Connecting Mobility to create Diverse Workplaces

-

This month I completed an enriching two decades as an HR professional.

As I'm entering into my third decade as an HR Pro, it's an honour to be invited by the largest forum of HR professionals in the world to play catalyst role using social media platforms once again (this being the 4th time!) for their 2019 Annual Conference and Exposition at Las Vegas, USA - as an International attendee. Ever since 2012 when I accidentally reached the Bloggers Lounge, I've been blessed to find myself connected to an amazing group of people that SHRM curates with care - the SHRM Bloggers. You can find the 2019 list here.

The inclusion meant that I could choose any one from the huge list of sponsors who collaborate with SHRM Events team to bring together the largest ever congregation of HR folks on the globe year on year in the US of A. So I set out to look for a theme which I could used to pick a name from the 2019 list.  I decided to use 'Connection' as the theme and zeroed in on a team who for the past 60 years, devoted themselves ardently to enable business to generate value out of Global mobility - Fragomen.  I have been fortunate to have a ring side view of Fragomen team's passion for pursing this as a profession from 2005 when I got to manage Global mobility for one of pioneers in Business Process Management in India.  My attempt will be to make a case for HR folks to be connected to Mobility as a critical business need for any Global business.  Read the following cases to relate to the need for HR folks to remain on top of mobility issues for creating talented work places.

1. Diversity is a sure-shot determinant or influencer for increased creativity - I realised this during my first stint (referred above) when I got the opportunity to collaborate with Fragomen team in India and US to support a US firm's need for a diverse set of Talent, necessitated by an exigent business need - relocation of HQ.  The result was a Win Win situation for every stakeholder involved. Some of the individuals who I helped transition from different part of my Global co to US still remain connected to me via social media.
2. Time can be of immeasurable value in business situations - I found this the hard way when a  CXO's travel to US was delayed by over a year due to immigration related processes. Unfortunately this was a Business Visa situation and my firm had chosen not to use professional support.

The two instances have been picked from the experiences I've had with mobility during the 2005-2015 period.
Last year, I came to know about a similar situation which an HCM client of mine was facing - where their Co-Founder's Business travel to US was delayed for over a year.

With the above as context, I had reached out to Andrew Greenfield, who is a Partner with Fragomen and is based in their Washington DC office.  Andy explained to me the complexities which make the current Global mobility to US unique - an example would be the Trump Executive Order and ensuing situations that CIS adjudicators will follow for every application.

As the Business context can add to the above mentioned complexities, I feel that it's best that I strongly recommend any attendee from #shrm19 who is seeking to explore the possibilities around using Mobility as an enabler for workplace creation to add Andy's session into their SHRM 2019 schedule. The SHRM mobile app will help all attendees do this with ease.
Andy Greenfield: 
The New Dynamics for Immigration: Trump Administration and Congressional Priorities 
LVCC N201-204 
Tuesday 06/25/2019 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM
Still not convinced ? Ok - here's some more meat from my experience working with Small businesses from India who find US as a key enabler. If you are a small and medium business, the US, UK, EU would end up being a large market which would be tough to ignore.  Hence understanding the nuances of immigration in depth as an HR pro will help position your role as a Talent enabler better.

Andy's colleague Ms. Julia will be speaking at SHRM 19 too - here are the details:

Julia Onslow-Cole: 
Brexit and Other Mobility Issues in the United Kingdom and European Union 
LVCC N227-230 
Tuesday 06/25/2019 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
I will be covering these sessions along with my fellow #shrm19Bloggers - hoping to catch up for a #shrm19Selfie soon. 









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pooja Cricket Tournament 2012 in pictures...and a Dream

-
Image
Got a chance once again to Umpire at the Worlds Oldest Limited overs cricket tournament - which was first held in 1961 at Palace Oval in Tripunithura, a suburb of Ernakulam district in Kerala.  Here are some pics from this year's event. This first one is a view of the Pavilion which the Organizers (The Tripunithura Cricket Club or TCC as they are fondly known) had set up this year. The pavilion itself offers a very close view of the proceedings unfolding on the oval itself. Here's another one - this time from the proceedings itself: The oval is the proud owner of one of the oldest turf wickets in Kerala and Umpiring here has always been special event for me - here's some reasons why:  1. This was the venue where I had my first Official match as a Qualified Umpire - way back in 1996 - that was the inaugural match of that year's Pooja Cricket tournament 2. Special conditions / interpretations to Cricket laws which are applicable only to this venue - about which...
Read more

Honoured to be invited to the #SHRM18Bloggers Squad

-
Image
It was back in 2012 that I was lucky enough to sign up for being a blogger with SHRM - I had blogged about that excitement back then.  Over the years, I ended up attending SHRM's annual national conference 5 times upto 2018 of which two more have been as member of the elite bloggers squad.  Frankly, I tweet more than I blog as I found that twitter, although not that intuitive to many, gave me the opportunity to simplify text and think deeper in an attempt to get the message to 144 characters.  No prizes for guessing the connection I found to the Title and the reason for my blog. So it is with special excitement that I am sharing to my blog readers that I will playing an active part in SHRM's Annual conference and Exposition   this year at Las Vegas, Nevada - as a #shrm19Blogger once again.  I shall be posting another blog about stuff I'm planning to do at #shrm19 around the them building better work places. So long.. Leaving you all with a link...
Read more