International HR Adviser - Summer 2018 by International HR Adviser

SUMMER 2018

ISSUE 73

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International HR Adviser The Leading Magazine For International HR Professionals Worldwide

FEATURES INCLUDE: Is Your HR Department GDPR Compliant? • The Global HR Mindset – Do You Have What It Takes? • Don’t Shoot the Admiral! Consumer Technology and the Evolution of Mobility – Personalising the Employee Experience Tax And Social Security Compliance Conundrums • Agile Global Mobility: Living The Purpose And Increasing Value Complications Of Financial Planning for American Employees Overseas The Irony of Automation: Technology Brings Us Closer To Humans – Not Father Onboarding Oversight: Are Transferees Left to Sink or Swim?

ADVISORY PANEL FOR THIS ISSUE:

CONTENTS

In This Issue 2

Agile Global Mobility: Living The Purpose And Increasing Value Professor Michael F. Dickmann, Cranfield University & Chris Debner, Strategic GM Advisor for The RES Forum

Taxing Issues: Tax And Social Security Compliance Conundrums Andrew Bailey, BDO LLP

Global Tax Update Andrew Bailey, BDO LLP

Consumer Technology and the Evolution of Mobility – Personalising the Employee Experience Vicki Marsh, Equus Software

Flexibility: Don’t Shoot The Admiral! Stuart Jackson, Sterling

Is Your HR Department GDPR Compliant? Vicki Field, HR Director of London Doctors Clinic

Onboarding Oversight: Are Transferees Left to Sink or Swim? Barrie Gilmour, IMPACT Group

The Global HR Mindset – Do You Have What It Takes? Helena Wennberg, HR Generalist EMEA, Accedo

Immersive Experiences And Digital Mobility Kevin Frewin, Ed Greig, Tom Hawksfield & Andrea Au, Deloitte LLP

The Irony of Automation: Technology Brings Us Closer To Humans – Not Father Sean Worker, BridgeStreet

Complications Of Financial Planning for American Employees Overseas Robert Rigby-Hall, Beacon Global Group & Barry Honeyman, Beacon American Advisors

Global Mobility Education, One Size Does Not Fit All! Inge Nitsche, Expatise Academy

Diary Dates

Directory

www.internationalhradviser.com HELEN ELLIOTT • Publisher • T: +44 (0) 20 8661 0186 • E: helen@internationalhradviser.com DAMIAN PORTER • Publishing Director • T: +44 (0) 1737 551506 • E: damian@internationalhradviser.com International HR Adviser, PO Box 921, Sutton, SM1 2WB, UK Cover Design by Chris Duggan In Loving Memory of Assunta Mondello While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of information contained in this issue of “International HR Adviser”, the publishers and Directors of Inkspell Ltd cannot accept responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither the publishers of “International HR Adviser” nor any third parties who provide information for “Expatriate Adviser” magazine, shall have any responsibility for or be liable in respect of the content or the accuracy of the information so provided, or for any errors or omissions therein. “International HR Adviser” does not endorse any products, services or company listings featured in this issue.

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Agile Global Mobility: Living The Purpose And Increasing Value We, and the organisations for which we work, are embedded in a world that is highly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA). One thing is clear â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this VUCA world is characterised by one constant, and that is change. This article, based on a chapter of the RES Forum Annual Report, explores the pressures that Global Mobility(GM) is facing in this world, providing insights into the roles of GM departments. Additionally, we develop a refined GM model to successfully cope with mobility challenges. The RES Forum, an International HR and Global Mobility networking and information sharing group with over 1600 members in more than 600 companies based in over 45 countries around the world, surveyed its members on 'The Role of the Global Mobility Function' in January 2018. 50 organisations took part in the survey. They provided insights into the approaches, developments and thinking of large companies. 40% of the multinational corporations (MNCs) surveyed employed more than 25,000 staff with a further 52% having more than 1000 employees. 62% had more than 100 assignees with almost one in five (16%) having more than 500. All respondents worked in GM with two thirds (62%) occupying senior leadership roles while others led particular areas of GM. This research forms the basis of the chapter, "Agile Global Mobility: Living the Purpose and Increasing Value" in The RES Forum Annual Report 2018, Global Mobility of the Future: Smart, Agile, Flawless and Efficient. The chapter is authored by Professor Michael F. Dickmann, Professor of International HRM at Cranfield University, School of Management, and Chris Debner, Strategic GM Advisor, and a summary of the results is presented here.

Key Recommendations For Agile Global Mobility

1. Understand GM Trends and Pressures 2. Design Smart Global Talent Management Interfaces 3. Construct Agile GM Configurations based on Business and HR strategies 4. Create Flawless Programme Leadership 5. Implement Efficient Global People Effectiveness Approaches

6. Individualise the GM Relationship 7. Expand the work of the GM department 8. Professionalise the various GM Roles 9. Seek the shared purpose of GM work 10. Focus on the assignee experience We address the following questions: What are the factors that drive change in Global Mobility? Where will they add value and what are the considerations needed to cope with the change? Why and how do we need to rethink GM to enable it to master its future? We will consider the future of Global Mobility and the necessary changes using three perspectives. First, the mobility function as being a substantial partner in creating organisational and international value. Second, we explore the implications on GM arising from the broader company context and its stakeholders. Third, we want to concentrate on the true drivers of global value, the employees and their varying interests and capabilities. We have found in recent years that in most MNCs, mobility work is strongly process and compliance oriented to the detriment of strategic work, talent management and people elements. These are some of the roles that would give GM departments a broader, yet more focused purpose, allow it to strengthen the experience of assignees and would add to the value creation of GM work (see below). In the last three years, however, there were substantial gains for these wider roles. Almost two thirds (62%) of senior GM professionals now work as a strategic advisor (up by 11%). A quarter (26%) now also mostly or always fulfil

global talent management roles (up by 19%). Progress towards smart GM management can also be seen by a third of GM professionals (30%) working as global people effectiveness experts (up by 16%). This constitutes massive progress â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the percentage of GM professionals influencing talent management has quadrupled and the percentage of GM staff factoring in people effectiveness insights has doubled (RES Forum, 2015). So, are GM professionals enacting the roles they seek to fill, i.e. those that they believe would strengthen GM work? There are still substantial gaps between reality and aspiration. A substantial number (+32%) more would like to be strategic advisors, global talent managers (+21%) or global people effectiveness managers (+27%). Thus, many MNCs still lack strategic GM advice that would help them to lay down longterm objectives, direction and focus for their international work. Many, therefore, have an insufficiently defined purpose of GM. In addition, having a massive gap in the areas of talent management and people effectiveness will substantially impact the experience of international assignees as well as the value created through GM. If some of the GM leaders do not act as they wish, that does not necessarily mean that the whole GM function cannot fulfil this role. However, looking at the whole mobility function does not give more encouraging information. As Figure 2 demonstrates, fulfilling these key GM roles is even less common for the GM department than for their leaders.

Figure 1: How GM Leaders currently 'always or mostly' act, and how they would like to act in the future

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Figure 2: How the whole GM Function currently 'always or mostly' acts, and how they would like to act in the future

Interestingly, the gaps between what is happening today and what GM leaders would wish to see in their GM departments in the future are mostly similar. Almost a third (28%) lament a gap in the global talent management role, a quarter (24%) would like to strengthen due diligence, and 40% would like to augment their department’s role in global people effectiveness work. Shockingly, there is one area where the gap from today to tomorrow is even more pronounced. Almost half (48%) of MNCs seem to be suffering from a lack in strategic GM advice.

Leading Successful GM Work

What does the data mean in broad terms and how can Global Mobility be advanced to make it fit for the future? Rethinking Global Mobility is driven by some key trends and drivers. In the following, we reflect on four fundamental GM roles which are driven by six key factors. In these areas we focus on value creation and practical measures.

Role 1: Agile Global Mobility Created Through Strategic Advice

GM leaders need to develop agility to align and support their business and HR strategies, to develop value and to adapt quickly to changing organisational needs. Technological advances, automatisation, artificial intelligence and robotics, the need for new skill sets, and dynamic operating models are all expressions of the rapid changes in the business environment. These developments make it necessary to find feasible ways to adapt to them and to harness the opportunities for the organisation. Constantly changing requirements, which are already varying among different stakeholders, make it necessary to provide flexibility for assignments. The key value of GM is related to broader business and people management objectives (Edstrom and Galbraith, 1977;

Dowling et al., 2013). On a highly strategic level, aligning GM to business and HR strategies in order to enable and support the business in creating value is highly important. These often embody key objectives such as the control of the business units, cultural integration across borders, knowledge creation, transfer and application, or enabling certain work activities through filling positions (Dickmann and Baruch, 2011). To successfully advance the agility and flexibility of international work in organisations, GM professionals need to fill the role of strategic advisor and to understand the manifold ramifications of their organisation’s strategy and the diverse GM avenues that could be pursued to realise their MNC’s ambition. Figure 3 gives an overview of the breadth of GM tasks and recommendations on how to advance GM excellence. The figure outlines all the SAFE areas and depicts the various roles of GM professionals. While agility refers to the strategic advisor role there are

spill-over effects into the other quadrants as the other roles would also benefit from the flexibility to master emerging challenges. In practice, this means that GM professionals have to identify ways in which mobility strategies underpin organisation-wide strategies. GM professionals need to create business cases for transformational change but at the same time focus on incremental changes. Given the VUCA environment that we face, it is simply not good enough to undertake a transformation every five years. As part of strategic changes, GM departments need to develop policies that facilitate agility. This might mean, for instance, to develop ‘core flex’ approaches and to create flexible governance approaches that incorporate agility in relation to exception management. Agility will also go a long way to future proof GM and may be expressed in other quadrants of Figure 3. Younger generations entering the labour market will likely drive a change in more flexible remuneration approaches, which will also have an influence on compensation and benefits in GM. Dealing with agility in GM means to plan for crisis responses, develop scenarios and approaches to refine the corporate reaction to events such as terrorist attacks or natural disasters. This can include e.g. a cost saving scenario or the plans for potential group relocations (in the light of the Brexit). It will be necessary to stay close to the business and your stakeholders to understand their changing needs and future aspirations. The bottom line is to be prepared as much as possible for potential future demands.

Role 2: Smart Global Talent Management and Individualised GM Relationships

Successful GM work is not just smart in the sense of clever; it is also able to create specific, measurable, achievable, resultsfocused and time-bound objectives for global

Figure 3: SAFE Roles of GM: Agile - Living the Purpose and Increasing Value

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workers. The role of the global talent manager will grapple with some of the tensions that are often a challenge in developmental work. Organisations set up talent and career systems and paths that are geared to groups and yet, GM professionals will work with individuals who want a tailored solution in response to their goals and situations. Millennials (and to some extent earlier generations) are already pushing quite hard for an individualisation agenda. While the systems aspects always have the potential to display tensions with individualised talent management, developing flexible approaches allows organisations to strive for an agility that is becoming ever more important. The value of smart global talent management lies in the focus on the intersection of organisational and individual interests. Constructing intelligent careers has shown to be valuable to individuals (Suutari et al., 2018; Jokinen et al., 2008) and organisations (Inkson and Arthur, 2001). Where organisations engage assignees and their families, devise high quality and useful talent development and plan ahead for repatriation, they are experiencing higher retention figures and better performance (Scullion and Collings, 2006; Dickmann, Suutari and Wurts, 2018, Doherty and Dickmann, 2012). In addition, their expatriates feel more valued and satisfied with their work abroad. What are some of the activities necessary to develop smart and individualised GM? There are many roads to Rome, but useful activities are centred around understanding and factoring in individual drivers and motivations in the GM attraction, selection and assignment approaches, or implementing GM mentor and coaching systems. In addition, it would be useful to truly understand the learning needs of individual assignees (and fit them into the overall development needs of the organisation) and to factor these into the career planning for individuals. And last but not least, GM functions must think more across functions and engage with relevant stakeholders such as Talent Management, Workforce planning, Travel Management and others.

Role 3: Flawless Compliance Through GM Programme Design

Too much focus was given in the past to compliance, while ignoring that it basically is a hygiene factor. Compliance cannot improve employee experience. Complying with local tax legislation, remaining in the home social security system as promised, obtaining a work permit, adhering to applicable labour laws and the existence of an emergency telephone number when needed; simply does not have the potential to make assignees happy, whereas the absence of compliance bears a lot of potential for dissatisfaction. The value of high quality programme design lies predominantly in two areas. First, being

‘flawless’ in compliance is highly important because of the multiple risks that come with non-compliance. Second, successful tracking and data analytics, e.g. with respect to risk identification, vendor performance, security and crisis arrangement evaluation, satisfaction with removal companies etc., is likely to give information that can improve the GM programme, reduce risks and increase satisfaction. This may go some way to senior managers regarding the programme management role as more than simply operational. Practical approaches in the market to treat compliance for what it really is differ by the size of mobility programmes. Some of the options are depicted in Figure 3 under GM Programme Designer. MNCs with larger programmes should consider whether they can maximise the outsourcing of compliance activities to external partners

GM functions must think more across functions and engage with relevant stakeholders such as Talent Management, Workforce planning, Travel Management and others beyond what they are doing today. It would be useful to identify a dedicated professional, or groups of professionals, with a compliance mindset to be in charge of dealing with external service providers and being knowledgeable about the various aspects of the compliance risk. Good vendor management is obviously important. Being in charge means (since compliance is the key hygiene factor) that these professionals are also positioned in such a way that they can make tactical decisions, e.g. on issues and exceptions that would have formerly landed on the desk of the Head of Mobility. In this

way, the work is done by the people who are best placed to do it. In a smaller assignment programme, the option to have specialised compliance experts may not be feasible. Specialisation is possible only in larger programmes and generalists are typically found in smaller assignment programmes. They should experience at least a different view on compliance and attempt to find efficient external partners to manage it.

