International HR Adviser Summer 2020

SUMMER 2020

ISSUE 81

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International HR Adviser The Leading Magazine For International HR Professionals Worldwide

DELIVERING HAPP EMPLOYEES READ BUSINESS TO THE REQUIRES SOMET

FEATURES INCLUDE: The Role Of Payroll In The Future Of Work • Thriving Amidst Uncertainty The Future Of Mobility - A Post COVID-19 Perspective • Learnings From A Global Pandemic Protecting Culture In A Crisis • Readers’ Recent Experiences During The Pandemic Preparing For The New Normal • Creating Institutional Memory For Crisis Management: Six Key Steps Managing The Risk Of Virtual Assignments • Global Tax Update ADVISORY PANEL FOR THIS ISSUE:

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CONTENTS

In This Issue 2 6

The Role Of Payroll In The Future Of Work Hayley McElvey & Nathan Male, Deloitte LLP

Getting To Grips With Global Immobility - International Home Workers & Other Considerations For Now And In The Future Andrew Bailey, BDO LLP

11 14 16 19 22 24 26 28 30 31 33 34 36

Global Taxation Update Andrew Bailey, BDO LLP

Managing The Risk Of Virtual Assignments Managing The Risk Of Virtual Assignments John Rason, Santa Fe Relocation

Creating Institutional Memory For Crisis Management: Six Key Steps Stuart Jackson, Sterling Lexicon

The Future Of Mobility - A Post COVID-19 Perspective Sean Collins, Talent Mobility Search

Preparing For The New Normal - Why You Should Re-Think Your Expatriate Management Model Mario Ferraro & Vincent Hennequin, ITX

Learnings From A Global Pandemic Claire Rutherford, Lonza

Protecting Culture In A Crisis Eugenio Pirri, Dorchester Collection

Did You See COVID-19 Coming?

Hazel Robinson, Brunel University

COVID-19 - What Have We Learnt From These Challenging Times?

Janice Wass, Leonardo UK

Magic During ‘The Great Pause’ Gina Vecchio, Equinix

Thriving Amidst Uncertainty Jill Dark, Steelcase

Enhancing The Expat Experience - A Deep Psychology Approach Angie Weinberger, Global Mobility Coach

How Is The Industry Opening Up? Dom Tidey, EURA

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Directory www.internationalhradviser.com HELEN ELLIOTT • Publisher • T: +44 (0) 20 8661 0186 • E: helen@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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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

The Role Of Payroll In The Future Of Work The future of work is here. In the spring edition of International HR Adviser, my Deloitte colleagues talked about the opportunity for global mobility.

In this article we consider the future of work in the context of payroll and workforce management.

Three significant forces are at play in changing the world of payroll and workforce management:

1. A Dynamic And Complex Environment

We continue to globalise our workforce and require greater flexibility in how we move and pay people. In the aftermath of COVID-19, the physical movement of workers may be reduced in the short or perhaps longerterm. However, sophisticated workforce management (time and attendance) tools will still be required to meet compliance obligations and protect against fraud, but they are equally a smart play in enabling organisations to be more strategic about how they predict, plan for, and deploy resources. Arguably, this is even more the case in a world where physical movement is restricted. We are already witnessing businesses critically assessing their workforce management platforms, as part of wider business continuity planning, as they recover from the impact of the pandemic. These technologies are intrinsically linked to the payroll application, and the two must never be allowed to be mutually exclusive.

The components of total reward are becoming more diverse. This diversity often brings complexity. For example, as companies shift from viewing wellbeing as a health benefit, to seeing it as a performance improvement strategy, they are increasingly investing in physical, mental, financial, family and social wellbeing packages(1). It is true that the payroll function rests downstream of this, but the complexity comes from yet another source of data that must be identified and extracted, with appropriate pay components being globally established to process the compensation.

2. The Rise Of The Worker

The worker is the consumer, and the importance of their pay experience is gaining momentum. This manifests itself in

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the need for employees to access pay data seamlessly and in real time, and often on a mobile device, but also in the rise of ‘payon-demand’.

The worker is the consumer, and the importance of their pay experience is gaining momentum For the uninitiated, pay-on-demand is a mechanism that allows workers to access their pay as it is earnt, rather than waiting until the next payroll cycle to receive it. To date, payon-demand has most prevailed in the USA. This may be a feature of a large gig economy, but it is also estimated that 78% of US workers are living ‘paycheck to paycheck’ to make ends meet(2). In the UK, more companies are emerging, offering access to some elements of pay as it is earnt (3). There is an underlying belief here too, that this may alleviate the nation’s dependency on high cost credit. In the current global environment it would not be a surprise to see this trend increase.

Aside from the more pioneering areas like pay-on-demand, it seems that the traditional payroll adage of ‘getting it done correctly and getting it done on time’ is still not reflected consistently in the employee experience. In the 2019 Pay Experience report, 31% of survey respondents claimed to have been paid inaccurately at least once in the last twelve months, and 24% had received a late payment at least once in the last 12 months (rising to 31% for the contractor and freelancer cohort). (4) The report concludes that accuracy and timeliness are non-negotiable aspects of paying people, and against this backdrop of inconsistency organisations

should consider opportunities to further automate data collection and payroll processing, with integrated Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions that support digital transformation.

3. Technology Abounds!

The advent of cloud-based platforms is changing expectations. Companies are looking more and more for a “one stop shop” for all of the different parts of the HR value chain, with payroll and workforce management increasingly a feature of this.

The growth of automation, robotics and artificial intelligence, are fundamentally changing the payroll function and the payroll market; bots now have the ability to carry out unsupervised data scraping, cleaning, migration and integration.

This clearly is a threat to the traditional models that rely on the collation and processing of payroll data by a team of humans, often located in a relatively high cost location. This trend will disrupt the more traditional in-house functions, but also impact the outsourcing and offshoring market whereby - to coin the terminology of The Technology Adoption Curve - the late majority and laggards will get quickly left behind. (5) Another topical debate is whether the advent in cloud-based platforms will give way to a shift back in-house. The leading HCM platforms now have payroll modules as part of their suites, which is a significant development in the payroll market.(6) The provision of the Cloud SaaS model also lends itself to having internal payroll resources, which is one of the factors attributed to the increasing trend of clients bringing some payroll services back in-house.

The Payroll Function Of The Future

To be ready for the Future of Work, and to keep apace or even get ahead of the rapidly changing environment, smart companies will be considering how they deliver, transform and disrupt.

Deliver

We summarised earlier how the basics of payroll delivery have still not been totally captured.

Identifying what the challenges are in enabling 100% accuracy and timeliness of pay delivery is a crucial first step. This will create a platform for transformation priorities that may involve:

INTERNATIONAL HR STRATEGY • Training of key staff (both technical and soft skills) • Reducing manual interventions through automation and integrations • Deploying smarter technology platforms • (In the case of outsourced services) a root and branch review of the contract, pricing, KPIs, SLAs and overall return on investment in an outsourced model.

Key features of delivery for a function that has mastered the basics will be: • Employee experience – maximising the employee’s experience of pay via smart user interfaces and real-time access to data on mobile devices • Pay transparency – clear and proactive communications about pay, and data driven analytics on pay made available to the workforce • Supporting financial wellness – the payroll function of the future may take a greater lead in a company’s strategy on financial wellness, through adapting pay frequencies, enabling a more solution-led approach to employee queries and driving decisions about the wellness agenda through databased insights and predictive analytics.

Transform

Key themes in the market are as follows: • There has been a significant move towards

adoption of the payroll suites of the leading HCM software providers by large companies • We are witnessing a transition by some organisations, moving some payroll services back in-house • Hybrid solutions are being utilised by companies, who, wary of data confidentiality issues end up processing payroll in-house • Emerging markets, particularly in Latin America, are exhibiting an increased need for payroll processing companies.

Transformation agendas will naturally vary from organisation to organisation. A useful initial transformation lens is for the business to determine if their goal is for the payroll function to remain primarily operationally focused, or if it wishes to harness the vast transformational power within payroll data to become a strategically additive part of the business. Understanding this up front will drive very different discussions, decisions and actions as to: • Skill requirements in payroll - what will be the enduring human skills required for a payroll professional once organisations fully deploy intelligent automation and data analysis?

• Where the payroll function sits (HR, finance, stand-alone) • Technology platforms and solutions

• In-house versus outsourced • Offshore versus onshore.

Disrupt

The ecosystem: the smart answer to the one-stop shop.

Organisations have often organically evolved a patchwork of applications and systems over time. Business leaders however, are typically demanding a digital strategy, delivering a future-proofed, scalable, and operationally excellent platform. The net result is a tremendous pent-up demand to democratise process automation and data integration. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) may fulfil one particular need, but requires strategy, guardrails and governance. (7) There is a clear opportunity for the payroll function to sit at the centre of a significant and positive disruptive force in the business.

If we think about how we pay and deploy the workforce in an organisation, payroll and payroll data is front and centre – a potential single source of truth.

In a well-integrated ecosystem of vendors and platforms, payroll data has the potential power to enable the automation of a vast array of tasks and obligations that currently (i) Sit in silos, (ii) Are subject to manual interventions, (iii) Are at risk of error and (iv) Are delivered at great cost.

The payroll ecosystem for a global workforce: Simplified, minimal touchpoints, full vendor collaboration and data integration

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

The role of global payroll in the Future of Work is perhaps not yet fully defined, however, the opportunity and the potential power that a strategic payroll function sitting at the core of an ecosystem of vendors and technology is clear What Next?

The role of global payroll in the Future of Work is perhaps not yet fully defined, however, the opportunity and the potential power that a strategic payroll function sitting at the core of an ecosystem of vendors and technology is clear.

It is not hard to envisage a near-future world where paper tax returns and other filings relating to pay and people have become obsolete. When this happens, authorities will expect automated real-time flows of data.

This will require digitally enabled information management and reporting, and don’t forget the increasing imperative for an enhanced user experience for all stakeholders. Payroll and workforce management has the potential to drive this future state.

Is your organisation ready?

References: (1) In a recent survey completed by Optum, more than 45% of companies are increasing investment in this segment.

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2020 HR Technology Market. Josh Bersin.

(2) CareerBuilder (2017), Living Paycheck to Paycheck is a Way of Life for Majority of U.S. Workers, According to New CareerBuilder Survey, http://press. careerbuilder.com/2017-08-24-LivingPaycheck-to-Paycheck-is-a-Way-of-Lifefor-Majority-of-U-S-Workers-Accordingto-New-CareerBuilder-Survey.

(3) Although it should be noted that, a true pay-on-demand service in the UK would be unworkable without legislative change.

(4) Ceridian: The UK Pay Experience Report: Employee perspectives on payroll and compensation. 2019.

(5) In the early days of RPA adoption, many

HAYLEY MCKELVEY

Partner, Payroll and Workforce Management, Deloitte LLP 2 New Street Square, London, EC4A 3BZ +44 207 303 3940 hmckelvey@Deloitte.co.uk www.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/ tax/articles/payroll-and-workforcemanagement.html

shared service centres adopted RPA – three years ago over 80% of shared service centres reported using RPA. Gartner. Predicts 2020: RPA Renaissance Driven by Morphing Offerings and Zeal for Operational Excellence.

(6) In the UK, the overwhelming majority of payrolls (72%) are still being operated completely in-house. The remaining elements are split by either partially outsourced (partially managed) (22%) and completely outsourced (fully managed.) CIPP Future of Payroll Report, 2019.

(7) Gartner. Predicts 2020: RPA Renaissance Driven by Morphing Offerings and Zeal for Operational Excellence.

NATHAN MALE

Partner, Payroll and Workforce Management, Deloitte LLP 2 New Street Square, London, EC4A 3BZ +44 207 007 8364 nmale@deloitte.co.uk www.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/ tax/articles/payroll-and-workforcemanagement.html

DELOITTE’S PAYROLL AND WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

Our mission is to define the payroll function of the future, for the workforce of the future.

We created Deloitte Payroll and Workforce Management to deliver, transform and disrupt.

We partner with organisations to solve the most complex challenges driving employee experience, efficiency and value.

We deploy Deloitte market knowledge, subject matter expertise and insight to rethink the payroll and workforce management function. We focus on a range of areas including global payroll delivery, strategy design, operational optimisation, vendor selection, technology implementation, automation and ecosystem design.

Find out more here www.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/tax/articles/payroll-and-workforcemanagement.html

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

Getting To Grips With Global Immobility - International Home Workers & Other Considerations For Now And In The Future As a result of COVID-19/Coronavirus travel restrictions, employees are now working from home under a variety of arrangements around the globe. This article looks at some of the international employment tax, social security and corporate tax considerations of employees’ varied working from home arrangements due to the COVID-19 crisis. It also starts to consider wider changes arising as a result of the impact of the virus.

Managing international staff through the COVID-19 crisis has been, and will be, increasingly demanding: in many cases physical assignments have not and will not happen, have been delayed or postponed and redundancies may increase. Here are some important issues to consider: • If assignees needed to stay in the UK or came back to the UK because of the virus, they will need to consider the impact on their UK residence days under the Statutory Residence Test (SRT) and various concessionary relaxations • As well as non-UK tax residence issues similarly arising where individuals remained in a country as a result of COVID-19, this could also affect their eligibility for expatriate tax concessions, social security and withholding taxes on earnings. It could trigger unexpected personal tax liabilities and potentially have an impact on the tax status of the employer • Many staff with international roles have returned home so are working from a single location: those with cross-border ‘commuter’ jobs may be working remotely from their home jurisdiction. A number of countries have introduced concessions to their usual rules. However, without an official, multicountry relaxation of tax and social security rules, there will be tax impacts for both the employee and employer to manage • The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) did release guidance on 3 April, 2020, relating

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to Employment tax obligations – the OECD stated that they were ‘working with countries to mitigate the unplanned tax implications and potential new burdens arising due to effects of the COVID-19 crisis’. As their comments were made in the section of their guidance that related to employment income, it gave the message that it wished to discourage tax authorities from taxing employment income where there was an ‘involuntary and temporary change of the place where employment is performed’. Despite the guidance issued by the OECD they cannot compel tax authorities to issue more broad ranging relaxations of their domestic tax rules and some jurisdictions may feel that they are disadvantaging their fiscal position if they issue wider concessions but other jurisdictions do not • Of course, all jurisdictions still expect all relevant tax returns and filings to be made and, as of yet, only certain deadlines have been moved.

