Peggy Smith, SCRP, GMS, president of the Worldwide ERC® board of Directors (also Global Relocation Program Manager at Microsoft Corporation), and Ranjini Manian, co-chairman of the Global Workforce Symposium Program Planning Committee (also Founder/CEO Global Adjustment Services, India).
	From left to right: Bradford E. Charnas, SRA, SCRP, GMS, chairman, board of directors; Karen Reid, senior vice president of Worldwide ERC®; H. Cris Collie, CAE, CEO of Worldwide ERC®; Ranjini Manian, co-chairman of the Global Workforce Symposium Program Planning Committee; and Joseph V. Benevides, Jr., SCRP, co-chairman of the Global Workforce Symposium Program Planning Committee.
	Attendies enjoying a break from the conference.
	Visiting the booths in the Exhibit Hall.

ERC Conference October 2007

Denver, Colorado, US
Jill Lengré

Beautiful warm weather greeted me in Denver, Colorado for the start of the two-day Worldwide ERC Conference (October 25 and 26 2007). I traveled from Mexico to the USA to discover what Human Resource Managers highlight as their most important issues when dealing with expatriates.

The Global Workforce Symposium is held in the fall each year, and brings together workforce mobility professionals from around the globe, providing an opportunity for higher learning, benchmarking, and networking. The conference offers sessions focusing on international assignment issues, as well as U.S. domestic workforce mobility issues.

The first thing I discovered was that most individuals at the conference had some type of acronym behind their name.  CRP, GMS…

CRP stands for Certified Relocation Professional. In 1990, Worldwide ERC started a program to certify individuals who have extensive knowledge in the principles and practices of relocation.

GMS stands for Global Mobility Specialist and signifies you have been trained by the Worldwide ERC in the specialized global workforce field .

In fact, at the beginning of the week there was a training session to get your GMS accreditation. These sessions covered the creation of policies and cost considerations when sending an expat abroad  and culture shock and the its impacts on the expatriate and their family. I wish I could have participated only to share our website with all of the participants!

The second thing I discovered was that there were over 1500 professionals there (from corporate relocation managers to destination service providers from real estate agents to relocation companies) from over 60 different countries. Truly an international crowd!

Thursday October 25, 2007

The conference started with speeches from Worldwide ERC’s management, updating all of us on the changes that happened since last year’s conference.

Then Marshall Goldsmith PhD, a well known executive coach, gave the keynote speech. He told us to focus on changing only one thing about ourselves at a time and really make that happen. One area he said everyone can improve (even the CEOs he has coached) is sending negative messages. How many times do we say "No, that is a great idea!, "But I agree with you." Why do we use these negative words when we really mean to send a positive message? He mentioned he would charge $10 for every negative word out of his client’s month—in a few days time they were speaking more positively!

The first session I attended was Next Best Practices in Global Mobility. It was so popular people were sitting on the floor and outside in the hallway! Three human resources professionals (from BP, Hewitt Associates and The World Bank) answered questions from the moderator and the audience on how globalization will impact the workforce, and how corporations and service providers must change to meet these challenges.

Stuart Burgon of Hewitt Associates predicted that if countries eased their immigration laws they would prosper. Anita Blanchett of BP saw a trend towards expats from other countries (not first world) being expatriated. Indians to Angola, South Africans to Australia etc. She also saw a trend whereby top managers would make BP deal with their “agents” (like top sports professional agents) to negotiate their contracts. Susan Musich of The World Bank saw Gen Y expats dictating their mobility packages. In the Gen Y population both partners work and this would become even more important to ensure dual careers services for the trailing partners.

At the session, Managing Multi-national Teams in a Global World--Can We Get it Right? the speakers shared with us their experiences in dealing with multicultural teams.  Larry Brouder, of MWH Americas, said they had problems since the only had a stereotypical understanding of the country’s cultural.  He talked of a willow branch.  He said you can hold the willow branch in place but once you let go, it will go back to its original position, just like cultures in a group if you do not work together to understand each others culture.  Catherine Johnson, of Tokyo Orientations, talked about the stages in forming a team and how the 5 big cultural factors plus the cultural shock stages played into how quickly a multicultural team would work efficiently.

My final session of the day was Make a Wish--Blue Sky Service Delivery Models. We broke up in groups and brainstormed in the following areas… Housing, Taxes, Immigration Services, Cross Cultural and Language Training, Destination Services, Schools, Relocation services…

Friday October 26, 2007

I stared my morning attending Ask the Experts on Critical Global Mobility Issues. Moderator Larry Gersch of Kraft Foods Global, asked the panel about their relocation issues. The conversation ended up centering around the USA and real estate and immigration issues. I learned that most expatriates moving to the USA buy a home (thus the reason for many real estate agents at the conference) since rental properties are just not available. Also Allen Orr, Immigration Attorney at Baker & McKenize talked about the different work visas available and the lack of flexibility of the US government to offer more per year. 

Just before lunch we listened to another panel of experts at the session…At the Table: A Global Outlook. Chief Executive Office of the Worldwide ERC, H.Cris Collie, led the panelist through a series of questions to help us understand the issues facing global workforce professionals. Rene Rosemary Stegmann of Relocation Africa said the failure rate in Africa is 50 to 60%. Her organization not only teaches classic cultural training but defensive driving courses and what to do and not to do if you are kidnapped.

Charles Caldwell of Citrix Systems (who called in from Hong Kong) told the room that his issues were more keeping his expatriates happy to stay and not move to the competition. He stated that nowadays Gen Y wanted a portable career (move wherever they wanted) and do not have company loyalty like the Baby Boomers or the Gen Xers.  He needs to offer better pension, healthcare and education packages to ensure expats would stay and not be poached by other companies. 

The final session I attended was Ensuring Consistent and Professional Destination Services in Every Corner of the World. Peggy Smith of Microsoft Corporation mentioned how her company works with local destination service providers and sometimes does surprise inspections to ensure their service quality. Lena Rincones of IBM really wanted the industry to begin to create processes, standards and benchmarks for DSP (destination service providers).

Then many questions were asked to the panel by the DSP’s in the room. The majority of these questions were about how corporations pay DSP’s and how to obtain a contract with global companies.

The two day conference also offered an Exhibition Hall where many companies were marketing their services in areas such as tax and immigration, housing, destination service, relocation among others. I spent a few hours a day networking with the companies there to find out about the services they were offering.

The closing speaker, Scott Friedman (a humorist), made us laugh about the events and speeches that took place over the two-day event. And made us think about not taking ourselves so seriously!

My closing comments…

The conference offered an opportunity to learn more about global mobility and network.  Andrea and I will be able to bring you a lot of interesting information in the following months based upon what I learned at the conference.

www.erc.org