Dell and the Strategic Power of Global Mobility Management
This blog by Meghan M. Biro originally appeared on the Talent Culture blog
It’s more important than ever that companies are able to move people around the world efficiently to match skills to business needs and to build dynamic leadership pipelines — but global workforce mobility represents a huge logistical challenge for even the largest and most agile companies.
In a recent discussion with Dell, I got a glimpse into how the tech giant is harnessing technology to solve a range of key business challenges, including talent development. The talk was a fact-finding mission for our upcoming webinar hosted by Topia, a leader in global mobility management software.
Dell is really at the forefront of the challenge of getting the right people to the right places the right way. Here’s a look at how it’s making it happen.
Dell’s Transformation
For Dell, the importance of meeting the needs of a global workforce is both crystal clear and enormous.
The company’s 2016 acquisition of EMC for a record $67 billion has transformed the legacy company into a multinational technology corporation, creating a truly unique set of workforce challenges. Dell has evolved into Dell Technologies, which includes Dell, Dell EMC, Pivotal, RSA, Secureworks, VMware and Virtustream and which employs more than 135,000 people. As a large and dynamic organization, Dell is always adding to its teams.
As an organization, it is also committed to bringing all of its talent under one umbrella and unifying its many locations under one business culture. But Dell has realized it can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to global mobility.
First, the company needs to be able to provide a great deal of flexibility to answer the needs of different subsidiaries. It also has to effectively address the needs of an incredibly diverse and distributed employee population, all with their own requirements when it comes to relocation. Finally, the company needs to stay up to speed on changing regulations in all of its locations to ensure compliance.
Global mobility management is Dell’s solution for all three of these challenges.
Making Global Mobility Work
Some of the key requirements of a large-scale global mobility management system are streamlining and making processes more efficient, taking the administrative weight off the shoulders of managers and being able to provide all the data needed to make the best decisions — in the present, in real time, and also in the future.
Fortunately, there are powerful tools that can enable these goals for any organization of any size. In my discussion with Dell, I learned that the ideal mobility software platform should:
- Automate workflows.
- Provide dimensional reporting.
- Provide accurate assignment management.
- Manage a budget.
- Forecast future needs and costs.
- Assist with regulatory compliance.
For employees, successful mobility management software should provide support, services, access, information, flexibility and freedom — specifically the freedom to do some of the work on their own time.
That means 24/7 support; saveable, changeable, interactive task lists; plenty of quality information and guidance; resources to answer questions; and solutions that relate to their life needs as well as work needs.
Mobility Is Talent Retention
What I find so striking about the global mobility challenge is that even though Dell is a massive corporation with immense resources, it sought the services of an outside provider. It knew this was a huge nut to crack and that it wanted its global mobility management to be as evolved and advanced as possible.
Why is this so important? As business has become more global, effective and efficient, worker mobility has become a key selling point in attracting and retaining talent. Dell positions itself as a global organization with opportunities all over the world, and if it’s not providing the best global mobility management it can, the company’s brand could take a hit. So it’s critical to get it right.
I’m looking forward to our webinar conversation about the strategic power of global mobility management, and a look at how Dell used it to solve key business challenges. I’ll be talking to Robin Clowes, head of mobility at Dell, on Jan. 24. So stay tuned. I hope you’ll join us!
