Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of WERC.
There were fewer sessions than usual (none actually) at GWS 2024 that explicitly included “Customer Experience” in their title, but the topic was very much top of mind, framed in conversations about talent, policy design, diversity and inclusion, and even in the opening comments from José Andrés of World Central Kitchen in his fireside chat with WERC President and CEO Anupam Singhal.
In those comments, Andrés set the stage for the many sessions that followed on exploring complex problems and finding solutions. His advice was to acknowledge that chaos is common and the way through is just to start. He cited the mission of World Central Kitchen, which is to feed people on Day 1, as an example: “The work must start regardless of the conditions on the ground.”
That was the approach shared by many global mobility program leaders as they talked about the process they and their organizations have followed in reassessing policies and practices that are fully supportive of the mission to mobilize talent while recognizing there are always objections to overcome, data sets to analyze, and stakeholder concerns to address. In an industry whose purpose is “empowering talent,” the critical need is to get started and develop solutions that are not always perfect, but which are, as one presenter shared, “the promise of an evolving framework.”
‘The Company Wants Our People to Be Mobile’
In reviewing several sessions that focused on developing policies and practices that support the employee experience, a recurring theme was the idea that companies want their people to move. This was true across industry segments from global media companies to leaders in oil and gas, from manufacturing to high tech. In a time when many in the industry are concerned about the future of mobility, the panelists at these GWS sessions spoke confidently about the intent of their organizations to grow and to move people in support of that growth. The benefits and experience may evolve, but there was no wholesale pullback from a commitment to mobility among these companies.
Similarly, in the sessions summarized here, the focus was neither on benefits cost reduction nor the use of lump sums. Cost containment, of course, is always a business imperative, but the global mobility leaders at GWS 2024 who spoke about policy design were clear that in undertaking the complex, time-consuming, and disruptive project of redesigning mobility policy, their goal (fully approved by executive leadership) was to design solutions that were responsive to the employees being moved while being cost-neutral to the business to the extent possible. In other words, all business managers are always expected to be fiscally responsible, but the policy reviews discussed at GWS 2024 were not cost-cutting exercises, they were, as one participant said, focused on “the art of the possible.”
Similarly, while lump sum programs remain an option for many companies, the global mobility subject matter experts who discussed policy, practice, and the employee experience at GWS were well aware that a) lump sum benefits, however well intended and even if generous, are essentially unmeasurable in terms of how they are used and whether they contribute positively to the customer experience and b) lump sum programs represent for some companies an unacceptable stepping away from duty of care.
From this perspective, articulated by Jessi Koppenhauer at Toyota North America, if a company is moving its employees, often to challenging and unfamiliar environments, it is the company’s responsibility to manage that process to lower risk to the employee and the organization. The employee may appreciate cash in their pocket, but the risk of not having oversight over the process is far greater than the fleeting benefit of an employee who accepts the money and then finds out they need assistance that has not been factored into their assignment, yielding both risk and potentially a failed sunk cost for the organization.
Approaching Mobility as a Strategic Service to the Business
Several sessions at GWS 2024 were centered on policy review and development, including:
- Charting a Bold Path – Crafting Fit for Purpose Polices that Empower the Business and the Employee, with insights from Karen Welch at Publicis and Morgan Crosby at AIRINC
- Expectation vs Reality: Mobility Edition – a discussion with Laura Levenson at Weichert Workforce Mobility, Jose Alberto Lucena at Halliburton, and Nikki Thomas at Micron
- Striking a Balance – Unveiling Best Practices in Personalization vs Standardization in Policy Management – a conversation with Brett Lyons at Chevron and Jessi Koppenhauer at Toyota North America, hosted by Michelle Velasquez at Preferred Corporate Housing
Each of these sessions was a master class on policy development, and all were anchored in the complementary expectations that mobility policy and practice must be supportive of employee needs while being defensible in terms of business expense and ROI.
We often hear the phrase, “How can we earn a seat the table?” in global mobility, and these discussions outlined exactly how to achieve that goal: by developing and executing on thoughtful plans, listening to stakeholders, and offering solutions that were both operationally feasible and validated as either or both market competitive or an essential spend that supported broader company goals. In short, these leaders guided the conversation away from a line-item cost focus to a bigger, talent-centric, and strategic conversation.
Implementation of these plans, of course, requires partnership and buy-in from the broader partner ecosystem; however, these sessions focused primarily on the upstream process for making an internal business case for effective and strategic relocation policies that secured employee commitment.
How to Build Policies that Support the Employee Experience
Each session was unique in its focus, but there were common themes shared for building a policy that was both employee-centered and fiscally responsible. Among those themes were:
- Build Your Design Team – Mobility policy is complex and requires the participation of subject matter experts across the organization.
- Secure Stakeholder Engagement – This includes business unit managers, employees, talent acquisition, total rewards, finance, technology, supply chain, procurement, legal and compliance. This process takes time but is the grounding for all future success.
