When I was listening to Alexander Uelsberg, working for Microsoft Germany, I was impressed by the fact that they really try to treat every employee in the same way. No matter if they are from the US, Europe or Asia and they try to handle HR issues in the same way like in other subsidiaries.
Let's take for example the performance evaluation: If every employee at Microsoft does the performance evaluation in the same, efficient way, it could be easier to then evaluate employees from other subsidiaries. Moreover it could be quite useful to hire for example an HR manager of Germany in a subsidiary in the US because of an employee-shortage. Or if any employee at Microsoft in Asia decides one day to go to work in the UK, they just have to exchange the data of the HR department, and an employee could easily take the way to a new experience.
That leads me to the point: "Is working in an international company an advantage?" or could there be disadvantages as well? And what about working in a local SME? Is this automatically a disadvantage when someone wants to gain knowledge all over the world?
I think it really depends on the type of employee. Big international companies sure offer a lot of different advantages and mostly likely more possibilities to grow or develop one. However working for a SME might be an opportunity of an employee to take the company further and achieve more than in an already big company (in reference to globalization). But I think what is critical, is that the person needs to have experiences gained in an operations which deals worldwide. Like this he or she can bring his or her knowledge to the SME and develop strategies to let the company grow. Also internationally seen.
ReplyDeleteI think it is a great experience to work in an international company - my former employer offered, for example, the possibility to work in the headquarters in Texas for a certain period of time. It is nice to work in an international team with people from other cultures and being able to practice your foreign language skills!
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I think that in a small (local) company less problems and errors because of misunderstandings due to language and culture occur. Furthermore, it is definitely easier to climb the career ladder because there are not that many people to compete with. Also the working climate might be more informal which I find nice!