Companies increasingly work internationally, and across the globe consumer habits are constantly changing. Globalisation challenges companies' adaptability at all levels and it is crucial for companies to attract and retain staff that can deal with this. Research, however, indicates that most organisations devote too little time on this aspect of HRM.
Elsevier Food International, Vol. 5, Number 3, September 2002
Celeste ten Broeke and Yvonne N. Zemann

Globalisation has affected the labour market in the food industry and has increased demands made on personnel. The extension of shopping hours and the 24/7 availability of the Internet have brought an increase in working hours. Growing globalisation is partially the result of changing consumption habits. Local specialist products - e.g. Belgian beer, tropical fruits - are now available worldwide.
Companies have grown as a result of globalisation. This has led to a more diverse labour market requiring changes in behaviour from both employers and employees. A tailor-made management style for employees in different countries and cultures must be developed. Many executives who were interviewed in the 'State of the Art in Food' research (see box) stated that management needs to be facilitating and charismatic to get the best out of employees.

Jan Andreae, member Corporate Executive Board, Ahold
"People will be loyal to a company because they believe it makes sense that they work there and because they influence the development of the organisation. This will lead to long-term loyalty."
Executives who operate transnationally need to have great empathy to be able to live and work in other cultures. They need to have knowledge of specific international market segments and have both physical and mental endurance. On the other hand, people who do not actually work abroad also need to be more internationally oriented in order to co-operate and to understand cultural differences.
Both retailers and manufacturers agree that employees need to be internationally minded in both opinions and personal development. However, the 'State of the Art in Food' study shows that most organisations devote too little time on fostering good employees who can contribute to the further internationalisation of the company.

Balancing lifestyle and recruitment
In addition to growing globalisation within the food industry, numerous mergers have taken place in recent decades. One of the most crucial factors in a successful merger is the adaptability of employees. Retailers and manufacturers agree that communication is a very important issue during the merger process. Employees need information, especially when uncertainties exist.

David Hearn, CEO, Goodman Fielder
"We are living in a world where people's altitude towards employers is very different than before. It doesn't work anymore to say: 'do this because I say so'. In a multicultural environment, this gets even more complicated. I think Americans are way ahead of us in this. They are very aware of the effect of relationships between people."

As employee demands shift dramatically from career based to quality-of-life based, employers look to differentiate employment conditions to retain employees. Employers need to listen to their employee's wishes regarding working conditions. It is cheaper and more efficient than breaking contracts and hiring new people. Staff loyalty increases with management understanding, and this shift needs to be catered for by offering extended employee benefits which include training and development as well as more basic things such as creches, cleaning services, etc.
It is critical that line management should understand the employees' wishes so that the HR department can create a suitable policy at a strategic level. Offering personalised contracts with individual sets of conditions will not only increase employee loyalty, but will improve the image of the company as an employer, which in turn will aid recruitment.

Flemming Lituielev, former CEO, Carlsberg Breweries
"Nowadays it is difficult to keep people within the company. For years it was money, money, but today it is challenge, it is freedom and it is other values .... "

Mr. S. Dell Ill, Regional Director, ExxonMobil
"I think we have learned that you cannot expect your staff to take care of customers if you do not take care of your staff."

Manufacturers and retailers share divided opinions about the importance prospective employees place on working for companies with positive, environmentally friendly cultures.
Both groups within individual countries showed negligible differences, but differences were more noticeable between one country and another. In other words, the level of environmental awareness depends more on the country than the company.

Karel vuursteen, Chairman of the board, Heineken
"There is a trend for companies to feel more and more responsible for the social policies and themes in society. The need to be responsible should originate from the company culture, from the feeling of responsibility."

