This article is taken from the Autumn 2024 issue of

Think Global People magazine

Click on the cover to access the digital edition.View your copy of the Autumn 2024 issue of Think Global People magazine.

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Ensuring that employees and their families have an excellent experience during the global mobility process is important for many reasons.First of all, organisations must ensure that they have the right skills and talents where they need these to be. If the experience of moving to a new location is thought to be taxing and difficult, it is unlikely to attract the best individuals, which the organisation needs for success.Second, if the experience of moving – be it domestically or internationally – is stressful, it will affect employee wellbeing and productivity and this will have an impact on employee performance and engagement. In turn, this will damage business outcomes.A further point to consider is the need to ensure that employees are retained. A poor relocation experience may well lead them to consider leaving the company for better prospects elsewhere.To encourage employees to consider relocation, it is therefore important that everyone in the organisation’s talent pool, including potential recruits, can see that the experience of mobility is handled well and promotes employee and family wellbeing. Poor experiences will be quickly communicated and likely affect an individual’s willingness to join the mobile talent pool.

The relocation package

When considering how to improve the employee experience, a number of factors need to be accounted for. Probably the first thing that will come to mind will be the construction of the global mobility package.When determining the content of a relocation policy, global mobility professionals may well weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of core-flex arrangements, which focus on enabling business flexibility, versus cafeteria-style approaches, which provide choice for employees and are designed to enhance the employee experience.It might be tempting to improve the employee experience by placing emphasis on cafeteria benefits, or indeed the provision of lump sums, to enable employees to have maximum choice. While this may be appealing to some individuals, it is important to remember that employees are likely to need guidance in terms of the most appropriate support for themselves and their families. For example, lump sums may appear attractive as they give the maximum possible choice, but it becomes time-consuming for individuals to identify and source appropriate services. This can affect their wellbeing and productivity. If employees make poor choices, then their relocation experience is also likely to be poor.Self-service options as part of policy design can appear attractive to employees who are on the move because it gives them greater control over their decision making. For the employee experience to be good when using a self-service approach to selecting vendors and services the technology must be in place to support this effectively.It is also important to recognise that a relocation policy is usually designed to cover a range of types of moves and levels of seniority. More junior staff and those undertaking developmental assignments might be more willing to engage in self-service options. Executives undertaking demanding international positions will more likely expect services to be put in place for them.

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Equality, diversity and inclusion considerations

Effective relocation packages meet both business and employee needs. They should also provide smooth delivery of appropriate resources to meet individual requirements. A package need not necessarily be expensive, but it must be tailored to an individual and it should avoid the requirement to negotiate policy exceptions.Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) should be factored into policy design to improve the employee experience such that individuals can receive benefits that meet their personal situations without drawing attention to how their needs may be different to those of other people. This raises the issue of flexibility in policy design. Although total flexibility may prove to be unworkable, a degree of flexibility that enables individuals to have their requirements addressed will improve the employee experience.The relocation policy is likely to include aspects relating to training and development. Preparation for an assignment is crucial to success. Such preparatory training might include language and cultural awareness support, as well as benefits for working partners and children. The employee and accompanying dependants will all need preparatory training if they are to settle in effectively.Training needs to be aligned to EDI considerations. The employee experience is likely to be enhanced significantly when individuals feel they can fit in by being personally, culturally and linguistically attuned to their new location. To improve the employee experience, preparatory support should go beyond the pre-move stage and continue in the new location as necessary.

Communication and administration

A key part of relocation policy design concerns clarity of communication. The wording of any policy must be understandable. Global mobility professionals may well feel that the language they use is understood widely, but just as with any professional group, global mobility has its own terminology and not everybody understands it. For example, global mobility professionals often talk about the need for ‘compliance’, but what does that mean? An employee and their family may not understand that this refers to factors including immigration, taxation, social security, pension provision, legislative requirements and so on. Policy wording must be clear so that readers who are not specialists in the field can understand what is being offered so they can make decisions easily. This will improve the employee experience.The policy must also be easy to administer. Those responsible for communicating with the employee and family must understand the content of the policy and be able to implement it easily and effectively.The points of contact must be made clear so that everybody involved in the process knows whom to talk to and when to do so. It might be that a single coordinator is appointed to link employees and their families to the different providers within the relocation process. Or, a single point of contact might be put into place who deals with the employee directly so that the employee does not need to contact a range of different people. Either approach can be appropriate, but it is clear that if the employee experience is to be a good one, then the employee and accompanying family must know if they are expected to communicate with a range of service providers under the guidance of a coordinator, or if they only need to contact one person for everything to be achieved.

Service providers

It is important to remember that service providers may be based in different parts of the world and although 24/7 service provision is often proclaimed to be in place, this may not always work effectively across time zones if relocating employees and families need to communicate directly with one single point of contact or coordinator.Technology can help in this respect, but it is important to remember that for a good experience, employees may need to speak to a human being and not be solely reliant on technology.This raises the issue of dealing with different service providers. Third-party companies are under contract to provide services to the employing organisation, but each must fully understand the remit of the relocation policy if they are to interpret and implement it effectively and in concert to provide an excellent experience for relocating families.It is also important to remember that the culture of the service provider may well be different from that of the employing organisation. Employees and their families may find this a little difficult to get to grips with. Service providers to understand the culture of the companies they work for and to try to match this in their dealings with mobile employees. This will aid relationship building and improve the employee experience.

The importance of family support

Relocation involves the movement of both employees and family members. Assignment types that are typically single-status also have family implications due to separation when the employee goes on the assignment by themselves. To ensure an excellent relocation experience, it is critical that policy design and implementation recognise the implications for both accompanying and separated family members, and appropriate benefits and support are provided in this regard.

Strategic talent issues

Global mobility professionals have made the point for many years that they want a more strategic role in the relocation process. They want to be involved in talent identification as well as its deployment. This has ramifications for the employee experience. Employees and their families do not simply accept moves unless they see a benefit. This benefit is no longer just monetary. Indeed, as packages have become less generous over the years, the financial outcomes are not the primary driver for accepting relocation.Individuals increasingly are seeking career benefits from international mobility. This is particularly the case given the implications for dual-career couples when one family member accepts a role abroad. If global mobility professionals are to improve the employee experience, then they need to be involved in career planning for employees and career guidance for working partners. Meaningful discussions are necessary with employees and their families if they are to accept transfers to different parts of the world. The career implications of these moves must be made clear.The employee experience can be improved significantly through clear and careful career planning that identifies pathways to ensure a positive experience outbound as well as on repatriation. The quality of the communication in this regard is paramount to ensuring employee buy-in to the assignment’s objectives as well as engagement with business requirements and planned success outcomes.

A well-rounded approach

Prioritising employee experience needs to be balanced against business requirements, objectives and cost control. It is likely organisations will place different emphases on the various actions that can improve employee experience. However, it is important to ensure that attention is paid to all components because to place greater focus on only one or two aspects is likely to have a detrimental impact on others. For example, if an organisation places its main priority on a flexible package, but does not communicate effectively and pays little attention to career prospects, the likelihood of an excellent employee experience is slim.Global mobility professionals need to ensure they maintain a wide field of vision to consider all the aspects that can contribute to employee engagement through policy design, implementation, communication and talent development. In this way, they can ensure an excellent all-round approach to improving the employee experience.

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