Sense out of uncertainty, HR without borders
Welcome to 2024 from the World’s leading organisation for multinational employers.
Successful employers belong to FedEE because we provide the kind of fast, practical, affordable, high quality and far-sighted service that gives HR professionals that special edge they require to stay ahead of the game. An illustration of this is the fact that we have predicted not only 9/11, the 2007/8 meltdown, the Brexit result but also the pandemic – six months before it happened. Furthermore, our members jointly command assets that are larger than China’s annual GDP and three times the worth of the US government. One FedEE Member put the way we make a difference this way.
“I do not have the time to brief outsiders and start worrying about professional fees before I can get a job done. I just need someone I can trust who will give me an honest second opinion and help me sort things out so that I can move onto other things. My company cannot carry all the expertise about international HR laws and practices it needs in-house – so the next best thing is FedEE. You have no equal and those who do not know about you do not know what they are missing.”
Above all, we are politically neutral and independently funded by our Members – with no financial support from governments, quangos or pressure groups. We also receive no revenue from advertisers or sponsors and take your corporate privacy seriously.
❖Join our top Multinationals: We are Chaired by the Ford Motor Company, whilst Houlihan Lokey – a leading US investment bank – is on our board. In fact, 40% of all the top global companies are FedEE corporate members.
❖ Legal Counsel: FedEE Members have access to our legal knowledgebase, helpline and customised legal services. They will also soon be able to register personally as an ‘HR Counsel’ to gain recognition for their skillset.
❖Monitoring Global Developments: We track new and revised laws, legal cases, HR practices and wider socio-political developments that affect company payrolls – all in a timely and practical way.
❖FedEE Actively Lobbies governments around the World. We act as a ‘think tank’, developing common policies and advising on practical ways to deregulate.
❖Have you amended your organisation’s employment contracts and HR policies to comply with the latest legislative amendments, court precedents and HR trends? FedEE gives you the key elements you need to update employee handbooks.
❖ Do not be deceived by manipulated official statistics. We indicate the data you can trust and provide the true picture that governments often wish to obscure from view. We also warn member companies about the previously unrealised implications of planned changes in the employment field.
International HR Answers in Seconds
FedEE was developed to provide a “right hand” professional support service to those in multinational HR departments.
We focus on key developments so you can get on with your core day-to-day activities. You do not need a legal database containing 1000s of new laws and court cases to read every day, nor do you have the time to wait for a call-back from a law firm – but you do need to know if your company faces a new employer obligation in a particular country, if a key deadline is coming up on the radar, or how to resolve a difficult employee problem in real-time.
FedEE also produces news reports you would never receive from any other source. This is partly because we monitor changes in over 30 languages. We also have a tiered support system so that if you need to know more, you may go to our online knowledgebase, or simply call our multinational helpline. 85% of helpline enquiries are resolved within two hours, after just one direct call to an Advisor. Our service is also multi-user – so several colleagues may access it in their own right. Few lawyers have hands on HR experience and so their guidance is often rigid, obscure and off the mark. We go beyond the law and aim at finding practical, management solutions that stick and make good economic sense.
What you will also discover as a member of FedEE is our far-sighted view of the future. Here, for instance, is the introductory paragraph to an article in ‘Industrial Management and Data Systems” written by our Secretary-General, Robin Chater, which was published back on 1st March 1989 – entitled “Industrial depopulation: the politics of automation”.
“As computerised manufacture merges into computer integrated manufacture, with expert computer systems controlling other expert systems, where do human beings come in? Are they gaining or losing? Are they drifting into a catch‐22 situation? Maybe the time will come when they are merely spectators. The mushrooming progress of technology is reflected on, who is gaining and who is losing are questioned and a suggested plan of action is provided to keep progress – at least technological progress – on the rails”.
You could probably secure a near alternative to FedEE by hiring a team of talented HR professionals, lawyers and economists with years of working in many jurisdictions and industry sectors, then by arming them with numerous costly database subscriptions – or you could simply sign up to FedEE at fraction of the cost. That is perhaps why many HR departments around the World have relied on FedEE for well over three decades.
Examples of issues we review:
❖A recent landmark court decision in Malaysia has been the first to challenge the country’s Islamic laws concerning sexual orientation.
❖We chart emerging pandemic threats as they happen. Our expertise in Epidemiology allows us to track and evaluate new viruses and variants of existing ones.
❖ How many US States now ban the use of non-compete clauses and which is the latest?
❖ Are casual workers unlawful in Australia? We show you why not.
❖What statutory profit sharing obligation exists in Mexico? When are payouts due?
❖What has happened to the legal loophole in Belgium that allowed employers to hire workers on a succession of alternating temporary and replacement contracts?
❖ May an employer in Kenya dismiss an employee serving a probationary period “at will”?
❖ What are the HR data retention periods around the World?
❖Which multinational companies are leading the way in introducing new-style work practices?
The FedEE Story
FedEE was supported initially by the European Commission.
FedEE Services
FedEE offers a range of “must have” services to the Multinational employers.
FedEE Achievements
Some achievements since foundation in 1988.
Aftermath
FedEE’s frightening analysis concerning prospects for a post-pandemic World.
Automation for free, sans redundancies
The Federation has just launched the 9th issue of its quarterly Labour Market Trends Report.
This issue focuses on ‘Manpower planning to maximise capital intensity’. It sets out a review of automation and its potential impact on multinational enterprises. However, its perspective differs radically from other literature in this field because it provides a practical blueprint for how an enterprise can fully automate at virtually no cost and without the need to undertake layoffs of any significance.
The proposed FedEE strategy involves HR taking centre stage and using effective manpower planning to generate the investment required to achieve a progressive roll out of automation over the period from 2024 to 2035.
