Tag: Domestic Relocation

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Corporate Relocation Domestic Relocation Global Relocation Relocation Challenges

Top Things to Consider to Ensure a Smooth Group Move

Singapore business district skyline panorama over Marina Bay

Smooth Group Move – Dwight D. Eisenhower once said that “Planning is everything.” The initial blueprints for the 1944 invasion of Normandy, in which the general moved over 132,000 ground troops across the English Channel, were first presented in July of 1943. Even though your group move will not be of D-Day proportions, it will still require advanced planning and ongoing support to accomplish your mission.

Group move success is not just measured in how many people you move from point A to point B. You need to ensure that your business goals are met. These may include the retention of talent, meeting budget guidelines, minimizing disruptions, and guaranteeing the happiness of the transferees and their families.

 

Key considerations for a smooth group move should include and are not limited to:

  • A proven methodology and customized solutions
  • Risk avoidance and compliance
  • Decision-making support to maximize acceptances
  • Robust tools and resources that ensure efficient communication
  • Total management of the relocation process

 

Although there are specific steps that can be taken in each unique phase of an employee relocation, there is some overall planning that must be considered to ensure a successful group move.

 

Inclusion and Alignment

It is important to start with developing customized resources for you and your employee population considering the move. This approach allows for stakeholders to fully understand the relocation programs available, the process and host location insights for decision making.

Your RMC needs to work with you to create and implement a strategy and project plan tailored to your business needs, organizational culture and employee demographics. Service options should include:

  • Employee surveys to assess the needs of your transferees prior to program development.
  • The design, development, and implementation of corporate relocation policies that focus on competitiveness, cost efficiencies and alignment with goals and objectives.
  • Budget development and oversight that identify and quantify mobility cost with other best practice group move programs, as well as provide savings and containment recommendations.
  • Site surveys of the new location with special attention to schools, housing, cost of living, etc.
  • Announcements and communications templates to ensure that transferees are properly informed every step of the move.

 

Pre-Decision

You want to make sure that you move the right talent to the right place at the right price. It can save a lot of time, money and heartache to ensure that this happens before you actually relocate an employee. Your RMC should support your pre-decision efforts by providing:

  • In-person, group policy overview and briefings
  • Customized web-based resources specific to the destination location
  • Live resource centers at both the origin and destination locations
  • Group area orientations that include housing tours, school visits, etc.
  • Assignment/relocation offer letter coordination
  • A summary and debrief of all pre-decision activity, findings, and recommendations

 

Pre-Move Planning

Once you determine which employees are participating in the group move, your Relocation Management Company (RMC) should help you and your transferees understand what is involved with the process of getting to the destination location. Services should include:

  • Household goods shipment surveys to take into account all of a transferee’s personal belongs to be shipped and deliver an inspection-based cost summary to be used for budgeting, accruals, and cost impact analysis.
  • Global relocation analysis reports include a comparable analysis of consumables, transportation, goods and services, housing costs, etc. in order to provide realistic expectations of the cost of living in the destination location versus the origin location.
  • Educational assessments offer comprehensive consultations with the relocating families and follow-up discussions about schools and education concerns the families may have.

 

Putting the Planning into Action

  • Policy counseling and needs analysis is conducted with every smooth group move. During this initial conversation, your RMC should conduct a comprehensive needs assessment and provide a detailed review benefits and procedures, as well as identify any special needs that will need to be addressed. They should also discuss any concerns that the employee may have about relocating so that the RMC is best prepared to help along the way.
  • Global Expense Management to manage and track your relocating workforce. By managing the expense submission and payment process, you should be able to track and report on 100% of mobility expenses for your company, including payment to vendors and local agencies.Key Benefits:
    – Easy to use platform for client and employee
    – Online submission of relocation expense reports
    – Expenses audit to policy and/or assignment letter
    – Auditing and payment of all vendor invoices
    – Timely (within 2-3 business days) payments
    – Single payment source, eliminates your administrative burdens
  • Home Disposition can provide your employees with global home sale and property management assistance services.
  • Destination Services ease transition to countries worldwide, freeing up the employee to concentrate on the business mission. Your RMC should deliver a comprehensive and worldwide array of global relocation services including area tour/orientation, home finding, school search and settling in.
  • Global Travel Services allow your RMC to coordinate global travel services with client or network partners, including: airport transportation, rental car, airline travel and hotel.
  • Meet and Greets arranged at the destination airport provide pick-up and accompanied transfer to the residence. Includes: Ground transportation for relocating employee and/or family to a hotel, temporary housing, permanent residence or other destination per instructions. This service can be provided as part of a bundled area tours, home-finding or settling-in program, or provided à la carte.
  • Area tours and orientations provide an overview of the new community and local amenities to assist in deciding about the assignment. This could include any of the following: Welcome packet and information on assignment location, tours of neighborhoods and typical housing, school tours and information (if applicable), locating grocery stores, medical facilities, places of worship, etc., security briefing.
  • Home finding assistance with finding suitable housing in accordance with personal preference and policy, facilitate the preparation and signature of an appropriate lease and manage all move-in formalities. This could include any of the following: Needs analysis, pre-screening properties (within budget), accompanied property viewings, lease negotiations, utility connections, walk-through support, and furniture rental assistance (if needed).
  • Auto leasing/purchasing service programs and long term rental solutions provide assignees with car leasing/purchasing of new/used vehicles, any make or model. In many cases, local credit scores, or even driver’s licenses, are not required.
  • Schooling searches will help assess the suitability and availability of local area public or private schooling and to assist with registration and entry requirements. This could include a briefing on different school systems, organizing appointments with administrators, assisting with enrollment, etc.
  • Global transportation services provide multiple estimates to drive competiveness without compromising quality.
  • Global temporary housing coordination assists the relocating employee in selecting and securing temporary accommodations within policy. Based on your relocation policy, accommodations may include hotel, extended stay and corporate housing at different facilities around the world.

