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.
As we conclude this series of articles highlighting key discussions from WERC GWS 2024 in National Harbor, Maryland, we turn our focus to the evolving role of the corporate global mobility practitioner—how and why it’s changing, and what’s needed to ensure ongoing success.
Since the pandemic, global mobility leaders have seen their responsibilities expand well beyond traditional priorities like program administration, cost management, and customer experience. Today, they play a critical role in global tax, immigration, business formation, business travel, and remote work, while also influencing areas such as sustainability, talent acquisition, and overall organizational strategy.
But what has driven these changes? And how should mobility professionals adapt in an increasingly high-demand, dynamic global environment?
In this recap, we’ll explore:
- Effective organizational models for the global mobility function
- Insights from corporate mobility professionals shared at key GWS sessions
- WERC’s strategic direction, as outlined by President and CEO Anupam Singhal, and what it means for corporate practitioners and WERC members moving forward
The Global Mobility Function
AIRINC is a frequent and valued contributor to GWS, offering insights into global mobility policies and best practices. While the company was not on this year’s speaker lineup, it played a key role in shaping the conversation around the evolving role of global mobility professionals through a webinar and white paper released in late 2024.
Titled “The Global Mobility Function,” AIRINC’s webinar and white paper provide helpful inputs to answer the question, “What is the ideal structure for the global mobility function?” As food for thought, AIRINC’s consultants shared the outcome of a series of deep-dive interviews that explored how a company can set up its mobility organization. The foundation is to understand the purpose of mobility within a business and who the stakeholders are in mobility decisions.
AIRINC shared a template for thinking about global mobility along this matrix:
While no single focus completely dominates the global mobility discussion, this framework poses some key employer use cases:
- Administratively focused operators: Enablers of positive experiences for relocating employees through effective program management/supplier oversight.
- Subject matter experts in policy: Educators/advisers to guide hiring managers and business leaders to make mobility decisions in the context of company policy.
- Strategic alignment planners: Experts who align mobility programs and services with the company's business needs and develop appropriate supportive strategies for HRBPS and those responsible for the value creation of the enterprise.
- Talent advocates: Responsible for the talent mobility experience and for working with affiliated roles to align mobility outcomes with employee career plans, engagement, and retention.
As we’ll see in the comments of global mobility leaders at GWS, most of them see a portion or of all these concentrations in their daily roles.
The AIRINC study also captured the growing list of responsibilities that now frequently fall into the global mobility remit. This list was noted repeatedly in practitioner discussions at GWS. It’s a daunting set of responsibilities:
- Immigration
- Tax
- Compliance
- Data privacy
- Relocation
- Business travel
- Remote work
- New country entry
- Talent acquisition alignment
- Duty of care
The last topic AIRINC addressed included practical assessments, such as: Should the mobility function be centralized or decentralized? Organized under a single leader or multiple departments? And what should the size of the team be? The answers depend on the strategic position of mobility in an organization, the volume of activity, and the degree to which the business is outsourced and using external subject matter experts.
AIRINC closed with this guidance: “Think of global mobility as a business that your company needs to do its business globally.”
A Candid Conversation With Corporate Managers
The GWS 2024 session, “Relocation Realities: A Candid Conversation with Corporate Managers,” delivered exactly what its title promised: a frank and insightful discussion about the evolving role of global mobility leaders and how they navigate their expanding responsibilities.
The panel featured Mark Baiocchi (Driscoll), Courtney Crosby (Texas Instruments), Jack Jampel (Stryker), and Vini Valverde (UPS), who shared firsthand accounts of their day-to-day challenges and strategic priorities.
Key Takeaways
- Managing complexity: A typical day for these corporate mobility leaders revolves around the intricate operational management of mobility, immigration, and, in some cases, corporate travel. The bulk of their time is spent on logistics, communication, cost and operational reporting, and managing supplier partnerships.
- Advice for talent acquisition (TA) teams: When engaging potential hires, TA professionals should shift the focus from “What benefits do you need to accept this offer?” to “Why do you want to be part of this company?” The panel emphasized that relocation packages should not be framed as financial incentives but rather as a reflection of the company’s commitment to the new employee’s long-term success.
- How supplier partners can provide better support: When asked how supplier partners can make a global mobility manager’s job easier, panelists provided the following advice:
- Think like our company – Understand our culture and align accordingly.
- Be an extension of our team – Collaborate closely, rather than operating in silos.
- Ensure we’re optimizing services – Help us maximize our partnership’s value.
- Don’t just provide data—offer insights – Interpretation and analysis are far more useful than raw data.