Role 4: Efficient Global People Effectiveness Expert

Part of the individualisation of the GM role is that of understanding the drivers of individuals in the organisation who may want to work abroad. Developing an overview of these motivations allows MNC’s to shape their branding of global careers (Point and Dickmann, 2012), to refine selection and reward mechanisms, to be able to identify the most suitable candidates, to design rewards (not necessarily monetary ones), that could also be job content, talent and career related that are appealing to individuals. The obvious value of being a people effectiveness expert is in relation to sending better suited assignees abroad who have the appropriate set of drivers for the objectives of the organisation. In addition, this allows the selection of a better matched assignment type e.g. short-term, long-term, business travel, cross-border commuting, etc.). The data in this report shows that organisations have drawn up different reward offers – e.g. in terms of package design that gives less generous rewards to developmental assignees or that distinguishes between assignment durations. Understanding the motivations of expatriation candidates and factoring these into assignment conditions (say, in deciding between hostile versus family-friendly host locations; dual career implications etc.) should have a motivational effect and may add to the quality of the assignment experience. Having superior assignment planning, that builds on the individualised candidate information, may also lead to improved performance management in relation to the assignment objectives. The practical approaches to implementing the global people effectiveness role are manifold. They could start in devising a superior global career branding approach (Point and Dickmann, 2012) that outlines the purpose and advantages of international assignments to internal and external candidates. The actual selection of expatriates can be substantially improved (Harris and Brewster, 1999) through the use of psychometric instruments, competency-based interviews or measures to find out candidates’ global work, motivations. Thus, going beyond the ‘coffee machine selection’ to have a more sophisticated and formal approach to global staffing is likely to be highly beneficial (Scullion and Collings, 2011). Designing reward systems that are not ‘one size fits all’ but are responsive

AGILE GLOBAL MOBILITY to assignment types, locations, lengths and objectives, can also increase effectiveness and efficiency. The importance of this point needs to be reiterated. To achieve this it will be necessary to go beyond the silos in which some GM functions are still working and to engage with other relevant functions and stakeholders. Trying to achieve a better understanding of the drivers of individuals to work abroad and to reap the stated benefits of being a People Effectiveness Expert will not work in isolation. The data given in Figures 1 and 2 has shown that many GM leaders see a gap between the current GM strategies, roles and practices and what their aspirations are. Our argument with respect to ‘rethinking Global Mobility’ has explored the four roles of GM in more depth, but there is more to GM work if an organisation truly wants to be fit for the competitive challenges of the future. Beyond SAFE Global Mobility, there are two further, overarching factors that will strengthen GM work.

Global Mobility With A Compelling Purpose

There is a mutual dependency between assignees and their employers (Larsen, 2004). Organisations highly depend on the quality of their international workers while assignees may find themselves ‘high and dry’ in certain situations in their host environments, especially in hostile or crisis contexts (Bader and Berg, 2013). GM purpose has been predominantly seen through the employer lens and especially incorporates the strategic and operational process dimensions of Figure 3. The value for the organisation in determining its key mobility objectives and how GM can support organisation wide strategies have been discussed under the strategic advisor role. However, it is important to go beyond a strategic level to look at the vision of the organisation and to long-term goals that are attractive to individuals, that they can identify with and that give them purpose. Working abroad will change the psychological contract of assignees and their expectations (Conway and Briner, 2005; Dickmann and Baruch, 2011). Our data clearly indicates that assignees benefit on a range of levels, including their own personal growth and career progression. This is what is widely expected by assignment candidates and has been long shown to have a major impact on their decision to work abroad (Hippler, 2009). In terms of the GM programme designer role, letting people down in terms of compliance or security issues will fundamentally rock their relationship with their employers and will have a detrimental effect on their global work and identification with the organisation. The implications are complex and wide-ranging. The intended role and objective of an assignment will have to be analysed in the sense of delivering purpose to the organisation and providing purpose to the individual. Thus, corporate knowledge transfer,

skills gap filling, control and coordination issues, will need to be aligned to the mindset and motivations of assignees. More broadly, even if your company has a purpose statement, it might well make sense to define a team purpose for mobility that is aligned with the company purpose and objectives.

Mobility teams need to engage in the purpose of creating positive assignee experiences. A paradigm shift is already happening in HR and HR transformations Global Mobility – Focusing on Assignee Experience

Purpose is the new currency for creating attraction, retention and an engaged workforce. Mobility teams need to engage in the purpose of creating positive assignee experiences. A paradigm shift is already happening in HR and HR transformations. In the past they predominantly focused on cost savings and reducing cycle times. Now they are looking at the effectiveness and, not exclusively, the efficiency of change interventions. Treating compliance as a hygiene factor will support the shift towards purposeful GM that aims to enrich the private and professional lives of assignees. International Assignments (IAs) are undisputedly one of the most significant experiences an employee can have during his/her career. It involves their families and creates great learning and developmental opportunities when living and working in other cultural contexts. Where assignees (and their organisations) avoid or overcome the risks of culture shock, work-life imbalance, family separation, etc. it has been shown that their performance, career progression, talent development and long-term retention is highly positive This is why Global Mobility needs to focus on employee experience and how to enhance it. In addition, many organisations

observe that they have too few, good quality candidates for IAs. Delivering an attractive global work experience is likely to widen the pool of assignment candidates which allows a better choice for organisations. Assuming a relatively flawless programme design, the experience element of GM is mostly shaped by the people dimension of Figure 3. It includes the range of activities that were discussed under the roles of global talent manager and global people effectiveness expert. To put this into practice would mean taking a close look at all the interactions that an employee (and their families) experience before, during and after an assignment. It would further involve checking how positive experiences look and how negative perceptions are created. This also involves an analysis of the assignee experience with the many external service providers. Furthermore, the host teams have a strong impact on how an expatriate feels, adjusts to the local culture and performs. Overall, it would be good to engage as many stakeholders as possible in the search for a good GM experience. One step would be to explore what the stakeholders believe has scope for improvement. In practice, mobility departments will need to think and live outside of their silos, engage with talent management colleagues and other internal stakeholders. In addition, they need to understand the purpose and objectives of the assignment and distinguish different and alternative forms of global work that are aligned with purpose (as defined by an employee) and that create valued experiences for employees.

Conclusions And Learning Points

This article has concentrated on the dynamic pressures impacting on GM and suggests that agile mobility strategies, structures and policies enable MNCs to shape the future successfully. For this, GM departments need to move out of their comfort zones and out of their silo mentality. They urgently need to understand organisational and HR strategies and should engage intensively with the business. Based on these pressures a new SAFE Global Mobility model was developed that depicts key roles and activities emphasising the purpose and valuable experiences of GM.

Recommendations For AGILE Global Mobility Work:

• Understand the massive and rapid changes that define the world of Global Mobility. Technological advances, automatisation, artificial intelligence, new competitive pressures needing new capabilities and dynamic operating models create pressures for learning and paradigm shifts • Smart Global Talent Management needs to create tangible results through the management of specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused and timebound GM objectives. The value of

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•

smart mobility approaches lies in the intersection of organisational and assignee interests. This encourages integration with intelligent career and succession planning Agile Global Mobility Configurations are constructed through strategic advice. These need to be based on the corporate vision, business and other strategies and need to be scalable and flexible to react to dynamic competitive developments. In practice, GM professionals have to identify ways in which mobility underpins organisation-wide strategies Flawless Programme Leadership needs to create high quality compliance and vendor relationship management. Flawless programme management mitigates the multiple risks associated with noncompliance. Successful tracking of assignees and sophisticated data analytics can enable GM departments to analyse their activities and improve them even further while increasing client satisfaction Efficient Global People Effectiveness Approaches need to understand, attract, motivate and fairly assess the performance of mobility candidates and assignees. This is enabled through the use of more developed global career branding, more sophisticated mobility selection approaches and instruments, as well as a conscious assignment objective setting and management process Seek the individualisation of the GM relationship through smart global talent management and efficient global people effectiveness approaches. Given the need for superior data for the management of assignees, it can also be used to individualise where expatriates are sent, what form of assignment they go on to and how they are managed Continue working towards enlarging the key roles of GM professionals. These roles are seen as important amongst RES Forum members. However, a third of all GM experts still perceive a gap between roles they fill today and roles that they would like to fill tomorrow Improve and expand the work of the GM department. The roles of strategic advisor, GM programme designer (including the focus on due diligence), global talent manager and people effectiveness expert are still insufficiently covered and there are substantial gaps between what GM departments do at present and what roles they would like to enact in the future Find the shared purpose of being globally mobile. Beyond using the organisational interest, the purpose needs to incorporate the interests of assignees. This ‘mutual purpose’ is likely to motivate and energise global workers, resulting in better performance, retention and commitment Focus on assignee experience. Staff

increasingly seek meaning in work and life and good assignee experiences should be valued by expatriates as they are likely to enrich their private and professional lives. MNCs are embedded in massive change and are undertaking substantial internal transformations. GM departments and professionals need to understand and shape these changes in order to live their four key roles. Adapting to the new paradigm developed in Figure 3 and through the SAFE GM approach, focusing on the purpose and employee experience of working abroad needs sensitive, sophisticated and agile GM approaches. The road to this is highly complex. This report hopes to add to the insights of how to effectively tackle these challenges in order to take advantage of the manifold opportunities of global work. References: [1] "Agile Global Mobility: Living the Purpose and Increasing Value" in The RES Forum Annual Report 2018, Global Mobility of the Future: Smart, Agile, Flawless and Efficient, authored by Professor Michael F. Dickmann [2] Main Survey Data Source: RES Forum Survey - The Role of the Global Mobility Function, January 2018, 50 responses [3] Bader, B. and Berg, N. 2013. An empirical investigation of terrorism-induced stress on expatriate attitudes and performance. Journal of International Management, 19(2): 163-175 [4] Conway, N. and Briner, R.B. 2005. Understanding psychological contracts at work: A critical evaluation of theory and research. Oxford: Oxford University Press [5] Dickmann, M. and Baruch, Y. 2011. Global Careers. London: Routledge [6] Dickmann, M., Suutari, V. and Wurts, O. 2018. The Management of Global Careers: Exploring the Rise of International Work, London: Palgrave Macmillan [7] Doherty, N.T. and Dickmann, M. 2012. Measuring the return on investment in international assignments: an action research approach. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23(16): 3434-3454 [8] Dowling, P.J., Festing, M. and Engle, A. 2013. International Human Resource Management, 6th Edition. London: Cengage Learning [9] Edström, A. and Galbraith, J.R. 1977. Transfer of managers as a coordination and control strategy in multinational organisations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 22(2): 248-263 [10] Harris, H. and Brewster, C. 1999. The coffeemachine system: how international selection really works. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 10(3): 488-500 [11] Hippler, T. 2009. "Why do they go? Empirical evidence of employees' motives for seeking or accepting relocation." The International

Journal of Human Resource Management 20, (6): 1381-1401 [12] Inkson, K. and Arthur, M.B. 2001. How to be a successful career capitalist. Organisational Dynamics, 30(1): 48-61 [13] Jokinen, T., Brewster, C. and Suutari, V. 2008. Career capital during international work experiences: contrasting self-initiated expatriate experiences and assigned expatriation. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 19(6): 979-998 [14] Larsen, H.H. 2004. Global career as dual dependency between the organisation and the individual. Journal of Management Development, 23(9): 860-869 [15] Point, S. and Dickmann, M. 2012. Branding international careers: An analysis of multinational corporations’ official wording. European Management Journal, 30(1): 18-31 [16] R ES Forum (2015). Strategic Global Mobility & the Talent Management Conundrum, Written by Michael F. Dickmann, RES Forum, Harmony Relocation Network (UGRN in 2015) and Equus Software, 108 pages, London [17] Scullion, H. and Collings, D.G. (eds.). (2006). Global Staffing. London: Routledge [18] Scullion, H. and Collings, D. (2011). Global Talent Management. London: Routledge [19] Suutari, V., Brewster, C., Mäkelä, L., Dickmann, M. and Tornikoski, C. (2018). The effect of international work experience on the career success of expatriates: a comparison of assigned and self-initiated expatriates, Human Resource Management, Vol. 57 (1): 37-54.

THE RES FORUM ANNUAL REPORT 2018- GLOBAL MOBILITY OF THE FUTURE: SMART, AGILE, FLAWLESS AND EFFICIENT

This article is based on Chapter One of the RES Forum Annual Report, authored by Professor Michael F. Dickmann, Professor of International HRM at Cranfield University, School of Management, and Chris Debner, Strategic GM Advisor, and produced by The RES Forum, Harmony Relocation Network and Equus Software. To read the full report for free, in-house GM and HR professionals can register to join the RES Forum at no charge. Just click “Join” and enter your details on our website at www.theresforum.com Relocation Vendors and other interested parties may request a copy of the report by emailing us at: E: office@theresforum.com For more information, please contactHeather Hughes General Manager, The RES Forum T: +44(0)207 127 8075 E: office@theresforum.com

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Taxing Issues: Tax And Social Security Compliance Conundrums This article examines some of the conundrums faced by international mobility professionals; those issues which do not fit neatly into your company’s mobility policies or create friction with your other people policies. There will usually be a tax and/or social security associated cost to the policy issue involved notwithstanding other complications. How do you react? Some of the scenarios below may resonate with your own experiences, whilst others may be issues that you could face in the future.

Flexible Working

The advent of flexible working and employers’ perception of an ever increasing need to provide employees with choice can create unanticipated additional employment costs and compliance obligations. As an example, Alison has been recognised as ‘talent’ within your organisation. When discussing issues with her new line manager, you find out that Alison has made a request to work from home on Mondays and Fridays. The line manager has verbally accepted the request as they feared that, if they did not, Alison would leave the business. However, you know that Alison has just moved with her family to France so in effect she will now be working in France for two days a week. The potential consequences of this are: • French social security, which at circa 45% for the employer is a significant additional cost • Increased employer compliance obligations as you now need to work out how you, as a UK based employer, go about paying French social security contributions. French withholding tax implications are also about to commence effective 1 January, 2019 with income tax prepayments required thereafter for non-French employers. You may have to set up a payroll/system in France to facilitate payment even if you do not have a business entity there. This can be a time consuming and frustrating process • As Alison progresses within the organisation and her role evolves, there could be potential corporate tax implications in France for the business. You need to raise this with your internal tax team • Will your employee insurance policies, such as life assurance, critical illness et al, cover Alison whilst she is working in France?