It is vital for employers to have a strategy for dealing with their international employees and to ensure that all issues are thought through before final action is taken, otherwise unintended consequences and costs will arise.

“Local” Staff Working From Home Overseas

This category applies either to individuals that were in their home countries when travel restrictions commenced, or who repatriated to be with their families before the travel restriction applied.

Needless to say, the first thing an employer needed to do was to check that the individual was safe and able to access health care in their home country should the need arise (e.g., if they are in the EU, will their EHIC (European Heath Insurance Card) suffice?). Did private medical insurance cover their new circumstances? Once the employer had been able to establish the position and confirmed the employee’s ability to work remotely, then from a tax perspective the employer was generally advised to indicate that the individual could work temporarily

from home until health concerns were alleviated and restrictions to travel back to their normal country of work were lifted.

It is anticipated that, while many individuals may have found it a struggle living under lockdown, there will be a number that realise that they can work just as well remotely, and they may wish to have future conversations about working at home from abroad. In these scenarios, we would recommend considering the costs and implications in detail once the lockdown has finished and before confirming employer acceptance of the position.

Tax And Social Security Implications

So what could be the tax and social security consequences of this temporary working arrangement? The important consideration here is that the arrangement is temporary and of unknown duration. Seeking some tax guidance is sensible, but an employer should be looking for overview and pragmatic guidance, not extensive guidance in every case unless they have a number of people in that location.

Many tax authorities have issued guidance.

France, Luxembourg and Belgium have introduced concessions for cross-border workers for income tax purposes. These mean that days working in the individual’s home country due to COVID-19 will not count towards day count limits normally used to establish if a tax liability on employment income arises in the home country.

While there has been limited guidance at EU Commission level, the Belgian and German governments for example have announced that for periods during which a worker normally contributing to the social security of another member state has spent in their territory due to Covid–19, these temporary periods will not be taken into account in determining whether there should be a social security liability in their state. It will be interesting to see if all other EU member states follow suit.

The key to many of these measures is that they are based on the understanding that the individuals will return to their normal place of work when restrictive measures cease to apply.

TAXATION From an employer perspective, when an individual is working from home in another jurisdiction there can, depending on the jurisdiction, be obligations for the company to register as a foreign company to pay withholding tax in that territory. Here, we would say in general terms that this could be a premature step – purely from a practical, pragmatic basis. The individual may have returned to their normal workplace before a registration is complete, new tax measures may be released in due course to relax an obligation, and for this temporary period of international crisis, many territories would not be looking to enforce that a payroll needs to be registered.

If circumstances have meant that a home working arrangement is to go beyond two to three months, this approach may need a re-think.

Not having tax withheld in the country does not mean that income tax will not be due, and employers are advised to communicate to employees that they will be responsible for settling any personal tax obligations arising from their temporary working arrangement overseas.

From a corporate tax perspective, and this applies to the home worker categories below as well, this is more likely to be an issue where the business has key decision makers working in other jurisdictions, and it could be preferable if someone other than that employee is signing off on legal agreements. While potentially a challenge in the current environment, employers would certainly wish to seek specialist advice if the employee is pursuing business opportunities in their home country.

Equally, businesses would be advised to take specialist guidance if there are individuals whose role normally requires them to travel to attend board meetings and take key corporate decisions overseas who are now not able to travel to fulfil these commitments in the overseas territory. The Irish tax authorities have announced they will disregard, for corporation tax purposes, an individual’s presence in Ireland due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, for a company for which that individual is an employee or director. Again, do review similar relaxations issued by other tax authorities.

OECD guidance issued in April, also addressed the tax implications of the COVID-19 emergency on cross-border workers with regard to the question of Permanent Establishment (PE) of organisations/Corporate tax residency.

They indicated that they would not expect the temporary nature of employees being ‘displaced’ to other jurisdictions and the absence of this being driven by commercial intent, to mean that organisations would trigger new PE’s overseas or change their corporate tax residency. They commended the Irish tax authorities for being clear in their guidance on this.

International Assignees “Brought” Home

This category covers individuals somewhere on the spectrum between the company wishing to bring them back to their home country due to a duty of care, and the company accommodating the employee’s request to return home to be with partners/family.

The UK tax authorities have issued guidance that for tax residency purposes, it is possible to disregard days of presence in the UK if you “are asked by your employer to return to the UK temporarily as a result of the virus”. If an employee is to rely on this for their days of presence not to be counted, one can expect that HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) could ask to see evidence that the company requested the employee’s return to the UK. The same concession applies if an employee is quarantined, following guidance to self-isolate, unable to travel due to official government advice, or unable to leave the UK due to international border closures.

It is important to note that in a UK tax year there is a limit of 60 days that can be disregarded due to exceptional circumstances.

The work days spent in the UK will also still be counted for the purpose of the 30 work-day limit that applies for the working overseas test.

This is the main part of the non-residency rules that individuals seconded overseas rely on.

The changes to the SRT and Covid related presence being ignored through to 1 June, will greatly assist in this above respect. It will however, still be necessary to review the individual’s time in the UK to ensure they will not re-establish their UK tax residency.

The other limitation of HMRC’s guidance is that it does not mean that the individual will not be liable to UK income tax for the period they are in the UK, as the concession does not apply to days of presence in the UK for the purpose of a double taxation agreement.

The OECD April guidance also touched on individual residency status. Their guidance covered the position where an individual became stranded in a location or temporarily returned to their ‘previous home country’. Here they commended the UK, Australian and Irish tax authorities, which had all issued clarification that a period of COVID-19 presence in their territories could be considered as due to exceptional or extraordinary circumstances, and that for a prescribed period would not be counted towards whether they had established tax residency. The insinuation being that it would be helpful if other tax authorities issued similar guidance/adopted similar approaches.

Regardless of the residency position, from a UK perspective, employers should consider whether they should cease to apply No Tax (NT) codes and put individuals back on pay-asyou-earn (PAYE) for the period they are in the UK. Unfortunately, the answer will depend on the facts and circumstances of each case.

Within the US for example, do question whether there is a need to assess if US withholdings should be applied where individuals are working back in the US, switching them from hypothetical tax to actual tax if they are tax equalised. This then leads to the additional complexity of whether the individual could be re-triggering a State tax liability.

The UK and the US are by no means alone in terms of having to consider the tax implications for outbound employees temporarily returning home.

There have been some suggestions tabled to the UK tax authorities that they should go even further in the relaxations, such as mirroring the Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO’s) concessions. The ATO guidance to overseas resident individuals who are in Australia temporarily due to COVID-19, is that they will not become Australian tax resident providing they usually live overseas and intend to return there as soon as they are able to.

Moreover, the ATO have stated that working in Australia for less than three months due to COVID-19 will not result in an individual’s being assessed for Australian tax. The guidance is currently silent on superannuation contributions so these could still be due.

Other matters to consider include: • If businesses are sending people home, companies may want to consider additional home leave allowances covered under tax policies for travel, and possibly tax equalise or gross-up the additional tax caused • Additionally, costs to evacuate employees and house them while unable to work in their assignment country could be a taxable benefit in kind. Company policies should be reviewed to determine if these costs are tax protected. Similarly, have Cost of Living Allowances been withdrawn whilst working from home?

• What happens to ongoing liabilities and obligations (e.g. housing & car provision) in the host location during the period working from the home country? Can they be stopped? Will employers be subject to gross ups of tax for added benefits in both home & host country?

• We are seeing cases where employees working from home, or in neighbouring country arrangements, are inadvertently causing tax obligations and withholding requirements in other locations that were not expected. Is the company responsible for withholding and reporting in those jurisdictions? Is there a Permanent Establishment risk to the company in that other country?

Employees Starting A New Role In Their Home Country

Employees whose overseas secondments have been delayed would simply be kept on home country withholdings. However, the

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

situation is more difficult where new hires from overseas have had to start their new role in their home country before they can relocate. The position here could depend on whether there is a business entity in their home country. With the potential exception of the US, individuals cannot generally be liable to income tax and social security on earnings in the other jurisdiction until they have relocated and started work there.

If the business does have an entity in the employee’s home territory, employers would be advised to try and arrange for their pay to be delivered from that territory (then cross-charge the costs between the entities), or have their pay shadowed through the payroll in their home country. If there is not a business entity in that territory then it would be advisable to seek some practical guidance from your tax advisers as to what would be appropriate from an employment tax perspective. If the individual will have a key decision maker role in the organisation, then guidance should be sought on the corporate tax aspects as well.

Job Retention Scheme And Furloughed Workers

The UK government guidance “Financial support for businesses during coronavirus (COVID-19)” originally released on 23 March, 2020, contained some initial grey areas. Employers sought clarification on whether the scheme was accessible for inbound secondees who do not pay UK national insurance contributions, outbound secondees who are on NT codes, inbound employees on modified PAYE schemes that the company is settling the tax burden for, and so on, so please do review our Global Tax Update for latest news.

It will be important to follow any guidance issued, and employers will need to lodge a claim via an online HMRC portal.

Other governments have released details of similar schemes, and it is notable that the demands of the crisis mean that countries have not been able do this in an internationally coordinated manner.

Based on the UK guidance and subsequent clarification, an individual that is on a UK PAYE scheme is eligible to be included in the CJRS. If that employee (and the employer) are paying social security contributions in France, for example, as the individual resides and habitually works more than 25% of their time in France, it appears that they may also be eligible for inclusion under the French activité partielle scheme.

Unlike the UK scheme, where the individual cannot work while they are furloughed, the French scheme covers a scenario of reduced working hours. It would be prudent, when a business is considering furloughing a cross-border worker, that it reviews the entitlement to both their home country and host county schemes. One assumes that an

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employer is not intended to claim under the scheme of more than one jurisdiction. As there are employment law considerations, legal advice is recommended in this area.

Despite the impending summer months and the traditional school recess and holidays, some may start to consider whether employees are likely to shortly move back to their normal places of work Next Steps For Employers

Whilst employers could perhaps have taken a flexible approach to matters for the first couple of months of the crisis, now that international home working relationships are moving beyond the 2-3 months mark, a more detailed look at the tax and social security implications is really required. Borders will gradually open and lockdowns will be relaxed. Despite the impending summer months and the traditional school recess and holidays, some may start to consider whether employees are likely to shortly move back to their normal places of work. We would therefore suggest the following action: 1. Gauging when your employees will be returning to their ‘usual’ place of work – Certainly the status of the COVID-19 emergency varies depending on geography, but in Europe many countries are now loosening lock down measures.

Looking at the UK, EasyJet plan to resume flights gradually from mid-June. Ryanair has said it will look to operate 40% of its normal schedule from early July, while IAG (owner of British Airways) has set

a similar target. Where tax concessions have been granted they have related to a period of COVID-19 illness/illness related quarantine or where travel restrictions have applied. Although an emotive matter, it will be important to assess whether the employees not looking to move back to where they were working over the next month are doing so due to personal preference or COVID-19 related restrictions.

If, for example, you have an employee who does not wish to move back to the UK until the end of August so as to return with their family in time for their children to start the next academic year, regardless of potential flight quarantine rules, this would likely be seen by the tax authorities as due to personal preference.

2. ‘Encouraging’ employees to return to their usual country of work – Clearly this comes with the caveat of when it is safe to do so, but generally from when flight schedules allow for movement. From a tax administration perspective, you would be better served by your employees being back in their usual countries of work, even if working from home, than them remaining and working in another country. Employment law considerations need to be considered, but indicating that assignee allowances would be withdrawn (for international assignees) if they do not return, or that they would be responsible for all tax and associated costs (for local employees who moved overseas due to the emergency), may be steps that you could consider.

Importantly do not allow employees work from home overseas to become a new norm without first considering the tax and social security costs (as well as potential VISA, employment law issues etc.), and administrative costs. Not to mention the precedent it could set.

3. Establishing the tax and social security position for international assignees who have returned to their home countries – Whilst the OECD guidance encourages tax authorities to relax their rules in this regard, there is no guarantee that this will happen, and even where countries such as the UK (tax residency rules only) and US (tax residency and DTA day counts) have issued concessions, these have been for time restricted periods. There may still be scope to consider that the individuals remain exempt from tax in the home jurisdiction due to the terms of the DTA with the host jurisdiction. However, given that in the majority of cases the employee could be switched from the host country payroll back to the home country payroll if tax rules dictate, it would be best not to assume the individuals remain exempt from tax in their home country.

TAXATION Shape Of Global Mobility In Future

While at present we can only speculate on the post COVID-19 global mobility landscape, several ‘trends’ that can be anticipated are: • Increased requests for international work from home arrangements - After so many employees will have had to adapt to prolonged remote working, it is difficult to imagine that there will not be more employees wishing to embrace it on an ongoing basis and locate themselves overseas • Tax and social security increases on the horizon - Understandably, global tax authorities are currently prioritising ways of alleviating financial burdens for employers and employees alike. Normally, state economic support programmes are worth a fraction of a percentage of national income.

