Companies intent on post-recession growth need a mobile workforce agile enough to respond quickly to new opportunities and fill talent gaps across their organizations, according to the results of Weichert Workforce Mobility’s latest survey.
Now in its eighth year, the Workforce Mobility Survey has become the definitive guide to emerging relocation trends and best practices. This year’s results reflect the input of approximately 220 corporate relocation managers and HR professionals at North American companies across all major industries.
The majority of survey participants acknowledge that workforce mobility remains critical to achieving business and talent development goals, with one-third expecting their mobility volume to increase over the next 12 months. Mobility is even more important among high growth companies, which, the study showed, not only relocate more employees (an average of 432 annual moves versus 280 for other companies) but are also more effective at leveraging mobility as a strategic tool to recruit, develop and retain key talent.
But as volumes rise, the methods employers use to deploy talent are changing in response to a more volatile business environment and the added challenge of managing four distinct generations in the mobile workforce. Half of the companies participating in our survey have embraced such flexible measures as partial lump sums (71 percent), multiple tiered policies (44 percent), granting more exceptions (22 percent) and core/flex programs (21 percent).
Results also showed companies adopting programs to facilitate nimbler workforce deployment, essential for meeting the quickening pace of business and filling skills gaps. The most commonly used programs include long- and short-term domestic assignments, rotational assignments, extended business travel and commuter assignments.
“Looking at our results, it’s good to see that employers are no longer viewing workforce mobility as solely a benefit but as a critical component of a successful talent management strategy, and that they’re recognizing the need to embrace flexibility to keep talent mobile,” said Jennifer Connell, director of Weichert Workforce Mobility’s Americas Consulting Practice.
“But the move to flexibility is bringing a host of other challenges. For example, we see organizations struggle to balance flexibility and cost control, which has led to increased interest in capped programs. Also, an alarmingly high number of companies address flexible moves on a caseby case basis. As our survey revealed, while ninety-six percent of respondents expect their temporary assignment volumes to increase or hold steady over the next year, only thirty-seven percent claim to have formal policies in place for these moves—something that could increase their risk of tax compliance issues.
Among other key findings of Weichert’s 2014 Employee Mobility Survey:
“Talent shortage” was ranked among the highest factors driving the need for a more agile workforce.
Home sale benefits remain a critical component of any workforce mobility program.
Renters are eclipsing homeowners in some markets, although companies are leveraging innovative services and paid rental assistance to help employees find and overcome tight competition for suitable properties.
Extended relocation time frames continue to prove challenging for companies.
“Overall, our results show workforce mobility professionals attempting to develop a broader matrix of solutions to accommodate a more chaotic business environment,” said Connell. “This is echoed in the uptick of requests my team is fielding for our Optimization Lab, a unique combination of consulting and advisory services designed to help companies define their vision of effective workforce mobility, avoid risks and align mobility with talent management goals.
“With tighter deployment timeframes, fast-evolving business goals and broader employee demographics becoming formidable relocation challenges, HR managers are realizing that the workforce mobility models they relied on in more predictable times won’t serve them well today.”
Copies of the complete survey results can be obtained by emailing [email protected].
About Weichert Workforce Mobility Inc.: Weichert Workforce Mobility is one of the world’s leading global workforce mobility companies, making it faster, easier and more cost-effective for clients to deploy key talent and transfer critical skills. As an independently owned company, operating without silos or shareholder pressures, they offer flexibility and responsiveness to meet any workforce mobility need, anywhere in the world, whether your company moves 10 or 10,000 employees. We also provide our industry’s deepest global service scope, including global tax and compensation management. For more information, visit weichertworkforcemobility.com.