Please pardon the tautology, but there is a great deal of movement going on in global mobility. Employees are more mobile than ever and this trend is set to continue.
It is estimated that assignee levels have increased by 25% over the past decade and a further growth of 50% is predicted by 2020.
Businesses need to offer variety in policies to fit with the needs of today’s relocating employees, while fulfilling budget and compliance requirements. Recent conversations with our clients have identified the following key trends that are influencing the way mobility is managed, to support talent and build an effective global mobility programme.
Trend One: Transparent is the new black
‘Transparency’ is the watchword of the decade, and it’s increasingly essential to the workings of a centralised approach to global mobility.
Precise, easily obtained, rapidly analysed, timely, targeted and more extensive data, metrics and reporting play a considerable role in the decisions made by global mobility professionals and their companies. Organisations are using mobility data to make policy and deployment decisions, create financial forecasts and formulate projections about possible project outcomes. Accurate and complete data leads to reporting and metrics that tell a powerful story, which is invaluable to secure key stakeholder support.
Transparency is driven by technology and reporting; key stakeholders expect and need quick answers and valid data.
Trend Two: Ownership is changing hands
Global mobility has traditionally been housed in one of the HR ‘spokes’ in a business or occasionally, the finance department.
Ownership is changing: businesses are shifting to a ‘shared services’ model, with global mobility reporting in to this department, choosing this approach because there is high potential in a streamlined, standardised, employee-centric model for:
- fewer customised policies and exceptions
- greater employee support
- more accurate mobility metrics
- firmer compliance
- a deeper understanding of the relationship of mobility to compliance and project cost burdens
- commercial returns
Trend Three: Compliance is serious business
The nature of global expansion increases risk exponentially. The more global and mobile the workforce, the greater the potential for immigration, tax, legal and regulatory mishaps.
Compliance challenges can be constant, subject to change, difficult to track and address and administratively challenging. The consequences of getting it wrong are costly, and could damage reputation.
2018 Onwards
Mobility managers are increasingly challenged to deliver a well-aligned global mobility programme. 2018 will be a year to ‘de-clutter’ the policy cupboards and offer a robust strategy based on policies that make sense for the company’s goals in the current environment.
Smart mobility departments are building strong internal relationships, which coupled with innovative uses of technology can help to deliver a more proactive programme with greater cost awareness and commercial advantage.
Steven Fraser, Director at Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP
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