Spring - Issue 45

newsletter
Offices throughout America, Asia-Pacific and Europe
Issue 45
Contents
Page 1
Can you go beyond compliance?
Alain Verstandig, NetExpat President
Page 1
A 6 Sigma black belt journey in
Global Mobility
Hannah Parkinson, Global
Mobility Manager, Caterpillar
Human Services Division,
Peterborough, UK
Page 2
International Mobility at BSH Bosch
und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH
Andrea Mehde, Director Executives
and Expatriate Management, BSH
Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH,
Munich, Germany
Page 3
Team dynamics to support
expat spouses
Anne-Laure Budin,
Director NetExpat France
Page 4
CapGemini transforms the way to
move its talent around the globe
Jean-Baptiste Hebrard, Group
International Assignment Manager,
CapGemini, Paris, France
Learn more about NetExpat
www.netexpat.com
EDITORIAL
Can you go beyond compliance?
Alain Verstandig, NetExpat President
Reaching transactional excellence
in managing your international
moves is a must, in fact, it’s a given
– but not yet to all corporations.
Whether you keep things inhouse, or outsource your mobility,
corporate objectives are clear: risks
and liabilities should be contained
and compliance should be your
norm. Immigration, tax, legal,
safety aspects: proper compliance
is a must.
compliant? Are you aiming to
add value to mobility? Are you
revisiting your policies to link
mobility with talent management?
But even if you are not 100% there
yet, is your mobility department
ambitioning more than being
All those who, like me, have been
in this industry for a while will
probably agree: when hearing
the word “compliance”, I feel I’ve
time-traveled back 15 years, when
frightening cases of permanent
establishments or horror stories
of stealth expats would keep
audiences talking for hours.
But this was 15 years ago…
Has your international mobility
not grown past this stage? If it
hasn’t, you’re probably seriously
understaffed and the lack of
resources might expose you to an
even greater danger: becoming
obsolete.
Isn’t it time to change the question
from “Are you compliant?” to
“Can you go beyond compliance?”
CORPORATE VISION
A 6 Sigma black belt journey in Global Mobility
Hannah Parkinson, Global Mobility Manager, Caterpillar Human Services Division,
Peterborough, UK is interviewed by Alain Verstandig, NetExpat President
Alain Verstandig: Hannah, you are an outsider
in international mobility: tell us more about your
background.
Hannah Parkinson: You are right Alain, I’m fairly new
to International Mobility. I joined Caterpillar 15 years
ago and worked in Marketing and 6 Sigma for about
7 years, but I gained first-hand experience in Mobility
in 2007 when I moved abroad to Hamburg with my
family for a few years.
Whilst in Hamburg I completed a Master’s degree
in Organizational Psychology and when I returned
from Hamburg, I moved into Human Resources.
Initially I joined the “Develop” team to work on the
implementation of a new third party labor supplier
into our facilities in the UK and in January last year,
I was offered the opportunity to lead Caterpillar’s
Global Mobility team.
Although I have responsibility for the global policy,
processes and supplier relationships, we have
operational mobility leads for each region (EMEA, Asia
Pacific and Americas). Being based in EMEA, I also take
the operational responsibility for this region. I work
very closely with my fellow regional leads in Asia and
the Americas, to ensure that we are aligned globally.
When I joined the global mobility team it was my 6
Sigma black belt background that helped me most.
It allowed me to ask the candid questions from a
newcomer’s perspective – “Why do we do it this
way?”, “How do other organizations do it?”. This is
the privilege of not being a mobility or Comp & Ben
expert, no-one judges you for not knowing and it also
enables you to bring a fresh eye to everything from
practices and policies to supplier relationships. I may
not have the expertise of a seasoned mobility expert
but I don’t have the preconceived ideas either!
I would say, however, that working with a team of
really experienced professionals, who understand the
current practices and can expertly guide managers
See A 6 Sigma black belt journey in Global Mobility on page 2
Ò
1
CORPORATE VISION
International Mobility at BSH Bosch und Siemens
Hausgeräte GmbH
Andrea Mehde, Director Executives and Expatriate Management,
BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH, Munich, Germany
is interviewed by Dr. Winfried Guba, NetExpat Director Germany
Winfried Guba: BSH Bosch und
Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH (BSH)
is the largest manufacturer of
home appliances in Europe and
one of the leading companies in
the sector worldwide. Can you tell
us more about your company and
its global presence?
Andrea Mehde: BSH was founded
in 1967 between Robert Bosch
GmbH and Siemens AG with the
purpose of building household
appliances. Together with a global
network of sales and customer
service firms, BSH in total consists
of about 70 companies in 50
countries, with a total workforce
of around 50.000 employees and
about 10 billion Euros annual
revenue.