• Will Alison now be covered by French, rather than UK, employment law? Do you ask Alison’s line manager to retract their verbal acceptance of the flexible working request – can you?

Housing Issues

Your assignment policy states that individuals should not buy a residential property in the host country. You contribute a limited amount towards housing but this is a relatively small part of an individual’s overall package When Jacques first came to the UK your HR predecessor told him he wasn’t allowed to buy a UK property in accordance with the assignment policy. Three years later, he’s still in the UK and about to localise and you are

discussing his future remuneration package. He tells you that his housing allowance, which is now about to cease, never covered his rent from the outset and that had the company allowed him to buy a property when he first asked about this then his mortgage costs would be lower than the total rent he’s been paying. Additionally, Jacques advises that UK property prices have increased 30% and that the company’s housing policy has cost him £200,000. He reminds you that residential property gains aren’t taxable in the UK as he doesn’t have any other residential property elsewhere. He then asks for a pay increase to compensate him for his loss. He also mutters something about poor investment advice as your HR predecessor had also told him to keep his money in The Channel Islands. The interest he’s been earning on this is minimal and he would have been better off getting a mortgage and buying a UK property. What do you say? At what point should your policy get involved with issues and investments, which could give rise to a personal tax break, gain or loss. Should your policy seek to be tax neutral in all circumstances? When you go to discuss Jacques’ case with the CFO later that week, the CFO says that paying any form of housing allowance without a contribution is wrong and that individuals would have been incurring housing costs in their home country and must be getting rent if they are letting out their home country properties. She has said that individuals should pay a ‘housing norm’ or housing contribution to the company, and if they rent their home country property they should give this money to the company to offset additional assignment costs. Again you’re back to wondering whether the company should get involved with housing at all, and whether a decision to rent an individual’s property is best left to the individual. How would the rental income be taxed in any event and who would be liable for the tax?

Social Security Issues

Your international assignment policy states that the rule of thumb is for assignees to remain within their “home” country social security system. Juan, a Spanish national who has been working for you in the UK since he left university, was assigned to Spain for four years. Whilst on assignment, an A1 was obtained and he continued to pay UK NIC. He has now returned to the UK; however, things are not

TAXATION going well. Juan has levelled certain accusations at your organisation; namely that he was forced to sign the statement confirming that he believed remaining in the UK NIC system, whilst on assignment, was in his best interests. He is maintaining that no discussions were held to explain the consequences of remaining in UK NIC and is now of the view that he should have been provided with the option of contributing to the Spanish system. How do you reconcile what your policy says with the personal views and interests of the employee? How can you truly compare current cost – employee and employer - with potential future benefits for the employee? How do you ensure that you do not face a situation such as this where your employee may seek compensation from you on the basis that you have not provided them with the information required to make an informed choice? How do you address the possibility of social security rules changing part way through an assignment as the result of Brexit?

Local Employee Versus Expatriate Employee

How do you manage the friction that can arise from peer groups comparing their compensation packages even when working in different jurisdictions? Imagine a situation where you have two senior individuals, both of whom are tasked with growing the business. One is based in the UK and is a local hire, and the second is sent to the UAE and is on a Local Plus package. Both are responsible for their own tax liabilities. The expat’s salary is lower but they are provided with a housing allowance and school fees. The amounts paid increase as their family size grows. The UK based employee is unhappy as they cannot afford to send their children to private school whilst their colleague, who is also their direct peer, can. How do you deal with this perception of inequitable treatment? Several years later, the expat based in the UAE has performed really well and you would like them to move back to the UK. However, they know that if they do they will lose their Local Plus benefits and are therefore reluctant to do so. When initially sending them to the UAE there was no limit to the duration all expected the individual to be there, and there was no cap or tail off of the additional benefits. It’s all very well moving individuals onto a local plus package, but how do you move them on from that location at the behest of the company? Many employers are now finding that moving the individual onto a local contract at the outset, whilst good for that particular assignment, merely created a problem for the next assignment or move home. Individuals typically want to maintain their net take home. Current tax at low rates (e.g. in Hong Kong, Singapore and UAE) gives a higher net. Do you gross up the net? Will they move if you don’t? How do you

persuade this employee to change role whilst maintaining the integrity of your polices? You have two employees sitting next to each other in your Reading office. Their roles are very similar, requiring them to work overseas for 25% of their time, but one is a UK local hire and the other is a newly arrived Danish assignee. You operate tax protection. The assignee is eligible for overseas workday relief and, as they have been talking to fellow expatriates, has asked you to make a request to HMRC to adjust her PAYE code and to pay her salary into an offshore account. Should you accede to her request? If you advise that you cannot get involved and refuse this request, what would you do if the assignee refuses to open up a UK bank account and only provides you with bank account details in Jersey? They could get the UK tax relief irrespective of the extent of your cooperation.

Tax Protection Versus Tax Equalisation Versus ‘On Your Own’

Tax equalisation removes tax as a barrier to mobility for the individual. The individual is no better or worse off as a result of any move and the decision should be tax neutral for them. By contrast tax protection means that the individual cannot be worse off from a tax perspective as a result of a move but can be better off if the tax cost at the new location is lower than what it would have been had they remained at home. If the individual is responsible for their own taxes they could be better or worse off depending on the circumstances. For important business reasons you really need an individual with certain specific skills to be in a new location at a set time. How do you react when the specific individual wants to defer or accelerate the proposed move because they will benefit personally from a tax perspective as you operate tax protection or leave all taxes to the individual? Do you offer them a further monetary incentive to move at your behest? Your approach to taxes and mobility can affect the timing of moves and cooperation of individuals.

Qatar. To service this contract, you will need to send UK employees to Qatar. Some of the skills required for the contract are in high demand and difficult to source. The assignment durations will vary dependent on the role undertaken in Qatar. Due to the sheer size of the project, another UK company has been appointed to work with you as part of a joint venture. Your policy is to operate tax equalisation so all the assignees to Qatar have been sent out on tax equalised assignment terms. You get a call from the director, who won the contract, asking you why his key, highly skilled employee has threatened to resign? You establish that the other UK company working on the project does not operate tax equalisation so all their assignees are on gross packages. The assignees have clearly been discussing the relative merits of their assignment packages. Do you change your policy? If so, do you change your policy for the highly skilled assignee only, or do you change it for all assignees? Do you make further concessions and extend the duration of all of the assignments so that the assignees can achieve non-UK residence? The director is pressuring you to concede to all assignee requests as this project is the biggest win of his career and he wants the job to run smoothly. What would you do?

Summary

All of these are real life cases. Policy and tax/social security interact, sometimes in unforeseen circumstances. Hindsight is great, but unfortunately we rarely possess foresight when we need it most! We would welcome hearing about your views and experiences.

How Flexible Is Your Tax Policy?

Your tax policy in relation to international assignees has always been tax equalisation. Over the years, you have had a number of lively discussions with employees/line managers on this but have been able to ensure the consistent application of this policy. Your COO is going on assignment to Singapore and is adamant that tax equalisation is not going to apply to her. This has been agreed at a higher level so you have had to agree to this, albeit reluctantly. How do you deal with the COO’s number two, who is now also going to be assigned to Singapore and has requested that tax equalisation is not implemented for him too? Your company has won a large contract in

ANDREW BAILEY

Andrew Bailey is global leader for BDO International’s expatriate tax services and national head of human capital at BDO LLP. He has over 30 years’ experience in the field of expatriate taxation. BDO is present in over 162 countries and is able to provide global assistance for all your international assignments. If you would like to discuss any of the issues raised in this article or any other expatriate matters, please do not hesitate to contact Andrew Bailey on +44 (0) 20 7893 2946, Email Andrew.bailey@bdo.co.uk

GLOBAL TAXATION

Global Tax Update CHINA

Focused tax inspection/Audit regime for foreign employees and Chinese outbound employees BDO Comment The Chinese tax authorities are actively targeting foreign employees and Chinese employees working overseas. With the assistance of professional tax consultants, companies can take the necessary actions to make sure they are compliant with the tax laws and regulations and changing local practices. With the increase in foreign nationals working in China and Chinese nationals going abroad, Chinese tax authorities in the main cities have recently been implementing stricter Individual Income Tax (“IIT”) administration. Additionally, due to the nationwide usage of the new tax filing system (Golden Tax III), more detailed information for individuals is now being reported to the Chinese tax authorities. The tax authorities have been launching random tax inspection/audits in order to investigate the accuracy of information reported for both foreign employees and Chinese outbound employees. Trends And Challenges Foreign National Employees For foreign national employees who receive certain benefits-in-kind, such benefits can only qualify as non-taxable benefits when certain criteria is met. In addition, an increasing number of tax authorities in many main cities require registration of the non-taxable benefits, to include supporting policies on fringe benefits where relevant. The local tax authority may not accept tax exemption of these benefits if there is a failure to perform such registration. However, in practice the local tax authority could request additional documents as proof of the benefits-in-kind. This is at their discretion. Chinese Outbound Employees According to Chinese tax regulations, Chinese nationals are subject to Chinese tax on worldwide income. For employees who have labour contracts with a local Chinese entity and are assigned to work in a foreign country, the Chinese local entity should act as a withholding agent and report both China sourced and foreign sourced income to the local tax authority via monthly IIT returns. For employees who are employed by a foreign company, they are also responsible for reporting worldwide income via the PRC Annual Tax Reconciliation (“ATR”) return. Some Chinese local entities and Chinese

outbound employees are not fully aware of the compliance requirements placed on foreign sourced income. In view of this, local tax authorities are paying special attention to the benefits-in-kind offered to foreign employees as well as Chinese outbound employees who have received foreign sourced income. Negative Impact Where local tax authorities identify noncompliance through tax inspections/audits, the withholding agents/employees will be requested to pay the under-reported IIT. A daily late payment surcharge of 0.05%, as well as penalties of between 50% and 500% of the IIT due may also be imposed. Additionally, there will also be reputational risks for both the withholding agent and employees. For example, local tax authorities can downgrade company and employee tax credit ratings. The following are the key focus points: • Re-evaluate the compliance level of benefits-in-kind offered to foreign national employees • Review internal control procedures and documentation for benefits-in-kind • Ensure the company has fulfilled their withholding obligations for Chinese outbound employees • Notify Chinese outbound employees who are employed by overseas companies to report foreign sourced income with the local tax authorities. Professional advice and proactive communication with the tax authorities is very efficient in reducing the potential tax risks. Meanwhile, where audits are already occurring, effective negotiations with tax authorities are essential in resolving these..

INDIA

Notification of income tax return forms for tax year 2017/18 BDO Comment There are two different forms that employees can use to declare their income at the tax year-end. Expatriate assignees need to be clear on the correct form to use and the income they need to report. On 5 April 2018, the Central Bureau of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued notification of the income tax return (ITR) forms for the 2017/18 tax year. Some of the key changes in the forms generally used by employees (Forms ITR-1 and ITR-2) are mentioned below: • Form ITR-1 shall be applicable to individuals in the following cases: • Those individuals are ‘Resident and

Ordinarily Resident’ in India • Having income up to INR 5 million during the year, which includes salary income, income from one property and other sources such as bank interest, etc. • Additional detail is required in the form of a breakdown of remuneration • Details of property such as the nature of ownership (occupied or let-out), rental income received, local taxes paid, mortgage loan interest paid, etc. are now required to be provided in this form. • Form ITR-2 shall be applicable to individuals in the following cases: • Having income from Capital Gains or income from multiple properties • Claiming foreign tax credits and/or short-stay exemption • Having assets in a foreign country • Having income from a source outside India • A key change in the form is the option to furnish details of foreign bank accounts to claim a refund of any tax dues. Previously, an Indian bank account was necessary. This is a welcome change, especially for expatriates. Individuals are advised to ensure they file the appropriate tax return. Date for linking AADHAAR The CBDT has further extended the date for linking the AADHAAR (unique identification number) to the PAN and welfare schemes to 30 June, 2018. The date for linking the AADHAAR to an Indian bank account and mobile number has been extended indefinitely, until the Supreme Court of India delivers its judgement on petitions challenging the validity of the biometric scheme and the enabling law. India & Hong Kong – Sign A Tax Treaty In a step to improve transparency in tax matters and to curb tax evasion and avoidance, the Government of India and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of the People’s Republic of China have signed an Agreement for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with respect to taxes on income. The agreement provides articles on tie-breaker rules for determining treaty residency, dependent personal services and measures to eliminate double taxation between the countries. These are especially useful in respect of expatriates. While the agreement was signed on 19 March, 2018, it will not come into force until it has been ratified by both countries.

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

IRELAND

Irish Payroll Tax System – Temporary Assignees Summary New guidance from the Revenue in Ireland with regard to the Pay As You Earn applications for non-Irish employees. Non-resident employers (in conjunction with associated Irish businesses) will need to put in place robust processes in order to track current and proposed temporary assignments to Ireland to ensure their Irish PAYE obligations are being met. The Irish Revenue have updated their guidance on the application of the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system in relation to nonIrish employments exercised in the State. The payroll tax position on assignments to Ireland is now dependent on the following: • Whether the individual is resident in a country with which Ireland has a Double Taxation Agreement (DTA) or in a country with which Ireland does not have a DTA (referred to as non-DTA countries) • Whether a DTA resident’s Irish workdays are more or less than 60 days in one tax year • Whether a DTA resident’s Irish workdays are more or less than 60 days over two consecutive tax years • Whether a DTA resident has Irish workdays over more than two consecutive tax years. If resident in a non-DTA country then the above 60-day threshold is reduced to 30 days. The revised guidelines will provide major practical challenges for employers with regard to the tracking of short-term assignments.

Ireland is moving to a Real Time Reporting system for payroll tax purposes Historically, employers had the safety net of the exemption for up to 60 workdays in one tax year for residents of DTA countries. The updated guidelines will require employers to track all visits to Ireland, irrespective of length, and to consider the payroll tax implications of the assignment on a standalone basis, a cumulative year’s basis and a rotational basis. Added to that, Ireland is moving to a

Real Time Reporting system for payroll tax purposes, effective from 1 January, 2019, and Revenue have indicated that there will be no special arrangements for foreign assignments albeit after a short transitional period.

