Certificate in Global Benefits Management

This session will help you grow in cross-cultural competency in order to work successfully within cultures new to you.

• Understand your own culture and how it influences your behavior and interpretations.
• Understand other cultures and how cultural features influence others’ behavior and interpretations.
• Develop strategies for managing and navigating cross culturally.

Multinational employers are moving toward more global centralization of employee benefit functions. Does your organization have a formal global benefits strategy? Today’s international economy is forcing more benefits professionals to design and implement such a strategy. Learn how you can put together a workable strategy. The instructor will help you answer these questions:

• What is a global benefits strategy?
• What company decisions and programs will impact this strategy?
• Is it necessary to have an international benefits committee?
• How do we outline global objectives?
• Should we have a written strategy document?
• What is the impact on benefit costs?
• What processes are needed to implement the plan?
• How do we get buy-in?

A healthy workforce is critical to supporting a globally competitive business. A strategic approach with a clear implementation plan will enhance workforce management efforts, support productivity goals and mitigate health expenditure and medical inflation trends. The instructor will discuss the critical challenges surrounding employee health.

• Learn about health costs and medical trends across different geographies and the drivers behind the cost.
• Identify some of the global health risks affecting multinational cultural workforces.
• Develop a global health and well-being strategy, and identify the important components for its successful implementation.
• Learn about medical expatriate plans.

If you are in global markets, do you have a total rewards program? As the world continues to “shrink” and global economies and borders become blurred, you need a strategic plan that adapts quickly to meet the demands of your global workforce. Benefits and compensation professionals are asked to find ways to create global synergies between compensation, benefits and incentive programs. Yet, the business needs to attract the best talent available and, most importantly, remain competitive in the market. This session will discuss

• What a global total rewards program is
• How to begin developing a total rewards perspective
• Elements of implementing such a strategy
• Pros and cons of total rewards programs.

Companies are dealing with worldwide pension issues. The aging population, changes in social security systems, and differences between private and public sectors—all impact global retirement systems. The instructor will cover

• Overview of the global retirement landscape
• How countries are dealing with aging populations
• How to deal with the ongoing changes in global benefits law and regulations
• The trends soon to impact the international pension environment.

Traditionally, Europe has had generous, pay-as-you-go social security benefits. During the session about Europe, you will

• Discover changes to legislation and market practice that have been prevalent over the last few years as a result of the economic crises and debt challenges faced by many European countries
• Understand the labor environment in Europe that heavily influences the benefits environment through the prevalence of unions, work councils and other employee representative bodies with varying degrees of influence, depending on the country
• Learn how the European Union (EU), which now includes 27 countries, has influenced the labor and benefit issues across Europe through a number of directives that seek to create a framework for Pan-European retirement plans.

Multi-Latino companies are now a presence in the global marketplace. Are you ready to work with these companies? In the session on Latin America, you will

• Discover how multi-Latino companies are moving rapidly, making large acquisitions across the globe, acquiring talent from multinational firms, and providing aggressive and flexible benefits with fascinating and innovative human resources structures
• Understand unions in Latin-American countries, and learn how their presence, absence and degree of strength might affect your company
• Learn in what countries you must pay termination indemnities, where there are mandatory minimum salaries, and what other programs might affect your compensation and salary structuring programs.

To be successful in this region of the world, you need to understand statutory benefits, labor law and the unique practices in employee rewards. You will

• Learn the common challenges of designing compensation and benefit programs in developing economies in Africa, which is a geographic area in which multinational companies are experiencing rapid staff growth
• Understand the key differences among the employment models in many Middle-Eastern countries that are brought about by the unique nature of the oil and gas sectors, and those that are common in other parts of the world
• Learn of specific practices in the design of compensation packages for the various types of imported labor that are recruited to work in the Persian Gulf countries.

The instructor has designed this session to help you

• Understand how to finance employee benefit programs more efficiently through insurance risk pooling and captive arrangements, and the obstacles to implementing these programs
• Become familiar with the information from global financial reports which are helpful in meeting corporate governance requirements
• Learn about the principal vendors in this space and how insurance networks provide three key advantages
• Gain an understanding of the issues involved in considering an international retirement plan for career expatriates.

This session integrates the various types of international assignments and the related benefit situations that are different in each assignment. The instructor will discuss

• Types of global assignments and benefits provided
  —Permanent, temporary and short term
• Factors impacting benefits for international transfers
• Issues, policies and options for welfare benefits, retirement and social security
• Financing programs for globally mobile employees.

As companies deepen their presence in China, India and throughout this fast-growing region, the Asia Pacific session will help you

• Learn how the labor markets are evolving in this high-growth region and the role that employee benefits play
• Gain a thorough understanding of the key benefit trends in the key markets of China and India, and how these impact the competition for talent
• Understand the currently and rapidly changing roles that governments, employers and employees play in the provision of benefits in each of the major countries in the region, not only in China and India but in a dozen other countries.