The challenge is there, but unless the approach we put forward is followed in the near term, companies will ultimately be forced down a painful and risky path to reach the same business outcome. Fortunately, time is still on the side of any enterprise willing to act quickly and in a single-minded way. Please download a free copy of the report here.
The FedEE Plan 2035 Team
Consultation on legislative frameworks
Burdensome regulations and legal gaps in EU laws
Over the last three decades the prevailing influence over the development of EU Directives and Regulations has been the ETUC. Employers have been represented, but have had little impact on the emerging legislative structure.
We should like to hear from all employers about which EU laws they find difficult to deal with and which urgently need reform or repeal – such as the EU Posting of Workers Directive and parts of the GDPR. We are also drawing up a list of legal gaps where uncertainty is causing inconsistency, or lack of clarity – for instance, the absence of any EU Directives dealing with such issues as individual redundancy or dismissal (especially MSAs), post-compete agreements and the designation of powers within a company to sign dismissal letters.
We shall be publishing our full reform ‘wish list’ and proposed (deregulatory) amendments in the next issue of our quarterly report ‘Labour Market Trends’. The text of this will then form the basis for lobbying the European Commission. We therefore urge you to identify changes that need to be made and to flag these to us within the next two months. We should also like to hear about problem laws you have experienced elsewhere in the World.
Let FedEE-Legal provide you with the employment law assistance you need during the current crisis
FedEE Legal are Legal Counsel to the Federation. We offer expert advice, information and support at less cost and much faster than an old-style legal firm. Our expertise is also based on a depth of international HR experience and is led by a former Advisor to The European Commission and the ICO who also has a track record in mining, electronics and engineering. We cover over 120+ country jurisdictions, plus federal laws, from a single international centre. For statutory reasons FedEE Legal is not open to non-members of the Federation. Call us today on (+44) 203 807 9205 or email [email protected].
Ask FedEE Legal’s research team to undertake an investigation into a difficult legal challenge, or brief you on a particular jurisdiction
We have undertaken numerous customised research exercises for major public and private organisations to assess, for instance, the best jurisdiction and labour market for expansion into Eastern Europe, restructure the business, convert independent advisors into permanent employees, or set out all the steps necessary for a major transfer of undertakings. We specialise in M&A HR legal strategy – and in 2019 we were a key player in one of the largest mergers in recent times.
Becoming a multinational for the first time? Let FedEE help reduce the delays and risks
Membership of FedEE will be an invaluable aid to successful growth in other countries. Not only can we show you how to avoid the legal pitfalls, but can put you in touch with local service providers and provide statistics to help you assess things like the size and nature of local labour markets.
Spotlight: Platform workers
Currently, some 28 million workers across the EU operate on a platform basis, of which some 5.5 million are formally classified as self-employed. The standing prejudice of the EU institutions is against independent contracting and the European Commission has been keen for some time to overlay restrictive country laws with a measure to uniformly outlaw the dynamics of gig work.
Towards this end, the European Council and European Parliament have just reached political agreement on a draft Directive that will force many outstanding platform workers to become employees. Their measure aims to make it easier to classify all workers as ‘employed’ and also to heavily control the use of algorithm-based systems for rewarding gig workers. The criteria for determining employment status have clearly been selected to ensure that such workers are invariably regarded as employees, with the need to only meet two out of five fairly vaguely defined factors. There will also be tight limitations placed on automated monitoring and decision-making systems concerning such subjects as emotional and psychological states, private conversations and data to predict possible (or actual) trade union involvement.
These factors will be hard to categorize in practice, so that the courts will undoubtedly become involved in putting their usual narrow interpretations onto individual monitoring actions – even if they are in the interests of employees or only weakly correlate – for instance – with union membership prospects.
Press Releases and Newswires
White papers
FedEE Member companies gain access to a wealth of information and guidance.
Press Releases
Examples of past press releases distributed to media, newspapers and agencies.
Past Newswires
Examples of our fortnightly newswires sent to all FedEE Member organizations.
Join FedEE Today
Many of the world’s largest multinational companies already belong to The Federation of International Employers (FedEE®). We have a Worldwide Membership – with particular concentrations in North America, Western Europe, India and Japan. We were founded in 1988 and are regularly voted by our Members as an organisation they would recommend to other multinationals.
If your company has over 150 employees in two or more countries, has its own in-house HR department, and has been operating for two or more years then you really cannot afford to operate without being part of the Federation. The approval process takes less than a day and for immediate access to our services we have an online credit card payment facility. Membership costs as little as €998.00 a year. Please check here to view the table of our membership services. Sign up now. We also offer one month’s trial membership, without charge, for suitable applicants.
What Next?
Once a completed application has been received it will be quickly reviewed by our Membership Review Group and, if approved, we shall send an email to the applicant confirming acceptance – normally within 24 hours. The Secretary-General also usually calls to welcome all new members.
Our letter of confirmation will have an attached invoice containing our bank details to allow payment. The membership fee may be settled by bank transfer within 35 days or, on request, via a credit card payment link. As soon as the fee has been settled we shall send out passwords to all nominated users and place them on our Newswire list. At the end of each subscription year we shall write inviting the Corporate Member to renew. 94% of Members renew at this time.
Membership renewal is not automatic, but we shall retain membership for a certain period to allow for continuity. Helpline bundles may be purchased at any time and unused enquiries in the bundles do not expire whilst membership is retained.
Contact Us
Address, email, telephone numbers and on line payments so you can get in touch from anywhere around the world.
Senior Management Team
Introducing our key staff and Board Members.
Training and Events
The World’s advanced professional transnational law training course.
Clear Thinking
Most people are not taught to think and few realize that clear thinking originates in perceptions and personal identity.
