Category Archives: General

General information about the International HR Forum Blog

International Payday Rules from A to Z

Author:
Jacque Vilet – Vilet International

Have you ever wondered about the legal requirements that impact how your employees are paid around the world?   Or, if you have an employee(s) in a start-up operation in a new country, do you know how they should be paid?

This article addresses a few facts about country payrolls that you might like to know.   We will focus on some basics:   legal rules affecting paydays and legal currency allowed for payment of wages.  These provisions are for local national staff, not expatriates.

Below is a table showing the requirements for one country from A to Z with the exception of “X” and  “W”.   There are no countries starting with those letters.

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New Category Navigation Feature

We’ve added a handy way to search the archives of the International HR Forum by category.

Now, for the most popular categories, you can simply click on “Posts by Category” in the Menu Bar, and then select the category of interest to you. When you click on the category of your choice, you will get a listing of all the posts in that category, beginning with the most recent.

We hope you find this feature useful.

Top Ten Posts of 2010

As many of you know, this blog was launched in April, 2009, and was envisioned as a destination for international human resources professionals, a place where international HR pros could learn best practices, participate in discussions and share their knowledge.  We never anticipated how popular the site would be, but as of today, December 26, 2010, we have over 500 regular subscribers, and average over 250 visitors per day, almost every day!

As we come to the close of the year, we decided once again to look back and celebrate what we have accomplished as a community, and share with you a summary of the most popular content from the International HR Forum during 2010.  We hope you find this list handy, and look forward to hearing from you in the new year.

Top Ten Posts of 2010:

  1. Why Culture is Important in International Business
  2. How Top Companies Manage Talent Development
  3. Everybody Hates Performance Appraisals — What To Do?
  4. International Employment Law “Quick Facts” – Brazil
  5. Delegation: Leadership Development in Africa – Part 2
  6. Ten Steps for Building A Salary Structure
  7. Creating High Performance Teams
  8. Base Salary – Not So Basic!
  9. International Employment Law “Quick Facts” – India
  10. Reverse Culture Shock (Or Why Do I Hate Being Home?)

The above posts are those which had the most views during 2010.  Most were published during 2010, but a few are actually from 2009.  We will be sharing some additional category summaries later in the week.

Happy holidays!

E-Learning in Africa (and the rest of the world!) Part 2


Authors:
Han van der Pool – TNT N.V.
Lex Lindeman – HRBoosters

Introduction
In part one of this two-part post, we discussed e-learning in Africa, and especially the hurdles of implementation.  In this second part, we will delve more into practical advice for successful implementations in Africa, or anywhere else in the world!

In a broad sense, e-learning can be defined as “any form of learning that makes use of a network for distribution, interaction and facilitation.” There are plenty of demonstrable success stories and breathtaking ROIs.  However, the other side of the coin is that in many cases, web-based investments turn out to be fiascoes and only lead to a waste of time.

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Ten Tips to Develop a Global Code of Conduct – Part 2

Author:
Mariana Villa da Costa – Littler Mendelson

A few weeks ago in the first post of this series, I provided five tips to get you started in the development of a Global Code of Conduct.  In this post, we are back with five more tips to help you finish your Code.

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Corporate Intranets – A Global Disconnect?


Author:
Jacquelyn Vilet – TriNet

Editor’s NoteWe are pleased to welcome Jacque Vilet as a regular contributor to the International HR Forum. Jacque is a Global HR/Benefits Consultant for TriNet, providing global Human Resources services to SME’s with international operations.  She has over 20 years experience in International Human Resources with both local nationals and expatriates, and has been an expat twice during her career. Jacque holds the Certified Compensation Professional (CCP)  from WorldatWork, the GPHR Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHR) from the Society of Human Resources Management and  Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) from Human Capital Insitute.

Every company operating on a global basis is interested in having all their employees worldwide identify  with the company  Many companies use an “Intranet” web site for this purpose.  But oftentimes, the design can be flawed, and even lead to disconnects with global employees.  Do you think the design of your intranet makes employees worldwide truly identify with your company?

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Ten Tips to Develop a Global Code of Conduct – Part 1

Author:
Mariana Villa da Costa – Littler Mendelson

What is a Global Code of Conduct?  Everybody talks about them, and they have become a necessity for global businesses in today’s environment, but truly, drafting one can be a big mystery and a lot of work.  Who should draft them? A lawyer? Human resources personnel? The CEO?  What content should be included? What language?

These questions, and many others, will be answered with my ten tips to develop a Global Code of Conduct.  The first five tips are in this post; the remaining ones will follow soon in a follow-up post. Here we go:

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It’s the World Cup — Do I Have to Work?


Author:

Mariana Villa da Costa – Littler Mendelson

On June 11, the world has seen the launch of one of the biggest sporting events – the World Cup, this year being hosted in South Africa.  The World Cup is a passion to millions and millions of people around the world, and a much anticipated month-long series of games that unfortunately, for those who love futbol (soccer)  like me, only happens once every 4 years.

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Creating High Performance Teams

Authors:
Lex Lindeman – HR Boosters
Dr. Paul Rono – Kenyatta University (Nairobi, Kenya)

Lex Lindeman

Paul Rono

What is a Team?
A team is a group of people who work together to accomplish something beyond their individual self interests.  Not all groups are teams.  What distinguishes teams from other similar sounding groups is that a team is not a collection of people simply following orders.

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Global HR Issues That Keep Executives Up at Night – Part 1


Guest Author:
Jacqueline Vilet – TriNet

Editor’s NoteWe are pleased to welcome Jacque Vilet as a guest author for the International HR Forum. Jacque is a Global HR/Benefits Consultant for TriNet, providing global Human Resources services to SME’s with international operations.  She has over 20 years experience in International Human Resources with both local nationals and expatriates, and has been an expat twice during her career. Jacque holds the Certified Compensation Professional (CCP) designation from World at Work, and the GPHR (Global Professional in Human Resources) designation from the Society of Human Resources Management.

Everyone has heard the question “What keeps you up at night?”   The answer usually depends on the context.   If we ask  C-level executives, the answer might cover such topics as market share, profit margins, stock price, ROI, etc.

Executives might also worry about their international operations – whether they picked the right people to run them, whether these managers are making inroads into the company’s potential customer base, hiring the right employees and remaining on target to meet business goals that are so important for expanding the company’s global market.

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