It is crucial that all fully understand who these provisions apply to and who would qualify for this preferential tax rate. This could provide a significant saving for those in the offshore oil and gas industry.

MALTA

NETHERLANDS

Qualifying employment in maritime activities and the servicing of offshore oil and gas industry activities (Personal) rules 2018 Summary On 27 April, 2018, a new preferential tax rate was introduced, applicable to non-domiciled individuals employed by a Malta company to carry out maritime activities and services in the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry. Please find below a summary of the main provisions: • The Rules provide for a beneficial tax rate of 15% on the qualifying employment income derived from an eligible office, subject to a minimum annual salary (excluding fringe benefits) of €65,000. This results in a minimum annual tax of €9,750 without the possibility to claim any relief, deduction, credit or set off of any kind • The employee must be employed by an undertaking that: a) Holds a Document of Compliance (DOC) issued in terms of the International Safety Management (ISM) Code or a Seafarer Recruitment and Placement Services Licence issued in terms of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006; or b) Engages the particular individual for work on board any ship, excluding ships operating on regular services as well as ships whose use or operation requires certification in terms of the Commercial Vessels Regulations and which are berthed or anchored within the territorial waters of Malta or any port in Malta for at least a period of one month over a calendar year (referred to in the Rules as "Maritime activities"). For the purposes of the Rules, the term "regular services" shall have the meaning assigned to it in terms of the Merchant Shipping (Safe Operation of Regular Ro-Ro Ferry and High-Speed Passenger Craft Services) Regulations; or c) Carries on mainly a trade or business consisting in the Servicing of the offshore oil and gas and ancillary services industry (referred to in the Rules as "Servicing of the offshore oil and gas and ancillary services activities"). The beneficial tax rate is available from year of assessment 2017 for eligible offices in the Servicing of the Offshore Oil and Gas and Ancillary Services Industry, and from year of assessment 2018 for eligible offices in Maritime activities. The beneficial tax rate is available for a period of 5 years for EEA and Swiss nationals and for a period of 4 years for third country nationals. These can be renewed for a further 5 years and 4 years respectively.

Dutch 30%-ruling – Updated from 2019 Summary The favourable “30% Ruling” is to be altered with effect from 2019, with the maximum period it can apply reduced to 5 years. This will also affect extra territorial expenses. The reduced period that the 30%-ruling will apply for will increase costs for both existing and new expats in the Netherlands. This will need to be reviewed to ensure that expats are not out of pocket. For those where tax equalisation is in place, this change will represent an increase in costs for the company. Based upon Dutch tax law since 2001, it has been possible for some employees to receive a tax-free reimbursement for extra-territorial expenses. Extra-territorial expenses are expenses that occur because the expatriate employee is living outside their home country. In principle, the compensation for these extra-territorial expenses is based on the actual cost incurred by the expat. The 30%-ruling was introduced for a specially defined group of expats. The 30%-ruling consists of a tax-free allowance of 30% of the taxable salary of these expats. The 30% tax-free amount is considered to cover extra-territorial expenses regardless of the actual costs incurred. Expats need to fulfil certain requirements in order for them to qualify for the 30%-regulation. According to the current legislation, the 30%-ruling is granted for a maximum period of 96 months (eight years). This is expected to change to 60 months as of 1 January, 2019. According to a 2017 evaluation of the 30% ruling, 80% of the employees benefiting from the 30% ruling do not make use of it for more than five years. This is one of the reasons the maximum duration is being reduced. It will apply to both new and existing assignees with no transitional rules. Please note that this new duration also applies to the payment of actual extraterritorial costs as well. Therefore, after the maximum 5 year period, it will no longer be possible to pay extra territorial costs tax free to employees.

SPAIN & CHINA

Social Security bilateral agreement signed between China & Spain BDO Comment Assignees working between Spain and China could continue paying social security contributions in their home country for up to 6 years (with possibility of an extension). It would be necessary to obtain the relevant certificate from the Social Security Authorities.

GLOBAL TAXATION On 19 May, 2017, Spain and China entered into a bilateral agreement on Social Security, which came into force on 20 March, 2018. The principal aim of the agreement is to avoid a dual social security liability for assigned workers and ensure the social protection of these workers. Scope Of Application The agreement is applicable to those who usually live and work in either Spain or China and are sent on assignment to the other country. The Agreement is applicable to the following regimes: SPAIN: • Contributory pensions under the General Regime, except for those due to workplace accidents or occupational disease • Unemployment contributions and benefits. CHINA: • Basic insurance for old age • Unemployment insurance. Period Of Application The two countries have agreed a limit of six years during which the employees on assignment could apply the Bilateral Agreement. However, it is possible to apply for an extension if the Social Security Authorities of both countries agree.

Workers Seconded From Spain To China The Bilateral Agreement would apply as follows: The employee would continue paying their contributions to the Spanish Social Security system and therefore, those aspects included in the Bilateral Agreement relating to China would not be payable. However, the employee would have to pay contributions in China for health assistance, work accidents, occupational disease and temporary disability.

SWEDEN

Obligation to maintain Swedish personnel ledgers in additional industries The Swedish Parliament has accepted that additional sectors should have the obligation to keep Swedish personnel ledgers from 1 July, 2018. The Swedish tax agency was commissioned by the Government to investigate how the system of personnel ledgers can be developed to include additional industries to oppose social dumping and the shadow economy. The Decision The new industries that will be required to keep personnel ledgers must follow the same rules that apply to restaurants, hairdressing

and laundry businesses. The rules for the construction industry should therefore not apply to the new industries. The new decision also implies some minor changes to the current rules regarding personnel ledgers. The new industries with an obligation to keep the personnel ledgers include Body & Beauty Care, Food & Tobacco Wholesalers and Automotive Service businesses. The decision by the Swedish Parliament is based on the focus from the Government and the tax office to challenge the shadow economy and tax evasion. A number of changes were made with reference to these goals, such as previous extended obligations to keep personnel ledgers as well as the introduction of PAYE returns at an individual level. PAYE returns at an individual level must be filed from 1 July, 2018 for companies that are liable to keep personnel ledgers under the previous rules, and have more than 15 employees. The remaining companies will be liable to file PAYE returns at an individual level from 1 January, 2019. Prepared by BDO LLP. For further information please contact Andrew Bailey on 0207 893 2946 or at andrew.bailey@bdo.co.uk

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

Consumer Technology and the Evolution of Mobility - Personalising the Employee Experience According to a recent article* 55% of HR Managers in the US state that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will become a part of their function in the next 5 years, while 13% already experience it. Compare this to a consumer report** stating 55% of households will own a ‘smart speaker’ by 2022 and 16% of households already own one, and we can see that in the wider business world, technology development and adaption may finally be catching up with the consumer world. Consumer tech has been driving technological development ever since the arrival of the personal computer in the 1980’s. Adapting consumer tech trends to the workplace is widely accepted as more successful in achieving employee adoption and motivation than utilising specifically developed enterprise technology – or technology developed without consumer trends in mind. Unfortunately, many of us in mobility have long suffered from lack of budget or recognition that mobilityspecific technology is required to manage compliance and operations across so many different service areas – from immigration to tax, to relocation and compensation. It hardly needs to be restated that this de-prioritising of mobility tech has led to low-grade solutions, disconnected databases, basic in-house developed HRIS bolt-ons, and – let’s face it – a fundamental reliance on MS Office applications.

than striving to do everything but achieving mediocrity at most. HR systems consistently fail to provide sophisticated capability across generalist HR, Recruitment, Performance & Talent Management, Reward and Benefits, Payroll and Mobility – and as a result, separate refined applications are developing with focus on specific areas – further evidence of how even in mobility, enterprise technology is following consumer tech trends.

There are five generations in the workforce currently, ranging from those who remember black and white televisions, to those who have never known life without the internet

One Size Does Not Fit All

However, for many organisations the mobility ecosystem is now firmly established and facilitating true data collaboration through digitalisation of the mobility network. Advanced data analytics supports evidencebased decision-making as organisations are able to use real-time information and hard facts to support agility in GM. Integration via standard APIs has encouraged the use of specialised companies and apps that focus on doing one or two things really well, rather

Now consider employment changes over time. There are five generations in the workforce currently, ranging from those who remember black and white televisions, to those who have never known life without the internet. The implications of such skills and experience spread are impacting every aspect of current work and life. In recent years, while there has been a distinct shift back to focus on the needs of employees in very different ways

to the days of legacy generosity in policies. Companies claim to be listening to their employees, appreciating generational variety and delivering more to multi-generational motivations rather than throwing money at them. But is that really true?

Consumerism & Personal Choice

Employee focus has so far manifested in expanded policy suites, direct access to information, user friendly apps, Core-Flex policies and shifting emphasis from mobility team tech to employee focused tools. However, pressure by the multi-generational workforce on current employers is forcing a new level of flexibility, one we see well established in the consumer world. Simple, user-friendly employee elections are becoming fundamental – choices such as cash versus home leave tickets, ‘better’ housing versus more travel, even complete cafeteria plans are now becoming the norm. True flexibility is stretching beyond the business and the traditional core concerns of mobility – those of compliance and logistics versus an occasional cost-benefit election. In chapter 5 of the 2018 RES Forum Annual Report – ‘Alternative Forms of International Work’ we are seeing that the lines are blurring between business travel and international assignments – just as we see the lines blurring between work and personal life. Employee demands are becoming more personal – stretching beyond traditional compensation and benefits. New workplace demands include ‘bleisure’, or tagging personal trips on to business travel, complete flexibility over vacation time and strong demand for cutting-edge software and mobile devices to work with on a daily basis – anything less and your millennial talent will think twice about coming to work for you. On the other hand, Gen X and Boomers are more likely to request work from home and flexible schedules to support their work-life balance and family demands.

Employee Well-Being And Happiness

Now that evidence-based decision-making is firmly established in mobility, the mobility ecosystem could be extended – leveraged to bring further data insights on employee

TECHNOLOGY opinion and wellbeing into the mobility ‘bigger picture’. Stress levels, work-life balance, even loneliness and depression are often addressed through impersonal awareness campaigns in larger organisations, but there is a failure to link well-being and happiness to direct demands of the job. How much do organisations really know about how their employees feel about being on the road continuously, or travelling without their families? What are the direct impacts of cost control on travel policies, such as travel class cut-backs, forcing employees to travel multiple times per week on budget airlines and use public transport for the sake of cost over convenience? In a world of five star and smiley-face selection, I suspect airport security has better informed data on employee happiness than most companies. As full compliance and operational excellence become easier to obtain, it is no longer attractive to provide compliance over experience, it is essential to provide flexibility and personal choice. In the broader HR world, low cost solutions such as robots and AI are already replacing humans in the process where it makes sense – utilising chat bots, virtual accommodation tours and self-driving trucks to name a few. The next generation of technology offers an opportunity to combine compliance and logistics data with point-in-time pulse checks and employee feedback solicitation and soon

clever AI will link such feedback exercises with previous choices and responses – true personalisation in the manner of merchant recommendations (the ‘you might also like…’ approach to advertising).

Humanising GM

From a technology perspective, platforms must be up-to-date and capable of true data collaboration – utilising the latest in standard APIs to connect with multiple mobility services. They must also be simple yet sophisticated enough to future-proof your programme by allowing flexibility – functionality and service area add-ons, eliminating barriers to the changing nature of mobility, supporting what Accenture terms ‘frictionless business’***. The natural progression of ‘consumerising’ mobility technology is that it enables GM to focus human interaction on especially emotive services such as providing personalised briefings and conducting housing, school and area orientations once in a location. Mobility has the opportunity to at least keep up with the wider HR world – but we need to be speedy in order to be agile – the pressure is on to tool-up for the future with flexible technology that leverages consumerism and offers choices that speak across the generations. * HR Dive, Feb 2018 ** TechCrunch article on a Juniper Research Nov, 2017 *** Accenture Tech Vision 2018

VICKI MARSH

Head of Operations, UK, Equus Sotfware. Equus Software is the global leader in cloud-based international relocation and mobility solutions. More than 300 organisations around the world rely on Equus tools and technology to automate mundane, transactional work so that global mobility teams, talent management professionals and other key stakeholders can focus on adding value to the business. Founded in 1999, Equus has a proven track record for delivering cutting-edge talent mobility solutions, continuous innovation and exceptional customer service. Visit www.equusoft.com.

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

Don’t Shoot The Admiral! “Dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres”. At least that’s the explanation given to Candide in Voltaire’s 1759 classic satire for the execution by firing squad of the Royal Navy’s Admiral Byng. Having warned that he didn’t have the resources to successfully carry out the mission, Byng was found guilty by court martial. The Articles of War decreed one law for all: the death penalty for any officer of rank who did not do his utmost against the enemy in battle or pursuit. Thus, Byng was executed in spite of pleas for clemency from amongst others, the Lords of the Admiralty. No exceptions. Global Mobility professionals have for years been grappling with policies and exceptions (although admittedly few exception requests I have seen have resulted in quite so dramatic a conclusion!). In part, this has arguably often been simply down to a steadfast adherence to policy. As Dr. Pangloss remarks to Candide, “things cannot be otherwise than they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end”. The policy is the policy. Everyone gets the same. This allows us to forecast and manage cost. No exceptions. Many tenured Global Mobility professionals will have witnessed over time not only an evolution in the way in which exceptions and exception approval processes are managed, but also a plethora of techniques used to discourage assignees from requesting policy exceptions. The annualised, grossed-up figure, the Global Mobility Manager or their RMC representative tells the assignee, will need to be approved by your Vice President. So is your exception really necessary in the current climate, given our well-publicised corporatewide cost saving target? The exception can then be routed for approval through the use of the latest Global Mobility technology and costings revised for appropriate budget forecasting. Exceptions can be tracked by policy area, service, business unit and location. They can be scrutinised to identify trends by RMCs seeking to provide consultative valueadd and those within the organisation charged with bringing down the cost of mobility. A veritable cottage industry. A one-size-fits-all (one law for all) approach will inevitably bring with it a flurry of exceptions because not every assignee is

the same. Questions therefore arise around the flexibility of policy and the nomenclature used to categorise exceptions. Let us firstly deal with the latter.

