1 - Take advantage of your situation
The coronavirus pandemic has given you a unique opportunity as global mobility professional; as a remote worker yourself, you actually feel some of the disconnect that your clients do, allowing you to better understand the experience of yours expats.
Despite the distance, we’ve never been closer, right?
We have all experienced some elements of disruption while trying to maintain work and adjust to a new environment: well that’s exactly what our assignees are going through in normal times! By knowing that you and your team can relate, even in just a small way, employees can feel more supported in the relocation process.
2 - Set the scene
Just because your team isn’t in the office, it doesn’t mean that office equipment isn’t required. Ensure your staff all have the right things to help them work comfortably and effectively. An appropriate office-style chair and place to work where the employee can be free from distraction are essential. Also, ensure that everyone has a good quality internet connection, so you can communicate with each other and your clients without any problems.
3 - Centralise the team
Once you’ve got your global mobility team appropriately set up for remote working, how are you going to work? Now is the perfect time for your organisation to take on a technology solution to manage your relocations.
With your team spread out across the city, country, or even world, it’s more important than ever to have a centralised place where your line up can collaborate and work together as one.
The excellent thing about these management solutions, when compared to the more generalist options on the market, is that they are 100% geared towards handling the complications of the relocation sector. Find a solution that takes all your business needs, whether they be assignment and assignee management, vendor management, cost projection and salary calculation, reporting, service initiation or a great employee experience into account. But remember not to start it all at once, a step by step implementation is always better than a big bang!
Additionally, some mobility technology providers offer software solutions that will integrate with your existing human resources information system, ensuring efficient and seamless working at every stage.
4 – Communicate and track
When working remotely, especially during a global pandemic, it’s important that your team has the communication and tracking tools in place they need to work effectively. Good quality communication tools are clearly essential to properly work and collaborate as a time.
On the other hand, at a time when one of your members could be put out of action for weeks or months with no warning, good tracking systems can make all the difference. Make sure your management solution provides the features required to allow mobility staff to pick up where others left off on short notice. Creating minutes of meeting, and bringing all the necessary data to a central, shared point is essential.
5 - Update workflows
Another important point to consider for your remote global mobility team is how will this new dynamic affect the workflows and processes you already have in place?
Are your existing processes built around the assumption that your team is sitting together in the same room?
When you take on a new global mobility management software, the distributor will ask you if you have existing workflows you want to carry over into the system, but they will also be able to suggest industry-standard workflows that they know work well with the system. You shouldn’t completely disrupt and replace your current systems, but keep in mind that the most effective solution could be a combination of old and new.
6 - Upskill
At this time, specialised recruitment companies in our industry will tell you the trend is at finding global mobility experts that have many years of experience and with broad knowledge.
Many organisations are upgrading their organisation’s talent mobility leadership. This is no surprise; increases in case complexity mean that your mobility team needs to be on top of an even broader array of subjects, immigration, compliance, tax, just to name a few, each of them evolving by the week.
You don’t need to hire new staff to plug these knowledge gaps, however, the resources you need to upskill your team are already here! Expatise, Expat Academy, Global Mobility Journeys and Worldwide ERC are all great options.
7 - Let the providers in
More than ever, you need to outsource parts of the mobility process to local providers who have the local eye on what’s happening.
While companies and organisations are trying to start cutting costs, it is important to note that the general environment should create increases in assignment costs for the short term. Keeping the relationships with your providers healthy and rewarding with regards to the increased time for case management will inevitably reflect in the support and happiness brought to your assignees, and pay off in the long run.
8 – Rethink cost analysis
It’s a fact that the way you are used to doing things might not be the best way, or even possible anymore. Using a paper, pen, and spreadsheet approach to cost analysis is needlessly wasting thousands of businesses’ time and money across the globe.
You have the technology required to streamline and even automate these processes at your fingertips, so seize it! Your relocation management provider should have a whole host of analytics and projection tools to being your costs up-to-date for 2020 and beyond.
A new era of work
Once you have your home offices, systems and workflows in place, it’s time for your global mobility team to fully harness the power of remote working.
With the power of modern global mobility management technology, there is no drawback for neither the employees nor their companies when it comes to remote working. Early indicators from over the COVID-19 crisis even suggest that this new era of working from home is increasing productivity across the board. Will it work for your team and working situation? That’s for you to decide.