Sometimes we get the feeling that
the people who are most reluctant
regarding the training seem to be
the ones who need it most
WG: As Director Executives
and Expatriate Management
you are responsible for about
750 managers and expatriates
worldwide including management
development
and
strategic
succession planning. Two quite
different HR functions like Talent
Management for Executives and
Global Mobility are in the same
hands. What were the reasons
behind this type of organization?
AM: When I was asked to take over
this function, it was a prerequisite
for me to have Global Mobility,
Management Development and
Strategic Succession Planning in
one hand. It is essential to have
a strategic and holistic view on
the whole process including
repatriation in order to develop
our executives in
the most effective
way for both their
wellbeing and for the
benefit of BSH.
Global Mobility look to you?
AM: It is difficult to describe a
catch-all solution for all different
types of organizations, but I can tell
you what we have done to make
this happen. We have organized,
for instance, a weekly meeting
between Talent Management and
Global Mobility, in which we cover
all repatriations less than one year
before return. And we are not only
covering facts and data; we also
take into account
WG: How does a
modern and effective
cooperation
between
Talent Management and
A 6 Sigma black belt journey in Global Mobility
continued from page 1
... through mobility processes, is
fundamental. We have a great
mobility team here at Caterpillar
and I am very grateful to lead and
work with such talented people.
Our job is definitely made easier
by the fact that Caterpillar has
such great employment policies
and as an expat, we also provide
the support our assignees need in
order to be successful.
population is US outbound,
however
this
is
gradually
decreasing (last year it was 52
percent) so diversity is definitely
on the rise at Caterpillar.
When I joined the global mobility
team it was my 6 Sigma black belt
background that helped me most
AV: What does Caterpillar’s
assignee profile look like?
HP: Caterpillar has roughly 1050
employees on assignment around
the world at any one time. We have
International Service Employees
(ISEs) on assignment from around
400 country combinations (home
to host), with the US, China,
Singapore, UK and Switzerland
holding our largest populations.
We are, however, seeing an
increase in population in Dubai,
Africa and some Eastern European
countries.
Around 47 percent of our assignee
2
Our common objective is to make
sure that Caterpillar’s mobility
policies and practices are fully
aligned with our Talent strategy
AV: What are your challenges?
HP: There are two distinctive areas
that bring a challenge to the role.
On the one hand, I see operational
challenges that are very personal
to the assignee and as such are
quite time consuming. These
would include finding appropriate
housing, forced moves, import
issues around the movement of
our policies keep up-to-date
with the requirements of the
various business units across
the world and providing useful
and appropriate information to
my colleagues in HR to enable
them to effectively manage their
assignment population are just a
few. I am fortunate to have already
built great relationships with my
colleagues in the “Develop” team
and meet with them regularly to
work through these challenges.
I have also set up a focus group
with some of the key HR leaders
in Caterpillar, to allow us to
work through some of the more
relevant challenges together in a
smaller group, get their view on
our proposals and then present
these to the wider organization.
household goods. Fortunately, we Diversity is definitely on the rise at
don’t have to deal directly with Caterpillar
immigration and tax issues which
are very efficiently managed by Our common objective is to make
sure that Caterpillar’s mobility
our service providers.
policies and practices are fully
We also face the strategic aligned with our Talent strategy
challenges of mobility. Aligning but that they also support our
policies and processes with business unit goals and enable
Caterpillar’s
talent
and positive mobility experiences for
recruitment practices, ensuring all our employees.
the input from personal interviews
with
our
Global
Mobility
employees to have an even more
complete picture. All relevant data
is in a worldwide accessible IT
system and all HR Talent Managers
can evaluate on a global basis
which person might have the
required capabilities.
as they meet the basic company
values and our compliance
requirements. We have had
very good experience with this
type of cultural freedom and
we certainly don’t want to force
German culture onto our different
WG: What role does the
combination
of
assessment,
intercultural training and expat
coaching play in developing
international management and
leadership competence?
WG: Your company is one of the
top employers in Europe with
a number of respected awards.
What explains the attractiveness
of BSH regarding the promotion of
international careers?
We certainly don’t want to force
German culture onto our different
entities
AM: This is explained both by
our very good company culture
and our state of the art HR tools.
Our employees are aware of
the different perspectives in the
company and they do see a variety
of options for international careers.
We also leave our employees and
managers a significant degree of
leeway and to a certain extent
allow specific country cultures
within our organization as long
entities. We do also have a multibrand strategy, which allows us to
approach different countries and
cultures in a different and flexible
way. Generally we work very much
in a consensus-oriented way,
BEST PRACTICES
Team dynamics to support expat spouses
Anne-Laure Budin, Director NetExpat France
NetExpat France launched a very
interesting new format about a
year ago to enrich the range of
the individual coaching we have
been offering to expat spouses
for over 15 years: a 4-hour group
seminar dedicated to spouses.