Many tenured Global Mobility professionals will have witnessed over time not only an evolution in the way in which exceptions and exception approval processes are managed, but also a plethora of techniques used to discourage assignees from requesting policy exceptions Assignees looking to ease their transition into a new life in a new location whilst doing their ‘utmost’ in their day-to-day professional duties may require additional days in temporary accommodation or an additional day home search in a difficult market. This type of need appears to be less about making exceptions to a policy but finding flexibility within the policy to support personal circumstances. As opposed to classifying these types of additional expenditure as exceptions, it may be more

appropriate to classify them as deviations to policy. For the sake of policy evolution, there is still merit in tracking and reporting on policy deviations but the idea of striking a more conciliatory tone through the flexibility of deviations targets meeting assignee needs rather than salami-slicing mobility costs. A well-structured framework of mobility policies which incorporates some degree of flexible elements can help negate the tensions caused by an exception management process and the cottage industry built up around it. This topic has come to the fore once again in Global Mobility circles and, a little bit like a Rolling Stones tour; newcomers to the industry aren’t the first generation of Global Mobility professionals to have witnessed it. So why has this concept re-emerged, why are some organisations embracing it and why are others more sceptical?

Why Provide Flexibility?

Globalisation has changed the way in which human beings interact with the world. Technology has brought information to our fingertips. Employee attitudes towards work and even nationality and citizenship are changing. One Global Mobility professional put it recently that “for younger generations in the workplace, cash is king”. Equally, employers’ expectations of employee skills, global mind-set and mobility are changing. There is increasingly a greater awareness of the competitive advantages to an organisation of a truly diversified workforce and the benefits the varied skills that this workforce can bring. Through technology, organisations have better data to work with and as a result a clearer understanding of the make-up of their current globally mobile workforce. To address imbalances, organisations are seeking ways outside of traditional frameworks to make mobility appeal to and work for a broader demographic. More generally, we find that organisations are talking with greater frequency and enthusiasm about the assignee experience. As one Global Mobility professional remarked to us, “if an assignee has a cat rather than a child, why should we not give weight to the importance that it may play in someone’s life?” In many industries virtual working and remote working are increasingly accepted as the norm, whereas the emergence of the gig economy looks ever more likely to become a new way of working for significant sections of society. In this context, many organisations are looking at talent in a broader, more holistic context. This means making an assessment of how

FLEXIBILITY valuable an employee is to a project or role and the most efficient and effective means of getting them there.

Types Of Flexibility

Through our conversations with a range of corporates, we have identified a variety of approaches to flexibility within policy and have categorised these into eight different groupings, which are outlined below and summarised in table 1. In the approaches outlined we have deliberately avoided reference to Core/Flex, partly because this approach has been covered eloquently by other contributors to these pages, but also because to some extent these approaches can be seen as strains of Core/Flex. It is important, however, to make a clear definition between Compliance Core Services (i.e. tax and immigration services, which are now considered almost without exception by every organisation to be immutable in every policy scenario) and Core Services - those services which an organisation considers to be key to the success of an assignment or relocation. The flexible elements or services can then be treated in different ways dependent on the approach and context which we go on to discuss later.

Substituted Policy

Whist less common, we have found examples where organisations have been able to substitute a short-term assignment for a commuter arrangement for an assignee. In terms of flexibility around the assignee’s lifestyle, this approach can be a win-win for both employer and assignee. Much of course depends on the proximity of the home and host locations and the nature of the project.

Managed Service/ Cash Flexibility

This is the approach nobody wants, with the exception of the senior executive who has negotiated additional policy benefits. Many Global Mobility professionals have a war story about value-creating coercive leaders who the business has to get in place at any cost. Whilst sparse, this type of flexibility still occurs.

The issue of whether or not to allow an assignee to receive cash in lieu of a benefit or part of a benefit is one which elicits forthright responses from each side of the debate. Sterling has worked closely with one organisation recently to implement a process where the assignee can receive an amount of cash when they don’t take up a benefit in full. For example, an assignee choosing to fly economy class instead of business class is entitled to a cash amount. The intention is that this is cost neutral to the organisation in the worst case scenario. The important point to make is that this is a managed flexibility, so there are only a limited number of benefits where the assignee can ‘earn’ cash by taking a reduced benefit. Compliance related services are clearly protected, but the corporate has chosen to not allow services it deems to be beneficial to the success of the assignment to be cashed in. For example, cultural training does not fall within the boundaries of the scheme as, for this company at least, it is considered to be a core service. Separately, we are increasingly seeing organisations provide cash in lieu of a household goods shipment for some assignment types (refer to the section on ‘Organisational Approach to Risk’ for more on the merits and demerits of this approach). This perhaps recognises the changing demographic of assignees in the workplace. The flipside of providing cash in lieu of some services (or acceptance of a reduced service) is to allow the assignee to seek out an alternative service for which they will be reimbursed. An example of this is around language training where there are an abundance of apps available to support learning outside of traditional service delivery models.

Substituted Flexibility

Managed Fund Flexibility

Zero Flexibility

This is the archetypal rigid approach to policy management represented by traditional long-term assignments. The ‘use it or lose it’ approach has widely fallen out of favour with the majority of clients we speak with. The one size fits all approach which Admiral Byng fell foul of fails to recognise that there are more nuanced, personalised ways of getting the right talent in the right place at the right time with the tools they need to do the job. Furthermore, it may be a more costly approach as assignees take up benefits or services which are really unsuited to them for want of alternative options.

Negotiated Flexibility

The idea of substituting a policy benefit for something similar has been around for a long time. This type of flexibility works especially well for unaccompanied assignments or even when a family has a child away at university and the home leave expenditure can be transferred to the partner or child. Similarly, substituting an orientation or settling-in service for an additional day of home search may also be beneficial to some assignees.

This tends to be a technology-driven low cost option which maintains the idea of providing the assignee with services as

opposed to cash (although we have seen examples where organisations will pay the balance of the fund in cash once the assignee has arrived in post and all relocation activity has been concluded). The organisation sets a fund limit with a cash or points based equivalent which the assignee can use to acquire services from trusted providers.

Near Total Flexibility

Outside of core services, the assignee is simply given a cash lump sum and left to their own devices. This is clearly the last word in flexibility, but in our experience this is generally a step too far for most organisations. Aside from the issues around risk we discuss elsewhere, there are arguments about the effectiveness in role of an assignee who is directly managing their own relocation. We have seen this approach used for returning home country nationals who have studied and been hired abroad by way of an example (see Table 1 on next page).

Context

Just as Admiral Byng was working in the context of a war with France, a shortage of resources and a political backdrop of a public holding the government to account, so organisations must contend with their own context. The extent to which an organisation is able to provide flexibility is dependent on a variety of contexts and factors.

Industry

The industry or sector in which the organisation operates tends to influence the overall approach to reward and as a corollary to that its approach to its Global Mobility policy. Industries which traditionally generate higher revenues and higher profits can naturally afford to provide larger packages to their assignees, and as a result flexibility becomes less of an issue because an all-encompassing package leaves little out. Industries which typically generate lower margins are far more cost conscious and this in some cases limits policy flexibility. Organisations operating in the oil and gas sector as an example often need to send assignees to remote and sometimes dangerous locations, again resulting in a policy approach which provides a minimum level of core support over and above that which might be found in other sectors. By way of a contrast, the technology sector typically attracts a different type of assignee. As a result, fewer incentives are required to make mobility attractive and once again flexibility may take a different form.

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

Table 1: Types of Flexibility Approach

Defined as

Employer Perspective

Zero Flexibility

The “use it or lose it” approach

• Equitable • Financial gain when assignees don’t use full entitlement. Financial loss when exceptions are approved. • Ease of administration

Negotiated Flexibility

Power exerted by value creating assignees for strategic assignments

• Inequitable • Precedent creating • Financial loss when exceptions are approved

Substituted Flexibility

• Aims to be cost neutral Policy benefits are substituted for similar benefits • Relative ease of administration

Substituted Policy

One policy is substituted with another to achieve • Aims to achieve the same business outcome at a broadly similar cost the same business outcome

Managed Service Flexibility

Core compliance services provided. Some core services provided on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis. Flexibility to claim reimbursement for some policy benefits outside of core.

• Maintains compliance • Preserves services considered to be key to success and have a duty of care element • Aims to be cost neutral or even beneficial • Preserves the ‘ethic’ of providing services rather than cash • Relative ease of administration

Managed Cash Flexibility

Core compliance services provided. Some core services provided on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis. Flexibility to cash some policy benefits outside of core.

• Maintains compliance • Preserves services considered to be key to success and have a duty of care element • Aims to be cost neutral • Relative ease of administration

Managed Fund Flexibility

Core compliance services provided. Organisation sets a fund limit with a cash or points based equivalent which the assignee can use to acquire services from trusted providers.

• • • •

Maintains compliance Preserves the ‘ethic’ of providing services rather than cash Relative ease of administration Provides a low cost option

Near Total Flexibility

Core compliance services provided. Cash provided to cover all other requirements.

• • • • •

Maintains compliance Empowers employee Potentially abdicates duty of care Superficial ease of administration Provides a low cost option

Organisational Context

Some organisations, by dint of their industry and global footprint, walk a well-trodden path from a Global Mobility perspective, whilst others are sending assignees into emerging markets which may require additional support services and policy benefits.

Business Driver for Mobility

Our interactions with corporates lead us to believe that the business driver for mobility is a significant factor in both the degree of flexibility and the type of flexibility organisations provide in their policy. Increasingly organisations are structuring mobility in such a way as the business driver sets the policy framework as opposed to traditional perception of time bound assignments. Strategic assignments naturally tend to involve a senior employee further on in their career and often fall into the traditional home based, tax equalised long-term assignment category. The perceived value that the assignee creates for the business places a lot of power with the assignee resulting in richer mobility packages. Flexibility therefore in this context leans towards policy exceptions as the business driver is simply to get the employee in situ. Examples are multitudinous, but one which showcases the impact of organisational

context and the mobility business driver is a senior manager moving into an emerging market location who successfully argued that as his family was forced to forego the income generated by the partner’s career which paid for their children’s nursery fees, an out of policy exception for payment of nursery fees was approved. Short-term assignments tend to lend themselves more towards the substituted flexibility and substituted policy discussed under Types of Flexibility. For example, home leave benefits can be substituted for partner or child flights to the host location. Many organisations now draw a distinction between an unaccompanied short-term assignment up to six months and an accompanied assignment between 6 and 12 months. Temporary assignments for non-executive moves have greater scope for policy flexibility. For many organisations, these types of moves have already been cost optimised either by making them temporary host based assignments or localisations from the outset. It is with these assignment types, we often see Managed Service and Managed Cash Flexibility being increasingly used. Finally, there are cost-conscious developmental assignments and selfinitiated moves. The generational nature of

assignees moving under these policy types may drive organisations more towards cash based policy support.

Organisational Approach To Risk

Duty of care plays a significant role in the degree of flexibility an organisation will permit within its policies and is one of the reasons why organisations insist on some core services outside of the standard compliance services and some organisations are reluctant to provide cash alternatives. The extent to which an organisation feels that it is obliged to ensure that an assignee moves into a safe area (again this is contextual for different locations), avoids scams, doesn’t tie himself into a pernicious lease and uses quality service providers is a substantial determining factor in the structure and flexibility built into all policy types.

Organisational Approach to Career/Talent Management

Career progression in some organisations can be dependent on an employee’s international experience and exposure to the wider global business. Without this, the path into senior roles within the organisation is blocked. Incentivising a certain cadre of employees to take up international assignments is therefore not an issue. That isn’t to say that flexibility

FLEXIBILITY is entirely negated but it may influence an organisationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approach.

Organisation Culture

Some organisations naturally take a more paternalistic approach to the relationship they hold with their employees which may have an influence over the approach to policy structure and the degree of flexibility within that structure.

Conclusion

Managing an exceptions process is in itself a form of flexible policy management which recognises that an assignment policy cannot possibly cater for every scenario but it can be cumbersome and may set the wrong tone for assignees as well as creating the anathema of precedent setting. A policy framework which builds in elements of flexibility may be more conducive to meeting the changing mobility needs of a multi-generational workforce. Ultimately, there is a need to strike a balance between meeting these needs, cost, and duty of care. There are a variety of contexts which influence the extent to which flexibility can be achieved and numerous approaches which can be taken. As always, what works for one organisation may not be directly replicable in another. Policies shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be the end goal in themselves but a means of providing the

There are a variety of contexts which influence the extent to which flexibility can be achieved and numerous approaches which can be taken. right combination of services and benefits to give the assignee the tools to relocate and the organisation to move talent effectively. If Admiral Byng had had access to the right resources and the flexibility to use them, things might have turned out very differently.

STUART JACKSON

As Account Director at Sterling, Stuart focuses on working with clients to optimise their global mobility solutions . Stuart has worked in global mobility for seventeen years. His broad experience of working with different programme sizes across a variety of industry sectors helps to bring success to clients' programmes and wider business strategies. If you would like to discuss any of the points raised in this article or learn more about Sterling, please do not hesitate to contact Stuart Jackson at stuart.jackson@sterling.com.

International HR Adviser PRESENTS THE NEXT

Global HR Conference FOR GLOBAL HR PROFESSIONALS ONLY TAKING PLACE ON

Monday 8th October 2018 at Smith & Wollenksy, 1-11 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6HT

You and your colleagues are invited to join us for another educational afternoon of informative and educational seminars hosted by professionals in the field of Global Mobility

This event is FREE to attend and is for Global HR Professionals only

The seminar programme is in the process of being finalised, so for further information or to book your place, please email helen@internationalhradviser.com

GDPR

Is Your HR Department GDPR Compliant? If you’re anything like me, you’ll have spent most of May receiving hourly emails telling you that a company values your privacy and so won’t email you again unless you specifically opt in to receive their emails. It gave me a slight warm glow to think that after 25 May, I’d not be inundated with weekly emails from a company I once bought a pair of shoes from in 2004. And it’s all to do with GDPR. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is designed to protect the personal data of individuals. It imposes strict rules on how personal data is handled and secured, and provides people with rights that will keep them in control of their data.

