Expanding beyond the border: 3 key challenges for HR leaders

Much has been said about the ‘War for Talent’ currently gripping Australia and New Zealand but what is clear is that the constraint on hiring is one of the biggest challenges facing the region’s businesses.

Jobseekers know the balance of power has shifted in their favour and as a result, we’re seeing a period dubbed the ‘Great Resignation’ come into effect. According to Seek NZ’s August Employment Report, applications per job ad fell by 6% on the previous month. The number of job adverts also declined for the first time in five months, showing the immediate impact of Level Four lockdown restrictions on New Zealand’s jobs market.

But while entry to Australia and New Zealand remains firmly closed for the time being, the shift to remote working has opened many organisations up to the possibility of recruiting overseas. Thanks to the increasingly sophisticated technology on the market, tapping into the global talent pool has now become a viable option.

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Delivering a tech talk session at this year’s HR Tech Summit, attended by HRD, Craig Goldblatt, VP partners & alliances at Globalization Partners, outlined some of the challenges which have held HR leaders back from recruiting remotely in the past.

Struggling with compliance

“About 40 to 50% of HR professionals and leaders say that compliance is really one of the top HR challenges that they have in an increasingly dynamic world,” he said. “If you look back in the Australian context with JobKeeper and the Fair Work Commission’s rulings on salaries, the dynamics and the rate of change has been so fast, even prior to the pandemic.”

For organisations considering hiring overseas, that complexity is multiplied due to the vast differences in labour laws around the world. Goldblatt said keeping track of the regular law changes and being confident in the organisation’s compliance to protect its reputation is a major challenge without the right technology in place.

Lack of data integrity

For rapidly growing businesses, and especially those going through mergers and acquisitions, a lack of data integrity is a key concern, Goldblatt said. If HR leaders fail to take a uniform approach to processes and policies, particularly those that have been automated, they cannot access a comprehensive overview of their people. It means HR leaders are missing out on the top-level data required to inform strategy decisions.

Goldblatt said: “As companies break up or merge together, it leads to different disparate systems and processes around the organisation, and that's caused a lot of difficulty, particularly in the HR world.”

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Finding and retaining talent in the current labour market

A common theme from this year’s HR Tech Summit, the pandemic has really forced HR leaders to rethink how they attract and retain talent. Without the option of migration, Australia’s labour market looks vastly different now compared to March 2020. And while talk of reopening the borders is pointing to early next year, it will be another few years until overseas talent feel truly confident in migrating. But Goldblatt said organisations do not have to wait until the borders reopen to hire remotely.

“Every HR professional on this session will be nodding their head at this point and saying yes, that’s an issue. From the perspective of Globalization Partners and our platform, you'll see how easy it is to actually increase the talent pool by broadening your horizons out of out of the constraints of Australia and into a broader market. You’ll see how easy it is to actually do that without having to go and set up entities around the world,” he said.

Globalization Partners was a principal partner at the 2021 HR Tech Summit, held virtually earlier this month. Click here to check out the full list of speakers and sponsors from this year’s event.