Due to COVID-19, governments have been announcing economic support programmes equivalent to fractions of their entire GDP. This will need to be paid for and one can anticipate, given the relatively high earnings levels of internationally mobile employees, that they will fall into the demographic where the highest of any new tax rates will apply • Varied supply chains may arise as a consequence of the crisis. Having a single source supplier has been shown to be risky. Having multiple suppliers in different

regions or closer to home or at home, may be possible outcomes. New countries, projects, investments and assignments might be on the horizon as companies decide to hedge their risk • Virtual assignments – This term is now being mentioned, perhaps the death knell for traditional assignments? Why travel, given overall costs, the relative ease of working from home, travel costs/time and health risk issues etc.? Perhaps one should simply undertake the ‘assignment’ whilst staying in the home location. Of course this is a possibility, and the ramifications of staying at home whilst performing an ‘offshore’ job do need to be considered as referred to in this article. Companies will undoubtedly be reviewing future costs with a near certain global recession looming, and assignment necessity will be under increased scrutiny. The frequency of short-term business visitors will be significantly reduced in the short-term – perhaps forever. What is certain is that the new airport, bridge or petrochemical plant will not build itself, and the personal trust that is needed for international business, and when working with others, will not necessarily develop over the internet or mobile phone. Whilst future volumes may diminish, people will still need to travel and work in other jurisdictions.

One thing we can all guarantee is that the word of international mobility has been tested of late, and certainly will be tested again in the forthcoming months and years.

ANDREW BAILEY

Head of Global Employer Services at BDO LLP. He has over 30 years’ experience in the field of expatriate taxation. BDO 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

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Monday 12th October, 2020 in London For further information please contact Helen Elliott, Founder of International HR Adviser and The Global HR Conferences at: helen@internationalhradviser.com

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GLOBAL TAXATION

Global Tax Update COVID-19/CORONAVIRUS

At the time of writing this update in mid-June, the world of global mobility has seen an unprecedented challenge as a result of COVID-19/Coronavirus. Ever increasing globalisation is under pressure and business travel has largely ground to a halt. Indeed access to some countries (e.g. Singapore & Sweden) is currently prohibited for nonnationals/citizens.

The reaction from Governments and tax authorities around the world has been relatively swift with a variety of special measures and relaxations introduced to help employers and employees navigate the immediate issues that arise with filing deadlines (e.g. China), payment of taxes (e.g. Germany and Netherlands) and lack of mobility.

Even summarising the huge volume of measures undertaken so far within this article would be impossible. Additionally, rules and positions are changing frequently. This article sets out some measures introduced in India, the UK and the US in order to provide a ‘flavour’. For current up-to-date global changes, please do visit the BDO Global website www.bdo.global/en-gb/home.

INDIA

Relaxation of Residency conditions for individuals stranded in India The taxability of income in India depends upon the taxpayer’s residence status. The Income-tax Act, 1961 (‘the IT Act’) provides the necessary conditions for determining the residence status of an individual with the main criteria being the length of stay in India.

The Indian Government has taken various unprecedented measures such as declaring a nationwide lockdown, implementing strict quarantine requirements, suspension of international flights, etc. Due to these measures, a number of individuals who were visiting India during Fiscal Year (FY) 2019-20 for a particular duration, and intended to leave India before the end of the FY, were forced to extend their stay in India. Consequently, their stay has exceeded beyond the period of their intended visit and thus they may be regarded as resident/not ordinarily resident. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has issued Circular [1] to provide a relaxation in the methodology of computing the ‘number of days’ of stay in India for the purpose of section 6 of the IT Act. This is summarised below.

The Circular provides that for the purpose of determining residential status for FY 2019-20, in respect of an individual who has come to India on a visit before 22 March 2020, the following days shall be excluded:

Sr. No.

Category Of Person

1.

• Unable to leave before 31 March 2020 • 22 March 2020 to 31 March 2020

2.

• Quarantined in India on account of • Period beginning of his quarantine to: COVID-19 on or after 1 March 2020 and • departure date; or • Departed on an evacuation flight; or • 31 March 2020 • unable to leave India • on or before 31 March 2020

3.

• Departed on an evacuation flight on • 22 March 2020 to departure date or before 31 March 2020

This is a welcome move by the CBDT as it provides much needed clarity in determining the residence status for FY 2019-20 of individuals who are forced to stay in India during the lockdown period. However, such individuals would be required to maintain sufficient documents with respect to the date of quarantine in India, date of arrival and departure from India, etc. in order to establish their residency before the tax authorities at a later stage.

Soon after issuing the circular, CBDT also issued further guidance for determining residence status for FY 2020-21. While the circular has clarified and granted relief on conditions prescribed for determining residence status, it is silent on whether such days’ exclusion would apply for claiming short stay exemption by such individuals.

Other Relief measures by the Indian Government include: • Individual tax return for FY 2018-19 • The deadline to file a revised and belated tax return for FY 2018-19 has been extended from 31st March 2020 to 30th June 2020.

• Provident Fund hardship withdrawal • The Provident Fund (PF) authorities have included the ‘Outbreak of pandemic (COVID-19)’ as one of the categories under hardship withdrawals from PF account.

Employees can withdraw the funds as per prescribed limits without any income tax implication on such withdrawal.

BDO Comment Considering most countries have imposed international travel restrictions, an individual on global assignment/project/business travel in India could unintentionally exceed the threshold of his/her physical stay in India.

Hence, the individual may become a tax resident in India and thereby their overseas income may be subject to tax in India.

Similarly, a reverse situation could occur overseas i.e. an individual currently outside India may become a tax resident in an

Exclusion Period

overseas country. A tax consultation should be sought in such cases and a revisit to their tax position is required.

If an Indian employee is forced to remain overseas, you may want to analyse if it creates an Permanent Establishment (PE) risk for the Indian entity in such foreign country.

Due to travel restrictions, some individuals may be forced to stay in India. Hence, you should also consider whether the work they are doing in India creates a PE for the foreign entity in India. Migrating employment/payroll to the other entity may also be considered.

Do also review other tax liability and employer considerations: • Owing to an unforeseen physical stay in India, you may want to revisit the tax liability in India. Employer WHT obligations in India may need to be reviewed • Due to postponement of assignments, individual’s salary income, home leave allowances, evacuation costs, accommodation etc., would need to be reviewed from a tax perspective • Organisations may want to revisit the assignment related tax cost estimates • Organisations may also seek to review their transfer pricing in respect of ongoing or new assignments.

UK

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme With the ongoing pandemic there has been numerous questions posed to HMRC to seek clarity on the impact of the measures implemented on expatriate staff. HMRC has issued guidance with respect to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS): Are Expats eligible for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme?

Inbound expats will qualify for CJRS if the conditions of the scheme are met. The individual must be on the UK payroll, must have received a payment of earnings included on an RTI submission before 19 March 2020, and must be an employee of the UK business submitting a claim under the scheme.

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

Whether the individual is an employee of the UK entity is a question of fact. HMRC will accept that assigned or seconded employees who are included by an employer within a normal, Appendix 6 or dedicated expatriate PAYE scheme, constitute employees of the UK entity for the purposes of the CJRS. Does the employee have to be physically paid by the UK employer?

So long as the UK entity is the employer it doesn’t matter who physically pays the employee.

HMRC notes however, that businesses should only access the scheme if they are unable to maintain their current workforce without doing so. If the UK employer can continue to successfully recharge costs to an overseas entity, then it does not need to access the CJRS and is therefore ineligible for it.

Personal Tax Residence – Days In The UK The rules for establishing whether or not individuals are tax-resident in the UK (the statutory residence test/SRT) depend, amongst other factors, on the number of days spent in the UK in a tax year). Non-UK resident individuals who end up spending more time in the UK than planned as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, may find that they exceed the usual permitted number of days in the UK relevant to their circumstances.

However, up to 60 days spent in the UK can be ignored if they result from ‘exceptional circumstances’. We would expect that, for many individuals, the current COVID-19 crisis would constitute ‘exceptional circumstances’.

HMRC has issued guidance on this (shown below) and they will consider the specific facts for each individual when reviewing their residence status on a case by case basis. Additionally, the Government has announced changes to the SRT. Coronavirus (COVID-19) - HMRC Guidance This new guidance needs to be read in conjunction with the current published guidance on exceptional circumstances (see RDRM13200 onwards).

The UK is currently experiencing the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Events resulting from the impact of the virus are changing rapidly and this guidance may change at short notice as situations change.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic may impact your ability to move freely to and from the UK or, require you to remain unexpectedly in the UK. Whether days spent in the UK can be disregarded due to exceptional circumstances will always depend on the facts and circumstances of each individual case.

However, if you: Are quarantined or advised by a health professional or public health guidance to self-isolate in the UK as a result of the virus

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• Find yourself advised by official Government advice not to travel from the UK as a result of the virus • Are unable to leave the UK as a result of the closure of international borders, or • Are asked by your employer to return to the UK temporarily as a result of the virus, the circumstances are considered as exceptional.

Changes To The Statutory Residence Test Due To COVID-19 In April 2020, the Chancellor relaxed the tax residence test for skilled workers coming to the UK to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

In a letter to the Head of the Treasury Select Committee on 9 April, Rishi Sunak confirmed that the statutory residence test (SRT) will be temporarily amended to ensure that any time spent in the UK by individuals working on COVID-19 related activities between 1 March and 1 June 2020 will not count towards the residence tests – this period may be extended if required.

will therefore be designed so that the relaxation of the rules is tightly targeted to minimise the risk of abuse”.

HMRC Extends Short Term Business Visitor Filing Deadline Where you have a formal agreement in place with HMRC for the tracking and reporting of business visitors to the UK, the deadline for submitting the 2019/20 submission has been moved from 31 May 2020 to 31 July 2020. Note that this still only applied to individuals who are ultimately exempt from UK tax and care needs to be taken that visitors are being reviewed and treated correctly for tax purposes.

BDO Comment These measures will assist employers and employers navigate some of the fiscal challenges brought about by COVID-19. Do check with your adviser for the latest changes and updates as the position is currently very fluid and subject to frequent amendment.

US

The Chancellor said the measure will allow ‘highly skilled’ individuals from across the world to come to the UK and help the response to the current health emergency The Chancellor said the measure will allow ‘highly skilled’ individuals from across the world to come to the UK and help the response to the current health emergency.

Under normal circumstances, working in the UK could affect these individuals’ tax residence status and result in their earnings being taxable in the UK. The Chancellor acknowledged the risk of potential tax avoidance from the change, confirming: “The qualifying criteria

Treasury and IRS issue cross-border tax guidance related to travel disruptions arising from the COVID-19 emergency In April 2020, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued guidance that provides relief to individuals and businesses affected by travel disruptions arising from the COVID-19 emergency as follows: Rev Proc 2020-20 Impacts On Nonresident Aliens (NRA’s) In this update, the IRS provides relief to affected NRAs living in the United States. The IRS will presume, under certain circumstances, that up to 60 consecutive calendar days of their US presence arises from COVID-19 travel disruptions and will not count this time period for purposes of determining US tax residency under the substantial presence test (SPT) or whether the individual qualifies for certain income tax treaty benefits with respect to income from dependent personal services performed in the United States.

The IRS will consider the COVID-19 emergency a medical condition that prevented the individual from leaving the United States. Without this relief, some NRAs in the United States who are prevented from returning home as a result of COVID-19 might have been considered resident aliens under the SPT, while others might not have been able to claim an income tax treaty benefit with respect to income from dependent personal services performed in the United States because of their extended stay. With this relief, these individuals can avoid having 60 days counted against them.

GLOBAL TAXATION

To claim an exemption from withholding on income from dependent personal services pursuant to a US income tax treaty, an individual should work with their employer to certify that the income is exempt

The date when the 60-day period begins is chosen by each person, but it must start between 1 February and 1 April 2020. To obtain this relief, eligible NRAs who are required to file a 2020 US Non-resident Alien Income Tax Return (Form 1040-NR) must attach the relevant form to their tax return. Eligible NRAs who are not required to file a 2020 Form 1040-NR should retain all relevant records to support their reliance on this Rev. Proc.

To claim an exemption from withholding on income from dependent personal services pursuant to a US income tax treaty, an individual should work with their employer to certify that the income is exempt.

Rev Proc 2020-27 Impacts On US Citizens And Greencard Holders In this update, the IRS provides relief to eligible US citizens and Green Card holders living and working abroad so that days spent away from the foreign country, due to the COVID-19 emergency, where the eligible individual was living and working will not prevent the individual from qualifying for the foreign-earned income exclusions. This relief benefits individuals who reasonably expected to become “qualified individuals” but who departed the foreign jurisdiction during the period

described in the Rev. Proc. For 2019 and 2020, the Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the Secretary of State, has determined that the COVID-19 emergency is an adverse condition that precluded the normal conduct of business in the People’s Republic of China, excluding the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau (China) as of December 1, 2019, and globally as of February 1, 2020. The period covered by this Rev. Proc. ends on July 15, 2020, unless an extension is announced by the Treasury Department and IRS. BDO Comment These Rev. Procs. and FAQs provide answers to questions that were raised at the onset of the COVID-19 emergency.

We expect the Treasury Department and the IRS will continue to issue additional COVID-19 emergency related guidance as warranted, especially if an extension is granted to the end date of Rev. Proc. 2020-27 after 15 July, 2020.

Prepared by BDO LLP. For further information please contact Andrew Bailey on 0207 893 2946 or at andrew.bailey@bdo.co.uk

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Managing The Risk Of Virtual Assignments The recent global challenges around responding to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has created an upsurge in remote working, as quarantines and travel bans have impacted working patterns around the world.

Much has been written about the future of work and the impact of technological changes and demographic or generational shifts.

Experience shows that once a change is forced, people do not always return to their old ways.

So, increases in the use of video conferencing and travel restrictions will show people that their work can be less tied to location than ever before. And if you can work from anywhere, you can always be somewhere else.

The term Virtual Assignments has not been used that much until recently, but is now becoming more prevalent in the Global Mobility community, although there isn’t yet an ‘official’ definition. The Santa Fe White Paper: The future of work and the impact on Global Mobility, part two, looked at the trends in assignments over the last several years and concluded that organisations were moving people in a different manner to how they had done it 10 to 20 years previously, with long-term assignments declining as short-term and commuter assignments increased.

In parallel, much has been written in the last 5 to 10 years about the trends in business travel and the way business travellers can trigger mobility-style tax and immigration risks as they travel frequently around the world. The same underlying risk arises with Virtual Assignments. Moving people in different ways can require old solutions to be used in new ways, or new solutions to be found to old problems. This article looks at how similar issues to business travel risk arise on Virtual Assignments, but in different ways.

