ChapmanCG Global HR Interviews

An organisation’s values are its unifying principles. They shape the goals and the vision and they set the framework for how the business and its employees will behave. But equally important and sometimes often overlooked is how they unite a group of people with diverse backgrounds and skillsets to work together, as a team, to achieve shared success.

Todd Shaw, Global Chief Human Resources Officer for Verifone, discusses how corporate values shape the culture and define leadership and Talent Management strategy.

As Japan continues in its integration into the APAC matrix, a new kind of HR leader emerges: one who can work harmoniously within the local organisation, while also building relationships with the regional and global stakeholders.

Oscar Fuchs, Managing Director and Co-founder of ChapmanCG, discusses current HR trends in Japan and the opportunities (and challenges) that organisations and international HR leaders can experience when working there.

China’s labour market is making the transition from one that heavily relies on manufacturing to one that houses more service-oriented jobs. Skilled, multilingual professionals with international savvy are highly sought-after, and HR leaders who can function across two cultures: the company’s and the local market’s are imperative for continued organisational growth.

Ferran Raurich, Global Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Global Supply Chain at Schneider Electric, discusses HR practices and challenges within Greater China.

Digital has changed everything—from the way we shop for our groceries to the way we listen to our favourite music and watch our favourite TV shows. It can seem like newer, smaller, more agile organisations have an easier time adapting to the ever changing external market pressures, but how do larger, more established organisations cope? What’s the profile of the leaders who steer organisations with multiple lines of business operating in emerging and developed markets through the seas of constant change?

Gary Kildare, Global Chief Human Resources Officer at IBM, discusses IBM’s leadership framework.

Some might argue that a good leader should be able to lead effectively anywhere in the world, but leadership styles that work in one part of the world don’t always translate to success in another. Research has shown that Western work behaviours can have the opposite effect in the Asian context.

Professor Giles Hirst, Director of Product Develop for Aperio and Chair of Leadership for the Australian National University, discusses the Behavioural Preferences Insight Tool and how it can help shed light on workplace behaviours that are more successful within the Asian context for multinational organisations.

Leaders are constantly looking for that one great product or service that will set them apart from the competition, but the reality is patents expire and your top performers today can easily become top performers for your competitors tomorrow. So what is it that truly makes your organisation unique? Why should potential employees come work for you?

Simon Riis-Hansen, Global Chief Human Resources Officer at Lego, discusses how your company culture is your best competitive advantage.

If everyone’s not killing off their performance review process they’re in the middle of giving it a major overhaul. It seems that no one is happy with the annual review and rating system that was designed to align employee performance with their department’s goals, which would ultimately underpin the organisation’s overall business strategy.

But are we being too rash? How do you measure performance and identify high potentials if you don’t have performance ratings? Is there truly another way?

Sudarshana Rangachary, Vice President of HR & Communications for Supply Chain at GAP, discusses how her organisation is faring a year after killing off its performance rating system.

For the past 10 years, how we work has largely been a top-down approach: senior executives at headquarters (usually in the West) develop a strategy that is pushed down through the management ranks at a steady pace until it reaches the individual contributor population. Work and Life is kept separate, where the ideal is to strike some kind of elusive balance between the two.

But all of that is changing. Rapidly evolving technology has allowed communication to flow more concentrically. The younger generation’s entrance into the workplace has disrupted the way we do business as their expectations around access to information and how they work seem to be organically aligned with the pace of innovative technologies. Work and Life has become more entwined and employee’s demand for a “seat at the table” has necessitated a bottom-up flow of information.

Rick Von Feldt, Workplace Futurist at Kolaborative, discusses the workplace of the future.

More organisations are deciding to change their performance management systems. Some are eliminating them altogether, while others are switching to informal conversations that occur more frequently than the annual review cycle. But one thing is clear: the traditional performance management system isn’t meeting the needs of today’s global businesses.

Gabriele Mair, Global HR Director for Tridonic, discusses how to develop a performance management system that works.

Globalisation is no longer on the horizon—it’s here, staring us in the face. And for those in leadership roles, understanding its impact is only the first step. Learning how to navigate and think beyond one’s corporate, and geographic, borders is a leadership imperative.

Tina Durocher-Murphy, Senior Vice President, Global Human Resources at Quintiles, discusses the importance of overseas experience for HR leaders—even those in large and diverse markets like the US.