GLOBAL MOBILITY AND WHY GLOBAL MOBILITY

Global mobility this is the movement of individuals across national, regional, cultural, or linguistic boundaries it impacts an employer's ability to provide goods or services to users and consumer Globalization and other key business trends are raising the bar on global mobility. As companies do more and more business across national borders, they need the ability to move their people around quickly and easily. They also need leaders and employees with global experience to help manage and run their broad, geographic operations.

Unfortunately, many companies are discovering that existing programs for handling international assignments don’t address these emerging needs. Such programs have traditionally revolved around offering high-touch service for a small number of long-term relocation. But today, that narrow view of global mobility just isn’t good enough.

To address the challenges and achieve their strategic growth objectives, we believe companies must adopt a new approach that makes global mobility a standard operating practice – one that is fast, flexible, efficient, and repeatable. It’s then time for companies to make a focused effort to enhance their global mobility capabilities.

WHY GLOBAL MOBILITY?  

The business world is changing and global mobility programs need to maintain pace. Traditionally, international assignments have been managed as a high-touch, low-volume activity. Every move receives special handling, and the main focus is on addressing the employee’s short-term needs a relocation that is pleasant and hassle-free without much thought to long-term employee development or the strategic needs of the business. In the future, this one-dimensional approach to global mobility simply won’t do. Hence the new requirements for global mobility are being driven by four types of challenges but the two challenges;

Business environment.

Globalization is driving the need for global mobility by increasing the number and variety of international assignments. In particular, emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China are fueling the global mobility trend as companies in mature economies look abroad to achieve their aggressive growth objectives. Technology and workplace innovations are also a factor, making it possible for companies to overcome traditional barriers of time and space and providing new alternatives to long-term relocation.

 Internal expectations.

To become a standard tool for competitiveness and growth, global mobility programs must do a better job of meeting the needs of the business; delivering fast service that can keep pace with the requirements of a rapidly changing market. Offering flexible options to fit a variety of situations. And applying repeatable and efficient methods that help deliver a positive result for every assignment.

Today, most programs revolve around the needs of the employee not the needs of the business  with little regard for cost. Every assignment is treated as a special case that requires significant manual effort and a long lead time. Meanwhile, the business rationale for an assignment is often not clearly defined, and there is generally no formal tracking mechanism to evaluate an assignment’s impact on short-term business performance or long-term leadership development.

             BY WILBROD REGINA 42683