Archive for April, 2008

Archives for Education

If you work in high-tech or pharma and collaborate with co-workers, customers, suppliers or partners located in other countries, there’s an increasing likelihood that your company will offer you some form of training to help you master cross-cultural or virtual work challenges.

Beyond those two fields, however, it’s hit-and-miss, according to top cultural trainers. Without the insights of cross-cultural training, many American managers – who often lack international travel or global business experience – face a heightened risk of project failure.

The return on investment in training global workers isn’t always evident to senior management, many of whom have never played a globally collaborative role in the organization. “What I have learned is that it’s extremely difficult to [initiate] formal training,” says Natasha Crundwell, President of People Going Global, a Washington-D.C. cultural consulting firm. “In many cases executives may not see the need for structured training.”

Yet, companies that hire third-party trainers typically approve group classes that last just one half day up to two days at most. Is some training better than none at all? Absolutely – I went through Berlitz training shortly before assuming a cross-cultural editorial management role in the fall of 2005. I came out of it with a better understanding of Indian culture, which improved my ability to absorb other information later. However, I felt eight hours was just scratching the surface.

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Archives for Relocations

Sometimes, your career can go global quite by accident. And how you deal with it can make a huge difference in the outcome.

About two years ago, I was on a ski vacation with my family when my cell phone rang on the chair lift. It was my boss, telling me that he really needed me to relocate to the United Kingdom for a month. Two weeks later I was sipping a single malt Scotch in my Virgin Atlantic Upper Class seat/bed/pod thing somewhere over Newfoundland.

Turns out I had been selected to participate in the secondment of a handful of US personnel to my media company’s UK headquarters. The goal was to spread some of the Internet best practices developed in the US to the UK online operations.

It was a great idea, but the reality of situation was that we had to figure out how to make ourselves useful pretty much on our own. This was a new process for everyone, and understandably, some UK staffers might have felt like they were getting force-fed advice from a bunch of arrogant Americans with irrelevant qualifications.

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Archives for Education

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. But in fact the Kansas Jayhawks were both lucky and good last night, winning the NCAA Men’s Basketball Title in overtime. Before the season began, I posted about the surprisingly global nature of one Jayhawk program.

Ever since my post about studying abroad in which I suggested that it was becoming a bit of a business, my e-mail in box has become the beneficiary of notices about various college courses and services.

As a blogger and journalist gazing at college life like earth through the Hubble telescope, I wanted to talk to David Gaston, Director of Kansas University’s Career Center, to discuss rumors that Jayhawk students have been seen tramping the streets of London in search of a global career.

“The main thing we were trying to do,” Gaston says of the group of seven students he brought to London, is “realize there’s an opportunity out there but you have got to take risks to understand what it’s all about.”

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Archives for Employment

Upon learning that the US economy suffered a net loss of 80,000 jobs in March, the Democrats snapped to action and proposed a stimulus package to help relieve impacted workers.

After three consecutive months of job losses, the unemployment rate has shot up to 5.1%.

“These job numbers strengthen the case materially that we are in a recession,” Edward McKelvey, senior United States economist at Goldman Sachs told the New York Times. “They remove all but a sliver of doubt that the economy is contracting.”

If you’re a laid-off worker, you should have the best package possible. But can a job stimulus package add more workers to the employment rolls?

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Archives for Relocations

Your dream to live abroad is about to come true. You have checked immigration laws, obtained permits, estimated the cost of living and developed a plan to export your life and work abroad.

But there are aspects of a global relocation that you might have overlooked. So before you sublet your place, loan out your car and put your books in storage, consider how you will manage these five challenges of expatriate life.

1. Managing your money

Thanks to the Internet, tracking bank accounts from anywhere is easy. But what will work overseas mean for your tax bill? U.S. citizens are required to report and pay taxes on money earned globally. You can receive a credit for taxes paid in a foreign country but you still need to file a tax return.

All aspiring expatriates should also take an inventory of the debts they must manage. Your move to another country doesn’t excuse you from paying that student loan bill – but you may be able to seek a deferment.

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