Global Update

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What are the main challenges of having an international workforce and how to overcome it?

Top Tips from Iwona Lebiedowicz, founder of PAB Languages Centre

Bridging cultural gaps to enable relationships between people from different countries and cultures is our mission here at PAB Languages. Businesses today are more global than ever before and as valuable as this is, it presents its own unique challenges. For example, PAB Languages is a centre of diversity, where it becomes natural to interact with colleagues who have a variety of cultural backgrounds and diverse personal styles, all of which present opportunities as well as challenges. We have wonderful professionals representing over 50 countries from different faiths, backgrounds, and ethnicities - bringing industry-specific knowledge, language expertise and cross-cultural consideration. So, let’s look at some of the challenges of working across cultures:

• Approach towards a flat and clan organisational structure

A flat organisational structure means only a few levels of management between the staff and the highest-level executives with a clan culture element of cultivating strong employee engagement and an adaptable environment. This may be challenging for team members from East Asia, India, and the Middle East who are used to much more hierarchical relationships with high power distance and decisions made strictly on a top-down basis. To overcome any challenges, provide clarity around roles, and ensure everyone has access to necessary information, folders, and documents to perform their work independently. Explain the business structure and what it means in practice.

• Company surveys and reporting an issue

In cultures with direct communication style, such as a western country, directness, and efficiency in communication are highly valued. An employee from a western country may be more inclined to speak up, or question when something doesn’t feel right. In contrast, an employee from an indirect culture may regard directly communicating negative information as impolite, even in a business setting. Furthermore, our colleagues from an eastern culture may even have been taught to never question the boss. To get over this, modify your internal comms strategy, including survey processes, as well as, where necessary, diversifying the channels used to gather feedback. This will enable effective cross-cultural collaboration.

• Asking and giving feedback

What will work in Germany in terms of tough, critical, to-thepoint feedback could be demotivating to employees from Asia, who are most likely used to a far gentler feedback style. If cultural differences like these are not considered, it could cause a lack of cohesion and some team members can see it as an attack on their character, a loss of face. Giving both positive and negative feedback is crucial for growth. Deliver it in ways that adjust to cultural expectations, protect dignity, and keep the receiver’s face in mind - especially negative feedback. Problems need to be handled with straight talk, clarity, tact, and discretion. What may make sense to employees from eastern cultures may not make sense to those from western, and vice versa. I’m not a fan of stereotyping or drawing conclusions on the basis of generalisations. In our increasingly global world, most of us will be face-to-face with colleagues of different subcultures within each national culture that have their own distinct values and beliefs. Everyone is an individual and stereotypes can be misleading, let alone unfair and counterproductive. However, learning how to navigate difficult conversations and to provide critique across cultures is certainly a challenge, and there are many important differences to consider. That’s why – drawing on our research and the input of a global community of senior professionals from PAB Languages and ilc Communications – we have developed an Intercultural Communications Training that help leaders and their teams to understand inclusion, biases, and cultural differences. To download our brochure and learn more about our Intercultural Communications Training, and to find out how we can support your organisation go to https://www.pabtranslation.co.uk/ brochure-download/

Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) UK

Taking place from Monday 14 - Sunday 20 November, GEW celebrates entrepreneurship through events, activities and competitions taking place across the nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as countries around the world. Shevaun Haviland, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce, will be a keynote speaker at the official launch, full day conference on Monday 14 November. See more information and register here to attend virtually or in person at https://bit.ly/3RHFvGm

Perception is reality – parity against the Dollar and Euro

In recent times, the unprecedented has become the norm, with lifetime events (war in Ukraine, a global pandemic and Brexit) providing no room to take a breath. It is hard to articulate ‘usual times’, a period of stability is a distant memory, and at present even harder to imagine for the future. For over a decade, the institutions of the UK had a communication problem with financial markets, resulting in waning confidence for global investors. The comment ‘Sterling is behaving like an emerging market currency’, coined in 2020, became more prevalent this year. As I write in the final week of September, that perception became reality. In the early hours of 26 September, traders in Asian markets could not find buyers for their Sterling holdings. As a result, the Pound dropped below 1.03 an all-time low against the US Dollar. We witnessed a 10 per cent swing for the Pound on the day, something not uncommon for an emerging market currency. Sterling will post it’s six straight month of decline against the Dollar and since January has fallen over 25 per cent versus the greenback. By time of reading the Pound could have already fallen below parity against the US Dollar and Euro. Sterling decline is not fully self-inflicted, the Euro against the Dollar has also fallen by 10 per cent since the summer. The war in Ukraine and the rhetoric escalation from the Russian President Vladimir Putin has seen the Dollar appreciate. That said the poor communication of the Bank of England and the conflicting policy of Trussenomics has knocked confidence, exacerbating the decline. I’ve written before about the challenge for the Bank of England to control inflation to their two per cent target, considering so much has been driven by global energy prices. The perception that the Bank of England should be doing more prevails, hiking rates by 0.50 per cent midSeptember when peers went for 0.75 per cent increases was not well received. The reality is they will have to now raise rates faster and harder than they’d planned. The cautious wait and see is not going to be good enough, a base rate of four per cent in coming months and six per cent soon after are being forecasted. History tells us there will be a correction, however that seems a long way down the road and further downside to hit the bottom should not be discounted. Exporters are benefiting at these low levels, however for importers the cost of foreign exchange is adding to the other burdens of doing business. With such volatility reviewing the costs being incurred and the strategy of managing currency exposure becomes even more important. As such, specialist support as provided by companies like Ascendant, can fill a gap not provided by larger financial institutions. For more information on how Ascendant can benchmark your current supplier and to hear about how we are reducing the cost of foreign exchange for local businesses, contact karen.benson@ascendant.world

52 week range for GBP (up to September 28th)

GBP v Euro – High 1.2190 - Low 1.0741 GBP v US Dollar – High 1.3913 - Low 1.0284

Duplicate Lists

Since leaving the single market there have been many examples of businesses struggling to understand how to send material within passenger luggage where they are, for example, sending an engineer to carry out repairs. A ‘Duplicate List’ can be used to avoid the need to pay Duty and VAT. The ‘owner’ of the goods must be travelling with the items and all of the goods must return to the country of original export. This avoids the need for customs declarations as the ‘Duplicate List’ replaces that requirement. It adds a degree of risk that can be avoided by the use of an ATA Carnet, as a border agent might not recognise this process as it is less well known than a Carnet. Most EU countries recognise this temporary form of import where all the goods passing through customs will be taken out of that country in the same state as they enter. HMRC guidance can be found at https://www.gov.uk

Instructions for using a Duplicate List

• You must list all the goods being transported on company letterhead paper, descriptions and identifying serial numbers, if possible, on two lists. Form C&E 1246 should be completed. • When passing through UK Customs you should present the form to customs, they may check the goods, but they must stamp, date and sign the form. When entering the country of destination, you should go through the red channel and declare the goods to customs there, again check, stamp sign and date. • When leaving the country, again declare and get a signature and stamp and the same when entering the UK. We would advise that care should be taken in planning the use of Duplicate Lists. The passenger carrying the goods should have clear instructions on what to do, should have two sets of duplicate lists carrying two for UK customs and two for the country of arrival and departure. If you are travelling to a third or fourth country, then carry duplicate lists for each regime. It would be good practice to carry a schedule of the dates of entry/exit and the names and addresses of the companies that will be visited. An ATA Carnet remains the most recognised and reliable method for moving goods through multiple jurisdictions whether accompanied or not. For any support with Duplicate Lists please contact the Chambers’ International Trade Team on 01223 237414 or email internationaltrade@cambscci.co.uk