What are the obligations for HR?

In the simplest terms, HR need to know what data they hold, where they hold it and why they hold it.

What?

Conducting an audit is the best way to capture the information; start by asking the team what information is held and inputting this into a ‘data register’. The data register should include the legal basis for processing data; and you have to determine which basis fits which data process. In most cases in HR, if your systems and policies are well written and you have a tight approach to data control, the viable basis will be ‘legitimate interest’. It’s a legitimate interest to hold the data you need to employ and pay someone (name, address, NI number, bank details etc.), and it’s a legitimate interest to track absence data in order to administer your sick pay or absence policy.

Where?

If your teams are anything like ones I’ve worked in, HR people have a tendency to download data from the central database and store it on their own drives in Excel spreadsheets, whether to make their own reports or to monitor their client database. It’s these ‘hidden’ data processes that need to be brought to light, and action taken to remove and delete. Most HR departments will have a personnel system which holds all HR data and the likely question to the software provider is: “Is the software GDPR compliant?”. Generally, the answer to this question is that a software product on its own

is not likely to be either GDPR compliant or non-compliant; it is a business that is compliant (or not), and in relation to software compliance depends on how a system is used, and with what personal data. So, for example, you might be entirely comfortable that all data is held securely on your personnel system, but if you have a post-it note with your password stuck to your computer screen, you’ve failed. Similarly, if you religiously take photocopies of passports with the ‘right to work’ as per our legal obligations, but keep these in an unlocked filing cabinet, you’ve failed.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is designed to protect the personal data of individuals Why?

pension providers, training companies, benefit providers, insurance companies… the list will go on. Make sure you capture which information is being passed to whom, and why. Check it’s being sent in the correct format, so encrypted and secure.

Telling Employees

Providing each employee with a clearly written statement telling that what data is held, why it is held and their rights is an important part of GDPR. It should also include the legal basis for processing the data, the retention periods for the data, and the way to complain to the ICO. It’s a fairly lengthy document and can look intimidating, so I’ve taken the approach of explaining what the Privacy Notice is in simple terms as a cover email. I’ve explained why we hold the data (to pay you!), or for legal obligations (demonstrate your right to work in the UK) or for regulatory reasons (ensure you have a clean criminal record).

How does an HR Department get GDPR ready?

Audit, audit, audit. Check what data you hold, check you can justify the reasons for holding and processing the data, check who has access and why, check how long the data is kept, check that people know their rights under GDPR including rights to complain to the ICO… … and let’s enjoy our slimmed down email inboxes, and watch to see how the law develops, in the UK and abroad.

Is all of the information requested (and held) strictly relevant? Yes, I need to know a new starter’s name, address, NI number and right to work in the UK. Do I need to know their marital status, or how many kids they have? Probably not. Application forms can ask for a lot of information which is hard to justify under the new regulations; and is irrelevant anyway. It’s a good opportunity to look at what documents you ask applicants or new starters to complete, and ask yourself exactly what information is required, and why it is necessary to hold. Minimise the data you hold wherever possible so you’re only keeping data which is necessary to effectively run your HR department. Finally, you’ll need to make someone responsible for ensuring that the data is protected, which is often the HRM or HRD.

Third Parties

There are generally a lot of third parties with whom you’ll share information; payroll,

VICKI FIELD

HR Director of London Doctors Clinic, a private London GP clinic.

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

Onboarding Oversight: Are Transferees Left to Sink or Swim? Onboarding new employees is something that is always done, but often not done well. Sometimes confused with orientation, onboarding is a comprehensive process involving management and other employees that can last up to 12 months. A Gallup study showed a correlation between engaged employees and a company's profitability, turnover rate, safety record, absenteeism, product quality, and customer ratings. An effective onboarding plan offers an ideal opportunity to boost employee engagement, such as fostering a supportive relationship between a new hire and management, reinforcing the company's commitment to helping employees' professional growth, or proving that management recognises the employees' talent. When onboarding is done well, it lays a foundation for long-term success for the employee and the employer. But, when an employee relocates for the position, should the onboarding process support the employee beyond the four walls of the office?

Relocation and The Onboarding Process

As an HR leader, your goal is to get the right people to all the right places to grow your business. But, it's important to realise you're not moving goods – you’re moving people! Amidst the trials, chaos, and excitement of moving, what matters most to their relocation success? Unique challenges face each employee and family. If unaddressed, these challenges can threaten their ability to thrive – derailing momentum. Employees are overwhelmingly relocating to progress their careers. In a recent survey of 3,078 IMPACT Group customers(1), 51% of transferees indicated the primary reason they accepted the move was for Personal Career Development.

Relocation Motivators • • • • •

51% Personal Career Development 22% Promotion/Necessary for Promotion 15% Other 7% Fear of Job Loss 5% Spirit of Adventure

ONBOARDING PROCESS They’re eager for career growth – yet, they likely need more support than new hires. They just uprooted their home, their family, and their life. While getting to know new faces at the office and learning a new role, they’re also getting to know new neighbours and learning a new city. All of this change at once is jarring.

cracks? Sixty-nine (69%) of employees are more likely to stay with a company for 3+ years if they experience great onboarding(5). Having an onboarding plan gets paperwork done – having an integration plan maximises your business return.

Does Your Onboarding Plan Make It Worse?

Onboarding is a difficult task to master; in fact, 70% of leaders rate their internal transitions as difficult(2). When it holds such weight on how quickly the employee will jump in and deliver results, it deserves more than a few training sessions and an employee manual. Many assume transferees already understand the business, so they’ll instantly transition into the role. This assumption may leave them floundering.

Good Intentions Don’t Guarantee Good Results

Companies have very good intentions, but rarely is a process created to walk the person through the first few months on the job with a set plan. The reality is 45% of companies don’t evaluate their onboarding programmes(3). While the employee struggles in the beginning, their engagement, productivity, and satisfaction may wane. In our survey, 75% of relocating employees reported being Highly Engaged at work after the relocation (1). Seventy-three percent (73%) reported being more productive at work when their family’s needs are properly supported during the move(1). However, a poorly focused onboarding plan can cause both of these numbers to slip rapidly. During the ramp-up period in the new role, importance needs to be placed on setting goals, prioritising projects, getting to know stakeholders, and determining how success will be measured. This is so valuable because it sets transferees up to be engaged and show their value.

Win at Onboarding

When done right, structured plans deliver results well past the immediate onboarding period. A 100-day plan can turn into a 6-month plan, which can turn into an annual plan. Think of the domino effect this has for future success. Less than a third of leaders believe they have meaningful support during their transition into a new role(4). Effective onboarding requires an action plan to address: • Organisational culture and priorities • Purpose of the new role • Stakeholders and strategies to build productive relationships • Manager expectations, priorities, and style • Goals for personal development Are you letting the return on your relocation investment slip through the

Relocation Motivators 51% Personal Career Development 22% Promotion/ Necessary for Promotion 15% Other 7% Fear of Job Loss 5% Spirit of Adventure References (1) 2018 People Perspective on Relocation Report, IMPACT Group, www. impactgrouphr.com/relocation-survey (2) The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins (3) 2017 Strategic Onboarding Survey Report, HR Daily Advisor & Silkroad (4) New Leaders Need More than Onboarding, Harvard Business Review (5) 18 Jaw Dropping Onboarding Stats You Need to Know, Click Onboarding Gallup Study: news.gallup.com/ businessjournal/188033/worldwideemployee-engagement-crisis.aspx

BARRIE GILMOUR

Senior Director, Global Sales at IMPACT Group, a global career coaching firm specialising in relocation, outplacement, and leadership development solutions. Visit: impactgrouphr.com Follow IMPACT Group: Twitter @impactgrouphr LinkedIn/impactgrouphr

IMPACT Group's High Impact Start A leadership development programme that coaches transferring employees to approach their first 100 days more strategically IMPACT Group's High Impact Start

A leadership development programme that coaches transferring employees to approach their first 100 days more strategically. Learn more at www. impactgrouphr.com/leadershipdevelopment/start.

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

The Global HR Mindset Do You Have What It Takes? As an HR practitioner, how do you find yourself in Global HR? In today’s increasingly global business environment it may in fact be as easy as simply accepting your first HR job. Gone are the days when you first had to do a number of years in local HR before aspiring to a global HR role. Whether your first HR job will be in a small start-up or a larger organisation, chances are that you will begin your Global HR journey as soon as you walk through the front door.

The Importance Of Cultural Awareness

All too often, HR practitioners are expected to handle situations for which they might not be prepared for unless they have already developed some or all of the aspects of a global mindset. More and more of what is deemed as ”normal” HR activities in fact involves the interaction with a very multicultural workforce and/or the movement of people across national boundaries through business travel or assignments. An appreciation of cultural differences and when these differences are important is then essential. As an HR function we also need to constantly reflect on our own cultural norms and attitudes. What cultural norms might bias our outlook, opinions, or even actions? How can we ensure that our HR practices are culturally sensitive, while minimising potential cultural bias? The organisations in which HR practitioners work are becoming increasingly multicultural in nature, therefore cultural awareness has become a core skill even in HR roles that only years ago might have been considered local HR jobs. Talent scarcity further drives the need for HR practitioners to be culturally aware as they recruit, onboard, and support an increasingly culturally diverse workforce. Not only are the leaders and employees more culturally diverse today, but also the HR function itself. No Global HR function can become effective unless it can manage to deliver business value as a cohesive whole even if the HR function itself is culturally diverse and globally dispersed.

Global & Cultural Effectiveness Competency

If an HR function gets stuck in a purely operational mode and/or has to constantly do

firefighting due to lack of clear strategy or welldeveloped processes, then it will continue to struggle to be seen as strategic and significant within the organisation. When an HR function ends up painted into a corner like that, then the opportunity for real business impact is lost. In too many organisations, the HR function is still seen as a cost centre, rather than a strategic function that can attract, develop and retain very scarce talent as well as support future business development. What HR functions often lack in order to deliver greater business value is improved global and cultural effectiveness competency. The Global HR function must be the brain, the muscles and the heart of the organisation in that it simultaneously must anticipate the future needs of the business, while delivering on what is needed in the present, while at the same time ensuring leaders and employees alike feel a sense of community and belonging within the organisation.

What HR functions often lack in order to deliver greater business value is improved global and cultural effectiveness competency What is needed is then a confident and courageous Head of HR that from within the Executive Team can champion an HR function which at least partially is allowed to focus on creating an agile and proactive HR function. The main focus of an agile HR function is the creation and successful implementation of HR policies and processes that properly supports the global and cultural effectiveness of all launched HR activities and initiatives.

Coaching Across Cultures For Business Success

Today as well as in the future, Global HR functions in multinational organisations of all sizes need to be change agents, and champions for the development of a global mindset among leaders and employees. The HR function, and especially L&D practitioners will be instrumental in supporting the further development of organisationwide cross-cultural knowledge, enabling their organisations to do well in international markets. Leaders need coaching from HR practitioners in order to develop the skills to nurture productive and efficient multicultural and geographically dispersed teams. Coaches should help their coachees leverage cultural differences (professional, national, etc.) to become an asset in creating business value and new opportunities. In order for Global HR practioners to deliver as coaches to leaders in multinational organisations, they need to themselves have access to valuable tools relating to unleashing the power of the multicultural workforce and know how to effectively adapt to culturally diverse business contexts. All HR practitioners should in my opinion strive to incorporate a coaching approach to their interactions with global business leaders, as that generally is more effective than a pure transactional exchange of do’s and don’ts based on policy documentation and employee handbooks.

Global HR Effectiveness Requires Teamwork & Collaboration

In today’s globalised world, most professional roles are becoming increasingly global. Today, I would claim an HR study programme that does not prepare future HR practitioners for increasingly globalised and complex roles would not be delivering value for its students, or for their prospective employers. In order to be effective in any HR role, there are certain core skills that you as an HR practitioner should aim to develop, which includes how to work in a distributed and diverse HR team. There will be no Global HR Effectiveness if there is no teamwork, and there will be no teamwork unless a culture of trust has been created and the lines of communication are open. But, the relationship and network building skills required for any effective Global HR practitioner goes well beyond the HR function. In order to deliver Global HR

GLOBAL HR MINDSET Effectiveness, HR practitioners need to actively collaborate with a wide variety of internal as well as external stakeholders. An equally important skill of HR practitioners in order to deliver effectively is knowing when to reach out to other internal or external specialists. A Global HR practitioner needs to know a lot in order to be a good collaborator or buyer of services. It is in situations where the HR practitioner does not know what he/ she needs that there might be a mismatch in what is asked for and the knowledge that in fact was needed. Striving to ask the right questions is a skill that HR practitioners should never cease to improve.

HR’s Key Role In Creating An Agile Organisation

The HR function has a key role to play in creating an Agile Organisation. Not only does traditional HR processes offer part of the necessary stability required as a counterpart to agility. Being a function that has needed to continuously do more with less while needing to quickly shift focus and deliver appropriate HR services based on ever-changing business needs, has over time required HR functions to become increasingly agile. Agility can be defined as the ability of an organisation to renew itself, adapt, change quickly, and succeed in a rapidly changing,

ambiguous, turbulent environment. It is important to note that agility is not incompatible with stability-quite the contrary. Agility requires stability for most companies. Agility needs two things. One is a dynamic capability, the ability to move fast-speed, nimbleness, responsiveness. And agility requires stability, a stable foundation of things that don’t change. An Agile Organisation is even more in need of just-in-time delivery of HR services that can quickly be adapted in response to new or altered business needs. Further, an agile organisation which needs to change quickly needs a Global HR function that can help support leaders and employees navigate through the stormy waters of continuous change. So HR agility occurs when the HR function can thrive on change and get stronger by it so that the ability to change in fact becomes a source of real competitive advantage. In summary, an HR practitioner with a Global Mindset is an asset in any organisation. Make the commitment today to strengthening your own Global HR Mindset over the summer! Start with assessing where your strong and weak points are regarding cultural awareness, global & cultural effectiveness, coaching across cultures, global teamwork & collaboration and HR agility.