- Do Deep Dive Benchmarking – Not every organization can afford external benchmarking, but comparative studies are available through WERC resources and corporate roundtables at regional forums. Both Brett Lyons at Chevron and Jose Alberto Lucena at Halliburton noted that in the oil and gas industry, the talent knows what benefits are available and from whom. Whether recruiting a new college graduate or a senior executive, mobility leaders know these candidates are comparison shopping for compensation and benefits, and relocation services can be a tipping point.
- Analyze and Segment the Stakeholder Feedback – This is where the rich data is, and you learn, as Nikki Thomas from Micron noted, what benefits and asks really drove the creation of dozens of policies across business lines and geographies. Patterns emerge once the data is captured.
- Prepare the Cost Comparison Analysis – This is agreed by all as the most time-consuming task and the one which will earn the most executive scrutiny. It is not reasonable, however, to create an analysis for every imaginable mobility scenario. Build strawmen for your most likely use cases and use activity reporting and stakeholder expectations to build the argument for policies and practices that will be most likely to be used and ultimately measured. Financial analysis should include identifying opportunities for savings, but not at the expense of disincentivizing employee engagement.
- Align with Your Vendor Ecosystem – Large, complex mobility programs require the partnership of a relocation management company and a supply chain. An important check on the process is to understand the degree to which these partners can lean into the reshaped policy and its execution within their area of expertise. Some benefit delivery methodologies may change, especially with the advent of more digital tools and smarter AI.
- Design with Adaptation in Mind – This point was made by Morgan Crosby at AIRINC and Karen Welch at Publicis, and by Nikki Thomas at Micron. Introduce the program expecting resistance, even with all the pre-work. Change management is a process and policies need to respond to new information gained post-implementation.
- Communicate Relentlessly – Communicate about the project, abut the purpose, about the need for participation, about the change … literally about everything. As one global mobility director commented, “This was a great process for my team.” Through the policy redesign process, global mobility gets better connected to the business as well as serving the mission of employee engagement and support.
- Explain the Business Case with Data – While the goal is an equitable policy that is responsive to employee requirements, senior leadership will expect to have the case made with data, which includes not only cost data but analysis that demonstrates the policy changes will materially contribute to retention and employee satisfaction.
What Policies Most Closely Support the Employee Experience?
These sessions and others at GWS 2024 did not advocate one policy over another, although the simple fact of more available technology and reporting tools, plus an employee expectation of choice, points toward ongoing adoption of core-flex models in various ways. A traditional model where the company provides a full range of benefits continues to make the most sense when the employee expects it and any lack of benefits is a potential deterrent, as would be the case in the energy industry.
In most instances of emerging policy design, the expectation is for a policy that is both equitable and flexible, and as a session participant noted, these two expectations “are not an oxymoron.” The fact that not everyone gets the same thing does not make the experience for one employee unequal to the experience of another. The goal is satisfaction with the process and acceptance of the opportunity. Increasingly, that is made possible by choice within boundaries, clearly communicated. This framework has the added benefit of supporting diversity and inclusion, which, for global companies, remains an important goal given their worldwide reach and the markets, clients, and customers they serve.
Responding to the Diverse Needs of Your Mobile Population.
An organization does not need a formal DEI program to recognize the reality that its business is best served when its employees represent the diversity of the marketplace. In a world of talent shortages, nurturing an environment that encourages the curiosity and interest of a full range of qualified candidates makes good business sense.
A session at GWS 2024 called Ten Ways to Empower your LGBTQ Corporate Expats and Their Families to Thrive Abroad, led by Jessica Drucker at Rainbow Relocation, shared advice on how to make expatriate assignees more comfortable and organizations more appealing to diverse populations. The tips centered around transparent and open recruiting, using communications tools, including pronouns, which let current and prospective employees know your organization welcomes people as they are, and services and resources that include reference to subjects of interest to diverse communities, including LGBTQ employees. As Drucker noted, “No one is asking for your local consultant to provide tips on nightlife.” The point is to ensure both consultant and employee are comfortable in their conversations, and that the consultant completes the conversation started with recruiting and policy design to enable valuable talent to accept a mobility opportunity, and not return too soon or worse, separate from the business, because they felt uncomfortable, unprepared, or unsupported.
Talent Everywhere Expects a Great Experience
Last year’s conference refocused all attendees on the value of the mobility profession as well as the need to align mobility benefits, including the employee experience, with business outcomes. In the policy development sessions as well as in the “Got Talent” session with Bob Rosing, Dwellworks; Sophy King, Envoy Global’ Ron Dunlap, The Graebel Companies; Emerson Ross, Walmart; and Anupam Singhal, WERC, this point was made with precision. The marginal cost of relocation benefits compared to company revenue and especially the cost of benefits the employee has specifically requested to assist with their personal needs—whether for cultural training, an extra day of school familiarization, or a slight extension of their benefit period—bring an outsized return in terms of talent retention and business value creation.
Our key takeaway? Even without being on the formal agenda, “employee experience” was a galvanizing topic at GWS 2024.