Defining Virtual Assignments

Firstly, we should define what we mean by the term Virtual Assignment. Many international organisations now use virtual teams around the world to work on international problems or to manage regional or global business units in a multi-jurisdictional basis. Historically, someone assigned to one of these projects may have been moved on a long-term or short-term assignment basis to the head office or other office for the duration of that project

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to work on it. Now, with the rise of video conferencing technologies and the increasing acceptance of working from home, there is not always the need to physically relocate that they had been previously. Someone working on one of these international teams may be working in a way that years ago, would have required an assignment, but no longer does.

However, just because they remain in their home country office and haven’t physically moved, there may still be issues encountered that are similar to those that would have been if they had been sent on an assignment. In particular, these international projects may require cross-border travel or frequent business trips to another office in another country, which potentially include a regular work pattern of two or three days a week akin to a commuter assignment, but in the other direction. This means that it remains important to track immigration, tax, social security and labour law requirements in the same way as if that person had been physically relocated.

Virtual assignments may be different to

Virtual assignments may be different to business travel or commuter assignments because of the way the cost is potentially allocated or charged internally in the organisation

business travel or commuter assignments because of the way the cost is potentially allocated or charged internally in the organisation. It may be common for the assignees cost to be recharged back to the central project team which means that the cost may be being born in the country where they are physically working only occasionally, which in turn is an insufficient number of days to establish that they have a local employer for tax and Social Security withholding purposes. The implications of this could mean that tax exemptions in the country of travel are no longer applicable, as the cost is borne by an employer in that country.

The Blurred Lines Of Business Travel

Business travel and commuter assignments are usually looked at from the perspective of the country from which the person starts their journey, making sure that employer’s risk is managed. A Virtual Assignment passes the ‘ownership’ of the person and their risk to the country to which they have travelled, in the same way as if they had been assigned there. Thus, normal methods to identify affected individuals may not always identify this. As they are no longer under the management and control of their home organisation, they may stop being considered as an employee, especially if they are working more commonly at home and in regional travel, and thus rarely in their former office.

However, they are almost never in the host office either.

Having someone travelling on a regular basis may mean that, for example, temporary accommodation or a short-term apartment let are used as an alternative to incurring frequent hotel bills. Which means that the usual provider of destination services for assignees maybe useful to use, to ensure that appropriate accommodation is sourced within the organisation’s travel budgets. That may mean that they are considered to have available accommodation in that country, an indicator of residence in some markets.

If someone is expected to be in that place for some time, other assignment-type requirements such as language and cultural training may also be a good investment.

As the person has not been physically assigned under a Global Mobility programme, they are not always on the radar screen of the Global Mobility department in HR, and as a result, their compliance requirements and

MANAGING THE RISK OF VIRTUAL ASSIGNMENTS personal needs may not always be registered or accommodated.

The additional complication comes when this situation is compared to home working or telecommuting (as it’s also known). The rise in commuting travel costs and reduction in international airfares, the improvement in video conferencing technology, and the increasing cost of office space, has meant that over the last 10 years or so, organisations have been much more accepting of the concept of people working from home rather than considering it shirking from home. The sudden shift for home working this year (2020) also means that the last organisations that resisted this have also been forced to embrace it, and even if some go back to insisting on being office-based, many or most will not.

Organisations are starting to see increasing compliance exposure from home working where the location in which the work is being performed is not always clear. It may be tempting for someone who works from home on the Monday and Friday and is only in the office on Tuesday to Thursday to look at their life and consider that they could spend the long weekend somewhere abroad with lower property prices or a more benign climate. It has not always been much more expensive to commute by plane from halfway across Europe than to commute by train from 90 minutes to a major city outside of the normal working business hours. Where an organisation has an employee working from home for those long weekends, there isn’t always a mechanism for them to capture when the employee decides that home will now be in another country, with warmer weather rather than it being a drive up the highway or motorway.

Once that employee owns a property in another jurisdiction and has a registered address there and starts to appear in e.g. the records of the local doctor or authorities, it may not be long before a question arises as to whether they are paying tax and Social Security. We have seen many cases where the home country employer is caught out, in a country where they have no physical presence and no business activity, other than the fact that one of their expensive employees has chosen to base themselves there. This situation may also apply where a virtual assignee is in another country, but recharged back to the cost centre or payroll of the central office. Organisations do need to be aware of the people they have and where they have them, even more than they have been in the past.

Use Of Technology To Manage Risk

Fortunately, technology is also useful here to manage the risk and exposure that it has itself created. Many business travel apps are

available, that can be used to ensure that employees monitor the countries that they are living and working in, to ensure that compliance exposures are monitored and identified, earlier rather than later. Some of those business travel tracker technologies can also link to a business visa application so that if someone requires business travel visas, applications can be made quickly and smoothly online to manage the exposure as an acceptable cost level.

We have seen over recent weeks how governments have reacted to the COVID-19 virus, taken action and set out to achieve a collective approach to effectively manage the pandemic

see the priority (unless an incident occurs, by which time the damage has been done).

We have seen over recent weeks how governments have reacted to the COVID-19 virus, taken action and set out to achieve a collective approach to effectively manage the pandemic. As the world continually reacts and adapts to uncertainty, shocks and unforeseen events, the ability of nations to communicate digitally will continue to advance. Once this particular COVID-19 pandemic has moved on, it will have left some changes in accelerating the idea that work is a thing you do rather than a place you go. Whether that’s enough to cause a shift in assignment trends, will remain to be seen.

References and extracts from: • Santa Fe Relocation’s white paper: ‘Managing the risk of virtual assignments’.

Download the full white paper: https:// www.santaferelo.com/en/mobilityinsights/white-papers/managing-therisk-of-virtual-assignments/ Visit www.santaferelo.com for more information.

JOHN RASON Conclusion

This article highlights the increasingly virtual nature of future working and the need for organisations to recognise the need for new future-proofed governance. Transformation that educates, empowers and enables organisations to maintain compliance, leverage data analytics and competitive advantages and not combative barriers.

For some, they will reflect that this is their reality today and have a leading position, for others it could be a nice to have and in another category business leaders do not

Group Head of Consulting, Santa Fe Relocation. Recognised as a thought leader and speaker on strategic international HR, talent management and Global Mobility, John has 15 years of global consultancy experience. Having previously held senior HR leadership roles in numerous global businesses across a range of industry sectors, John now works with global organisations to create value and improve the structure of Global Mobility programmes; focusing on aligning strategic objectives with operational delivery.

John can be contacted at john.rason@santaferelo.com.

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

Creating Institutional Memory For Crisis Management: Six Key Steps The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has pushed governments, global and national institutions and corporate organisations across the world to their limits. Amidst the absence of a multilateral response, leaders have been criticised in equal measure for equivocating and knee-jerk reactions.

When the post-crisis dust eventually settles, it will be interesting to see what, if any, introspection these entities undertake.

Equally, there is an opportunity here for global mobility professionals to take stock and reflect on the capability of their team(s) to manage during a crisis. This exercise shouldn’t be limited to a ‘how did we do’ assessment of the team’s management of the current pandemic, but should take a wider perspective of how well equipped it is to deal with sudden changes in the macro environment.

Frequently, such changes are referred to as so-called ‘black swan’ events, a phrase proliferated in the aftermath of the 2008 global recession by Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book which sets out a conceptual framework for thinking about potential highly destructive but low probability risks. But how unpredictable was this latest pandemic?

As the crisis has evolved, predictions of this type of event have started to emerge from a variety of sources across the globe. In many ways Michele Wuker’s metaphor of a grey rhino – obvious dangers which we ignore may be more apposite.

The concept of a VUCA environment, reflecting the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of general conditions dates back as far as the late 1980s and has never been more applicable than in the recent present which has borne witness to terrorist attacks in major cities across the globe, multiple incidents involving aircraft as well as natural disasters.

Changes in geopolitics are consequential for organisations and individuals, be it Brexit or international relations with rogue states such as North Korea and Iran. When Harold Macmillan became Britain's Prime Minister in 1957, he was asked what would determine his government's course. He famously replied: "Events, dear boy, events".

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When the post-crisis dust eventually settles, it will be interesting to see what, if any, introspection these entities undertake And as the former United States Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, memorably said: “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know.

But there are also unknown unknowns-the ones we don't know we don't know”.

From a global mobility perspective, it is not unreasonable to say that we know that there are going to be events, even if we don’t know what they are. Therefore, we should have plans, policies and processes in place which set out an approach and provide a toolkit we can dip into as events unfold. Managing a programme without these elements in place can leave a global mobility team horribly exposed. To borrow a phrase from Warren Buffet “It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who has been swimming naked.”

Building this toolkit is in effect about creating institutional memory. But as organisations come under pressure to cut costs (and global mobility teams around the world will testify that the size of their teams has continuously been chipped away at over a long period of time), institutional memory atrophies. In 2016, the UK Treasury's outgoing permanent secretary, Sir Nicholas Macpherson, reflected that it became very clear to him and to then Chancellor of the

Exchequer, Alistair Darling, during the course of the 2008-09 crisis, that "the vast majority of Treasury staff had never been through even a recession, let alone a banking crisis".

It is vital therefore that the global mobility function records and keeps under continuous review its toolkit for managing events.

Policies and processes need to be clear and easy to access. Think of the exercise as a way to KonMari crisis management processes for global mobility - the life-changing magic of policy tidy-up (although we’re not suggesting that you discard any policy which doesn’t bring you joy!).

We’ve identified six key areas global mobility team should consider when building out a strategy for managing world events:

Identifying And Managing Stakeholder Needs

What is the business likely to be asking of you as a global mobility function as events unfold? In order to answer this question effectively, global mobility really needs to understand who its stakeholders are and to have an ongoing dialogue with them. What data sources are you reliant upon to access that information? How accurate is the data you are holding? For example, in the event of any crisis, one of the first things an organisation asks is “do we know where all of our people are?”. This chimes extremely well with trending compliance issues relating to business traveller tracking and adherence to the EU Posted Worker Directive. One global mobility professional we spoke with recently admitted that there were around 200 movements in the organisation which global mobility had not been made aware of. That may well just be the tip of the iceberg. If these items weren’t high on your organisation’s list of priorities previously, now may be a good time to raise the profile of these types of projects with a view to putting systems and processes in place to cover all eventualities. Bear in mind also, that whilst the business may need to know where its employees are, global mobility will also need concern itself with whether assignees have their family in situ with them. Dependent on the nature of the crisis, this data may have a significant impact on subsequent actions.

The way a global mobility programme is structured is going to dictate which

CRISIS MANAGEMENT stakeholders are internal and which are external to the organisation. Those organisations with greater consolidation in their global mobility supply chain may find pulling critical information together under pressure less burdensome than those with a more fragmented supply chain.

External stakeholders can be segmented by the scope of the services they provide to the business. Considerations for the tax provider might cover how to manage the triggering of a tax liability which the organisation hadn’t planned for. For example, what might the tax implications look like if assignees or business travellers are stranded in a country and cross a tax threshold? Global mobility might not need to plan for each and every scenario in detail, but should have an understanding for each location of the number of days in country which will trigger a tax liability and a plan of action to deal with the potential outcomes as and when they arise. Similarly, an awareness of the nature of ‘exceptional circumstances’ which can be applied to statutory residence will at least provide the basis for a plan of action.

Equally, working with an immigration provider can establish protocols around a plan of action if assignees and business travellers over-stay their visa as a result of unexpected border controls or lack of availability of flights. Again, there is every likelihood that this will vary from country-tocountry and will change over time, but being aware that it might be an issue and having a strategy in place to manage it is the key thing to bear in mind.

When it comes to a relocation management company, relocation provider or household goods provider, there are several areas an organisation can look at partnering to put appropriate strategies in place. For example, protocols for managing repatriation services when the assignee is in absentia. This might include providing your relocation provider with a power of attorney to close out contracts or establishing the feasibility and impact of having the household goods provider performing a pack without the presence of the assignee.

If an assignee is only temporarily evacuated from a location, you may look at having a property management for suspended occupancy service available.

In the recent pandemic crisis, many organisations have moved individuals straight into isolated serviced accommodation upon arrival in the host location with providers offering selfisolation landing services either directly through a serviced accommodation provider or through the destination services provider.

Communication

Consider firstly what channels are available and most appropriate for communicating with the various stakeholders global mobility

touches. Many organisations have already introduced chatbots as part of a wider HR transformation. This can be an effective tool for communicating a standard policy approach which may still hold even after unusual events. For example, if policy states that a cost of living adjustment would only be reviewed out of cycle in the event that a currency fluctuates by more than 10% and the strategy is to adhere to the policy as stated (and let’s face it, global mobility teams are often put under pressure to deviate from policy when faced with unusual events), then a chatbot should be able to deal with the vast majority of queries coming in – especially if use of a chatbot has become engrained in your organisational culture as part of a wider self-serve efficiency initiative.

Of primary concern of course is how communication with the assignee and their family is managed during a crisis. Dependent on the situation, an assignee may experience varying degrees of isolation, loneliness or helplessness Of primary concern of course is how communication with the assignee and their family is managed during a crisis.

Dependent on the situation, an assignee may experience varying degrees of isolation, loneliness or helplessness. Having a strategy in place for continuous communication with affected assignees throughout a crisis to

support their safety and mental wellbeing is a key component of the duty of care responsibilities of every organisation.

Communication with business managers is equally important. The recent crisis has highlighted that managers may agree to a ‘stay-put’ approach one day only to show up in their home office the next.

Getting messages out early and repeating key messages may help the business to understand the potential impact of their actions. The catch is of course that there may be a flurry of communiques being released at the same time. Global mobility needs to define in its strategy the best way to reach the widest audience of its key stakeholders.