HELENA WENNBERG

GMS-T, works as HR Generalist EMEA at Accedo as well as individual success coach through Adducam AB. She has previously headed the Global Mobility Consulting business segment in the Nordics at Mercer and has been a Global Mobility Research Associate at King’s College London. She has held in-house Global Mobility specialist roles within Statoil, Sandvik Tooling and Maersk Oil. She has represented Global HR practitioners within Worldwide ERC. She is the current Chairperson of the recently established SHRM Forum Nordics and is a Maturity Institute Associate.

DIGITAL MOBILITY

Immersive Experiences And Digital Mobility The application of design thinking, digital & technology to improve the employee experience The Opportunity, That’s Bigger Than You Think

To improve the employee experience through immersive digital solutions, for example Virtual Reality. Moving talent in a global environment is complex, risk-filled and disruptive. There are ways of making the experience of mobility simple, predictive and personal; digital can unlock these experiences.

The application of design thinking, digital & technology to improve the employee experience Global Mobility Is Changing

Within the context of global mobility, individual experiences need to change, to better align with personal digital experiences that drive expectations in the workplace. Employees require and demand experiences that help them with the challenges that mobility creates. And they want it in a seamless, consistent and digital way. We recognise that the emotional needs of employees are now more important than the functional needs. Immersive mobility is the idea of connected immersive experiences that solve unmet emotional needs of employees in a seamless and consistent way. There is an opportunity for brands to create consistent positive experiences, enabled by technology, for employees, that will positively contribute towards employee happiness and brand loyalty. As the world embraces the future of work, exponential technologies and open talent platforms, companies have the

opportunity to completely rethink their Global Mobility programmes.

housing options, local schools and find out what the new area has to offer.

Creating Connected Immersive Experiences For Employees

The Outcome: Less stress, a happy family and money saved on unnecessary travel.

Understanding the unmet needs of employees is our starting point. We take a human centred design approach when working with clients in the mobility space to understand these needs, before anything else. This helps us design experiences and solutions that make employees lives better, give form to function and solve the most difficult problems. We fall in love with the problem, not the solution. Design thinking uses empathy and experimentation to develop innovative solutions, solutions that are tested, iterated and less risky to deliver as they are based on evidence rather than instinct.

Why Embrace Digital?

INTERNAL PRESSURES • Reduce costs in enabling areas • Grow exponentially while striving to be more agile • Create an incredible employee experience • Shift in demographics of those moving globally. EXTERNAL PRESSURES • Exponential technology shaping the future of work • Changing mobile employee landscape and talent expectations • Regulatory uncertainty presenting new hurdles in compliance.

Re-imagined Relocation

The Brief: Help employees with the relocation experience and provide them with as much information as possible before they move. It’s stressful and sometimes visiting the new location isn’t an option. The Unmet Needs: Employees weren’t always able to travel, especially with their families, to a new country or office location. What We Delivered: A curated immersive space, where employees and their families, could take a tour of a new location. Paying a visit to the new office,

We take a human centred design approach when working with clients in the mobility space to understand these needs, before anything else Brilliant On-Boarding

The Brief: Make our on-boarding experience more impactful and get new joiners excited about their new role. The Unmet Needs: Employees were starting a new role without knowing much about the new office, this was creating anxiety and stress on day 1. What We Delivered: A VR immersive experience where new employees were given a virtual office tour. They met their new team, found out where they’d be sitting and where to go on day one to collect their security pass. The Outcome: An enhanced and engaging on-boarding experience, helping new employees with assimilate with their new workplace, and getting them excited along the way.

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

Activating This Opportunity Start With Design

We live and work in transformational times, as technology drives us ever faster forward. But, technology alone doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t create the future. We have an opportunity to design it in our favour. We use design to include empathy in transformation. A process of observation, intuition and experimentation to reveal, then release the benefits of technology to better create an experience that matters for people, organisations and society. Through a design-led approach, we infer and act, building from research and

understanding, making space for gut-feel and innovation, and move forward through prototypes and iteration.

Our Design Approach

1. Position: Commitment phase, establish the vision and ambition. 2. A nalyse: Evidence gathering phase, explore context and empathise with users. 3. Create: Better solutions development, ideation, experimentation and test solutions. 4. Evolve: Transformational phase, delivery capabilities and scaling solutions.

Digital Solutions That Engage

The importance of engagement and creating loyalty, personality and meaning for users.

KEVIN FREWIN

Global Workforce Director Deloitte, London kfrewin@deloitte.co.uk +44798 5244 269

ED GREIG

Chief Disruptor Deloitte Digital, London egreig@deloitte.co.uk +44782 526 3408

TOM HAWKSFIELD

Design Lead Deloitte Digital, London thawksfield@deloitte.co.uk +44776 9666 516

ANDREA AU

Associate Director, Tax Deloitte, London andreaau@deloitte.co.uk +44 20 7303 0598

BUSINESS TRAVEL

The Irony Of Automation: Technology Brings Us Closer To Humans - Not Farther Thanks to innovations like chatbots, artificial intelligence and mobile hotel check-in, the era of automated, “self-service” travellers may seem like a foregone conclusion. But as a growing segment of business travellers will tell you, tomorrow’s best-in-class corporate travel organisations don’t care about automation: they’re concerned with service. Whether it’s proactively solving problems for time-starved road warriors, providing a comfortable environment for relaxation and productivity, or knowing how to keep guests safe, providing the right attention to detail matters much more for today’s business travel providers than outsourcing to a machine or a computer. Funnily enough, it’s technology and automation which are finally delivering a closer look – and a greater opportunity – for hospitality to deliver on what matters most to business travel. “We believe that enriched data allows us to serve guests with precision and care – without discounting the human experience. Technology allows us to pinpoint requests and perfect almost every interaction. Does it matter? It’s the ability to meet every wish and peccadillo of the business traveller that allows business to flourish. In a recent white paper from Hotels 2020 by Rohit Talwar – Responding to Tomorrow’s Customer and the Evolution of Technology - we discovered that this insight is strongly reinforced. 95% of respondents expect that “Hotels will increasingly look to new technologies to drastically increase efficiency, reduce costs, personalise the customer experience and improve service”. Despite the emphasis on technology, people will still be the ultimate differentiator – 93% agreed that “Highly trained staff backed up by technology will be key to delivering personalised service and experiences”. “Responding effectively means a fundamental reframing of how we view our hotels. We need to develop a mindset that enables us to rethink our strategies,

revolutionise business models, rework service delivery and – as a result – reinvent the customer experience”. With some insights from our experts, HospitalityTech and Business Insider, let’s first give you a glimpse at what’s already creating the experiences that guests want and need:

Fixed-Mobile Convergence

It may sound like science fiction, but many of pieces of this scenario are already available or in development. The guest of tomorrow will be more connected than ever before. Once upon a time, people used their room phones. However, the pervasiveness of mobile devices has relegated the conventional room phone to a vastly reduced role. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a role moving forward. The room phone of the future may serve as a hub for a larger connected experience. Imagine a guest arrives at your property and pairs his mobile device to his room phone. Now they can use their mobile to control the TV and the sound system, perhaps even the blinds. They can use it to request a wake-up call if they find themselves out late. You can let them know that their dry cleaning is ready, even if he’s across town at a meeting. And if he needs to take his call from your lobby into a cab so he doesn’t miss a meeting, the handoff from Wi-Fi to 4G is seamless.

Mobile Device As Door Key

It’s fascinating that a function as simple as a door key could undergo so much evolution. But the tool that once started as a carefully shaped piece of metal quickly turned into electronic key cards, and is set to shed its physical form altogether. The next evolution of the hotel key transforms it into data on a guest’s mobile device. Some hotels have already started implementing this, whether it involves NFC technology or visually scanning a code like many airports now do with plane tickets.

The Seamless Use Of Apps

There’s a glut of clever apps that make complex tasks – and even painfully difficult ones – a breeze. The issue is picking and choosing. It’s hard to collect all of your favourites and then use each one selectively. That borders on overload and can test

the limits of the benefit they intended to provide. The ability to wrap all of your favourite apps into a platform that’s supported by your hospitality provider makes all the difference. It means you get personalised amenities and hacks, each baked in to the overall experience. For example, we have pulled together these gems as a part of the daily/overall service experience: • Duffl (my favourite) – allows you to hit multiple cities without worrying about baggage • Open Table and Blue Apron • TripAdvisor and CityUnscripted.

Artificial Intelligence

Hotels are now using AI to create unique and memorable customer experiences in combination with automated room features. For instance, when a room is programmed by the guest to "wake-up" during the morning hours, AI could trigger automated features such as the drapes opening and turning on a preferred news or radio station. AI could also be used, in the form of push marketing offers or chatbots, to remind hotel guests to grab a meal or drink from the onsite bar and restaurant, to schedule a room cleaning service, or to add a spa service to their stay.

SEAN WORKER

President & CEO, BridgeStreet BridgeStreet is using technology to push the industry forward. Completely dedicated to their new technology platform where it is EASY to LIST and BOOK ExtendedStay experiences, BridgeStreet has embodied these transformational changes. It’s no longer sufficient to rely on incremental improvements to marketing and service delivery to attract tomorrow’s guest. To reach tomorrow’s Business Traveller, we may have to re-imagine how we’ll relate to an increasing diversity of future guests with constantly evolving needs. Yes, it’s a bold new world. And we’re excited about it. Visit BRIDGESTREET.COM

FINANCIAL EDUCATION

Complications Of Financial Planning for American Employees Overseas In a globalised world where employees have an ever-increasing opportunity for business travel, working abroad has fantastic benefits. As professionals who have taken assignments around the globe, both Barry and I have worked in multiple countries and experienced the excitement, benefits and challenges! Clearly for most people, especially Americans where global taxation applies, any expatriate wants to understand how their expatriate status affects tax requirements at home and in their host country.

US Tax Status – Special Considerations

US connected persons - US citizens, Green Card holders, US residents for tax purposes and those born in the United States fall under US global taxation. Additionally, those born outside of the United States but who have a US parent can potentially be subject to FATCA (2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). As a direct result of FATCA, US expatriates now working or living outside of the United States are facing much tougher restrictions with many international financial institutions unwilling to offer many of them services. Those employees aiming to send their salary back to their native bank accounts, face the risk and volatility of the exchange rate, and are increasingly finding that US based brokerage firms are closing their accounts. Expatriates who do not intend to return back to the US should perhaps consider having their money managed by a firm local to their current location and in a currency more favourable to their immediate circumstance to avoid foreign exchange charges and risks.

The Need For More Financial Education

Over the years, companies have gone through cycles of providing more and less Financial Education to their employees. A 2014 survey by Aon Hewitt showed that 93% of companies said they were planning to create or expand financial wellness programmes. Awareness of the need and benefits of financial education for individuals is more critical than any other time in history. The landscape for financial planning is changing due to a variety of reasons, some of which include:

• Individuals are expected to take control of their own financial circumstances more and more • Growing complexity of the financial product landscape • Anticipated adjustments to government safety nets and erosion of state benefits more generally • Longer life spans modify the moneylifestyle equation. It’s important for all levels of employees not just expatriates. Why? In part to gain the most from existing company benefit plans but also to help employees become less stressed about their financial health resulting in: • Increased productivity • Reduced absenteeism • Reduced turnover • Higher engagement and job satisfaction.

Independent Financial Advice

There is an advice gap that has resulted in many American expatriates unable to seek proper guidance whilst working abroad. Moving to a new country - and all the challenges that can bring - can sometimes be overwhelming. There are a small number of advisers willing to work with Americans and when selecting one the expatriate should consider: • Does the adviser understand the investment challenges, opportunities and tax implications of investing in both Europe & the US? • Is the expatriate getting “joined up thinking” on investments and retirement assets in both Europe and the US? • Can the US adviser help the expatriate manage their European investments and retirement assets if they leave Europe? • Who is helping them transfer money costeffectively between countries? • Does the adviser understand that they can’t invest in US mutual funds while they’re a resident overseas? In a Forbes magazine article (2015) the total additional cost benefit of financial advice is around 3% per annum. This was mainly due to the advisers ability to customise the portfolio to the clients appropriate risk outcomes, minimising risks and tax implications and behavioural coaching of the investor, particularly in times of market stress when many investors are inclined to make rash decisions that can end with selling assets at exactly the wrong time. Companies need to do far more to equip their employees with financial education

and wellness programmes. They also need to focus on specific groups that have specific difficulties, such as Americans where there are specific needs that should be taken into account before and after they move outside the US.

ROBERT RIGBY-HALL

Robert is President of Beacon Global Group, an integrated set of businesses that support the financial planning needs of Americans living overseas - both while they’re overseas and after they return. He has over 30 years of global experience specialising in general management and human resources. He has run businesses and lived and worked in the United States, UK, Europe, and Asia.

BARRY HONEYMAN

Barry is Managing Director of Beacon American Advisors. He has 18 years’ financial services experience with knowledge of both UK and International advisory markets. He has worked for Prudential International, Old Mutual International and Praemium. Barry holds a DipPFS Financial Planning & Services from the Chartered Insurance Institute and is also EFA, European Financial Adviser accredited. www.BeaconFinancialEducation.org www.BeaconAmericanAdvisors.com

GLOBAL MOBILTY EDUCATION

Global Mobility Education, One Size Does Not Fit All! Over the years, the GM function has become increasingly complicated and the importance of specific GM education manifest. But what is education, why is it so difficult to create education geared toward the GM domain, how do working professionals learn and what is so special about education for GM professionals? This article brings some clarity into the different stages of a learning process and demonstrates why a one-size-fits-all approach is not only ineffective, but even hazardous when adding GM and GM working professionals to the equation. Before 2008, there was hardly any interest in education in the area of Global Mobility. Not surprisingly, since the complexity of the disciplines was still manageable, the departments were adequately staffed, and there weren’t any serious restrictions on financial resources for external consultancy and support. Moreover, governments were still struggling to get a grip on noncompliance of cross-border workers, and the occasional penalties and reputation damages were embarrassing, but not disruptive. In 2008, things changed. Almost overnight, GM departments were confronted with severe constraints on resources due to the economic crisis. In the years to follow, the situation became even grimmer. Economic, political and demographic developments forced countries to protect their labour markets and national treasury. As a result, strict enforcement was introduced resulting in delays, extra costs, penalties and reputation damage, etc. At the same time, business demands changed due to growing international competition and shortfall of talented employees. GM departments had to cope with diversification in assignment types and compensation approaches, the growing demand for flexibility and agility and the need for strategic support and solutions. And last but not least, the profile of the assignee changed: the influx of generation X and Y brought new challenges in terms of work-life balance. In this climate, GM staff started to feel the full weight of the shortcomings in knowledge and skills. The importance of education became obvious. As a dedicated GM education institute,

we receive many requests for information about which learning solution would fit the requester best. Unlike what you might expect, answering this question adequately is not easy. After all, we´re dealing with Education, Global Mobility and GM Working Professionals, a challenging and at first sight incompatible trinity.

