Custom Research Summary: Creating a More Flexible Employee Mobility Experience

In a transitioning world, gain competitive advantages through outstanding global mobility

 

A growing, vibrant business must be nimble and able to respond to changes in the marketplace. An essential element for success is the ability to find and place talent where an organization needs it. To support this, HR professionals must create effective mobility policies and processes, even during a global pandemic.

Among the subset of organizations with corporate-sponsored employee mobility, only 62% say their policy is comprehensive.

Of course, mobility encompasses a wide variety of situations, from international to domestic, to long-term and short-term assignments to virtual assignments and hybrid working arrangements. Having a structured program and strong policies in place can ensure that mobility happens smoothly and stress-free for everyone involved. So, although it is somewhat encouraging that more than half of HR professionals agree or strongly agree that their companies have a comprehensive mobility policy, this leaves 38% who disagree, strongly disagree, or neither agree nor disagree. This clearly leaves much room for improvement.

Further, there is no consensus on who should be responsible for employee mobility and relocation, and the arrangements vary widely by size of organization. When looking at organizations of all sizes, we found that about a quarter (26%) report that they have one person dedicated to relocation, though it is not their main responsibility, while 19% have a team that is dedicated to global mobility. But things look considerably different if we confine the data to organizations with 1,000 or more employees. In those organizations, the responsibility is most likely to be either team-based (53%) or at least partially associated with a relocation management company, also referred to as an RMC (31%). Larger organizations are more than twice as likely to use RMCs than their smaller counterparts.

When asked to evaluate overall satisfaction with relocation policies and processes, only about half (52%) give their organizations relatively high marks (that is, an 8, 9 or 10 on the 10-point scale), and 54% give high marks in terms of level of support. Although the news is mixed in terms of overall satisfaction and level of support, only 46% give their organizations high marks regarding flexibility, and just 48% score equity highly.

We asked respondents to indicate what they believe is the most effective way to gauge the success of global mobility. Most report using either face-to-face interviews (in-person or video) or a survey soon after relocation to determine how smoothly the relocation went for the employee. A third also say that they review retention and turnover metrics, and a quarter examine the return on investment (ROI).

Worryingly, 25% say that their organization doesn’t measure the success of relocations at all. Considering the cost and importance of mobility in today’s global economy, this is a troubling number. Organizations that don’t track or measure the success of global mobility may have a difficult time improving their processes if they aren’t aware of where they fall short.