Global mobility professionals must balance deploying the best talent at the right cost with providing an excellent employee mobility experience. But what do we mean by ‘employee experience’ and why does it matter? Dr Sue Shortland explains.
E
nsuring 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.
EQUALITY, DIVERSITY & 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
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GLOBAL MOBILITY EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE
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