- Tailor communication for different audiences – Executive leadership needs high-level summaries with business impact data, while global mobility managers need detailed backup information.
- Be transparent to build credibility.
- Be tenacious but patient – Change takes time, and sometimes, the best outcome is a long-term relationship that evolves with new opportunities.
The Bigger Picture
Beyond tactical insights—such as best practices for responding to RFPs or making effective sales inquiries—the panel’s central message was clear: Global mobility managers must leverage supplier partnerships more effectively.
With small-to-midsize internal teams and limited funding for people and technology, these leaders cannot be subject matter experts in every aspect of mobility. Instead, the global mobility function must operate as a hub, connecting the many spokes of its supplier network to drive strategic success.
Who Is Taking Care of the Global Mobility Professional?
A session hosted by John Rason, head of consulting at Santa Fe Relocation, wove the insights of panelists at the GWS conference with his company’s research on “Who is taking care of the global mobility professional?” We are all familiar with the post-pandemic issues of employee well-being, including estrangement, loss of connection to company culture, and new and legitimate needs for support and service based on personal and/or family needs.
As noted, the role of the mobility professional was deeply changed by the pandemic. For perspective on how those expanded needs are being supported, John Rason turned to Charles Ameno (Intuit); Ana Castenada (AGP), Jack Jampel (Stryker), and Meredith Kennedy (Dwellworks).
Underlying the broader list of responsibilities is the shift from “manage the process” to “explain and adapt the rules” to an all-new population: Employees who choose to “work from anywhere” and hiring managers making remote work offers. Whether supported in a formal mobility program or not, these associates must be guided to protect the business from risks associated with working in a location without the proper work permit or residency registration, or in locations where the company may have not been registered with the proper tax and compliance requirements.
Castenada noted that with a small staff of generalists, her response to issues such as “the job is on the payroll in Mexico, the mobility opportunity is in Belgium, and the employee currently works in Turkey” is simply to manage one task at a time. Building a whole structure to support work from anywhere all at once was not feasible.
Larger organizations, like Intuit, had a baseline work-from-anywhere policy they could build upon and an established practice of turning to mobility for guidance and operational execution. At Stryker, a similarly well-functioning model was in place, one that leveraged external suppliers, a relocation management company (RMC), and ownership at the hiring/business manager level for understanding mobility-related risks and making informed choices about talent deployment.
Whether in large programs or small, the global mobility managers made the point (as had been referenced in the “Candid Conversation” session) that complex new expectations and requirements required greater integration with supplier partners than ever—for the good of the business and to lessen the burden on the corporate program manager.
As Kennedy commented, that was the kind of “ask” all suppliers want to hear. As the subject matter experts with resources on the ground, partners like destination services providers can provide employers and RMCs with a wealth of data to help establish relevant policies in a new era. Service providers know how many apartments an employee wants to visit before making a rental decision, how people with pets prioritize the relocation activities, and whether employees prefer digital or in-person support, and why. (Hint: It’s not always demographics.)
The Value of WERC
In his opening remarks at GWS 2024, Singhal addressed the “WERC Nation” as the organization for talent mobility by talent mobility professionals. He described the foundational principles of WERC as bringing meaningful value for every member—“everybody, all of us.”
Acknowledging the complex roles owned by mobility professionals and the contribution talent mobility makes to the value creation of businesses, Singhal addressed the commitment of WERC to be the leading authority and convening platform for talent mobility worldwide. The investments WERC is making in its membership include:
- Forming committees and forums organized around member priorities and including over 250 volunteers worldwide.
- Being more “worldwide” than ever, including regional educational summits in São Paulo, Melbourne, Singapore, Bengaluru, Dubai, and London.
- Building broader industry affiliations including the associations in the Coalition for Greener Mobility and the Global Business Travel Association.
- Expanding the depth of core platforms focused on Advocacy, education, and network connections, and community.
To the 1,450 GWS 2024 attendees, representing 33 countries, 727 companies, 432 corporate global mobility professionals, and almost 300 first-time symposium participants, Singhal outlined key priority projects for 2025 including an economic impact analysis of global talent mobility, an analysis of the global mobility job and its increasing complexity, and coursework and training to support these rapidly expanding roles and responsibilities, covering topics including U.S. immigration, global tax, and payroll and compensation briefings.
Global talent mobility practitioners have increasingly more significant roles to play in their organizations. WERC is committed to supporting the mission of talent everywhere by empowering, educating, and advocating for the professionals who make talent mobility possible.