Policy Adaptation

In a crisis, duty of care eats policy for breakfast. The swift response required when responding to shock events will often result in unbudgeted expenditure. Organisations will likely incur early termination penalties for both rented and serviced accommodation in addition to a myriad of other exceptional costs which may arise as service providers become subject to supply shortages and increased demand whilst the supply chain infrastructure is put under abnormal strain. Whilst in the moment of crisis, the organisation is quite rightly prioritising the wellbeing of its employees, it is worth considering whether or not there is a need to track this additional expenditure.

A majority of organisations have reasonably robust processes in place to capture policy exceptions either internally or with the assistance of an outsourced vendor, however, in stressful moments it’s easy for standard operating processes to fall by the wayside. Equally it is worth considering that usual exception approval process might not be adhered to in difficult times. Line managers are liable to making decisions on the hoof without consultation, so mobility may need to capture costs retroactively.

Policies should be clear on which costs the organisation will bear in extreme circumstances. Different organisations have reported inconsistencies in approach within their own organisation in paying for return flights for their employees throughout the current crisis. Sterling Lexicon’s blog on the psychological contract discusses how an assignee’s relationship with their organisation evolves firstly through the onset of an international assignment and subsequently through the management of a crisis.

Catching A Crisis Early

Some events occur so suddenly that the only solution is to react instantly, taking immediate and affirmative action. Others on the other hand, provide a brief window of opportunity for some planning and reaction. In setting out the global mobility crisis management

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strategy, it is worth considering how the team identifies early warning signs that a crisis could evolve. Again, much depends on the structure of the team and the wider infrastructure within the organisation, however, monitoring regional situations and considering ‘what-if’ scenarios will help teams execute more efficiently and effectively.

Crisis Management As Part Of The Onboarding Process

One good practice for training global mobility teams on these processes is to make them part of the initial induction training for new team members. This may be especially relevant if a significant proportion of global mobility activities are carried out in a shared service centre environment, where it is possible that there may be a higher turnover of staff than a centralised function or teams organised into regional hubs. Building institutional memory may need to be more of a priority to some global mobility teams who, by virtue of their structure, are likely to be more heavily reliant on documented processes and protocols.

Regular Review And Audit

A formal annual audit and review of the global mobility crisis management processes and protocols will help to ensure that institutional memory does not become

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distorted, but it is also worth building good habits to maintain these on an ongoing basis.

For example, if the organisation changes any part of the mobility supply chain, the crisis management process should form part of the official implementation of the new supplier in addition to the relevant internal documents being updated.

There is a real risk that as world economies begin to recover from COVID-19 and organisations start to bounce back, global mobility’s attentions will be sharply focused on day-to-day activities; delayed assignments which now have approval; tracking business travellers who can once again move freely across borders and so on. The lessons learned from managing a crisis might easily get put to the bottom of the pile. The effect might be further compounded by crisis fatigue as employees deliberately divert their activities towards more optimistic subjects having come through an extended period of crisis management. Without a specific intervention to create institutional memory whilst processes, successes and mistakes are fresh in the current global mobility team’s mind, a self-fulfilling cycle of amnesia begins again. Global mobility should strike while the iron is hot to ensure that it is fit for the future. Whilst the next event might not be of pandemic proportions, there will be a next event – that’s one of the known unknowns!

STUART JACKSON

As Account Director at Sterling Lexicon, Stuart focuses on working with clients to optimise their global mobility solutions. Stuart has worked in global mobility for 19 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 Lexicon, please do not hesitate to contact Stuart Jackson at: stuart.jackson@sterlinglexicon.com.

THE FUTURE OF MOBILITY

The Future Of Mobility A Post COVID-19 Perspective As countries begin to slowly open up again and companies start to plan their talent remobilisation strategy, we take a look at what the future of mobility might look like post COVID-19, and discuss some of the issues Global Mobility Managers may need to consider.

Global Mobility has been front and centre of the COVID-19 crisis, with the function being an integral partner within the organisation’s crisis response teams. This elevated position within critical business and talent planning offers mobility teams the opportunity to step up and demonstrate their value to the organisation. This requires strong leadership, the ability to collaborate across different internal and external stakeholders, work with ambiguity, and resolve unique and complex issues with proactive planning and innovative solutions. Also important is robust data and real time reporting and strong vendor relationships, especially across compliance such as immigration and tax, as well as relocation, assignment management and temporary housing.

Unfortunately, this crisis will also expose weaknesses within global mobility functions, especially where data reporting capabilities and the use of such data are poor, fragmented vendor relationships exist, or where there is a mismatch in skillsets within the team.

As we come out of this crisis, mobility leads will be identifying these weaknesses and working with vendors to elevate the programme (technology, compliance and relocation services), as well as look to upskill the team, including ensuring regional expertise exists outside of the HQ country - either through a strong outsourced engagement, or where necessary, by building a tri-regional team.

To add to the challenge, mobility leads will also need to adjust their programmes for two periods; post-lockdown/prevaccine and post-vaccine. A vaccine could be some time away and we are being told that some programmes are ‘stacking’ assignments waiting for the green light.

In talking to peers in our industry, we have identified several areas Mobility Managers will need to be aware of and plan for.

Virtual Assignments

In terms of workforce mobility, virtual assignments will most likely become a

formal mobility option, with a separate policy developed around it. Mobility managers may ask hiring managers “could this role be done remotely and if so, how can we make that work?” (i.e. instead of moving the employee to the role, move the role to the employee). It could also take a while before business travel and short-term assignments get back up to the level it was before this pandemic, especially as employees and companies have seen that technology can meet the business needs in many cases as opposed to business trips.

In terms of workforce mobility, virtual assignments will most likely become a formal mobility option, with a separate policy developed around it Remote working and virtual assignments – based in one location and working solely for the benefit of an entity in another location/country will therefore become more common – what is the compliance framework to manage this? Also consider the PE risk: who is the economic employer and controls the performance and management of the employee, and who bears the cost?

It is also important however, to consider that industries and leaders will view this differently. Although there will be change, the value of face to face human interaction is still essential in many people’s minds, and so many great ideas and opportunities come from those random unplanned

discussions at the water cooler or over lunch. Suzanne Moore summed it up beautifully in her opinion piece on work life balance in The Guardian UK on May 4, 2020: ‘serendipity is the mother of creation!'.

Home Working At Host Location

There is also likely to be greater incidences of home working in the host country, the CEO of Barclays recently announced offices may never see the same crowds again, and he is not alone in this view (Facebook, Google and other tech companies have recently extended work from home until the end of the year or as a permanent option).

Indeed, prior to the COVID-19 crisis, some employers only had real estate to account for a percentage of the workforces, assuming many (using data) were not in the office at any one time. Secondly, as companies look to reduce expensive real estate footprints, some may consider moving some staff away from the major hubs. Perhaps the days of millions commuting to a major city are limited? This gives rise to three issues mobility leads may need to consider.

1. Firstly, housing allowances or assistance assignees receive may need to cater for home working. For example, more junior grades are unlikely to be happy living/ sleeping/working in a studio/one-bedroom property (especially if that is not what you are used to in the home country).

2. Secondly, if satellite offices in smaller towns become the norm, is there enough supply in terms of appropriate schooling/ housing for expats etc?

3. Finally, and maybe most importantly, moving to a new location is stressful and can be lonely. If the opportunity to network is reduced, will the assignment be at a greater risk of failure? How will this be addressed?

Overcoming Resistance

Many mobility managers have expressed there could be some reluctance for a while to take an assignment and be away from family and home healthcare (as well as move to countries with inferior or different healthcare – insured system vs state for example). Companies may have to shift their talent planning including more remote team collaboration. For example, consider an assignment that was put on hold due to the crisis. As restrictions start lifting in the next few months, the likelihood with immigration delays would be a start date in the fall,

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which could coincide with a much discussed second wave as the typical flu season starts.

What are the options? Ask the family to move, with the risk of a repeat of the crisis and further lockdowns within months of the relocation; have the employee commute initially until the situation is more secure (or a vaccine exists); have the employee work remotely from the home location?

Also, are there underlying health issues that present additional risk factors? These are all discussions and scenarios that will need to be considered. This also raises the question of how insurance will be handled in the future. Will people who are more at risk carry higher premiums or even be able to get insurance until a vaccine is found? In general, comprehensive health insurance plans will currently cover treatment for coronavirus just like any other illness, however, there may be risks when changing plans and certainly an area that will require attention going forward.

Duty Of Care & Compliance

Duty of care and compliance will come back to the fore – This crisis has highlighted how important it is to track your mobile workforce, including business travellers. More attention to data and having the right technology to track will be essential, as well as communication tools to deliver reliable information to employees (thus avoiding employee’s reliance on social media). Unfortunately, there have been many situations where employees have been stuck overseas and split up from a partner and dependents due to travel restrictions or delays in visas. Employees may also be caught out for tax and social security because they repatriated or returned on a temporary basis, therefore all these situations and compliance aspects need to be tracked in the future with vendors in place to assist. It will be impossible to mitigate 100% of the risk associated with travelling, and both employees and employers will have to live with that. However, from a liability perspective, the employer may want a proper legal review of assignment documentation to eliminate risk of litigation.

Reskilling

In some industries, especially involving larger long-terms projects such as infrastructure and engineering, mobility operations will likely return to normal as soon as the restrictions are lifted. However, mobility managers and team members will need to focus more on new skills as we move forward.

The ‘reluctant assignee’ and their family may require much more empathy than before, and the manager may need coaching to assist with this empathy. Assignees are much more likely to require detailed information about medical systems and insurance. Mobility managers and suppliers will need to further educate themselves to ensure they can answer such questions.

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As we ease out of travel restrictions mobility managers will need to consult with Business and HR leads on the most realistic and efficient remobilisation strategies

are lifted or will companies rethink investments – what mobility alternatives are available? Cost management will become more important and mobility will need to think of new and creative ways to control costs • Finally, although there may be fewer assignments, the ones which do go ahead may be more business critical and expensive, which will contradict the pressure to reduce costs. Rather than trying to reduce costs and limit exceptions, mobility leads will need to be able to ensure managers do not cut corners on protecting the assignee and family.

Mobility has long desired to be a strategic partner and now has the opportunity to really step up as a function and use this time to prepare to get back to business when economies start opening up. The best teams, leaders and businesses will be those that are wiring for the new normal and not dwelling on what they came from, with the need to be nimble, flexible and supportive to cater for future surprises and disruptions.

Remobilisation strategies

As we ease out of travel restrictions mobility managers will need to consult with Business and HR leads on the most realistic and efficient remobilisation strategies, with the following considerations: • Tightening of immigration – due to high unemployment, we are already seeing signs of immigration authorities looking to protect local job seekers and more heavily scrutinise work permit applications. New applications will need to be well prepared and justifiable. HR may also need to develop more sustainable and holistic talent development plans to show investment in local talent and creating longer-term local leadership talent pipelining • Talent planning – There may be an increased focus on HR to identify local talent in place (internal or external) to avoid moving international talent, or identifying employees with work rights (i.e. nationality or PR status in host locations) to bypass ongoing travel restrictions in place, or leveraging specific visas such as the Van der Elst in Europe • Mobility teams will need to work with internal risk to develop sophisticated BCP plans to be able to trigger in the future, in terms of security in place, evacuations, ensuring families are together, business travel management, etc.

• With the apparent economic downturn, companies may re-evaluate projects and assignments. Will assignments currently on hold still go-ahead once restrictions

SEAN COLLINS

Based in Singapore, Sean Collins is a Managing Partner of Talent Mobility Search, a boutique global mobility recruitment and consultancy firm. He has over 20 years’ experience working in leadership roles across APAC on both the client side, managing the global mobility program for Microsoft as well as managing client services for a Relocation Management Company.

TMS is a boutique search and consulting firm, assisting organisations with their business and talent mobility strategy and the sourcing and placing of senior talent within the global mobility industry, both on the client and provider side. To discuss further please contact Sean Collins at sean@talentmobilitysearch.com.

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

Preparing For The New Normal: Why You Should Re-Think Your Expatriate Management Model Competing Globally In A VUCA World

Despite the recent emergence of nationalistic and protectionist trends, the business environment remains, unquestionably, globally connected.

Organisations are increasingly venturing beyond their domestic shores to set-up operations and find new customers.

Today’s global competition is not only for customers, but also for the best talent, which is increasingly recognised as the key to competitive advantage, as many manual tasks are automated and value is created through knowledge-based roles.

Being able to hire and deploy talent across borders quickly and efficiently becomes therefore a critical element of the competitive strategy and operating model of today’s most successful organisations.

But such a hyper-connected business environment comes with many challenges: events in one corner of the world can send shockwaves around the globe, impacting people and markets almost instantly. Geo-political changes, such as Brexit and trade tensions between the US and China, can happen quickly and disrupt global supply chains, creating uncertainty and confusion. Increased regulations in immigration, tax and data privacy laws create a complex compliance minefield. And to top it all, the recent COVID-19 pandemic caught many organisations unprepared for many difficult decisions regarding their international assignees.

This is the “new normal”. We can safely assume that “Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity” (VUCA) are all features that will characterise the world for the foreseeable future. The question is then, how can organisations compete and succeed in such a VUCA environment?

The Age Of Agility

A constantly changing environment does not only imply challenges, but also many possibilities. Today’s most successful businesses constantly find ways to overcome hurdles and capitalise on opportunities by continuously fine-tuning their strategies and implementing leaner and more agile operating models across the organisation.

And since international assignments are

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instrumental to the execution of those strategies and operations, creating an agile, flexible and resilient mobility programme becomes business-critical.

There are many ways to bring agility into mobility programmes, but it is also essential to understand that there is no single solution that would address all organisational priorities at once. Therefore, before making any changes to a Global Mobility framework, it is essential to specify the key objectives for the change. These objectives are referred to as “design principles”, since the re-design of the framework will be done bearing in mind these ultimate objectives. If the goal is to “future-proof” your mobility programmes by making them more agile, resilient and flexible, there are some general principles that have already helped many leading companies.

