Successful handoff: HR plays a critical role in getting expatriates to meet their goals before turning over operations to local management - Global HR Management - Darryl Weiss opens a UK branch of ORINCON Corp. International

HR Magazine, Oct, 2002 by Frank Jossi

Two years ago, Darryl Weiss traveled to the United Kingdom to open an office in Manchester, England, for ORINCON Corp. International. The San Diego-based technology company wanted a European base from which to expand overseas. As vice president of human resources, Weiss was tasked with leasing the office, creating a benefits package and working our the legal details of the new operation with U.K. attorneys.

* He was given two weeks to pull it off.

* Although an experienced HR professional with a law degree and two decades of international experience, Weiss knew he would be hard-pressed to have everything in place in just two weeks. Still, he believed he could accomplish enough in those two weeks that he could turn the project over to the British staffers and assist them from his San Diego office.

* Fat chance, as it turns out.

* "It did not go smoothly," recalls Weiss, now vice president of HR and legal affairs at ORINCON. "It was hard. I was always hearing from my staff and vendors, 'When can you call? This guy is going on holiday and isn't around.' And, I'd have to call someone at midnight [California time] to be able to reach him."

Weiss opened the office without returning to Manchester, but believes that managing the project from the United States ended up taking more time.

Weiss' experience underscores the importance of managing a smooth transition from expatriate to local talent. HR professionals who have handled the process say that a successful transition requires several steps, including proper goal setting and monitoring as well as determining whether to allow expatriates to stay in the host country for a longer-than-anticipated period of time.

Reaching Goals

The ultimate goal of most foreign operations is to turn over control to local management. Not only are locally run businesses less expensive, they also offer advantages from a cultural and business standpoint.

Before you get to that end point, however, many other goals must be crossed off the list. HR executives say it's a good idea to spell out those goals in a contract so the expat has a clear concept of expectations--and management has a list of milestones against which the expat's performance can be measured.

Dan Hawkins, vice president of HR at the Air Solutions Group of Ingersoll-Rand, says his documents run three to four pages and cover "every detail" of what should be accomplished during the assignment, such as building a leadership team, transferring specific technology, meeting sales goals and productivity targets, and, of course, selecting a successor.

Regular follow-up on such goals is vital. When Hawkins' Davidson, N.C.-based division opened an operation in Unocov, Czech Republic, last year, the expat plant manager in charge was given a three-year contract to build a factory, hire more than 200 workers, run the operation when it opened and choose his replacement.

After six months of monitoring the manager's work, Hawkins saw great promise. The manager had hired a leadership team consisting of local hires in HR, finance and information technology. With Hawkins' help, an HR manager was hired--a local Czech woman who went to work hiring local hourly workers. The plant opened six weeks ahead of schedule, and Hawkins already has a good idea which Czech employee will replace the American plant manager in a couple of years.

While the company's Czech Republic assignment is on schedule, not all of its overseas assignments have gone so smoothly. China and the rest of Asia sometimes require the presence of an American for a longer period of time because the challenges are greater, says Hawkins. After entering a joint venture in China with a formerly state-owned enterprise, Ingersoll-Rand expats found they had to educate Chinese employees not only on the company's practices and culture but on general western business practices as well.

"We had to implement the business model and the capitalistic mindset and then [introduce] the Ingersoll-Rand culture, values and business direction before we could localize [the operation]," says Hawkins.

Keeping an Eye on Expats

Valerie McGuire, group HR manager at Andrew Corp., a global communications equipment provider in Orland Park, Ill., likes to assign expats for one year and to review their performance after six or eight months before extending the assignment.

"It helps me set the parameters of what is going to be accomplished, especially since the scope of the projects always gets bigger," she notes. "We always find in two or three areas that the individual's not going to accomplish all of what we hoped in a year." In those cases, the company usually extends the expat assignment until all goals are reached.

To ensure expats start smoothly and move quickly toward reaching goals, Steven Miranda, vice president of HR at Bridgewater, N.J.-based Lucent Technologies, likes to "overmonitor" their performance in the first five or six months to make sure things are on track before giving them more authority to run their own operations. By waiting too long, an HR manager risks stepping in too late to effectively contain any damage or to rescue an expat struggling in an assignment. "The more control you have over a situation earlier, the better off you'll be," says Miranda.