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Hard to find qualified people for jobs overseas? According to a recent Mercer survey, many multinational companies indicated that finding qualified candidates for global assignments and managing the costs (compensations, benefits, housing) that go with that are a major concern.
Here are 10 areas to think about to manage a globally mobile workforce in 2013.
- Make sure your global mobility program meets your talent and business needs. Use focus groups, interviews and market research to evaluate the program.
- Look at how you select, recruit, enrol, compensate, house and manage expatriates. Some software tools can help to document and streamline the administration process.
- Housing can be costly, so look at neighbourhood-specific housing cost data for “host” cities. Communicate your rental guidelines to expatriates and relocation firms before they begin a housing search.
- Match the expatriate program to the talent management strategy. Define specific competencies for global leaders and make sure the global mobility program builds that strength to fill future leadership spaces.
- Measure what needs to be managed. Make sure you are pursuing goals that support your overall corporate strategy. You may need new analytics and metrics in 2013.
- Look critically at your vendors’ recent performance and re-evaluate. You may need to outsource, in-source or “re-source” some of the special services that expatriates need.
- Review your mobility healthcare and wellness options. Healthcare rates can be higher in other countries.
- Look critically at why expatriates are working abroad. If employees are locally hired foreigners, for example, a more localized” compensation package may be better than a traditional expatriate package based on maintaining ties to a home country.
- Depending on the country, the expatriate’s role and the availability of talent, it may make sense to hire locally rather than to send an expatriate from a home country.
- Re-examine assumptions made when calculating cost-of-living allowances and hardship premiums based on differences between home and host locations. You may want to adjust cost-of-living differences in host countries.