Håkan Hallén
Yara’s HR director represents an invisible, but growing and important group of employees: They have the whole world as their workplace. Cosmopolitans, global nomads, the third culture – all terms used to describe employees of this type. There is something amazing and exotic about it, and with globalisation, competition and the increasing demand for talented people, many opportunities are opening up for those who want to become a world citizen – in the professional sense.
But it has its drawbacks.
“My family and I left Sweden 24 years ago to work a year or two in Washington DC,” says Hallén. “Those two years turned into seven in the US capital, five years in Paris, six in Brussels, four in Switzerland, one in London and now I’m here in Oslo. It has been an educational year, but if you asked me if I would have done it all over again, I’m frankly not sure what I would have answered.”
Baby boomer
Håkan Hallén is a baby boomer, one of the vast numbers of babies born after World War II. Typical of this generation is that it is so great in number that employers could pick and choose among the best.
But this generation is now thinning out. The baby boomers are getting on in years, and the average age of people in business and industry is rising. Within a relatively few years, many will retire.
The succeeding generations, including those of you who are reading this, are hardly that large in number.
This poses challenges to business and industry. Available expertise, competence and talent are shrinking, while demand remains the same or is growing.
Consequently, diversity – which a few years ago sprang from American business as required by law to ensure equality and fairness for African Americans, Hispanics, women and other less favoured groups – has now become a vital necessity for businesses that want to survive on the global arena.
“The greatest challenge facing business is access to new talent,” says Hallén. “Business and industry has been hit by a talent market shortage. We have become fewer. Already now we’re noticing problems finding the talents we need.”
Diversity and mobility
Diversity and mobility are important answers to this challenge.
“We need greater breadth and to be creative in our recruitment. Today’s situation entails that we may hire persons with a slightly different background. It is not just about people from different countries, but also diversity in the workforce. Maybe a non-chartered engineer can do the job a chartered engineer did previously. Maybe a journalist can do market communication. Perhaps a woman can take the job previously reserved for men.
“The challenge is to create acceptance for this diversity from different perspectives: age, expertise, gender. We must create a working environment that can handle this diversity and draw on its potential.”
“Yara is one of Norway’s most international companies. Only 10 percent of its value is created in Norway, and all expansion takes place abroad. Does Yara itself have a management poised to lead a global and diverse organisation?”
“Yes, absolutely. On paper, the Yara management consists mostly of men. Norwegian men,” says Hallén. “And one Swede. To all appearances, this is an awful statistic – many men and little diversity. The truth is that all but one have lived for extended periods outside Norway. In other words, they are not quite Norwegian, but belong to the third culture. This team has a fantastic ability to lead probably the most global enterprise in Norway, where only ten percent of the value added takes place here, and all expansion is done abroad.”
Business strategy
“What do you do to develop diversity leaders?”
“I came here in August and my task is to raise the corporation’s HR function to the next level. Consequently, there is no clear answer yet, but I am promoting diversity-as-business-strategy to my colleagues at management. Diversity and mobility have a central place in this effort, and we will be assigning a person to focus on this.
“Here at Yara’s head office, the conditions for leading a diverse company are quite good, but as you descend the hierarchy, you’ll see that in Germany they have German managers, in France, French managers, in Brazil, Brazilian and so on. In order to create greater breadth at this level, we have introduced a programme whereby we circulate managers. We might send a manager from Finland to Glomfjord, Norway, while the manager at Glomfjord goes to Germany, and the manager there goes to France, whose manager they send to Brazil. We have 24 chemical plants worldwide, and they all do mostly the same thing. Through this programme, however, we create a global company that accepts different cultures. We get global diversity, and the more we do that, the more global the management team becomes.”
“You mentioned drawing potential from diversity. What potential is inherent in diversity?”
“Generally, this is not a question I have asked my colleagues, but I am convinced that all of them would spontaneously answer that diversity is better than stereotypy. Leading a diverse group is also more challenging.
“Diversity can yield both positive and negative results. Negative, primarily if the manager and the team are unable to live with diversity and set free the energy that lies therein. This is important. Our investment in finding talented people is futile if we can’t accept diversity.
“On the positive side is the ability to find alternative solutions. When working with people from different corners of the world, you often discover that the solution to the challenges is frequently the same, but the way you arrive at it different. The fact is that people in e.g. Nordic countries and the US typically view the world and problems from their own perspective and culture, and those who don’t understand that are regarded as abnormal. In a good, diverse culture, there is acceptance for the fact that, just because people do things differently somewhere else, doesn’t mean they’re doing it wrong. There are many ways of achieving one’s goals.”
The third culture
“You spoke about ‘the third culture.’ What is the third culture?”
Hallén thinks – for a long time.
“Well, you said when you came in here: ‘Håkan, but you’re Swedish’. But no, I’m no longer Swedish. I have a Swedish passport and a Swedish name. But I’m not quite Swedish, nor do I belong to any other nationality.
“The third culture is a kind of virtual world. It’s not something you wear; it’s about behaviour and ways of expressing one’s self. After a few years in this culture, a behavioural change takes place. You are influenced by the environment and your values change. You notice it each time you come home to your original culture, where people then react to the way you say and do things. It can be positive at times; you get confirmation that you have changed. But you’re also not a Norwegian or an American, and in those countries, too, you get reactions. You’re in a sort of vacuum and many of my colleagues and I have been changed by it. We have a different frame of reference.”
“Business and industry is hungering for mobile employees, but he global nomad still comprises only a tiny portion of the total workforce.
“This is not peculiar to Norway,” says Hallén. “In most countries it is natural that people grow up where their parents, family and friends live. It is neither right nor wrong. It’s just the way it is.”
Hallén does not hide the fact that this lifestyle has its price. He himself has three children with his Swedish wife. One of them has never lived in Sweden. Hallén doesn’t know if he will ever move back to the old country.
“The thought of moving home again simply makes me nervous,” Hallén admits. “Oslo is perhaps the closest I’ll get to returning to Sweden, but living in Norway also has the effect that you gradually adjust,” he says, smiling.
