Global Mobility’s role has come to the fore. This is not just in providing advice on compliance issues, but also in terms of more direct input into talent management. Working alongside HR and the management line, Global Mobility will continue to play strategic, operational and advisory roles going forward. However, the future of work will not rest on remote
work alone. As the international marketplace opens up again so we will see a rise in international mobility in physical terms. It is therefore likely that the future of Global Mobility’s work will include more input into strategic workforce planning. This is likely to encompass a range of assignment types, which will need to be managed in a more challenging environment going forward. A business case will be required, as indeed it always has been, to justify international assignments. This will include a focus on differentiating between working at home (virtually), in a third location (remotely/virtually) and relocation in a physical sense. Combinations of virtual, remote and physical presence are likely to become the new normal. These will have compliance, cost, employee experience and wellbeing implications for all involved.
ANALYTICS AS THE KEY TO SUCCESS As Santa Fe rightly points out in Redefine: An extraordinary time – GMS 2021/22, organisations will need better data. Analytics will become the key to assignee and remote worker management. Priorities will be on efficiency, compliance and cost; and data collection, collation and analysis will be crucial to success. Santa Fe’s survey notes that data will be needed on
total programme costs (forecast estimates and actual costs), employee performance, risk management, compliance (immigration, tax, etc) as well as employee location tracking. Data will be required for mobile and non-mobile employees. As such, the trend to invest in technology will grow in support of data analytics and the decisions that flow from these. Data analytics will also assist with workforce planning,
managing compliance, enhancing agility in terms of policy and process modification, as well as in helping to improve the employee experience and deliver feedback to organisations on employees’ career expectations.
GLOBAL MOBILITY’S FUTURE ROLE Global Mobility professionals have gained a new status within organisations as a result of the pandemic. As we continue to hope that the worst of the pandemic is over, this will not mean a reversion to Global Mobility’s sole operational status. The tide has now turned. Global Mobility supported by digital innovation
will form a central component of the workplace talent and business planning functions. Global Mobility’s understanding and expertise on policy, risk and crisis management, as well as a vast range of international destinations, provide the bedrock for its future at the very centre of business operations. Santa Fe’s survey also makes the point that we need
to alter permanently how we operate commercially and socially. This means shifting our focus to sustainability, flexibility, and agility with the challenge being to turn these into daily reality. Flexibility and agility are already in evidence
as assignment types and various hybrid working arrangements and the policies that support them
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continue to adapt to better support business decision- making, talent deployment and employee experience. And there is evidence emerging that sustainability is also becoming a central focus within the Global Mobility function’s daily activity as effort is made to reduce carbon footprints through both policy design and outsourcing/ co-sourcing activity. As Santa Fe’s research study’s title reminds us, we
are living and working at an exceptional moment. Redefining what we do is now part and parcel of our everyday working lives. This will continue to shape the future of work for the Global Mobility function and all those employees whose lives will be touched by it for years to come.
“ There is no doubt that the future of work for Global Mobility professionals will involve a wider scope, greater strategic input and more complex operational day-to-day activity than ever before.” DR SUE SHORTLAND
THINK GLOBAL PEOPLE GLOBAL MOBILITY
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