DEI in employee mobility: how to make relocating work for everyone
Caitlin Pyett, Director of Account Management, Asia and Consulting Lead at Crown World Mobility discusses Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in employee mobility.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is part of a larger societal shift. Culturally – be it national, corporate, religious, gender, generational or socioeconomic – recognising and addressing the needs of a wider array of people is working its way into many aspects of life.Within the employee mobility sector, there are numerous traditional elements that do not meet current and evolving DEI standards. The predominance of male head of household transferees, referring to the employee’s partner as a “trailing spouse”, and limited family support are just three examples.So, how can you encourage and support DEI in relocation?
Encourage the development of a candidate pool for assignments and transfers
- Who else might be considered for these opportunities? Work with HR and senior leaders to identify the broadest possible candidate pool before applying criteria that might eliminate potential candidates.
- Identify elements of your current programme that may not accommodate everyone’s personal situations. Sometimes seeing where the problems are is the hardest part. Once you can pinpoint which aspects of your programme are contributing to exclusion, finding solutions follows naturally. That said, there are often unsolvable barriers, and knowing what they are is important, too (more on this later).
- Encourage employees who may not see themselves as candidates to explore their options. It’s easy for employees who notice past assignees or transferees fit a particular mold, to worry that they do not, and silently eliminate themselves from consideration. Make sure employees know that the company is consciously expanding its commitment to diversifying candidate pools.
Undertake a deep dive policy review
Check your communication style.
- Written and verbal communications. Is everyone who touches employee mobility or assignment/ transfer candidate development focused on ensuring their communication is as bias-free as possible? This includes external partners, too!
- Program design. In line with the review of policy, is the communication of moblity programs designed in such a way that people with a variety of perspectives and needs can see themselves in the program descriptions? Are your communications gender neutral, family-friendly, as well as family-diverse, and orientation-aware?
- Exception management. In mobility, we strive to avoid or minimise exceptions to policy, and in general this is a reasonable goal. However, when it comes to supporting DEI objectives, there should be parameters that specifically consider when exceptions may be needed to align with the greater priority of inclusion.
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