What Matters Most to Mobility Professionals

New research involving 242 mobility professionals from 207 companies reveals the current trends and priorities driving mobility programmes. The fascinating results from insideMOBILITY give interesting insight into the mobility industry today – and its future priorities.

1. Best Practices in Global Mobility

The five business practice areas that mobility professionals would most like to improve upon are:

1. Programme strategy (27%)
2. Employee satisfaction (19%)
3. Return on investment (ROI) (19%)
4. Policies (18%)
5. Stakeholder alignment (16%)

68% of organisations have internal stakeholders who expect a return on investment from their mobility programme. Typically, ROI is measured by:

• Employee performance (30%)
• Relocation or assignment cost (26%)
• Business results (18%)
• Volume (8%)

The key stakeholders that mobility teams most commonly work with involve: HR (senior leadership/business partner), business unit leaders, staffing/recruitment teams, payroll and the assignees themselves.

2. Future Focus of Mobility Programmes

There are ten areas of focus for mobility programmes over the next two years:

1. International assignments
2. Extended business travel
3. Localization
4. Data collection and usage
5. Repatriation
6. Staffing levels of mobility teams
7. Lump sum arrangements
8. Global policy harmonization
9. Insourcing mobility function
10. Supplier outsourcing

Long term assignments account for 53% of international relocations., which is significantly higher than any other type of international policy. (Second most popular is cross border relocation, which represents 20% of all international assignments. The third most common practice is short term assignment involving 15% of relocations.) The importance of long term assignments explains the significance of repatriation within the predicted priorities for mobility professionals.

3. Top Priorities for International Assignments

The research shows that priorities vary according to the location of the business. Within the United States, U.S. Domestic Relocations were the top priority, (15%). Other than this area of focus, the following three priorities were common globally, featuring within the top five priorities in all areas:

• International assignments
• Extended business travel
• Collection and use of data

“Understandably, global organisations want to make the most out of international relocations,” says Louise Chilcott, Global Move Specialist at BTR International. “It great to see that mobility professionals are keen to use the skills and data readily available internally. AT BTR International, we add value by bringing our wealth of knowledge, experience and global partners to mobility programme management, complementing internal resources. Together, we ensure that each move is as stress-free and cost-effective as possible.