How do you manage the risks and uncertainties of IHRM in a volatile and complex world?

1 Assess the context

Before you design and implement any IHRM strategy, you need to assess the context of each country and region where you operate or plan to operate. This means understanding the legal, cultural, institutional, and competitive factors that influence the labor market, the workforce, the customers, and the stakeholders. You also need to monitor the trends and developments that may affect the opportunities and threats for your business, such as political instability, economic crises, social movements, environmental issues, and technological innovations. By conducting a thorough and ongoing environmental scan, you can identify the risks and uncertainties that may affect your IHRM objectives and activities, and plan accordingly.

2 Align with the strategy

Another key aspect of managing the risks and uncertainties of IHRM is to align your IHRM practices with the overall strategy and vision of your organization. This means ensuring that your IHRM policies and procedures support the core values, mission, and goals of your business, and that they are consistent and coherent across different locations and levels. You also need to communicate and coordinate your IHRM actions with other functional areas, such as finance, marketing, operations, and research and development, to ensure that they are integrated and aligned with the organizational priorities and capabilities. By aligning your IHRM practices with the strategy, you can enhance the performance and competitiveness of your organization, and reduce the potential conflicts and inconsistencies that may arise from different expectations and interests.

3 Develop the talent

One of the most important and challenging tasks of IHRM is to develop the talent of your international workforce. This means attracting, selecting, training, motivating, rewarding, and retaining the best people for your organization, and ensuring that they have the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors that are required for their roles and responsibilities. You also need to foster a culture of learning and development, where your employees can acquire new competencies, share best practices, and adapt to changing needs and demands. Moreover, you need to manage the diversity and inclusion of your workforce, by respecting and valuing the differences and similarities among your employees, and creating a work environment that is fair, supportive, and empowering. By developing the talent of your workforce, you can enhance their engagement, satisfaction, commitment, and retention, and leverage their potential for innovation and creativity.

4 Balance the standardization and localization

Another critical aspect of managing the risks and uncertainties of IHRM is to balance the standardization and localization of your IHRM practices. This means finding the optimal degree of similarity and difference among your IHRM policies and procedures across different countries and cultures, depending on the context and the strategy. On one hand, you may want to standardize some of your IHRM practices, such as compensation, performance appraisal, or ethics, to ensure consistency, efficiency, and compliance. On the other hand, you may want to localize some of your IHRM practices, such as recruitment, training, or motivation, to reflect the preferences, norms, and values of your local employees, customers, and stakeholders. By balancing the standardization and localization of your IHRM practices, you can achieve a balance between global integration and local responsiveness, and avoid the pitfalls of ethnocentrism or relativism.

5 Build the flexibility and resilience

The final tip for managing the risks and uncertainties of IHRM is to build the flexibility and resilience of your organization and your workforce. This means developing the ability and willingness to adjust and respond to the changes and challenges that may arise in the external or internal environment, and to recover and learn from the setbacks and failures that may occur. You can build the flexibility and resilience of your organization by adopting a dynamic and agile approach to IHRM, where you can review and revise your IHRM practices based on feedback and evaluation, and where you can experiment and innovate with new ideas and solutions. You can also build the flexibility and resilience of your workforce by encouraging a growth mindset, where your employees can embrace uncertainty and ambiguity, and where they can seek opportunities for improvement and development. By building the flexibility and resilience of your organization and your workforce, you can enhance the adaptability and sustainability of your IHRM practices, and cope with the volatility and complexity of the world.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?