By Thomas A. Paton
This article originally appeared in Mobility magazine, Issue 2 2022. Interviewee titles and organizations were current at the time of writing but may have since changed. Light edits were made for relevance.
Responsibility for any group move can be intense, but global group moves are special situations with unique challenges, often linked to a merger and acquisition (M&A). So how do they compare to other group moves, and how can stakeholders best prepare to manage them?
Group Moves, and Then Some
Group moves typically entail moving employees from an origination point(s) to a new destination within the same country—an intracountry or domestic move. Global group moves entail moving employees from one or more countries to a single new one. Thus, global group moves are characteristically more complex and resource-consuming.
They also involve greater distances and, for projects developing from a confidential M&A, receive little to no advance notice.
Their global nature necessitates unique planning, concise communications, and well-developed execution strategies, given that they may involve multiple countries and several policy types, such as short- and long-term assignments or permanent moves. They must address tax, visa, and immigration intricacies, not to mention cultural, language, schooling, dual-income, and pet issues.
They’re different from international assignments, in which securing necessary visas, immigration, and work authorizations are managed prior to assignments on an individual basis, with unique timelines. Global group moves may require a convergence of many individuals, including candidates of various skill levels, job titles, departure countries, and more, all coordinated on a similar timeline.
These moves also require skillful juggling of compensation and benefits complications to minimize delays, depending on the countries involved.
Program and Policy Considerations
When considering a suitable global group move policy, companies should review all business drivers, project goals, and relocating employees’ common profiles. Benchmarking the proposed policy against best practices or peer companies is recommended if there’s enough advance notice.
Administering confidential, customized surveys can address employees’ concerns and reveal important demographic data. Employees may feel that rejecting the offer could derail their career; others could have family issues. Such information will facilitate tailoring the global group move to include unique employee needs and will help identify individuals hesitant about the relocation.
A survey can also help develop additional move benefits that could increase future acceptance rates. Companies often use the same international relocation policies for all global group moves, but best practice is to adjust existing benefits for each group move’s unique destination. A tailored policy can offer benefits to incentivize acceptance, including customized home finding, destination services, and familiarization trips; home leave trips (if the assignment is not permanent); extra counseling and VIP services; housing subsidies; schooling support; and spouse or partner career counseling.
A company’s relocation partner can suggest policy components that best fit their clients’ needs, budgets, and goals, as well as write policies for the initiative. Here’s an example of creative thinking before an announcement: Companies seeking to retain key employees likely to retire within three years of taking a global group move have offered paid household goods services back to the origin, or an equivalent distance elsewhere, upon retirement.
Protecting the company and employees working abroad from immigration, visa, and work permit noncompliance risks is a global group move urgency. A relocation partner should be able to fully manage the immigration process as an integrated collaborator. This includes tailoring communications and coordinating processes according to a client’s preferences.
Planning, Timelines, and Communications
Just as with a new client implementation, a new global group move project requires similar detail. Establishing a comprehensive timeline that outlines all activities and who’s accountable for each task is critical to project success.
Timelines should include deadlines regarding when employees need to accept or decline move offers. This varies by company culture, but periods typically span 30 to 45 days, although they can be shorter depending on a project’s urgency.
Realistic budgeting and frequent, proactive communication for global group moves are important. For example:
- Budgets: Time permitting, comprehensive cost estimates should be run and approved by management in advance of policy rollout. Use assumptions that are higher than historical norms, given the skyrocketing costs of international household goods shipments, potential delays, and other unique situations.
- Communications: A thorough communications strategy and timeline will help set employees’ expectations from initial announcement through move completion. Remember, some employees vital to a project’s success may have never lived or even traveled outside their home country, so it’s recommended to communicate more regularly than in a customary relocation to decrease anxiety, increase awareness, and improve acceptance rates. Once the project is complete, the relocation partner should follow up with each employee about their experience and provide a comprehensive post-move analysis of costs and suggested changes deemed helpful for future endeavors.
Where Flexibility Wins Out
Talent mobility stakeholders working on a global group move often find a huge percentage of their time and responsibilities shifting to focus on the new project, taxing their already precious time managing their regular portfolio of relocating employees. Being asked to plan, coordinate, and manage a global group move may also prove awkward if proper authority is not fully delegated to talent mobility professionals. If front-line managers have final decision-making power for their business and become deeply involved in day-to-day details, they may also question the rationale of approved, best practice relocation benefits.
On the flip side, for every challenge, there are valuable lessons on how companies remain flexible. Consider these recent examples.
