A version of this article was republished in the ABA Labor and Employment Law newsletter for Winter 2009.

In the old days - say, 15 years ago and beyond - multinationals tended to run their global human resources as "siloed" operations, with little intervention from corporate headquarters. In that bygone era, almost all employer communications to the local employees at a plant in, say, Montreal, would come from local Canadian HR, in French. Work rules for an office in, say, Tokyo, would be issued by local Japanese HR, in Japanese. And benefit plans for employees in São Paulo were generated by local Brazilian HR, in Portuguese.

Complete Article: http://www.whitecase.com/hrhottopic_0808/