As companies go global, so does information sharing. Here are four workplace trends that make it more important than ever for multinational organizations to understand copyright.
While copyright compliance may not be on your radar, consider four emerging workplace trends that make compliance more challenging and likely to have important ramifications for your multinational company.
THE WORLD’S POPULATION IS MOBILE
The world’s population is on the go. Cross-border migration has increased 42 percent in the last decade, from 150 million to 214 million, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Paris-based global economic watchdog reports most of the traffic is directed toward 34 developed countries that comprise its membership, such as the United States, Australia, Japan and Germany.
As the population becomes more mobile, organizations continue to develop international talent pipelines to support their operations. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) predicts a sizable shift in mobility patterns as skilled employees from emerging markets move across continents and create greater diversity in the global talent pool.
INTERNATIONAL WORK ASSIGNMENTS ARE ON THE RISE
Corporate headquarters are fanning out employees to support expanding operations. International assignments will increase 50 percent by 2020, according to PwC. Top reasons companies cite for international assignments are the need for specific technical skills not available locally, career management and leadership development, and knowledge transfer, according to new research from human resources consulting firm Mercer.
CROSS-BORDER INFORMATION SHARING IS HAPPENING ON A GLOBAL SCALE
Supporting an increasingly global business landscape is the rising exchange of published content among departments, divisions and clients all over the world. In a 2012 FreePint survey of international companies across industries, 100% of participants said their employees share content across geographic borders. Yet more than 70% lack an effective strategy for managing global content sharing and usage. In fact, less than one third have as much insight into employees’ cross-border information exchanges as they do domestic sharing.
STRONG BUSINESS ETHICS MOTIVATE STAFF
A new study by human resources consulting firm Towers Watson finds that motivated employees place high value on leaders who are able to not only grow the business but also to model its core values with their own behavior. Do more engaged employees mean better margins? In an analysis of 50 global companies, Towers found that operating margins of companies with highly engaged employees were about 10% higher than those with less motivated staff.
COPYRIGHT MATTERS
Combine an expanding geographic workforce with frequent information sharing and your multinational company may face complex global copyright risks, including copyright infringement and damage to your company’s reputation.
Navigating the complexities of copyright compliance on a global scale can be daunting. There is no international copyright law. There are some international treaties that offer some level of consistency, but there are also domestic copyright laws that vary among countries.