobility and talent sharing.  We also now had a standard defensible process for hiring that was both consistent and measurable.

I didn’t realize it at the time but what we had done was truly global in a conceptual sense yet regionally effective.

 

References:

Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing cultural differences. Oxon: Routledge.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2016) LER201 Employment Law

I recently started working for a utility company as the Supervisor of Talent Acquisition. I was recruited out of a large international electronics industry for my experience building strong talent pipelines of diverse candidates.  When I was interviewed they asked me a lot about diversity and what I had done to improve diversity at my current organization.  My first response to them was to define diversity.  Their response was similar to that of American Express; age, color, national origin etc. (PSU WC L3), however their look back at me was one of astonishment.  After the one interviewer stopped listing all the usual suspect the other one in the interview asked me how I could not know that if I had done all of these great things with diversity initiatives.  I explained to her very simply that my definition of diversity was different.  Yes, I thought that all the typical Title VII classification were important but to me diversity was about perspectives.  I believed that if a department had all 50+ year old white males working for them that if I hired a 20 something year old white male that would be also be diversity, they were a bit shocked, a bit intrigued and ask me to elaborate.  You see I didn’t realize it at the time but my definition of diversity was very similar to the definition of “deep level diversity” while there was similar to “surface level diversity” (PSU WC L3)

I think a portion of this comes from the time I grew up in; you see as a millennial form New Jersey typical surface level diversity characteristics are a way of life.  My neighborhood had everything, Spanish, African American, Indian, white, etc.  Blended families were common place and even broken families were common.  We didn’t judge each other based on our cultural backgrounds but rather on how we were as human beings, how we treated each other, and how we respected each other.  I like to think I bring a lot of this to my work life.

As a Talent Acquisition professional I am responsible for educating my managers on the benefits of diversity.  However, as I mentioned above my definition is a little different.  I believe, as the book say we should capitalize on human diversity in attitudes, beliefs and values and not just age sex and ethnicity (Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran, S. V. (2011)). When I give interview training, I teach the managers to recruit for core values and not just for skill sets.  Each time I have intake meetings with new managers we outline the core attributes they feel each successful member of their team possess, then we formulate questions to address those attributes rather than ask about a hard skill.  I will also encourage the managers to bring in an unbiased third party interviewer to give an honest evaluation of the person from an “organizational cultural fit” perspective as well as encourage the manager to hire folks with different functional backgrounds (e.g. military, IT, finance, etc.).  You see I believe that if we have a team that all think the same we will never do anything amazing.  I liken it to a quote from Henry Ford where he said “if I had asked people what they wanted they would have told me faster horses” (A quote by Henry Ford. (n.d.)).

This week’s lesson taught me that while I didn’t think I had any global experience my approach to diversity was global in nature.  The lesson says that to be a truly global leader you must understand that unless you have different perspective your organization cannot perform at its peak, however, these perspective don’t always have to be in the form of the traditional surface level diverse team, they just need to have varying levels of deep level diversity.  We learned that studies show that while minimally surface level diverse teams and extremely surface level diverse teams have very little difference in outcomes, teams with strong inclusiveness and deep level diversity perspectives always perform better (Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran, S. V. (2011)).

 

 

 

References:

Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran, S. V. (2011). Managing cultural differences. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann, Elsevier.

Pennsylvania World Campus (2017) OLEAD 410 Lesson 3 Diversity

A quote by Henry Ford. (n.d.). Retrieved January 23, 2017, from http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/15297-if-i-had-asked-people-what-they-wanted-they-would

 

Hi All,

My name is Kevin and I am a sophomore double majoring in Organizational Leadership & Labor & Employment Relations.  I currently oversee the Talent Acquisition function at a large international utility company and am located in our North American HQ in New Jersey.  While I love talent acquisition I am a firm believer that it is a high burnout job and have given myself a 10 year lifespan in the industry, currently I am completing my 6th year.  While TA is a part of Human Resources the actual day to day interaction with HR is limited, it is my short term goal to oversee Learning & Development, Diversity and Talent Acquisition with a long term goal to oversee an entire HR department.  Aside from professionally, my personal long term goal is to retire!

 

Currently I lead a team of 4 in Talent Acquisition as well as a team of 15 as the Chair of the companies Professional Development business resource group.  I was promoted in February of last year to lead Talent Acquisition and only took over the BRG this month, as you can imagine my leadership experience is minimal and at a crossroads right now, either I will succeed or fail, hence why I am taking this class as well as completing a degree in OLEAD.

 

My favorite leadership quote is by Colon Powell “You’ll know your a good leader when people follow you if only out of curiosity”.  This quote is from his video about the essence of leadership which I highly recommend for everyone to listen to.  For me it was very impactful by emphasizing how important trust is to leadership.  Several times during my brief stint as a leader I have been put into situations where I didn’t know what to do or how to respond, however, I never let my team know that.  I never let them know when I was scared, or confused because as Mr. Powell so eloquently puts its “if you are scared, cold and hungry, they will be scared cold and hungry”.

 

An interesting fact about me is that I have a pretty substantial sports memorabilia collection and if I ever hit the lottery that is what I would do buy and trade sports memorabilia (from paradise of course!).

 

Thank you all for reading and I look forward to working with you all in the future.

 

Regards,

Kevin