In this climate, GM staff started to feel the full weight of the shortcomings in knowledge and skills. The importance of education became obvious What Is Education

Not just the world of Global Mobility has changed dramatically, the world of education has too. New insights into learning and the development of learning technology opened up a playing field with unprecedented opportunities for education. Without delving too deep into the world of education, to grasp the effectiveness of modern learning you need to distinct five stages: awareness, knowledge, understanding, skill and maintenance.

Stage 1

Awareness initiates learning provided there is an interest and a sense of urgency. Awareness is driven by data (facts and figures) and information (the context in which data is presented). In practice, awareness is often confused with knowledge, but having read an article

or attended an event does not mean one has gained knowledge on the topic that has been discussed. Even worse, without knowledge to validate the underlying data and information acting upon this data and information is hazardous.

Stage 2

Knowledge is comprehension; the ability to perceive and interpret information correctly. Knowledge is gained by studying, repeating and testing. However, knowing does not mean understanding.

Stage 3

Understanding is instilled knowledge that has been built layer-upon-layer by repetition over a longer period of time. It enables you to reach a higher level of abstraction, consider subject matter from different perspectives and apply it strategically to different situations and purposes. The path from awareness to knowledge and from knowledge to understanding needs a purposefully designed curriculum, defined learning objectives, proven methodology, skilled teachers, attuned study materials, substantial time investment and … perseverance.

Stage 4

It’s often presumed that knowledge and skill are identical, but that is not the case. Knowledge is about theory, skill is about performance. Skill is gained by experiencing in practice.

Stage 5

Knowledge and skill need maintenance. In a world as volatile as GM, ongoing education and training is imperative to prevent it from fading away or becoming obsolete. Applying these principles into education programmes and training schemes demands a thorough understanding of the field in question.

Embedding Global Mobility In Education

The GM domain is a myriad of cross-border movements, stakeholders with competing (and often conflicting) interests, (academic) disciplines with a strong interdependency, and wide geographical spreading. To make embedding GM in education even more difficult, fundamental differences exist between organisations regarding GM roles, functions, competences and job titles. Moreover, the landscape is constantly changing in terms of statutory and regulatory

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

requirements, technology, internal organisation, business demands. In this versatile domain, it is paramount education is versatile too. It doesn’t make sense to put corporate GM professionals, HR business partners, relocation agents, tax consultants, etc. in the same class. But it also doesn’t make sense to offer role-specific education without taking the variety of tasks within the role into account or disregard the other stakeholders in the value supply chain. Furthermore, in-depth assessment when basic knowledge is non-existant is pointless, as is a silo approach when the disciplines involved are so entangled with each other. In other words, GM education needs a high degree of diversification and at the same time a holistic approach. We took up this challenge and created “new school” education based on competence-driven learning objectives, proven methodology, and an overall approach differentiated in perspectives and levels, from beginner to academic level. There was just one challenge left: tailoring it to the GM Working Professional.

Pièce de résistance: Customising GM Education For GM Working Professionals

Every person is unique, has his/her very specific needs and preferences when it comes to learning. GM education must incorporate this individual approach, simply because diversification as described above is not enough to guarantee effective learning for working professionals in the GM domain. What is so special about this category of learners compared to other working professionals, you may ask? Well, as opposed to other highly specialised professions, there was no intrinsic GM education and training available for a long time. This resulted in a generation of GM professionals who had to learn the profession by themselves or with the help of

What they need to meet their individual purpose and potential is individualised learning based on a personal development path 36

colleagues who had to learn it themselves and are now feeling the ice cracking beneath their feet due to the fact that their knowledge and skills are no longer matching up to the demands of their environment. This is a generation that is being torn between the increasing complexity of compliance requirements and priority claiming demands of the business, between strategic support of the business and constant change of organisational structure, between heavy workload and ongoing time and

budget constraints, between coming to grips with new technology and wanting the best assignment experience for their assignee. To repair gaps in their basic knowledge, eliminate misconceptions, and bring them to the level that matches the required competences within the limitation of available time and budget, traditional learning – even if differentiated as described above - won’t work. What they need to meet their individual purpose and potential is individualised learning based on a personal development path.

INGE NITSCHE

Inge Nitsche LLM is a leading authority on Global Mobility education & CEO of the Expatise Academy. Her GM expertise originates from the early 1990’s and the many expatriate management roles she has been involved in since then. Besides her passion for the GM field of work she has also been involved in research on teaching and learning while working for several universities. This combination of expertise led to the inception of the Expatise® formula in 2002 and the founding of the Expatise Academy, a not-for-profit education institute dedicated to providing individualised Global Mobility education. About the Expatise Individualised Learning Approach Whether you choose a comprehensive course, a single on-demand course or a handpicked selection of courses, the content is attuned to your interests and professional development path. We will support this personal learning strategy not only with teaching expertise but also with cutting edge technology that adapts to your level and pace of learning. Do you want to belong to the premiere league of highly educated and trained GM Professionals? Then join us: • In September, the master course Global Mobility at Erasmus University Rotterdam will start, a comprehensive course at academic level, leading to level-4 certification • In case you prefer a fully online course, have a look at our Elementary course • Interested to gain knowledge in a specific topic when you’re in need of it or when it suits you best? In September 2018 we will launch the Expatise Educate Yourself Portal. Visit our website (www.expatise.academy) for information or send an email (learning@expatise.academy). Expatise Academy: Gateway to worldwide recognition of the GM Profession In 2010, Expatise Academy was founded by visionary GM and Compensation & Benefits Leaders who were convinced that specialised education is the gateway to becoming a credible partner who can add value to GM stakeholders. Nowadays, the Academy is a worldwide provider of proven individualised learning solutions and is actively supported by many influential followers who are well aware of the fact that life-long individualised learning is the most powerful investment in the future of Global Mobility. Together, we will survive the storm of outsourcing and offshoring, like we did before, provided you keep investing in yourself in terms of learning, don’t settle for insignificant certifications and titles, and don’t let yourself be discouraged by providers wishfully thinking their technology will replace the GM function. Believe in the complexity of the GM domain, in the importance of the GM function for the overall success of the company and above all … believe in yourself, the human dimension that is indispensable in terms of empathy toward the company’s most important asset, its Talents, but also indispensable for keeping technocratic decision makers on the right path. Global Mobility cannot work without GM specialists; anyone who claims otherwise does not understand the dynamics of the domain. We welcome passionate GM experts to join our movement and become our ambassador as Expatise Advisor, Faculty Member, Education Partner or Knowledge Partner. Interested? Let me know.

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The Irony of Automation: Technology Brings Us Closer To Humans – Not Father Onboarding Oversight: Are Transferees Left to Sink or Swim?

ADVISORY PANEL FOR THIS ISSUE:

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DIARY DATES

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

JULY 2018

Navigating a US and Global Immigration Programme in 2018: How to Stay on a Compliant Course with Cyber Data Security and Complex Government Regulations

12 July 2018 Half-day Master Series event in Chicago, Illinois, USA As populist sentiments around the world drive immigration reforms, several countries have unveiled noteworthy changes to immigration regulations. Explore how these developments are impacting mobility, and what’s needed to stay compliant, in a half-day Worldwide ERC® Master Series event. Learn more and register at www.worldwideerc.org/events

Navigating Immigration Today and Tomorrow: Veer Right or Stay Centre?

117 July 2018 Half-day Master Series event in Boston, Massachusetts, USA As some countries opt to push immigration policy to the right, others are embracing open strategies to further their economic, political and humanitarian goals. Take part in this halfday Worldwide ERC® Master Series event, and explore what changes to expect and how to adapt your company’s immigration programme while maintaining compliance. Learn more and register at www.worldwideerc.org/events

The New Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) Visa - What You Need to Know

26/27 July 2018 Complimentary Worldwide ERC® webinar With the commencement of Australia's new Temporary Skill Shortage (TSS) Visa and reforms to the permanent employer sponsored visa programmes in March 2018, join this free webinar for some of the practical considerations businesses need to know to navigate the legislative changes, and the challenges faced by business to date. Tune in at 18:00 US EST on 26 July (8:00 Australian ET on 27 July) for this free webinar. www.worldwideerc.org/events

SEPTEMBER 2018

FEM APAC Global Mobility Summit & EMMAs – Singapore

6 September 2018 MAX Atria – Singapore Expo Don’t miss the opportunity to attend the FEM APAC Global Mobility Summit & EMMAs in Singapore and hear from leading global mobility professionals. Join us to share best practice and network with your peers while coming away with valuable insights and ideas for your own programme. Find out more information at www. apac.forum-expat-management.com

The Driving Change Conference

12 September 2018 - London, UK This conference will feature 26 HR and Change Directors speaking on how to drive next-level, sustained engaging cultural and organisational

change strategies. In just one day, discover how to engage and communicate with diverse employees and leaders, implement agile, positive cultures and harness new technologies to win business wide buy-in and measurably boost long-term change success! Find out more about the event drivingchangeconference. com/programme/brochure. Book your place drivingchangeconference.com/ticket-price with an exclusive £100 discount using the code ‘VIP100’.

My Way, Your Way, Our Way

18 September 2018 Complimentary Worldwide ERC® webinar Lessons from a case-study encapsulating some of the 'pain points' US global mobility professionals have experienced when failing to get buy-in from their global counterparts. Tune in for lessons in global communication, vote for your preferred solution and then hear what the experts have to say. Free webinar at 11:00 ET www.worldwideerc.org/events

The People Analytics ValueAdding HR Conference

19 September 2018 - London, UK This conference will feature 20 HR innovators who will be discussing how to fuel strategic goals and growth and tell the story behind your changing workforce with next-level, valueadding HR and people analytics, insights and strategies. In just one day, discover how to drive decision-making with data-driven, predictive and actionable analytics and insights, gain senior buy-in and optimise your absence, turnover, engagement and talent strategies as well as uncover the latest tools and metrics to futureproof your workforce. Find out more about the event www.hranalyticsconference.com/ brochure. Book your place hranalyticsconference. com/ticket-prices with an exclusive £100 discount using the code ‘VIP100’.

Expat Academy Conference

24 September 2018 - London, UK Here at Expat Academy, we’ve done your job and we hold over 50 events a year with Global Mobility professionals like you. We know and understand the value in getting together with your peers to knock around ideas and mastermind until you find the perfect solution for your organisation. What will you learn? • Whether flexible policies are right for you • How others manage their Global Mobility function • How senior HR leaders view Global Mobility Visit www.expat-academy.com or email bookings@expat-academy.com Rate: £675 + VAT (quote IHR for special discounted rate of £375 + VAT)

Employee Experience

25-27 September 2018 - London, UK This years’ Employee Experience Forum attendees will learn from CX leaders about the strategies that have transformed their organisations, demonstrate the ROI of EX initiatives, discuss how to action the insights gained from voice of the employee software & people analytics, and much more! Confirmed speakers include: • Kim Atherton, Chief People Officer, Ovo Energy

• Stela Barcelos, Global HR Director, Unilever • Jane Smyth, People Development Director, National Trust • Thomas Heier, People Director, Wagamama • Karl Jolly, Director of People, Welcome Break Find out more at employeeexperience.iqpc.co.uk/ landing/employee-experience-event-guide

ProcureCon Total Talent

26 - 27 September 2018 Novotel Amsterdam City, Amsterdam Bookings: procureconhr.wbresearch.com/ srspricing. Total Talent by ProcureCon is the event for talent acquisition and procurement leaders transforming spend on contingent staffing. It is where HR, talent and staffing procurement professionals from a wide range of businesses operating in Europe gather to benchmark, interact, network and develop professionally. Download the agenda at procureconhr. wbresearch.com/agenda-mc to find out exactly who is speaking, what the hottest topics are and how Total Talent can benefit you. Total Talent 2018 will bring together 175 workforce transformation and contingent staffing leaders and 50 expert speakers over 2 value packed days. As a proud partner of the event, we are pleased to offer you an exclusive 15% discount off the full price to attend, using our code: IHR2018. Book your place online at procureconhr.wbresearch. com/srspricing

OCTOBER 2018

International HR Adviser’s Conference

8 October 2018 - London, UK This free one-day conference is for Global HR professionals only. To register your free place, or if you have any further questions, please email helen@internationalhradviser.com.

Worldwide ERC® Global Workforce Symposium

17-19 October 2018 Seattle, Washington, USA Come together with industry builders, innovators, and disruptors to share distinct global perspectives and build talent mobility solutions for today and the future. Network, benchmark, collaborate, and reconnect with industry peers and experts against the backdrop of breath-taking views in one of the United States’ largest port cities. Learn more and capture the best rate by registering before 3 August at www.worldwideerc.org/gws.

NOVEMBER 2018

FEM EMEA Global Mobility Summit & EMMAs – London

8-9 November 2018 Intercontinental - O2, London, UK Don’t miss the opportunity to attend the FEM EMEA Global Mobility Summit & EMMAs in London and hear from leading global mobility professionals. Join us to share best practice and network with your peers while coming away with valuable insights and ideas for your own programme. Find out more information at www.emea.forum-expat-management.com.

International HR Adviser - Summer 2018

Articles inside

Onboarding Oversight: Are Transferees Left to Sink or Swim?