 

Continued Support Once Your Transferees Reach the Beach

After the transferees involved with your smooth group move reach their destination, your RMC should continue providing value-added programs to ensure that they and their families thrive in their new location.

  • Settling-in assistance can provide an orientation to the new community, local amenities, utilities and government registrations. This could include bank account set up, driver’s license and vehicle registration, public transportation assistance, smart phone transfers, telephone and utility setups, registration of public utilities, assistance with sourcing local services, expatriate networking association assistance, and more.
  • Trailing spouse/partner family assistance addresses concerns about the job market for the accompanying partner, finances, children’s education, family healthcare, eldercare, and much more. At the same time, your company needs the right talent to fill critical positions and achieve business objectives. Understanding your employee’s concerns can help them make the right mobility decision. The right decision means better return on investment for your organization’s mobility program and a smoother transition for the employee and family.Programs include, but are not limited to, the following:
    – Spousal/Partner Career Assistance
    – Career Continuation Assistance
    – Job Search Strategy
    – Career Continuation Assistance
    – Entrepreneur Support
    – Locating Community Networks, Services, and Activities
  • Cultural and language training can be offered through instructor-led sessions or self-paced, web-based learning. This allows transferees and their families to understand the cultural nuances of the destination location and effectively communicate with the people there.

 

Planning is the Key to Victory

You might think that this looks like a lot of planning to pull off a successful and smooth group move. You’re right. However, a world-class RMC with award-winning breadth of programs and customer service can easily guide you through every step of your move – whether relocating one employee across state lines or moving a small army of talent across the English Channel, to ensure a smooth group move.

 

For information about how Global Mobility Solutions can make your smooth group move easy and stress-free for you and your employees, please contact us today.

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Corporate Relocation Domestic Relocation Global Relocation

3 Ways to Save with Global Mobility Programs

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Save With Global Mobility Programs – The saying goes that it takes money to make money, and global mobility is no exception. Even though you understand that the talent you on-board or relocate will help your organization grow and prosper, getting the transferees from their origin to their destination locations can be expensive. Don’t be discouraged, there are several ways to save when creating your global mobility policies.

 

Use a tiered approach

Not all employees are equal, therefore their relocation compensation shouldn’t be the same. It would make sense to pay the recent college graduate new hire substantially less than the amount awarded to a seasoned, executive-level employee. Additionally, not everyone requires the same amount of time to complete his or her move. Services can be tiered with regard to what they offer. For example, home-finding tours can be broken into half-day, one-day, or two-day options, then offered accordingly per your mobility policy. Tiered categories can be sorted by homeowners versus renters, or by how many school-age children a transferee has. Allowances for the shipping of household goods and vehicles can also be tiered based on the transferee’s position and distance to the destination location. It is very important to clearly state the various tiers in the company’s relocation policies. Tiered policies have been proven to reduce costs versus standard lump sum programs.

Below is an example of a tiered relocation policy based on position seniority:

 

Tiered-Policy-Sample global mobility programs

 

 

Bundle your services

As a company builds a relocation policy, it has many different services from which to choose – Pre-decision alone has over 30. By bundling various services together, such as home sale, household goods shipping, community tours, mortgage assistance, etc., companies can see significant savings. Typically, bundling can save companies up to 20% of what the services would cost individually.

 

Outsourcing

Lastly, by outsourcing mobility management needs to trusted, experienced, relocation experts, HR personnel can remain focused on department-specific tasks, such as enforcing company policies, finding new talent, and administering benefits and compensation. When expert mobility coaches guide transferees and their families through the relocation process, less calls are made to or by the human resources representatives. Generally, when working with a mobility management company, transferees arrive at their destinations happier, less stressed, and ready to work. In short, it saves sanity.

