Workforce diversity brings immense improvement in business processes worldwide. With the help of innovative ideas and multiple talents from all corners of the world, companies have a higher chance of becoming successful. Working with overseas partners increases market opportunities for entrepreneurs; they gain the upper hand in opting for global expansion, international employment, traveling prospects, cost-effective labor, etc.
As much as it is beneficial to uphold an international partnership, it can be challenging to manage the workforce if there’s a difference in locations. Since communication is the key to any successful business operation, multinational crews also require clear and explicit directions from their management, or else there will be mishaps.
Businesses are using new and innovative technological devices to ensure that overseas partners receive just as much attention and supervision from their leaders. With the help of mobile technology, it has become easier to converse with and keep an eye on the activities of remote workers or business partners.
However, these meetings are to be held on a one-on-one basis to make motives obvious and build trust. Many businesses are using applications like Skype, Zoom, and Google Meet to conduct these meetings. But, the most effective ones are those in which companies run face-to-face, traveling to their overseas partners and fixating on the importance of working together.
For instance, if your partner resides and works from Taiwan in China, you can visit them and conduct a meeting for all your Chinese workforce to have a group discussion. Traveling itself might cost you a bit, but holding meetings in event venues in Taiwan is an excellent idea to meet your workforce, speak to them and listen to their queries.
You must set some budget aside for it, as these 1-1 meetings are crucial for accomplishing long-term business goals.
1. Develops Inclusivity
Inclusivity is not only about hiring people of various races, colors, casts, and creeds; instead, it is about allowing them to equally participate in business operations and enabling individual growth and empowerment.
When you conduct one-on-one meetings with your overseas partners, it allows them to communicate personally with the management. Unambiguously learning more about the organizations’ demands and needs, they can become better assets.
It also sparks up their motivation level when they realize they are important enough to come and speak to you personally. They open up about their work experience, letting you find perfect opportunities for training and development.
All of this is conducive to increasing the chances of business finding its core competency in its workforce, a great way to pave a successful path for the company.
2. Sets Out Clear Expectations
Multicultural meetings require your complete focus and attention, as it is not an easy job considering language barriers, traveling and venue costs, conflicting norms, and differences in attitudes. However, when you start creating and establishing good meeting rules initially, your audience can know what to expect from it.
It makes it easier to be confident and firm in the directions that you have for your team. You set out clear expectations from the very start, letting them know what the company demands of them. They understand the track on which they need to make progress and the right way to discuss their next plan of action.
Without one-on-one meetings, they would have been limited to their creativity box, but with their management there to help them grasp the concepts better, they can come up with more excellent ideas.
3. Greater Productivity
As established, when employees feel motivated by inclusivity and well-trained with clear guidelines, they work for the company’s success with greater vigor. Regular one-on-one meetings also improve efficiency and make the time more manageable, as less of it is wasted in miscommunication.
These meetings limit the time spent writing up elaborate emails, attending international phone calls for further briefing, and ad hoc catchups before every crucial conversation. Because of the limited hours available for these meetings, managers tend to sum up quickly and provide short but summarizing instructions to their team members. It enables effective use of communication, reducing lead-time, resource wastages while increasing productivity.
4. Better Performance Assessment
It is crucial to understand the pace of all your overseas partners to know how much they can handle the administrative workload. Of course, annual performance matters, but these reviews can be a little too late to ensure that employees are timely conforming and adhering to the team goals.
Hence, carrying out performance assessments at one-to-ones is an excellent opportunity to be apt in employees’ evaluations. You can then use this assessment to provide personal feedback to your workers directly, without including a third party and making it uncomfortable for them.
It eases out the complications because you know how to handle your partners, clients, workers, and other stakeholders, in the best way. When you discuss these direct reports with them and invest in their accomplishments, you make your partners loyal to the company.
5. Builds Trust
If there is no trust among remote partners, the efficiency of the firm would be at stake. Understanding each other’s purposes and reasoning is the only way to lead an all-inclusive business. One-on-one meetings allow overseas partners to personally get to know you and build a positive work relationship.
It improves their performance because they realize the importance of engaging with the management and like to be forthcoming about their issues and qualms. One-on-one meetings enable individual and peculiar connections, allowing you to be comfortable and open to discussing the better option for your teamwork.
Most importantly, introverted employees who may feel shy to talk in groups will be more approachable in one-to-one situations. In the end, the cultural differences wouldn’t matter as much as before when both the parties would know each other generally.
Conclusion
For effective one-on-one meetings, you can see online demos and write out notes or pointers to start your discussion. To make the best use of the allowed time, ensure that you’ve planned it properly and allotted individual time to each partner so that no one is left out.
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