Program Summaries By Track

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Thursday 2:15 - 3:45 pm                  

Philip Berry, President, Philip Berry Associates, LLC.

Bill Sheridan, Vice President, National Foreign Trade Council

As businesses expand their operations abroad, the complexity of operating effectively and profitably requires the active involvement of HR. Whether dealing with acquisitions, mergers, geographic expansion, new product development, or plant rationalization, the role of HR is indispensable to making these efforts successful. HR must take an active leadership role in these efforts to insure that the business achieves its objectives. This session will:

• explore 5 critical areas where providing leadership to ensure HR alignment with the business can spell success or failure for future business operations.
• identify 3 major pitfalls to avoid when operating globally.

Bill Sheridan will share the trends acknowledged by the National Foreign Trade Council and Philip Berry will lead participants to apply global HR strategy alignment.

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - International Management Credit*

Friday 7:30 - 9:00 am                  

Alison Shipitofsky, Global Mobility Advisory Services, KPMG

Bill Sheridan, Vice President, National Foreign Trade Council

Cecilia Paschall, Vice President, Global Mobility, State Street Corporation

The pace of change and volatility of the economy present organizations with many complex challenges to effectively manage global mobility programs. This interactive session features a discussion that focuses on assignment program benchmarking, covering a broad range of international assignment topics that will bring you up to speed on the latest trends and practices in the field, as well as differentiation of "best practice" from "common practice" in cost-of-living allowances, premiums, housing, definition of family, and spousal support. The presenters will focus on key international issues using data from KPMG's Global Assignment Policies and Practices (GAPP) survey and will look back at how international assignment programs have changed since 1999.

Participants are encouraged to bring their questions and concerns and to take KPMG's online GAPP survey prior to the session to receive immediate feedback on international trends and practices at no cost at www.kpmglink.com.

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - International Management Credit*

Friday 9:30 - 11:00 am                  

Mark Feurer, Director, Bunge Limited

Kathleen Molloy, M.A., MBA, Founder & Principal, ChangeWorks International

While workplace communication is a frequent and basic activity, it also can be complex and difficult to do effectively when operating in a global context. A primary reason why even local and regional projects fail or don’t achieve intended results is that the various parties don’t understand each other, and the communication process breaks down. Global communication adds even greater complexity because of language, cultural, geographic, and time difference factors that are part of the communication process. Work teams serve as the back bone of global projects and are used to launch products, develop new designs, implement new information technology systems, improve customer processes, and communicate organizational change. In this forum, attendees will learn about:

• corporate scenarios involving global communications and virtual global teams,
• the challenges they faced and lessons learned,
• specific guidelines on how to globally engage country managers and HR colleagues,
• effective steps in global communications, and
• successful practices for global virtual teams. 

Attendees will be challenged to participate in a group exercise to determine which best practices will be most useful to their own organizational initiatives.

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - International Management Credit*

Friday 1:30 - 3:00 pm                  

Kimberly Bates McCarl, Vice President, Thomson Reuters

Paul Bly, Senior Director, Thomson Reuters

One of the biggest challenges in implementing a corporate-wide initiative is balancing the goals, processes and systems of the corporation with those of the local businesses. This challenge is even more difficult when the organization is global and in 92 countries like Thomson Reuters. Implementing a global, corporate-wide performance management strategy is one of the best models to demonstrate this balance since it must be grounded in the local and cultural contexts within which it must operate to be successful.

Global Talent Executives from Thomson Reuters will walk you through their efforts to implement a corporate-wide performance management strategy and share what local adjustments were made to help support its success. They will describe the Corporate and Business Unit partnerships they forged and highlight their successes and lessons learned, including:

• Leveraging the performance management best practices from two previously independent global companies
• Aligning the newly formed Thomson Reuters organization under a single performance management strategy, process and system
• Supporting local business needs and cultural nuances
• Continuing to adapt and refine performance management processes, tools and resources to the changing needs of the organization

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - International Management Credit*

Friday 3:15 - 4:45 pm                  

Donald C. Dowling, Jr., Attorney, White & Case, LLP

Terry Kelly Sheridan, Director of Human Resources, William J. Clinton Foundation

In this workshop-format session, learn how a multinational employer can successfully develop, implement, and launch a global employee handbook or global code of conduct. Spotlighting real-world case studies from practitioners and international employment counsel, our interactive program will explore both global handbook/code :

• content (what a multinational employer’s global handbook/code should -- and should not -- say) and 
• implementation (launching a headquarters-issued handbook/code across foreign local operations). 

The workshop will wrestle with the toughest questions multinational employers confront in this area: What are the pitfalls in transplanting provisions from a U.S. handbook? Is a single headquarters-issued global handbook/code ever preferable to aligned, locally-tailored versions? What U.S. laws must a global handbook/code enforce abroad -- and how does compliance with U.S. law dovetail with the need to follow local laws and practices? How does a multinational employer account for its local affiliates, local employee representatives, and local work rules? Don’t miss this important session!

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - International Management Credit*

*A PHR may obtain General Credit by attending any session approved for Strategic Credit or International Management Credit.

To learn more about PHR, SPHR, and GPHR certification and recertification, visit the Human Resource Certification Institute web site at www.hrci.org