Managing performance in multi-country teams: IBM’s global talent pool

Hello and welcome to this session. My name is Tinkuma Edafioghor. I'm a Senior Lecturer in human resource management at the University of the West of England in United Kingdom. In this session, we're going to look at a fascinating real world case today. It's about how IBM manages performance in its global talent pool.

As you know, IBM is one of the largest technology companies in the world, with employees spread across dozens of countries. That means they face the challenge of managing performance across teams that are culturally diverse, geographically dispersed, and often working virtually. So we'll look at the challenges they faced, but also the actions they took and the lessons they learned. I'll invite you to think about how these ideas might apply in your own context at the end.

Let's start with the challenge. Imagine being a manager at IBM, responsible for a team that spans India, Brazil, Germany, and maybe the US. You're dealing with different time zones, different communication styles, and even different expectations about what good performance looks like. So IBM noticed inconsistencies across its global team. In some regions, people thrived under direct individual feedback. While in other places, the same approach created discomfort or even disengagement amongst employees. So in some cultures, employees expected highly structured goals, while others valued autonomy and flexibility. The result of this was uneven performance, miscommunication, and in some cases frustration for both managers and employees. What did IBM do? IBM had to ask, how do we create a performance management system that is fair and consistent worldwide, but still flexible enough to respect cultural differences?