“I feel less alone in this adventure!”
The critics were expecting it
to be at best a group coaching
session replicating what we
already achieve in one on one
coaching, while the optimists
believed in its potential to build
something magical from the team
dynamics. These group sessions
were requested by many of our
corporate clients so all eyes were
focused on the first pilots.
The optimists were right: the
first 4-hour seminars turned
out to be amazing for all the
based on professional discussions
covering technical and contentrelated topics to achieve best
results. Moreover, sustainability,
environmental protection, and
social responsibility are integral
parts of our corporate policy.
participants! Thanks to the
limited size of groups and to the
open and interactive atmosphere
created by our facilitator,
these seminars have quickly
blossomed to become wonderful
opportunities to exchange and
share expectations: each spouse
was reassured to see others facing
similar dreams and fears, and was
eager to help others build their
possible futures abroad.
Feedback included: “I enjoyed
this seminar so much! I found it
very reassuring and interesting to
interact with people in the same
situation as me”. “I feel less alone
in this adventure!”.
These first seminars quickly
became very popular within
French corporations and their
expatriate spouses. Thanks to our
AM: Assessment is an integral part
of our Management Development
and Senior Executive Programs
– not only for expatriates.
Regarding intercultural trainings,
we have checked this intensively
and came to the conclusion that
participation has to be mandatory
for any person leaving the home
country. Expatriates need to have
a certain understanding of the
other culture to be prepared for
different types of intercultural
business encounters. Sometimes
we get the feeling that the people
who are most reluctant regarding
the (intercultural) training seem
first guinea pigs, we soon ended
up creating a range of different
formats: some for newcomers to
France, others for those leaving
France, some dedicated to expat
spouses willing to work, and
last but not least, one seminar
dedicated to spouses returning
from an expatriation.
The success grew quickly outside
of France as our seminars started
spreading to NetExpat London,
Munich, Brussels, Hong Kong, New
Delhi, Shanghai, Singapore, Dubai,
Houston and New York.
Each time, expatriate spouses
engaged in the thrilling group
dynamic: employees, executives,
to be the ones who need it most,
and we continue with coaching
measures for key persons.
WG: Many corporations complain
about high attrition rates after
repatriation. How do you prevent
this effect at BSH?
AM: Indeed we do have a low
attrition rate after repatriation.
Only 3% of the returned
expatriates at management level
left the company within the
following two years. Strategic
succession planning plays a key
role here.
Regarding intercultural trainings,
we have checked this intensively
and came to the conclusion that the
participation has to be mandatory
As already mentioned, we do have
an international IT system, which is
visible worldwide for HR managers
to plan for the next appropriate
function. And our weekly meeting
between Talent Management
and Global Mobility, which goes
beyond the exchange of data and
facts, definitely contributes here in
a significant way.
housewives, athletes, teachers,
doctors and nurses, all contributed
to building a collective energy
strengthening and empowering
each participant to protect them
from a too frequent feeling of
isolation.
Each spouse was reassured to
see others facing similar dreams
and fears, and was eager to help
others build their possible futures
abroad
And after that you may ask? Well,
expat spouses enjoy their one on
one coaching sessions that help
them deal with their own individual
issues. Most stay in contact through
our online NetExpat Community
and start growing their very own
network amongst spouses facing
similar adventures in different
countries. Months after their initial
seminars, friendships are still there
to help, reassure and encourage
when needed.