 

To learn more about the benefits of incorporating a mobility management company into your global mobility programs, please read Domestic Relocation Services and Global Relocation Services. You may also contact a GMS mobility specialist to get program details customized for your company’s specific needs.

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Corporate Relocation Domestic Relocation

Managed Cap Programs – A Better Alternative to Lump Sum Programs

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Group of young modern people in smart casual wear discussing business while working in the creative office

Managed Cap Programs – Lump Sum payments might seem like the fastest and easiest method of providing employees with the funds they need to move. However, Lump Sum payments come with their own unique set of problems. Some of the challenges include:

  • Transferees often left alone in the relocation process
  • No cost controls and often budgetary overages
  • Limited process or service structure
  • Non-taxable benefits are lost
  • Frustrated transferees means elevated HR involvement and escalations

In many cases, when transferees are presented with a lump sum, they try to retain as much of the lump sum for themselves. Not being experts in the relocation industry, the transferees seek out the least expensive providers and usually get the proverbial service for which they paid. In their attempt to cut corners – combined with an unfamiliarity with all that is involved with a corporate relocation move, their frustration with the service providers equates to more calls to their HR departments.

Fortunately, a Managed Cap Program can not only alleviate many of the problems associated with a Lump Sum, but it provides more useable funds for the transferee by addressing each line item of the relocation processes and taxing only the applicable services. Let’s see the difference between a $15,000 lump sum payment and the same $15,000 from a Managed Cap Program:

 

Managed Cap Programs provides 50% more relocation funds than standard lump sum programs

 

The amount of tax withholding from the Managed Cap Program is only $1,949 versus the $6,300 deducted from the standard Lump Sum scenario. The Managed Cap Program provides the transferee with $4,351 more for relocation services.

On top of wanting the obvious tax savings and happier transferees, there are five characteristics common with companies that elect to move away from standard Lump Sum programs and into Managed Cap Programs:

  • High focus on cost containment and savings
  • Limited resources for mobility management
  • Lack of structured programs and/or policies
  • Limited quality-assurance management
  • Need to attract and develop talent

If this sounds like your company, it would benefit you and your employees to contact Global Mobility Solutions and learn how we can quickly implement a mobility program custom-tailored for your needs.

 

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Corporate Relocation Domestic Relocation Challenges Global Relocation Challenges

Overcoming a Reluctance to Move

Excited Family Carrying Boxes Into New Home On Moving Day

Relocating one’s self – and in some cases one’s family – to a new, unfamiliar location can be a stressful, frightening experience, regardless the financial opportunity. A recent Worldwide ERC study evidenced that “Family resistance to move” was cited as the overwhelming reason why candidates were reluctant to relocate.

How can a human resources department, that has already spent a lot of time and money searching for the right candidate, ensure that an offer that includes relocation is accepted? How can they take the anxiety out of moving?

Pre-decision solutions are designed to assist both the employee and the company in determining the benefits and challenges of a potential relocation and overcoming reluctance. First, a mobility management company engages the candidate or transferee early in the process. Since mobility management companies are not bound by the same EOC rules that apply to human resource departments, they can ask more specific questions about lifestyle and family. This creates a complete picture of what would make the transferee comfortable in a new setting. This can include information about schools, shopping, activities, desired commute, and much more. Because the process includes questions that go beyond job performance, spouses and families feel more involved with the relocation process. The mobility management company further reduces stress by arranging community tours, housing information, and cost of living analyses. A pre-decision program can remove all the unknowns – generating positive excitement for the transferee and overcoming a family’s resistance to move.

Global-Mobility-Solutions-Pre-Decision-HR-Benefits overcoming reluctance

Global-Mobility-Solutions-Pre-Decision-Transferee-Benefits overcoming reluctance

For the company, pre-decision solutions are proven to increase offer acceptance and decrease time to acceptance. Additionally, because of built-in programs like Candidate Expense Management, the final cost of relocation have been shown to be less when utilizing a pre-decision solution. The Program Manager of Talent Acquisition at Providence Health and Services said of her experience with pre-decision, “By initiating relocations prior to the face-to-face interview, we know that transferees have arrived more quickly, have settled better, and stayed longer.” What more could a human resources department want?

To learn more about mobility pre-decision solutions, please visit www.gmsmobility.com/pre-decision/

North America Relocation Services Spotlight

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North America Relocation Services Spotlight.

GMS domestic relocation service

Use the form below to download the GMS corporate relocation guide: North America Relocation Services Spotlight.

Global Mobility Solutions takes a consultative approach to relocation. Our services are delivered in a flexible environment that provides a seamless and highly personalized relocation experience.

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Corporate Relocation Domestic Relocation Global Relocation

Employee Relocation or Workforce Mobility?

