FedEE Blog

HR trends – The rise and fall of HR issues

In each future Newswire we shall seek to identify key trends that are of relevance to HR professionals in multinational enterprises. In this, our initial review, we shall be taking a global overview during the 15-year period from 2004 to

Comment: Use of foreign contractors

Many companies are tempted to draw on foreign independent contractors in order to overcome skills shortages in the home market and reduce costs. However, such a move can be fraught with problems.

The biggest potential risk is having a contractor

Comment: Criminal risks

Many of us in HR will be familiar with staff accounts about having to pass through “rough neighbourhoods” on the way to work. Leaving your front door has always had its risks and in most countries, you are statistically more

Comment: All smoke and mirrors

M&A activity tends to run in waves and its motivation, though often cast as a desire to consolidate in order to maximise potential commercial opportunities, is all too often far from such reasoning. In fact, it is generally either an

Comment: The enemy within

Although industrial espionage is the stuff of Hollywood thrillers, it is also a fairly common phenomenon in everyday life. The reason we seldom know about it is because most employers are unaware it is happening to them and, if they

Comment: Investing in working less

I once managed a large group of engineers developing the original ink jet technology. Several of the team seemed to always be in their lab before I got in at 8am and were still there at 8pm when I left.

Comment: Liberating jobs

Most people will have seen the George Clooney movie about the corporate downsizer who spends his life jetting around America. There is something about Ryan Bingham that is both sad and courageous – although, in the end, he is left

Comment: Crossing the street

It always seems to be reported as a surprise judgement when a court declares that “the law is the law”. Back in 2017, the low-cost airline Ryanair persisted in its attempts to insist that its practice of giving all its

Comment: Bankrupt Britain

If a government does not like what a statistic indicates, it has two choices: either manipulate it until it looks right, or simply do not publish it. In the case of the UK leading up to Brexit we clearly have

Comment: Long transfer at the Strefa Non-Schengen

When the seat belt signs go on and the airline captain wishes you a “pleasant flight”, you know that is never going to happen. The only pleasant flight I have ever had – out of more than a 1,000 taken

Comment: As red hits the green

The eruption of yellow-vest (gilets jaunes) protesters in France during the last few weeks perhaps came across to most people as something of a surprise. However, it was just a threat waiting to happen and now the genie is “out

Comment: A different take on #MeToo

There has rightfully been much focus in recent years on the distress felt by women about sexual harassment. This hidden and formerly ignored source of human suffering needed to be brought out into the open and the perpetrators put to

Comment: Is there any sense in CEO pay?

Pay differentials exist in all societies, even those labelling themselves as communist. Most people do not rationalise pay gaps in any objective or scientific way, although everyone does seem to accept that people should be rewarded differently because of their

Comment: The great IT make believe

I am seemingly alone when saying this, but information technology (IT) is not the complex and mystical field it pretends to be. IT specialists aren’t that special either. We seem to have gone beyond the one-time caricature of the inept

Comment: Finding the prize

The constant concern of many multinational HR departments is talent management. But if it matters so much, how is it detected, measured and utilised?

The four key elements of talent are intelligence, personality, aptitude, and skill (IPAS). So, how many