There are many ways to bring agility into mobility programmes, but it is also essential to understand that there is no single solution that would address all organisational priorities at once

Business Alignment Through Segmentation

Even within the same organisation, international assignments could be very different in terms of duration, purpose, strategic impact or geography. Whilst it may be tempting to have a single policy and process for all these different assignment types, this simplistic approach will almost certainly result in increased costs and numerous requests for policy exceptions.

Segmentation is a way of recognising compelling reasons for doing things differently, depending on the situation. The outcome of the segmentation exercise is a set of policies and procedures that are officially recognised by the organisation. The importance of a careful segmentation exercise cannot be overemphasised, as the segmentation criteria will determine which policy will apply to each assignment and each assignee.

Most organisations have at least a very simple segmentation based on “assignment length”, which involves having distinct policies depending on the assignment’s duration, for example Short-Term assignments, LongTerm Assignments, Permanent Transfers, etc.

Some organisations further differentiate assignments based on the “strategic intent”, which enables them to differentiate between “business-critical”, “technical”, “developmental” and “employee-initiated” assignments. Other common segmentation criteria include geographic proximity, seniority, nationality, and several others.

If done properly, a clever segmentation of international assignments will create perfect alignment between the mobility policies, business needs and talent needs.

Segmentation also gives the business the flexibility to allocate a different amount of budget and effort to each type of assignment.

Segmentation should be done in the right amount: insufficient segmentation will lead to a policy framework that is not fit for purpose, but over-segmentation will result in too many policies, leading to confusion, inconsistencies and increased administration.

Market Competitiveness And Streamlined Administration

Having the right set of policies is only the starting point. Once the relevant assignment types have been identified, it is essential to

PREPARING FOR THE NEW NORMAL optimise policies and processes to achieve the maximum efficiency, from both a cost and operational perspective. Maximum agility will be achieved through a fine balance between affordability and ability to motivate employees to move. Excessive cost-cutting may make assignments more affordable in principle, but it may result in lower acceptance rates, longer negotiations, increased exception requests and delayed deployment timelines.

Market competitiveness is also essential to reduce the risk of assignment failure due to resignation or premature repatriation.

Optimisation should not be limited to cost considerations, but it should also aim to streamline administration, enabling HR resources to focus on value-adding activities, rather than transactional tasks. Organisational agility is greatly enhanced if the HR function is able to monitor, control and continuously improve mobility programmes without being bogged down by administration. HR service delivery can be greatly enhanced by having some level of centralised coordination, technology infrastructure, and the right support from 3rd party vendors.

Operational Excellence Through Centralised Expertise And Service Delivery

The management of international assignments involves a significant level of specialist knowledge and complex administration related to immigration, tax, payroll, relocation, insurances, cost of living adjustments, and many others. Mistakes can be risky and costly, and it is not feasible to have the appropriate level of HR experience in every location that either sends or receives an international assignee. Centralising this specialist expertise and administrative setup is a great way of achieving economies of scale, delivering consistent standards of service and providing support and specialist expertise to the entire organisation.

A global centralised structure also allows much clearer visibility of the cost of the mobility programmes. Consolidated reports make it easier to track the “assignment spend” and track key performance metrics. This would be very hard to achieve with a decentralised model, where each country or region only has partial visibility of the whole picture.

Furthermore, centralisation makes it more financially feasible to justify investments such as technology infrastructure, 3rd party vendor agreements, and international benefit schemes such as retirement and insurance plans to cover globally mobile employees.

Many of the world’s leading organisations chose to centralise at least part of these processes and infrastructure into Shared Service Centres, focusing on transactional tasks, as well as Centres of Expertise (COEs), focusing on the governance and strategic alignment of the mobility programmes.

A special type of centralised structure is a Global Employment Company (GEC), which is a fully-owned subsidiary of the group, which becomes the legal employer of mobile employees prior to their deployment. A GEC is most useful to organisations moving large numbers of “global nomads”, i.e. assignees who spend a considerable part of their career away from their home country. In addition to bringing all the benefits of centralisation mentioned above, a GEC can also help to mitigate corporate tax exposure and provide adequate social coverage to such assignees.

more sharply focused on delivering results by outsourcing the investments and administrative processes to expert vendors. Somewhere along this continuum there is an optimal solution for every organisation. To get started, it is often useful to conduct an internal Business Needs Analysis, surveying the current and future priorities of Line Managers, assignees and other HR stakeholders. This internal discussion would also benefit from the input of external experts, who can provide ideas, insights and emerging trends that can help you in your objective of future-proofing your mobility programmes.

Taking It One Step Further

Centralisation through a Shared Service Centre or a GEC delivers many advantages to the business, but it still represents a fixed cost, in terms of headcount, real estate and IT infrastructure. Furthermore, service quality is highly dependent on keeping staff turnover low and ensuring that the team remains constantly up to date with changes in immigration, tax, social security and employment laws in all applicable jurisdictions.

Furthermore, business continuity depends on this team having access to the premises, tools and information required to perform their job.

Based on these considerations, many organisations decided to take centralisation one step further, and outsource most, if not all, of the transactional processes. By combining centralisation with outsourcing, these organisations are leading the way in achieving the ultimate organisational agility. Internal resources are able to focus on governance and strategic alignment, whilst a reliable outsourcing vendor keeps the mobility programmes running smoothly, based on pre-agreed policies, processes and workflows. Service Level Agreements provide guaranteed service quality and business continuity, with little or no investment in infrastructure required.

Most importantly, this type of administrative model provides scalability and replaces fixed costs with flexible costs. This means that in the event of a sudden decrease in the volume of international assignments, as seen during the recent pandemic, the company would not continue to be burdened with the fixed cost of a large Mobility team and internal infrastructure, nor would it need to worry about having excess headcount in the Mobility team. Conversely, in the event of a sudden surge in the number of assignments, the organisation would not need to commit more internal resources and infrastructure.

Conclusions

In summary, to thrive in today’s business environment, agility is a critical success factor.

The good news is that there are many initiatives that can make organisations more responsive to change. Some of these options require internal transformation, investments and ongoing maintenance of HR teams, whereas others are

MARIO FERRARO

Mario Ferraro is internationally recognised as a Thought Leader in the area of Global Mobility and International HR. During his career he helped some of the world’s best organisations to design and implement effective Global Mobility solutions. His experience spans 3 decades and includes leadership roles with some of the world’s leading consulting firms, as well as global roles in International HR and Mobility.

E: mferraro@itx-sg.com.

VINCENT HENNEQUIN

Vincent Hennequin assists international organisations achieve simplification and cost-effectiveness of their expatriation programmes, in full compliance with international regulations. He works with clients to explore their organisational needs and identify suitable interventions ranging from bespoke studies to full operational solutions.

Vincent’s experience includes people development and coaching within multinational companies in different industries and geographies, including the Nordic and Baltic Countries, Russia, Germany and France.

E: vhennequin@itx-ge.com.

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Learnings From A Global Pandemic With government authorities around the world having closed borders to safeguard their citizens, we have seen companies responding in a similar manner; adopting travel bans to protect their employees’ health and well-being and safeguard business operations against the spread of infection.

As we move into a slow reawakening of international business travel, questions for the International HR community are inescapable; what did we learn from a global pandemic and how will it change our function moving forward?

The answer to this may lie in a change of the ultimate objective for our function, with clearer measurable goals.

Lonza

Within Lonza, the global pandemic created both great opportunities and great challenges for the Talent Mobility team, the wider HR community and the business as a whole.

Lonza is a fast-growing Life Sciences company with over 15,500 employees, operating in 120 sites and offices across more than 35 different countries (1). The business operates under two segments of Lonza Pharma, Biotech and Nutrition and Lonza Speciality Ingredients. The requirement to continue operations was magnified; assist in the search for a vaccine and effective therapies; produce additional hand-sanitiser and disinfectant in the respective segments, as well as continue business as usual.

With the requirement to continue and expand operations for the development of such important global health initiatives, the reliance on the Workforce Planning Strategy through the HR community and the Talent Mobility team became paramount to the company’s success.

Redefinition Of Workforce Planning Strategy?

The phrase ‘Having the Right People, in the Right Place, at the Right Time” is a Workforce Planning tagline the globe over and often used as the strategic objective of an International HR or Talent Mobility team.

The global COVID-19 pandemic brought the interpretation of this objective into question.

Arguably, we have been inadvertently gifted a new measurable set of goals to guide us.

The strategic objective of a Talent Mobility team now appears to rely on successful achievement, and ongoing nurturing,

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of “Having the Right Data, the Right Responsibilities and the Right Relationships”.

The use of these key criteria has allowed the HR team at Lonza to adjust our approach to Talent Mobility to largely meet the key objective of maintaining full operation throughout a difficult period by adopting global HR policies, breaking down regional silos, allowing for the Talent Mobility team to take a more strategic seat within the organisation and acknowledging the need for transparent data.

As we move into a slow reawakening of international business travel, questions for the International HR community are inescapable; what did we learn from a global pandemic and how will it change our function moving forward?

Having The Right Data

When the early signs of the challenges of COVID-19 arose in early 2020, the requirement to have the right data became HR’s first hurdle; do we know where our people are, do we know what their travel plans are and do we know that they are safe and protected?

The requirement to bring together data from the HR system, travel systems and relocation provider required partnering from far cornerstones of the organisation.

Any previous tendency for ‘knowledge is power’ behaviour quickly became a thought of the past.

Going forward, the need for oversight across all types of travel, all regions and all areas of the business becomes the measure of success. However, an open question still remains for constant discussion; which system prevails as the source of truth and how can this information be gathered on a modular basis if there is no single source? The reality for most organisations will be that the existing platforms in place will need to be explored and expanded to match the new need.

Having The Right Responsibilities

From studies from as early as the 2000s, the rise of non-traditional mobility, crossborder working, business travellers and flexible work arrangements have been placed firmly on the agenda of those in the International HR community; a dilemma of balance between the employer’s duty of care, compliance and the increasing flexibility in the work environment required to attract and maintain talent.

This raises the question as to whether the scope of existing, traditional, mobility work, performed by Talent Mobility teams, covers the right population under the ‘new normal’; permanent relocations, business travel, cross-border working, virtual assignments and other forms of non-traditional mobility inadvertently become an additional concern.

These new forms of mobility still require the Talent Mobility team to achieve the same critical objective that exists for traditional international assignments.

The rise of these newer forms of mobility have seen a significant spike during COVID19 and are set to remain ever-present in some way as part of the more flexible workforce moving forwards, and the scoping of International HR and Talent Mobility teams needs to be revisited as a priority.

The ultimate objective of having the right people, in the right place at the right time as a principle can only be achieved if this is applicable to the entire workforce. However, in order to do this, the scope of responsibility for policy, sign-off and jurisdiction needs to include International HR specialists.

This is set to be one of the biggest challenges in the area of Talent Mobility; do we have the correct resourcing design,

READERS’ RECENT EXPERIENCES - TALENT MOBILITY the knowledge, and the influencing powers to breakdown existing regional or country silos within the organisation? This can only be answered with a critical review per organisation and a move to globalised policies and approaches.

Having The Right Relationships

Given the complexity of the function and number of touchpoints required for any form of mobility, the changes identified under COVID-19 also brings the requirement for a Talent Mobility team to have the right relationships in place, to gather and understand a myriad of technical information, and execute it effectively and efficiently. This relies on the support of the right external parties where required, and influence with the right internal stakeholders.

The marketplace is awash with offers from providers offering best in class solutions as specialists in a number of topics. The question as to who you need when things get difficult is often one which is hard to determine at the outset, but abundantly clear in times of change or challenge.

The technical knowledge and support offered allow for a Talent Mobility team to keep their finger on the pulse for ongoing changes such as border restrictions, immigration office closures, logistics challenges and tax / social security waivers.

This allows for the team to become a vital single knowledge source, gaining credibility from the Business Unit leaders and offering a path to the highly desired ‘seat at the table’.

In addition, the relationships with internal stakeholders such as HR Operations, Payroll, Tax and Legal, allow for a smooth and agile approach to new challenges and flexible set-ups; developing an operational process for execution moving forward as the nontraditional cases become the majority.

These relationships do not materialise without ongoing effort. A key learning is to ensure that relationships are nurtured to create a safe and transparent eco-system internally to ensure that even when issues that sit outside of usual processes are identified, a taskforce is already in place with a common goal and way of working to address issues, even if these sit outside of usual processes.

Lonza And Talent Mobility During COVID-19

Our journey began with gathering the knowledge of how many relocations, assignments and repatriations were pending and the locations involved. With this global overview obtained, we were able to assign risk categories where physical mobility could not be realised, with remote onboarding becoming a fast second priority. Having the total projected figures for a period of six months also allowed us to plan in advance,

staggering the delayed moves over a number of months to better manage logistics when restrictions were lifted (i.e. limited temporary living options in certain locations).

Having the right information gives us credibility with senior leaders, allowing the mobilisation of talent to become top of the agenda and allow us to communicate clearly and effectively to our global community.

The staggered approach allowed us to give reasonable certainty of a future relocation date to individuals. New hires to the company, internal transfers and pending assignments were able to organise their personal affairs to a pre-set date, with managed expectations and without additional stress.

The staggered approach allowed us to give reasonable certainty of a future relocation date to individuals The knowledge of the delayed moves allowed us to use our vendor relationships more effectively; using live information on border restrictions, immigration office closures, logistics challenges and tax / social security waivers. It also allowed us to ensure a targeted plan with our global relocation management company to ease an influx of new cases upon easement of restrictions.

New hires to the company were onboarded remotely with support from stakeholders across the different functions (including Payroll, HR Operations, Legal and Tax). This allowed new hires to start their employment on their agreed dates, with no gap in employment, while managing relocations and compliance set-ups.

International Assignments commenced on a ‘virtual assignment’ basis and International Transfers commenced their new roles remotely, compliance review permitting.

The approach of having the Right Data, the Right Responsibilities and the Right

Relationships has allowed successful realisation of all planned new relocations, international transfers and assignments across the global population. The Talent Mobility team at Lonza has achieved its key objective as a function of having the right people, in the right place (virtually) at the right time.

