It appears that some of the biggest HR challenges globally allow us to take advantage of a greater standardisation in HR activities.

These include acquiring and retaining key talent, building leadership capability, driving cultural change and forming effective virtual teams. Despite this many of us have a strong sensitivity to cultural and environmental differences which can drive a divergence in HR practices.

We know that organisations are globalising and this means HR is too. I continue to be fascinated by how we manage what is technically called the 'global local dilemma'? We want to create efficiencies internationally, but yet we want to fit into the local environment and serve the local market.

Research actually shows that people's personalities are much the same around the world and culture is often used as an excuse to 'do things differently around here'. The key outcome from a Facet5 study (www.facet5.com) found that there were very little variations in the personality profiles of different cultures.

Yes, of course cultural differences exist and this does have implications for how we best build the most efficient organisational structures, consistent HR processes, integrated training and development programmes and effective performance management systems. 'However we should not lose sight of the fact that the difference between individuals is much bigger than the difference between countries. A shy Chinese person is still shy even though he's Chinese and switching the norms doesn't make him less so'. For multi‐cultural groups it is how they compare to each other that matters, not how they compare to the people in their village, town or country.

You could also argue that the cultural differences between companies are often bigger than those between countries or regions. When you look at the cultural differences between Microsoft and Yahoo, you don't need to look much further than a floor plan. Microsoft has been a company of offices, where workers toil individually at their piece of a collective project. Yahoo, by contrast is a Silicon Valley archetype where workers sit in cubicles and tend to work collaboratively.

Clearly the issue with having one consistent global HR policy is won't always align with local employment laws in different territories. However, the real challenge for international HR is increasingly about innovation, effective knowledge sharing and communication. So maybe we should focus more on 'organisational' similarities rather than 'perceived' cultural differences when setting our HR strategies?

Jeff Benveniste is a partner at sourcing and recruitment company Global Edge