Top tips to connect Asia with Global HQ

A lively Asia Pacific HR roundtable was co-hosted by PepsiCo and The Chapman Consulting Group in Hong Kong last week. In attendance were over 25 HR leaders with responsibility in Asia Pacific from a broad range of companies including Baker & McKenzie, Bloomberg, Linklaters, Marriot, PCCW, Philips, PVH, Revlon, and many more. Participants discussed the pressures on organisations to act more international, global, and in some cases ‘glocal’. There was a consistent theme to the discussion around HR Leaders linking the region to Headquarters, as well as the challenges encountered when change is driven from a corporate level.

Be visible

Connecting Asia back to headquarters is a hot topic for many organisations at the moment. There is an increased focus on understanding what is happening in Asia while ensuring that high investment markets like China stay on track and deliver the expected return on investment. There were different views on how to achieve this visibility and many cited examples of taking on global projects run out of Asia. Both the exposure it had given employees, as well as the ownership and engagement impact were high. It seemed a strong corporate sponsor was essential and time zone differences for global calls were not always easy!

Joy Xu from host PepsiCo. commented, ‘It is vital for Asia Pacific HR to set the agenda and seize the day by putting Asia forward as a test region for global initiatives. This helps foster greater global appreciation and understanding of Asia within the organization, and can shift paradigms changing the region from an adopter to a leader of best practice.”

Culture carriers

Kate Wheatley, Asia Pacific HR Head for Bloomberg, agreed with the group on the positive aspects of mobility. ‘Having been in the US corporate HQ before transferring to Asia, I have connections and contacts there that help me network my Asia team.” The group agreed that these culture carriers can work both in the region and internationally. Many commented that some of the best links had occurred when a corporate HR leader had spent time in the region then returned back to HQ armed with first hand experience.

Globalising HR

There was a shared feeling that globalization is now a top priority, both for the business and for HR, but when programmes are developed at HQ and rolled out internationally, the success and relevance for Asia was not always clear. HR heads in organisations where change trickled down and they were allowed to personalisation felt the business had a more ‘glocal’ and relevant HR function.

Regional HR Head at Marriott, Regan Taikitsadaporn, noted, “As a global company operating in today’s business environment, we need to strike a balance between meeting the demands of the local market, while maintaining the brand requirements globally. This also translates into how we deploy HR initiatives – we need to determine what is relevant locally as well as what should be a consistent global requirement.”

What if the global HQ is in Asia?

A handful of HR leaders from organisations headquartered in Asia gave a different perspective. A senior HR leader with one such telecommunications company noted that their challenges were no different from those faced by U.S. and European MNC’s. Interestingly, helping to educate an Asian leadership team on the slower growth and cultural nuances of Europe and North America seemed equally as challenging!

Special thanks goes to Joy Xu and her team at PepsiCo. for hosting this meeting. The next Hong Kong Asia Pacific HR leader gathering will be in February 2014.