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I must admit I’ve never been a great Beatles fan. I was a 60’s child but a little too late to experience the free thinking sixties and all that went with them. That said I understand the Beatles significance and the difference they made to the world I now live in. Music has always been one of my great passions and many great songs remind me of a specific time or period of my life. I think it’s the same for most of us.
Grass Roots has just published a major piece of research conducted amongst large corporations – Fortune 500 or Financial Times Global 500 constituents. We’ve called it ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ after that famous Beatles song, (more on that later). Our industry, the performance improvement industry, like many others has been talking about globalization for years. We wanted to understand what these corporations were thinking about taking their employee reward and recognition programs global and their definition of the global space. The results are fascinating and I urge you to download a copy of the research findings: “I want to hold you hand” whitepaper.
I remember being taught about globalization at school in the early 80’s. The truth is that it hasn’t really happened. We see many corporations trading around the world but the reality is that they are just a collection of local operating companies trading under the same brand but with different products, different cultures and different philosophies.
As we come out of the worst economic decline the world has seen since the Second World War, (and hopefully we are not going to take a ‘double dip’), globalization is once more on the agenda.
This time I think it’s for real. There appear to be two key motivators.
Cost
As profits have been hit, corporations are looking for costs savings wherever they can find them. Harmonizing employee recognition programs around the world is just one way of doing it. Grass Roots have seen a massive increase in global RFP’s (Requests For Proposals) in recent months. One recent RFP from a global financial services brand included a PowerPoint slide that showed they were running over 30 employee recognition programs around the world with as many vendors.
One vendor and one platform would obviously bring savings,
Growth
Growth in sales for the major corporations over the last 15 years or so has come mainly from the established economies of North America, Europe and Japan. The recession is telling them that this is not guaranteed as we move into the recovery phase – many of these economies have deep, underlying structural problems that may take years to resolve. Just look at the economic deflation experienced by Japan during most of the last 12 years for an indicator. The BRIC, (Brazil, Russia, India and China), economies is where it’s at. (I have some views on this Goldman Sachs coined acronym, but more on that in a later blog.) To access these markets, harmonizing corporate culture and philosophy has never been more important. Often these economies are challenging places in which to operate and that brings even more emphasis on how you align your employees behavior to corporate values.
As motivators of corporate success go, there’s nothing new in cost reduction and looking for growth
I suppose. After the economic turmoil of the last 2 years at least some constants remain.
Back to the Beatles.
They released “I want to hold your hand” as a single in 1963. In the US, it sold more than 250,000 copies in the first three days of release with over 10,000 copies an hour being sold in New York alone. The song has received many awards amongst which include the number 2 slot on Mojo’s “100 records that have changed the world”.
Using the song to name the survey goes back to a discussion I had with a global medical equipment company based out of the US in early 2010. They were struggling with the global thing but I don’t think they were convinced about the genuine strengths of Grass Roots in the global space. I ended a call with their key influencer with the line, ‘If you want us to hold your hand on the global journey, give me a call’, I wasn’t convinced I would get a reply but some week later I received a call from her. ‘Will you hold our hand’, she said.
Steve
An internal Grass Roots contest took place in April 2010
amongst all our offices around the world.
Each office needed to produce a full inspirational video of the song.
Here is the American version. Enjoy!