Workforce mobility or employee relocation refers to the processes or relocation services involved in the transfer of employees or potential employees from one location to another. Other terms that refer to these processes may include:

  • Employee Transfer
  • Employee Mobility
  • Global Mobility
  • Domestic Relocation
  • Corporate Relocation

While some of these terms may be used interchangeably, the terms global and domestic mobility may differ in the range of services commonly required for relocating an employee. Reference to global mobility is commonly used as an umbrella term, and includes domestic mobility processes. Reference to domestic mobility usually excludes processes commonly needed for international employee relocation such as visa acquisition, repatriation or language training.

Generally, a company’s management of workforce mobility accounts for ongoing employee support services, supplier management, candidate selection, relocation benefits and expense management. Corporate relocation programs may vary between companies due to size, need, or destination.

The overall process of employee relocation is commonly divided into one of four service brackets including:

Pre-Decision Services

According to Worldwide ERC data, the average cost to relocate an executive level home-owning employee comes to $97,000. For this reason companies seek assurances that a given employee is a good fit for relocation. Pre-decision services aim to uncover any potential issues that may arise prior to the employees relocation in order to reduce the risk of a failed relocation. Some of the most common reasons for failed relocations according to Worldwide ERC include:

  • Negative home equity
  • Slow real estate housing market
  • Family resistance to move
  • Spousal employment
  • High costs of housing

The below are examples of a few common pre-decision services:

Candidate Assessment – Services that assess candidate expectation, skills, personal qualities, family circumstance, financial preparedness, etc.

Cost of Living analysis – Cost of living comparison of origin and destination cities to help determine acceptable or competitive salary range.

Market analysis – Determines the likely home sale timeline and identifies potential home sale challenges such as negative equity.

School Reports – Public and Private School reports provided to the relocating employee to aid community selection.

Moving Cost Estimates – Cost estimates on household goods transport, helps budget for relocation costs.

Community Search and Tours – Coordinates community orientation tours to familiarize relocating employees to their new location, and assist in selecting an area that fits their particular interests.

Origin services

Origin services account for all services necessary at the transferring employees origin location. Some of these services include:

Expense Management – Establishment of expense reporting and management services for both the company and employee. Designed to track and contain costs during the relocation process. Utilized throughout the entire relocation process*

Home Sale Assistance – May include connecting employees with real estate agents, home marketing assistance, home buying programs, etc.

Household Goods Management – Management of household goods transport from origin to destination. May include procurement of van line services, replacement insurance, and guaranteed “not to exceed” estimates for goods transportation, etc.

Visa and Immigration Services – For international relocations, visa and immigration services organize company and employee documents required for visa acquisition.

Property Management – For employees not selling their home. May include rental marketing assistance, tenant management, vacant property management, landlord consulting, or property maintenance.

Destination services

Destination services account for all services necessary at the transferring employees destination location. The range of destination services sometimes includes a further segmentation of “settling in services” aimed at helping the employee acclimate to their new location. Some of these services may include:

Home Finding Services – Services include connecting employees with real estate agents at destination, home buying assistance, corporate housing, temporary housing, rental assistance, home finding tours, etc.

Settling in Services – Services that aid employee acclimation to their new location including access to online resources, attaining local driver’s license, child care, connecting utilities, locating a primary care physician, etc.

Vehicle Lease or Purchase – Services that assist relocating employees acquire a vehicle including loan support, lease negotiation, etc.

Family Assistance – Services that assist the relocating employee’s family, including spousal employment support, counseling services, stress management assistance, etc.

Return or Repatriation Services

In most cases,  employee relocation services for individuals returning from temporary domestic assignments are equivalent to services provided at departure. While there are some short term domestic relocation programs amongst companies, the majority of return services handle an employee’s return from international assignment. International assignments are usually classified into one of four categories:

  1. Extended Business Travel (EBT): an assignment of 3 months or less.
  2. Short Term: an assignment lasting 6 months to a year. (range may go up to 2 years)
  3. Long term assignments: An assignment lasting 2-3 years.
  4. Permanent: An assignment lasting 3 years or more.

For EBT, short term, and long term assignments, repatriation plans have become an industry recognized necessity for effective employee retainment. According to Atlas surveys around 40% of expatriate employees leave their sponsoring company after assignment. Repatriation services seek to close this gap, and help organizations maximize their workforce investment and retain employees that have acquired substantial knowledge capital. Repatriation is a dynamic service area that has wide variation. For example repatriation counseling helps employees returning from international assignment manage culture shock, and re-acclimate to domestic life. Other services may include:

  • Lease termination assistance
  • Home services termination (such as utilities)
  • Tax equalization

In all, workforce mobility seeks to analyze, manage, execute and optimize the processes involved in transferring an employee from one location to another. For more detailed descriptions of relocation services visit the following pages:

Global Relocation
North America Relocation

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