Retailers and manufacturers are largely convinced of the enormous impact that a team has on the functioning of the individual employees. More than a decade ago, Unilever launched a new way of advertising for its middle management: they did not ask for specific technical competencies but focused rather on social skills and the willingness to learn. This is obviously not always an option but many companies have begun to move in this direction.
In order to compete in the current market, possibly an organisation's most important asset is employing staff with the right competencies. It is important to recognise and develop latent competencies. A very important task of the HR department is to know both the business and the market in order to advise proactively on the competencies required for development. Only after top management accepts the importance of these competencies is it possible to develop tactical plans ("how many people need to develop which competencies?") and operational plans ("which competencies should Mr. Howard develop?"). Line management can develop plans along these lines when they fit the strategic plans of the organisation.

The role of the HR department
Personnel departments previously focused primarily on matters of salary, recruitment and work conflicts, but today their role has a more strategic function. This involves defining, tuning and supporting the competencies of both organisation and employees, also supporting organisational change and a decentralised execution of HR-activities.
In addition to the 'new' movements in the HRM field, the classical tasks of the personnel department are still important. This will remain the case in a company that continues to centralise the HRM function. Decentralisation creates time for consultation and discussion regarding employee performance between manager and employee.
The internationalisation of the industry also affects the HR department. For instance, there are two ways to handle a merger or takeover: the transformation strategy (install) and the consolidation strategy (leave it as it is). The first option installs the structure and policies of one company within the 'new' one. The second leaves the structure of the former companies as it was. If the first option is chosen, organisational change will be the main topic for management, including the HR manager. If cultural differences exist, the changes will be based on the former cultures within the organisation. If the second option "integration" is chosen then core changes will affect only the financial and logistic organisation.

Wout Dekker, CEO, Nutreco
"Cultural differences can be difficult, but accept them."

There is a growing trend towards network organisations and flexible ways of working. These include job rotation at the initiation of either employee or employer, working from home, part-time work or job sharing. Once a company commits to a network structure, the HR department must change radically. Ahold is an example of a company that has developed an international network organisation.
In general, network organisations demand a different organisational structure and culture. A network organisation is divided into groups that are clustered around topics or functional areas. This non-hierarchical structure makes it impossible to assign a number of HRM-tasks (such as the monitoring of the employee) to the employee's direct line manager. In order to overcome this a 'coach', preferably chosen by the employee himself, could take over these tasks. This coach could for a longer or shorter period be part of the same network, but it is likely that changes in network or 'membership' of different networks will take place regularly. This flexible structure needs to be supervised by the HRM-department that must therefore be arranged and changed accordingly.

Reflections
One of the core issues in HRM is to appoint and retain qualified personnel. The State of the Art research shows that 78 per cent of manufacturers and 60 per cent of retailers agreed that in the coming years this would be the most important function of the HR department. Is this based on the generally acknowledged fact that people are the most important asset in today's knowledge-based economy, or that good employees are scarce? If the latter is the case, then change should reflect the economic situation: the more employees available, the easier to retain those with the right competencies. However, history indicates that it has always been important to recruit the right people. So whether in a favourable or unfavourable labour climate, it is critical to focus on the right competencies. It is the function of the HR department with a strategic role to proactively advise and execute these recruitment policies.
For the food industry it is useful to make a distinction between management and other employees.
 In both retail and manufacturing, one of the most important aspects in recruitment of unskilled employees is their 'cost.' Investment in things such as training, job rotation, and knowledge sharing for these employees remains an exception in most companies, in contrast to the attention paid to schemes for (potential) managers or international staff.
Todays management style is one of 'diversification.' Whichever aspects are addressed, a tailor-made management style becomes critical. Individualisation, the 24-hour economy, and the fact that we do not only live to work are reasons for this, and it makes sense. After all, everybody has personal wishes and requirements depending on individual circumstances. In the 24-hour economy people have many more life-style choices than ever before. Only employees can truly make globalisation and mergers work. When employees lack the necessary knowledge, skills or attitude, the financial results will decline and globalisation will fail.
In discussing mergers, the cultures of both companies need to relate. When this is not the case, a merger is likely to fail. It is vitally important to remember that any business is a 'people' business, particularly so when speaking of globalisation and mergers.