To Switzerland
Targeting a late 2021 or early 2022 group move arrival in Switzerland, a company, its relocation partner, and its destination service partner (DSP) started detailed planning six months prior to support 15 key employees and new hires from the U.S. and EMEA region.
Overcoming the destination’s much higher cost of living was one major key to success in convincing employees to accept the move offer. The relocation partner identified where the company’s existing international policies needed to be enhanced for the destination-specific global group move policy. After careful research, new benefits were added, including housing allowance tiers by job level, utility allowance tiers, parking tiers, and educational offerings.
The company, relocation partner, and DSP participated in regular weekly calls with local management to help them recognize the group move’s unique challenges so they could speak with a better understanding to employees and candidates. All policy changes were approved by senior management, and the move was a success.
To Luxembourg
A company made a priority request to coordinate a group move of 15 employees from the EMEA region who needed to be settled into Luxembourg within 60 days. Host-country tax regulations drove the timeline, requiring that employees’ group move offer letters be sent immediately so employees could physically be on location by the deadline.
Existing international policies provided a base for employees to accept their offers, with specific group move benefits customized and integrated rapidly thereafter. With no time to spare, the relocation partner focused on the policies, moving, and housing, while the company concentrated on securing visa approvals. Identifying local housing was difficult given the timeline, but daily and weekly calls among all parties—and collaborating with a trusted DSP that provided all on-the-ground details—enabled all 15 individuals to accept the move, report on time, and settle in quickly during the winter of 2021–2022.
To Brazil
Numerous families involved in a successful Brazil-to-U.S. group move had purchased homes in the new country and had begun receiving company green card support. When the company restructured in late 2021, green card support ended, and all were required to either repatriate in a reverse group move or lose employment.
In addition to COVID-19, the relocation partner faced several unique challenges in assisting with employees’ needs. Since most families did not speak English, communication had to be clear and concise. After every call, an email summary followed. Employees found this very helpful, as anything not fully understood by families was easily translated from the emails.
Real estate agents fluent in Portuguese and knowledgeable in global mobility practices were scarce, but the relocation partner sourced several excellent agents from surrounding cities and adjusted deed package timings to ensure that papers were signed before employees repatriated. Finally, the relocation partner advised employees to leave their U.S. bank accounts open to facilitate equity payments and avoid delays with transfers to Brazil.
To Germany
A project required rush assistance with home finding and settling-in services for 48 American employees participating in a group move to Munich, an expensive German market. The relocation partner worked with a local DSP’s Munich and Frankfurt project teams, dividing key tasks to ensure simultaneous research, employee communications, and expedited home search tours.
In a hot property market such as Munich, scheduling multiple appointments with local property owners was difficult, and dates and times were non-negotiable. By combining tours with several employees at once, the DSP teams guaranteed viewings of numerous properties.
By monitoring the market and vetting unknown landlords, the DSP teams also prevented employees from renting “too good to be true” apartments and becoming fraud victims.
To Costa Rica
A company’s Mexico group opened a Costa Rica office under a tight budget and required numerous technicians to relocate from India. The immigration partner collaborated with experts in both countries to devise a solution. After investing many hours in analysis, research, and client guidance to develop a unique response, the involved Indian nationals were able to leverage the U.S. B-1 and B-2 business visas to authorize entry into Costa Rica. The company benefited by:
- Avoiding logistical burdens of obtaining visas through the Costa Rican Consulate in India.
- Streamlining the project, enabling technicians to meet deadlines and deliverables.
- Reducing visa processing time before technicians were on-site.
- Realizing project savings and a 100% success rate.
To Remote Australia
Assistance was required for global employees heading to a town two hours outside of Perth, Australia—one of the world’s most isolated cities. Sourcing temporary housing presented a challenge, as most moves included families and pets. Move benefits included temporary housing, but the first employee refused to transfer without his dog.
Serviced apartments were about AU$15,000 per month; none accepted pets.
A solution was developed with a resourceful DSP that agreed to lease and manage furnished properties on the company’s behalf. This not only reduced costs but also provided reassurance that all due diligence was followed and enabled employees to bring their pets. Each tenant became liable for damage, tracked through a system of interim condition reports, and the client was protected from liability.
Going From Fear to Opportunity
Whether the result of M&A activity or part of a company’s broader strategy, it is important for talent mobility professionals to reach out immediately to their relocation partners when a group move is on the horizon.
All group moves are different and need special attention, but global group moves—with cross-border hurdles, executive visibility, and opportunity costs—can be some of the more distinctive and challenging responsibilities talent mobility stakeholders may inherit. Mobility stakeholders who collaborate with the right experts and support systems can face any group move challenge—and turn it into a path to learn, grow, and thrive while meeting company objectives.