The Future

Aside from a fresh and critical look on the main objective of Talent Mobility, we have used the experience of the global pandemic to understand how we review our achievement of this in a “SMART” manner; by “Having the Right Data, the Right Responsibilities and the Right Relationships”.

These areas are interdependent on one another and no single one can ensure the achievement of success of the ultimate aim.

However, a clear focus does allow for a structured and transparent approach to how International HR and Talent Mobility play an important role in reshaping the future of work in any organisation. Investing time and effort into each of these key areas stands the function in good stead for ultimate success.

References: (1) www.lonza.com/company-overview

CLAIRE RUTHERFORD

Claire has over 10 years of experience in the talent mobility field and manages the Talent Mobility team at Lonza from Basel, Switzerland, dealing with end-toend mobility moves across the globe.

The team is responsible for traditional international assignments, non-traditional mobility, permanent relocations and US domestic mobility. She is also passionate about the education of mobility professionals, sitting on the Swiss board of the Expatise Academy.

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Protecting Culture In A Crisis In this article from Chief People Officer at luxury hotel management company, Dorchester Collection, Eugenio Pirri explains how they placed their culture, values and brand ethos at the heart of their COVID-19 response across the globe.

I’m sure I am not alone in saying that no amount of continuity planning, or scenario training, could have prepared us for the past six months. A global pandemic of this scale.

A world united in crisis. Standing together clapping for our key workers. Grieving together as the global death toll reached hundreds of thousands. It was, and still is, a challenge like no other that I have faced in my career.

While this was by no means Dorchester Collection’s first foray into a crisis, and although we had many crisis management processes in place, this was something altogether different.

First, the pandemic hit each of our hotels at different times; creating immediate uncertainty for those who were impacted first in our Italian hotels and a wider ripple of anxiety for those in France, the United Kingdom and America, who could see the virus steadily making its way towards them.

Second, there was no singular global response to the virus. Italy saw one of the toughest lockdowns, with the UK following a similar stance. Our American hotels, however, remained open with a small number of guests using them as their lockdown home. Each country’s Government put in place different guidelines, rules and support packages which businesses and individuals could pull upon in these times of uncertainty.

Finally, being remote became, and for many still, the new normal – whether that was for those still working, or those who weren’t but were in lockdown away from family and friends.

This combination meant that, almost overnight, a new culture and a new perspective was created. One that we needed to understand and quickly align to our values; ensuring we continued to prosper as an organisation. Previous learnings from handling a crisis, meant that we knew we had to focus on our people first, and then create a response which was in keeping with our brand and culture.

Protecting Our Culture

We are clear on what we wish to achieve as an organisation. It is our overarching vision to be treasured by guests, cherished by employees and celebrated worldwide.

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Our values of passion, personality, respect, working together and creativity, underpin all that we do to ensure this vision is realised across the organisation.

Protecting this culture, our core, our DNA, is our priority, regardless of crisis. For us, our response, and now our return to operation, has never been about COVID-19. Instead it remains to be about our vision – how, with a COVID-19 backdrop, can we create an experience which ensures we will continue to be loved by our guests, enables our people to feel valued and, as an organisation, will be held up as exemplary in the luxury market across the world.

Protecting this culture, our core, our DNA, is our priority, regardless of crisis. For us, our response, and now our return to operation, has never been about COVID-19 For our people, we needed them to feel safe, secure and informed. We immediately removed the most serious concern by committing to protect the roles and salaries of all 4,000 employees across the world. Keeping them informed was critical, and what this crisis brought forth, like no other, was the critical role of employee communications (more on this later).

To ensure we remained treasured by our guests, we had to understand the implications of the pandemic on the experience. We too needed to ensure that when our hotels re-opened, or opened to more guests, that they felt safe, but that the

experience they know and pay for, was in no way downgraded because of the virus.

To achieve this, we took each of our nine identified emotional needs of our guests and explored them to find alternate ways to connect with the individual. As a result, we adapted our core standards, our hygiene approaches and our housekeeping methods to enable us to adhere with the requirements set by each country relating to COVID-19, yet in a way which worked for world-class luxury service.

The most significant decision was that, unless mandated by law, we would not have any front of house signage or markings to enforce social distancing and hygiene requirements. Instead, in keeping with our culture and brand, we would adopt a peopleled approach whereby our employees would support our guests through verbal interactions and body language so that guests would know, understand and adhere to the protocols. Our people become their guides, helping our guests to move seamlessly within the hotels, while minimising the risk of transmission. Of course, in some locations our team have no choice but to wear gloves and masks. Again, we have considered how this can best be delivered in our style and have adopted an approach where white gloves are used, and a face covering has been developed which is in line with our uniform.

When it comes to cleanliness, we already score the highest in global audits for the luxury market. Our guests know that we are clean.

Instead of adopting signage to reinforce this, we are demonstrating this visually by having our people continually cleaning all public areas of the property. Back of house there will be signage to our employees to reinforce our expectations of their personal hygiene, however, for our guests, it is the picture which will paint a thousand words.

READERS’ RECENT EXPERIENCES Connecting Through Communication

According to a 2020 study by Edelman, employer-led communications are the most credible source of information for employees: critical for transparency, engagement, stability and, most importantly creating trust. In the climate the world has found itself in, with most organisations having to either make remote working the way of life or furlough hundreds of employees, ensuring that we remained connected to our people was crucial.

‘We Care’ is our internal message to our people, and this was our starting point.

Within the first three days of COVID-19 impacting our business, our first newsletter – Legends@home – was launched; setting the scene and explaining to people how we would keep them informed. Two days later, phone trees were established in our hotels; making a commitment that every single one of our employees would be spoken to each week.

It was not only vital that we stayed in touch for engagement, but for mental wellbeing. We wanted our people to know we were there, and would be there, throughout.

It was also our role as guardians of the people, to ensure that our teams stayed connected to us as an organisation – our culture, our vision, our values. If we were to ask them to come back into the workplace, we wanted them to feel valued while they were at home so they returned knowing that we would keep them safe and support them with the transition to operating.

Initially our communications centred on the operational response to COVID-19, however, once this was clear, our focus was on motivation and mental well-being.

I remember speaking with a colleague and her words reminded me that while we were all in the same crisis, everyone was experiencing it differently. For her, she was in lockdown, alone, in a studio flat. Others were with family or friends. Some lived in city centres where it was almost impossible to exercise or enjoy fresh air. At that moment I realised that each of our people were in a different situation. Therefore, creating consistency through communications, enabling our people to connect through various means, while promoting ways to motivate, get exercise, or do something good for your community, became the ultimate objective. We had to identify and understand our workforce and adapt our communications style so that each person, regardless of their situation, felt as connected to us, and as valued by us, as the next person.

To deliver this, the people and culture team led centrally. We set the standards around employee communications and how it should be delivered. Guidelines around the amount, the types of communication,

the balance between informative and fun.

We also asked our hotels to carry out an agreed amount of corporate responsibility within the community; using our skills and knowledge to support those around us who were dealing with the pandemic first-hand.

Our hotels took those standards and, evoking our value of creativity, they delivered in a way which would land with their people locally. Daily coffee chats with general managers. Weekly training plans where people could share skills or sign up to free language courses. Videos from across the workforce helping to motivate others with exercise or cooking.

Our people launched partnerships with local schools, hospitals and churches to provide food and care packages to those in need. In Italy, teams agreed to donate a proportion of their salary to the COVID-19 relief fund. We shared our stories on Instagram throughout the world, showcasing what it was like to be a

hospitality organisation in a pandemic which had the potential to decimate our sector.

Conclusion

When you are faced with a pandemic, it’s very easy to lose sight of who you are as an employer and as a brand. Concerns around financials and revenue can cause you to let go of the values which have built you as an organisation and enabled your success. However, placing the crisis at the centre is a dangerous position to be in. For us, if we did not lead with our guests and employees, with COVID-19 as a backdrop, then we would not be staying true to our vision. And we would not have survived and be in the position of strength we find ourselves in now ahead of wider re-opening. Therefore, my ultimate advice is be brave. Don’t let a good crisis go to waste. Look at things differently.

Take stock and uncover the priorities. Though most importantly, stay true to who you are – the opportunity will then come to you.

EUGENIO PIRRI

Chief people and culture officer & global diversity champion A multi-award winning industry leader, Eugenio Pirri has dedicated his 30-year career to ensuring that people are the cornerstone of every business decision. An ardent advocate for diversity and inclusion across all aspects of operation, Pirri has pioneered several pivotal initiatives for Dorchester Collection, including the We Care philosophy.

As the company’s global diversity champion, Pirri works closely with Stonewall and other organisations to ensure that he maintains a workplace that's truly inclusive.

Born in Canada to Italian parents, Pirri first began his career in his local McDonald’s restaurant in Quesnel, BC. His leadership talent was quickly realised when he became restaurant manager at only 16 years of age.

Pirri went on to study Tourism & Hospitality, as well as Employment Law and Human Rights in Vancouver before holding several managerial positions within the hospitality trade. In his previous position as regional HR director of Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, Pirri was responsible for implementing an aligned corporate HR strategy across all its European properties.

Joining Dorchester Collection in 2011 as vice president, people and organisational development, Pirri committed himself to reshaping the company culture, grounded in a holistic approach to employee and guest engagement within all constituents of the business.

He was appointed chief people and culture officer in 2017 where he continues to direct all aspects of human resources, including learning and development, employee & guest engagement, and corporate responsibility. Pirri was also instrumental in the formation of the Dorchester Collection Academy, a unique training venue offering bespoke learning programmes for businesses and aspirational brands.

An esteemed industry leader, Pirri has garnered many awards during his career and is frequently recognised for his invaluable contributions to the industry. He and his team have achieved numerous accolades, including Distinction in Talent Management by the HR Distinction Awards, Excellence in Employee Engagement from HR in Hospitality and Employee Engagement Company of the Year by the Employee Engagement Awards. Most notably, Pirri has been recognised on the HR most influential practitioner list by HR magazine for the past five consecutive years.

Pirri is also the author of a successful book, “Be a People Leader: A Sustainable Framework for Achieving Your Full Leadership Potential”, in which he shares his strategy for successful people management in the workplace.

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

Did You See COVID-19 Coming?

No? Neither did we; or anyone in fact. What lessons have we learnt in Reward & Wellbeing in the face of COVID-19 and the start to this new decade?

In a job interview five years ago had you been asked where you will be in five years – well, I am quite sure not a single one of us would have responded, ‘I will be working from home all day, everyday; communicating to people solely via screen; my groceries are primarily delivered to my door by someone in a mask; and most insightfully, the price of a toilet roll will exceed that of a litre of petrol!’.

In fact, had we been asked in January if this is what June would look like, we would never have guessed or planned for it. However, what we all need to do is take a step back and appreciate we have survived the first six months of potentially the most impactful year in our life times, and we are far stronger for it.

Universally, the HR profession has picked up its collective petticoats and pulled up its socks and made good. We have supported employers and managers at a loss of what to do, employees at a loss of direction, colleagues bewildered and distressed, and gathered everyone up, and cared. Did we know the answers? Absolutely not, and we still don’t – but we found the confidence and leant on our resilience; and more than anything else – we did the best we could.

Our primary focus at Brunel at the outset of COVID-19 was around the wellbeing of our employees and students – as this is always our focus it was already habit and therefore we come to Lesson 1 – lean on your strengths.

Immediately, we knew there was one thing needed more than anything else – Communication. Even when you don’t know what to say and don’t have the answers, admit it and be clear. Where we can offer advice and direction, make that clear too.

Building resources and signposting whatever we could helped our employees know what we knew, what they needed to do, and where they could get help This was a focus in the early days of lockdown and still remains an asset that we update as new developments occur and our response changes to keep abreast of the changing landscape. Most important is to keep these communications honest – Lesson 2 – value the importance of communication, but ensure it is honest and earnest, if you don’t know, admit it. That’s the only way to engender confidence in what you are communicating.

From the perspective of my team, Reward & Wellbeing, we had two obvious challenges,

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the first was Furlough. In February furlough sounded like something a farmer ploughed in his field, or something that measured how far a horse ran, but at the very least it was an ‘F’ word that even the most worldly wise of us had not heard. By March it was a new term that we had a whole new definition for, and by April we were talking to employees about their not being at work, whilst they were (already) not at work because of the lockdown, and still being paid. The University made a decision at the outset of considering applying furlough, that any employees on furlough would continue to receive 100% of their salary, i.e. that we would

sometimes no amount of discussion or explanation is enough for people to have the answers for their own peace of mind, which says more about their peace of mind than anything you can say, so accepting the limit of your control is paramount

top up the 20%. However, because this was such a new concept, and the very nature of people’s insecurity and concern, no amount of discussions gave peace of mind that this wasn’t the future potential devastation of their employment. Equally, at that time, it would have been inappropriate to give assurances on the long-term when there was no longterm information. Lesson 3 – sometimes no amount of discussion or explanation is enough for people to have the answers for their own peace of mind, which says more about their peace of mind than anything you can say, so accepting the limit of your control is paramount.

Our second challenge was the wellbeing of our employees. My team are amazing, and took immediate action to compliment the general University communications with wellbeing focused communications. Some of the activities we initiated in the face of the early days of lockdown included: • Creating an additional section on our already bursting wellbeing web pages about working at home; DSE and how to make the best of it all • Providing information about managing teams remotely • Promoting the access and availability of hitherto unknown products, like Zoom and Teams, as well as reminding about Skype for Business and even emails as forms of keeping in contact • Updating our Employee Assistance Programme page, to ensure it was current and accessible, and keeping this updated as our EAP partner provided materials.

Then furlough was implemented!! We had a population of employees that were no longer ‘working’, which we appreciated for some would be an immense challenge, so we re-directed some of our communications and included more information around: • Keeping fit, and exercise at home • Keeping busy – with creative ideas for new hobbies and activities like links to virtual museum tours • New personal development opportunities, providing access and links so employees could seek out things they could learn – both work related, like IT skills and personally related • More support for managers, who would now be working with some colleagues, and also maintaining engagement with other colleagues unable to work.

