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Risky Business: The Inherent Risks of Conducting Business in a Foreign Country |
| by Janet Williams |
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| (This is based on a true story and
all names and cities have been changed.) |
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| On Monday morning, George, the Vice President of Operations
in a large engineering company in Toronto, was considering if he could
legally fire the project manager standing in front of him. The project
manager and project team had just returned from an American job site
early, without having accomplished any of their objectives. George
had sent the team of five down to their automotive client in New Jersey
on Friday night to perform a one-week software and electrical installation.
The team, headed by Rick the project manager, had a short window of
time during the planned shutdown period in which to accomplish the
final phase of a complex project. The preparations were to happen
on Saturday and the installation was to begin on Sunday. |
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| Instead, here the team was, on Monday morning, back
in Toronto standing in the VP's office, complaining about their rights.
They were unmindful of the financial impact of their actions to the
organization and the major inconvenience to the client. They had essentially
abandoned the project, because they had refused to undergo drug testing.
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| So why was this such a big deal? The US customer had been a client
for the past five years. Three years ago, the automotive company began
phasing in mandatory drug testing with their employees and all outside
contractors. In the past, this condition had been waived for Canadian
contractors due to the good pre-existing relationship that had been
established. In the States, it is the responsibility of the employer
to ensure that they have done everything possible to provide a safe
workplace. If an employee shows up to work intoxicated or under the
influence of drugs and an accident were to occur, the US court system
would deem the company liable. |
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| In Canada, employees have the right to refuse requests
for drug testing. The laws on both sides of the border are ambiguous
to the confidentiality of the information gathered from drug testing.
In a Canadian company the Pass or Fail result is given to an executive
of the company without any other detail. Employees receive the same
status and if they failed, the reason why. A third party performs
the testing and this has led to a concern that such companies are
not currently restricted from gathering the information, generating
statistics and selling it. Although the drug testing companies provide
a list of what they are screening for, there are no guarantees that
they are not testing for other things, such as AIDS and other diseases,
or pregnancy. For those people with health conditions, their information
may be sold to such organizations as pharmaceutical companies, who
can then target these people. |
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| This time when the team went down to the States, the
Canadian government was making headline news around the world with
their leniency towards marijuana. The client was also becoming stricter
with its testing process, and had informed the team that mandatory
testing was required before they would be allowed to go onto the site.
The team members approached the PM saying that they were against taking
the test. They had done research on the internet about drug testing
policies and found out about the ambiguity of the use of the data
gathered and the suggested ineffectiveness of mandatory testing. Substance
abusers could easily thwart the testing process through access to
clean urine, which could even be purchased on EBay. Clean employees
were subjected to the embarrassment of taking the test. There was
also the chance of error in the large volumes of samples being tested,
which could blacklist a person unfairly. |
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| The project manager had no company policy to fall back on and had
not received any coaching or training to deal with an issue such as
this. He sympathized with the other team members, having experimented
with marijuana back in university he was not keen on being subjected
to the testing either. So without even setting foot onto the job site,
the team came home and were now standing in front of George, wondering
how they were supposed to proceed. |
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| In the end, of the team of five, two agreed to the
testing but took the option of taking the test through their Canadian
doctor. Another employee was found who was willing to take the test
and join the team. The scaled down project team was able to complete
the work, although it required longer hours and additional effort
on their part. |
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| What did George learn from this experience and how
did he make positive changes in his organization to prevent this issue
from happening again? He got together with the Director of Human Resources
and they implemented a new company policy regarding mandatory testing
that was put into the Employee Policy Manual. Furthermore, Project
Managers would also receive training about mandatory testing. |
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| The key learning from this company's experience is
that organizations should not wait for an event like this to occur.
They should become fully aware of the policies of their clients; especially
those may impact their business interactions. Most importantly, they
should establish their own policies in response to these issues to
provide direction to their employees or project teams. As companies
pursue new markets in their search for increasing profits, selling
to foreign countries becomes an obvious way to expand market share.
The lure of selling products and services in other countries comes
with its own unique set of challenges and risks, which are not always
so obvious. Organizations need to be aware of the subtle and noticeable
cultural differences when dealing with other countries. The subtle
differences can have a large impact on an organization even between
countries with similar cultures and value systems. |
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| For more information about this article, please contact bia(TM) at info@bia.ca. |
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| © Business Improvement Architects |
