Multinational businesses centralise management of international workforce projects

Multinational employers are increasingly centralising their HR operations as they look for greater consistency across international workforces. Research from Mercer on international employee benefits suggests nearly 44% of multinationals plan to fully centralise their HR operations within the next year. It says achieving a globally consistent employee experience is now a high priority for 81% of HR teams, while employers still need to take account of local legislation and practices.
The shift comes as HR teams face growing pressure from economic uncertainty, AI and changing workforce expectations. McKinsey’s latest HR Monitor, covering HR professionals and employees across ten countries, says those pressures are redefining people management and that workforce planning needs to move beyond short-term headcount towards longer-term strategic capability planning.
The World Economic Forum tells a similar story. Its latest Chief People Officers’ Outlook, drawing on more than 140 global people leaders, says geopolitical fragmentation, economic volatility and accelerating AI adoption are reshaping workforce strategies. Organisational redesign, upskilling and reskilling, and scaling AI and automation are among the priorities it identifies.
For multinational employers, all of this puts greater emphasis on how international workforce projects are organised and managed, particularly when a single business strategy needs to work across a number of different countries.
Lara-Christina Willems is an employment lawyer based in Pinsent Masons’ Munich office who works on cross-border employment matters. Earlier, I asked her what changes she is seeing in the way employers manage international workforce projects.
Lara-Christina Willems: “From my experience, the biggest change in the last year is that companies no longer have one responsible for each country, so for UK, France, Germany, one lawyer. It's more that they have a centralised HR and legal department which is responsible for the whole Europe, or even for EMEA, and this changes a lot. This means they need to find one strategy, one plan, that fits for all countries. So I can give you an example. Many of our clients are currently looking for how to improve the use of AI in their company and this often starts with the simple question: How do we need to train the employees in this context? Maybe they need to amend any policies, but this often comes also with an important question, will there be, maybe, any redundancies in the future because of the use of AI? Then this is followed up by the question: Are there any thresholds of affected employees to keep in mind? Do we have a works council who needs to be involved, etcetera etcetera, and the answers will be very different in every country. This is what it makes so complex.”
Joe Glavina: “What problems can arise when an international employment project is managed separately in each jurisdiction, Lara?”
Lara-Christina Willems: “Well, as we just said, every law system is different, and of course, every law firm will also have a different style. This is just natural. If the project includes more than, I would say, two or three countries, it will be difficult to see how they fit together the different pieces of the law firms, and it makes it harder to identify any issues that could arise and affect the whole project and then there is a risk that employers can lose the overall business objective. Working with different law firms also leads to a lot of coordination work, in particular if different time zones will be affected or if different cultures will be affected, but even if it's in neighbourhood countries, this is like complex. Last but not least, cost control can be an issue if there are many different law firms working together.”
Joe Glavina: “What are employers doing differently to make these projects more coordinated and effective?”
Lara-Christina Willems: “From my experience, it's really a difference if you have one lawyer who's taking care of the whole project, a project lawyer who is looking across all jurisdictions and taking care as a central person. The first step would be discussing the key questions, such as what is the overall goal, which jurisdictions are involved, and how many employees are in these countries and, of course, what is the time frame? This is often the most important question. Based on these three questions, we can then develop together with the client a plan. It also helps to define at an early stage the preferred reporting format, as well as the internal timeline. This makes sure that the client has enough time to review the advice before he or she will present it internally to the board, and then the business has enough time to discuss the options. And last, but not least, costs are very important. They can be very different depending on the country. For example, in Sweden or Denmark, they are higher than in Poland or Romania. It really helps to have a full picture of fees before the work will be started.”
So, the key point is that as employers increasingly manage HR and legal issues centrally, international workforce projects increasingly need to be managed as a whole, with clear oversight across the different jurisdictions involved.
Pinsent Masons has responded to that trend by establishing Employment Across Borders, a dedicated international employment projects team which coordinates multi-country work through a single point of contact. Lara is part of that team and is currently helping clients manage international workforce projects in this way. If you would like help with this, please do contact Lara – her contact details are on screen for you.