3
Our Clients
3M
ACNielsen
Adeo Leroy Merlin
Air Liquide
Airbus
Alstom
AREVA
AstraZeneca
Auchan
AVIVA
AXA
Bacardi-Martini
BASF
Bayer
BD Biosciences Europe
BMW
BNP Paribas
Boehringer Ingelheim
Bosch
BP
Bristol-Myers Squibb
BSH
Capgemini
Cargill
Caterpillar
CGG Veritas
Colgate Palmolive
Continental AG
Corus Group plc
Credit Suisse
Danisco
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Dexia
Diageo
DuPont
EDF
Egis
Essilor
Euroclear Bank
ExxonMobil
GDF Suez
General Motors
Givaudan
GlaxoSmithKline
Glion IHE
Goodyear
Honeywell
ING
INSEAD
International Paper
Johnson & Johnson
Jungheinrich
Kraft Foods
Logica
L’Oréal
LVMH
Mars
MasterCard
MBDA France
Merck KGaA
Merck Sharp & Dohme
Methanex
Munich Re
Nestlé
Newell Rubbermaid
Schlumberger
Nissan Europe
Solvay
Nyrstar
Sony
NYSE-Euronext
Standard Life
PerkinElmer
SWIFT
Pfizer
Tchibo
Philip Morris International
Thales
PricewaterhouseCoopers
The Body Shop
Procter & Gamble
TOTAL
PSA Peugeot Citroen
UBS
Puratos
UCB
Reckitt Benckiser
Umicore
Roche
Unilever
Rolls-Royce
UPS
Saint Gobain
Vallourec
Sanofi-Aventis
Voith
Whirlpool
…
CORPORATE VISION
CapGemini transforms the way to move its talent around the globe
Jean-Baptiste Hebrard, Group International Assignment Manager, CapGemini, Paris, France Jean-Baptiste Hebrard: Indeed
Alain, international mobility is
a natural part of the CapGemini
delivery model being a consulting
company that brings multinational
and multidisciplinary teams to
quickly meet our clients’ needs
anywhere in the world. So our
employees need to travel and
they like it! Offering exciting
international career opportunities
to our fresh talent is the best way
to attract and retain them, while
mobility will accelerate careers
for our more senior employees.
Last year 20.000 CapGemini
employees were offered 40.000
international assignments to
120 different countries: 75% of
Our Group is now present in 44
countries.
The first necessary step towards
supporting our growth was to
transform the way we move our
talent around the globe. But
this was not the only reason:
CapGemini manages its operations
in a very decentralized way, and
a 2012 benchmark analysis with
our competitors told us that our
support functions could be leaner
and more efficient.
So a substantial improvement
project was launched by our
Group board in 2012 and quickly
involved all support functions
within CapGemini: within the HR
function, our objective
towards international
these assignments were under mobility professionals was first
one month, 24% were from one to audit our capabilities to define
month to a year and we had 250 best practices and common
assignments lasting more than processes to favor the emergence
one year. About 4.000 CapGemini of fewer and more consistent
employees are on assignment policies which would result in
more operational excellence.
somewhere abroad as we speak!
All this is administered by 100
dedicated CapGemini mobility The first necessary step towards
professionals.
supporting our growth was to
transform the way we move our
AV: You have been driving an talent around the globe
impressive transformation in
the way international mobility Being a consulting firm, we did
is handled by CapGemini: tell us a great job in analyzing what we
were doing right and where we
more about it.
needed to gain productivity: our
JBH: Yes, CapGemini has been board proposed the creation
growing so much globally and of 5 HR “Centers of Excellence”
so quickly these last years that a including International Mobility,
&
Development,
fresh approach was needed. In Learning
only 5 years we have grown from Recruitment and C&B.
60.000 to 130.000 employees. International Mobility was chosen
4
to lead the way for the other
HR “Centers of Excellence”: we
started our journey involving all
our 100 dedicated CapGemini
mobility
professionals,
local
HRD and CFOs around the globe.
We’ve been supported by a VP
HR director who was interacting
directly with our Business Units
CEOs when local resistance
to change was hit. We got an
insightful 360° picture of our
structures, resources, policies
and costs and started evolving
from a decentralized network of
CapGemini mobility professionals
towards one global support expert
function acting as a business
partner for the business.
In less than 2 years, we have
gained consistency across the
globe and decreased the cost
of our external services. We
have set up regional centers
of expertise in Sweden,
Germany, The Netherlands,
France, UK, and India supported
by 3 offshore centers in India,
Poland and Guatemala.
AV: As you start to implement this
new structure, what is your recipe
for successful transformation?
JBH: Firstly, you need to set
and share a vision with clearly
identified targets to help
everyone understand why you
are rethinking processes. It’s
also important to gain people’s
support by being transparent and
communicating over and over
again. Make sure that your key
sponsors are senior and respected
so that they can help you move
things forward, unlock residual
resistance and change reporting
lines. Last but not least, relocate
people’s roles with progressive
steps and continuous empathy.
Supported by
NetExpat is a global leader in
assessing, training and coaching
expatriates and their partners. We
provide expat partner support,
expat
coaching,
intercultural
training and expat assessment to
over 200 multinational corporations
in 64 countries where we have
a local presence. Our ultimate
goal is to assist corporations and
expats in achieving successful
international
assignments,
whether the move is for three
months, three years or on a
permanent basis.
Web site: www.netexpat.com
e-mail: [email protected]
Spring 2014– ISSUE 45- Responsible editor: Alain Verstandig, Avenue Louise 287/11, B 1050 Brussels - Office of deposal: Brussels X - P2A9744
Alain Verstandig: Jean Baptiste,
it seems that CapGemini lives and
breathes internationally!

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