Relocating to a new city can be a very stressful experience for employees, especially if they have never lived in the country they are moving to. It can also be very expensive for companies, with major repercussions on budget and productivity.
Based on my learning’s as the CEO and founder of MOVE Guides, working with market leaders across various industries, these are what I recognize as the top five ways for global mobility and HR professionals to improve the relocation process, and set their global talent for a success in their new city or country.
1. Empower your employees with information on their new city
Finding reliable and relevant information is one of the most frustrating parts of the relocation process, especially when employees today are accustomed to looking for information on the Internet and conducting their own research.
That is why it is important to provide your employee with accurate, relevant and hyper-local information on their city before they get there. This will help them learn what to expect and get settled into their new city quickly. As a result, employees save time and can instead focus on starting their new job successfully.
2. Coordinate local registration requirements before they reach their new city
The most common problems that new residents encounter typically involve the time consuming cycle of local registrations like opening up a bank account, applying for a national insurance number, setting up internet, or registering with health providers. Provide clear and accurate information on what they will need to register for in their new city.
For example, if they are opening up a bank account offer them options and information on what they need to provide. From here they can make an educated decision and minimize time spent on wavering between vendors. Also, look for opportunities to work with third party vendors who can coordinate all logistics before an employee moves.
3. Enable employees at work to use the same technologies they use in their personal lives
Today’s modern, tech-savvy employee looks to Facebook to manage their contacts, LinkedIn to manage their professional connections and Expedia to book travel. They book services online, and expect access to transparent information and customer reviews when making purchase decisions.
This is the same for global mobility. Empower your employees with a cloud technology platform that can be accessed from any device to research, compare, book and connect online. That means that an employee relocating from San Francisco to Dublin can track the shipment of their goods on their mobile phone at the airport, while reading about their new city on their tablet device.
4. Provide continuous support and 24/7 access to resources to get settled quickly
The comfort of knowing that you always have someone looking out for you during your move is invaluable to a seamless relocation. It is also important to minimize the amount of contacts that employees need to coordinate with. Between immigration, housing, shipping and more, it is easy to become overwhelmed by whom to reach out to and for what.
There are many situations where employees may need to check on a status update or look up information about their new city. Cloud technology solutions can better enable this by securely storing all information in one central location that allows 24/7 access, from any device.
5. Design move policies based on the employees’ individual needs
Talent mobility today means a wide range of mobile employees, whether new hires moving to a new city for their first job or an experienced manager completing expatriate assignments across the world.
“One size fits all” no longer works for today’s mobility policies. Assignees crave the opportunity to define their preferences and choose from a wide range of benefits and options. This enables employees to meet both their personal and professional needs at once, while companies can ensure that equal opportunities are offered without overcomplicating their suite of policies.
Brynne Herbert is the founder and CEO of MOVE Guides, and a recognized expert on global talent. Under Brynne’s leadership, MOVE Guides has grown from an idea to an award-winning startup working with the world’s largest multi-national companies and supporting moves across 200 cities.
Brynne has lived in the US, EMEA and APAC, and speaks English, French, Mandarin Chinese and Portuguese. She was previously an investment banker at Lehman Brothers and Standard Chartered, where she worked throughout Asia and India. Brynne holds an MBA from London Business School and a B.A. in history from Yale University.
Follow Brynne on twitter, @BrynneSpeak.
- 0
- 983 views
Add new comment