HRO Today Global Autumn 2014 - 53

Relocation
philosophy when employees are seeking out the global
opportunities that can lead to them to new places, to
find new skill sets, and new experiences. " Those are in
fact people typically in this younger demographic who
don't have an allegiance to a particular organisation,
but rather continue to move and gain a set of
experiences and skills through mobility, " says Brice.
Brice explains that there are two main factors in the
flux of global nomads: employees tend to job hop
and the majority of organisations are extending their
global footprints. " There's more and more companies
that are realising to be competitive they need to
globalise and actually be in markets outside of where
they have used to be, " he says. " It's almost created the
ability to move both across different organisations, but
also move to different locations at a much more rapid
pace than even five or 10 years ago. "
Changing Age Dynamics
More and more Millennials continue to enter
the workforce, and this younger and more agile
generation are often more open to the possibilities
of relocation assignments. They tend to have
less personal (family) and financial (mortgages)
responsibilities to take into consideration. " In cases
where employees are moving, we are seeing an
increase in the numbers of younger employees
moving, and the number who are self-nominating to
relocate, " says Skourtis. " Single employees appear
to be motivated to experience new places, and may
6 Best Practices To
Global Mobility Success
1. Communicate. The collaboration between the
different team members involved with the process
needs to be cohesive and constructive. " It's
imperative to ensure the entire team-including
supplier partners-are on board with the programme,
understand the strategy, and can support the
compliance and delivery need, " says Cara Skourtis.
2. Involve experienced professionals in the process.
Resources can assist in conducting an efficient
global mobility programme; be sure to leverage that
knowledge. " There's nothing like preparation to ease
the process, and the only way to do that is to use
proven resources who have been there, done that,
talked the language, and can ease that transition
period, " says Steven Wester.
3. Make sure there is a productive process in place.
Companies need to understand what their end goals
are, both from an organisational standpoint and
for their employees. According to Brookfield Global
Relocation Services's 2014 Global Mobility Trends
Survey, 92 per cent of respondents have a global
international assignment policy standard in place.
Having a clear and concise process, measuring and
understanding the metrics, and confirming the goals
for the return on investment can ensure the success
of the programme. " Some of those most simplistic
best practices are starting with the strategy, figuring
out accountability, and then creating mechanisms for
regular information share, " says John Brice.
4. Allow decisions to be made based on the individual.
Wester explains that oftentimes there will be a
certain amount of money or benefits allotted to the
assignee, who can then select the benefits that are
most applicable to their situation. " One size does
not fit all, especially on a global basis, so be fair and
consistent across the organisation, but allow for
flexibility, " says Wester.
5. Focus on the value. " When considering a
costly relocation or assignment, applying talent
management as a criterion puts the focus on the
investment cost and the return on that investment to
both the employee and the company, " says Skourtis.
6. Cover your bases, starting with the hiring process,
for benefit of employee and employer alike. " A lot of
the ancillary stuff in the pre-decision process allows
the assignee or the transferee to make the informed
decision, " says Wester. This ensures the assignee
actually wants to relocate and knows what they are
getting themselves into, that way when they arrive
they can actually focus on their job.
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HRO Today Global Autumn 2014

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