We also recognised we had a number of employees that were carers and parents, so promoted the policies and guidance that support them, coaching the managers to

READERS’ RECENT EXPERIENCES offer flexibility – re-directing the focus to getting the job done, and if it was easier to do it at 10pm when the children were asleep, then that’s job done!

The web pages were, at the peak of the lock down, updated almost daily; and the team continue to update them at least weekly to ensure they are current and offer any new opportunities for support and wellbeing that we can possibly source. We had a lot, as we are a really great employer, but we decided there is no limit that is too much. During these unprecedented times, if we can get something that only helps one person then that’s enough to make it worthwhile. This highlights our Lesson 4 – you will never, ever, be told by your employees that you have too much wellbeing in place. People may claim they cannot find it, or that it’s not something they need – but they won’t tell you that you have more than enough.

On the subject of Wellbeing, it is also important that we bring this a little closer to home. Human Resources have been busy over the last four months, there is no dispute to that. By the very nature of what we do, we care, and there should be no challenge to that either. But, I would say that we all too often forget to put ourselves first in our priority lists, and we really need to do that

too. All the resilience and confidence in the world that we encourage from other people will not help us, we need our own little pot too. This is why Lesson 5 – my last, but most important lesson – is look after yourself; take care of you! Remember when you get on a plane (if you remember those distant memories of travelling), you are told to ensure your own mask is on before you help others. Well this is true in life too, except for HR practitioners we wear capes not masks, because we are super heros.

This is why Lesson 5 - my last, but most important lesson - is look after yourself; take care of you!

HAZEL ROBINSON

Associate Director - Human Resources Reward & Wellbeing After joining Brunel University London in October 2016 as an HR Consultant to support with a business change project, Hazel is currently an Associate Director in Human Resources, and is Head of Reward & Wellbeing.

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COVID-19 - What Have We Learnt From These Challenging Times?

Monday 16th March, another day in the office, but things were starting to feel strange. A few cases of Coronavirus were on the news in the UK and around the world, but for many of us it was yet to be apparent just how big a disruption to everyday life was approaching We were about to have a change forced upon us which would see the largest behavioural intervention of all times.

One week on, 23rd March, and it was very apparent things were changing quickly. The Government were now saying ‘work from home if you are able to do so’, Leonardo employees enabled to work from home had been instructed to do so since the previous week. As I am sure with other companies, our approach to communicating with employees and the outside world was having to adapt quickly as the crisis evolved. We had never had to communicate such big changes in a short space of time. How would it work?

Well, I can confirm Leonardo, around the world, stepped up in every way. Firstly, they would do their best to ensure the safety of their people. Anybody who could work from home was told to do so as advised by the Government guidelines. In order to support this, the company had invested at an earlier stage of the pandemic in IT equipment and infrastructure to enable up to 70% of the company’s UK employees to work remotely.

Some of the workforce, in areas such as production, needed to continue to work on Government contracts as key workers on site. The Senior Team made suitable changes to their areas, put shift patterns in place and supported in every way they could to ensure social distancing measures were in place and safe working measures and PPE were set up. The canteen was shut but daily picnic lunches were distributed to those workers on site to avoid large gatherings and further chances of any contamination.

Having already seen the pandemic strike Italy, where thousands of Leonardo employees are based, we had been able to take lessons from their experience and plan from the very early stages how to respond to the emergency. A senior COVID response team was formed which held daily meetings making decisions across all UK sites and

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produced a daily communication to keep all employees informed of the situation, what they needed to do, and provide support for health and safety and the changes to continue and adjust to the new environment we were all now working in.

We operate under tight security restrictions with IT platforms, but very quickly we all felt connected. WebEx and Skype were the new ‘normal’ ways of communication and keeping in touch with teams. Nobody has been furloughed, and the majority of the workforce has maintained a good level of resilience and positivity.

Travel restrictions were enforced from very early stages of the crisis and some long-term assignees returned to the UK from less favourable places in the world to work from their UK home and just be back with family during a time where the future was not clear. Additional communication has been kept with all assignees, wherever they find themselves, just to check all is okay. Whilst some are displaced from their host countries others are working with local government guidance in addition to our internal communication and sharing their experiences and concerns.

Absence reporting and monitoring the situation of all employees has been critical.

Specific advice and support has been ongoing throughout. A wellbeing strategy is embedded to maintain the new working environment whilst keeping contact with everybody who is suffering from different impacts of the virus, whether contraction of COVID-19, shielding, or having to manage different working arrangements whilst juggling family needs and workload. Open channels are set up to support both mental and physical health at a time where people need to feel connected, and understanding there is a channel to say how you feel especially if suffering.

Across all sites you can now see the wide use of newer communication channels such as Whatsapp and remote collaboration with colleagues that had not happened on such a large scale before. It was important to get through this together and have an agile approach with the importance to foster the change needed.

Some tactical tools were put in place as an infrastructure to ensure the pulse continued and the employees continued to feel part of the company, not cast adrift. Positive energy came through the communications and

physical support briefings were shared from the Health and Safety Team. Nobody wants to suffer from ‘Dormant bottom syndrome’ do they?! Change is not the easiest thing to accept, but somehow through the speed and necessity of the requirement we appear to be riding the storm and adapting well to the new ways of working. The insight into our colleagues lives in different ways than we might have expected in the past and the empathetic approach from managers has all been part of the journey. Wanting to feel that somebody cares how you feel and not just what you are doing has been a key approach. Understanding your own mental health and what works for you is very important in not feeling isolated. How will you break up the day? How will I get through this alone? It is important to see progress and as a company Leonardo has supported every step throughout the journey so far.

Ten weeks on and improvements have continued each week, and we’re now planning how the best parts of this new model of working can be extended into the future, even as the lockdown begins to ease.

What will become the norm for the future?

To what extent can we adopt some of these new working patterns?

Office layouts, signage and rotas are being drawn up. There is no expectation that we will have a working life quite the same as we have had in the past, so sharing new ideas and ways of working will assist us all in adopting new patterns and embracing life for the future.

JANICE WASS

Global Mobility Manager Leonardo UK

READERS’ RECENT EXPERIENCES

Magic During ‘The Great Pause’ It started slowly, actually. We’d all been seeing and hearing about the unfolding events in China around COVID-19 (or Coronavirus as we were all calling it then) since, about late December, I suppose. We watched it spreading in Asia: Wuhan in China, Korea was reporting cases, Hong Kong and Singapore following not long thereafter. Everyone began to speculate: in these times of global travel, just how quickly might it spread to other continents?

The Equinix Head Office is in California and was very timely in sending out updates on the state of play with respect to our APAC offices and colleagues. The CEO and CHRO were diligent in reaching out with communications to all staff to keep everyone informed of what was going on more broadly within the firm.

I can remember during my weekly call with my sister, who is back in New York, asking what the press were making of it over there.

As with here, there were many people initially (myself included, ok I admit it), who thought this was all a bit of a storm in a teacup; surely it would all blow over. After all, it wasn’t anything more than a heavy flu, right? Little did we realise!

All during January and February the situation was being monitored and we watched this monstrous disease as it marched inexorably across landmass and oceans; first France, then Germany, Italy, Sweden and Spain; Italy, Spain and Sweden all reporting their first cases on the same day, with Norway coming almost a month later. Now even some folks in London were beginning to get a bit ‘twitchy’.

Still, life pretty much continued as normal, though I do recall noticing a lot more people wearing face masks in early February in Heathrow Airport! Then the UK Health Secretary announced special health protection regulations while the Chief Medical Officer set out a proposed strategy to try and contain the outbreak in the UK. Our offices in Europe had still not been closed by this point (obviously our APAC colleagues had been in lock-down since early on), but there was now an ‘only essential travel’ edict put in place throughout the company. Activities were ramped up to account for our travelling employees as well as monitoring our Assignees were in a good place.

And then it came; from 16th March we received instruction that all non-International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) staff (they keep the physical data centre sites running, therefore, your internet connectivity!) were to work from home; only essential IBX staff would be necessary and required at IBX sites. Assurances were provided and information released about the protection protocols which had been put into place. We were advised the Crisis Management Team and business continuity plan had been invoked, and rigorous disinfection regimes instituted across all offices to ensure staff safety; all other non-essential, non-IBX staff were to work remotely.

Virtually overnight, everything was turned on its head: almost the entirety of the workforce was working remotely; something which had previously only ever been the case for a relatively small percentage of staff.

Welcome to the New Normal.

While remote working is not something which all industry sectors can benefit from,

Virtually overnight, everything was turned on its head: almost the entirety of the workforce was working remotely; something which had previously only ever been the case for a relatively small percentage of staff

ours is one where large segments of the workforce can perform their duties remotely.

Many companies are coming to the conclusion that this is not only a viable short-term proposition but may also be sustainable in the longer-term. I can’t help but wonder whether this might become part of a stable of benefits on offer in future, adding to the differentiators in determining employers of choice.

Of course, remote working isn’t for everyone and there are many who have struggled and continue to do so, but for quite a few people, remote working has turned out to be an unexpected and welcome development.

Since the beginning of the lockdown, all of our staff have received regular communications from our senior leaders, been provided tools, training tips and given access to a multitude of collaboration channels to be more effective at remote working, to keep information flowing, and to help ensure everyone feels connected and informed.

A special Corona Virus site has been established on our intranet to provide employees with a central place to receive updates about the situation and to provide additional information on: • Working remotely (guidance, coaching and tools) • Staying well (tips and resources) • Utilising collaboration tools (how-to guides) • Managing stress (tips and resources) • Getting help (free counseling services and much more) • Helping others (Impact opportunities) • Answering hot questions (employee FAQs) • Access to all announcements.

Everyone in the company has been encouraged to utilise and become more conversant with technology than ever before: I’ll wager that never have so many teleconferences taken place in the history of most companies. We are all now so much more adept (ok, slightly more adept) at Zoom and Teams and, something called Yammer (?!) – yeah, I confess, that one is completely new and unknown to me at this point. But, thankfully, there is always someone to reach out to who knows more than me on the technology side (not hard) and is willing to help.

In our team, instead of a weekly or fortnightly 1:1 meeting, daily catchups are also the new normal: shorter than a typical 1:1 due to their frequency but more focused, the aim is to facilitate ongoing communication; just to check in with each other and ensure everyone is ok and on track.

Overall staff response within the company has also been gratifying to see in terms of

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how people have responded and risen to the occasion. Organised, as well as completely ad-hoc groups have formed to bring people together in celebration of birthdays, to hold virtual ‘pub’ quizzes, provide simulated ‘corridor conversations’, stage baby picture contests, conduct virtual cocktail happy hours, allow for recipe sharing and coffee catch-ups, both within and even between teams; some gatherings being inclusive of partners/other family members confined by lock-down. And this is not just a local or even regional phenomenon – these are global groups and gatherings in some cases.

The company has made tremendous efforts to ensure no one felt left behind or forgotten. There have been regular ‘Thank you’ sessions to show appreciation to our IBX colleagues as they put themselves out there all day, every day, ensuring the continuity and security of our services.

E m p loye e A ss i s t a n ce P ro g ra m m e information, support in obtaining specialist equipment or supplies, online learning courses, even online volunteering mechanisms have all been made available.

Wellbeing resources and forums have been established spanning everything from staff struggling to juggle children’s home-schooling needs alongside their work responsibilities to mechanisms for encouraging and nurturing those who might

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be and/or have been struggling due to enforced isolation.

The versatility, agility and adaptability of the management and staff has really been inspiring. The sheer depth and breadth of the communications and support, the empathy and compassion of our leaders and of our colleagues has been exceptional - and not just a little humbling. And it doesn’t end there. Equinix extended our firm’s services -for free-, to qualifying organisations supporting ‘the greater good’ throughout the pandemic and doubled the company match on employee donations through to the end of May, for specified charities.

Even now, when we are beginning to see some chinks of light with the potential lifting or at least easing of lock-down measures, immensely careful consideration and planning has been put into the staging of our office re-openings. First and foremost, as has been the case throughout this crisis, the company’s concern has been for the wellness of the staff and of our customers.

In Equinix we talk about the ‘Magic’ of our organisation; our culture, our ethos and our values. The pandemic has only served to highlight just how much all of these are truly lived in and by our company and our employees. It makes me feel proud to know that I work for such a caring, compassionate, decent and human company.

GINA VECCHIO

Senior Manager Global Mobility 4.5+ years at Equinix, Previously held numerous head of function positions in financial services + others.

30+ years’ experience in GM.

READERS’ RECENT EXPERIENCES

Thriving Amidst Uncertainty A global pandemic is a complex, rapidly evolving issue, with new information emerging continuously. The topic is polarising, political and emotional.

Opinions are diverse; no group is in the majority and no individual is alone in their thinking and experience. At Steelcase, it’s not enough for us to keep the business running during the pandemic, we intend to capitalise on the disruption to solidify our culture and allow our employees to thrive. We are learning a few things along the way, that I am happy to share with you.

Leverage Wellbeing:

Establish a COVID-19 Wellbeing response team with the intention of addressing wellbeing needs in the moment. Here’s some ways we approached this: Keeping employee wellbeing front-andcentre during the pandemic has been one of our guiding principles.

• Cognitive: When our employees needed a level of certainty in their day, we launched a daily mindfulness moment. Our live broadcast (which could also be watched as a recording) was leveraged by employees around the world to start their day focused and with a connection to the company • Emotional: As we saw our employees struggling with staying mentally healthy, and leaders seeking guidance on how to have these sensitive conversations, we produced a webinar on understanding and addressing the signs of mental illness. We created brief on-demand wellbeing video episodes on a variety of topics including: understanding how your brain responds to threats, keeping feedback flowing during remote work, resiliency, cognitive capacity and creating psychological safety. Each week we add new content based on what the current needs are • Financial: Pay reductions caused financial worry, so we worked with our vendor to host sessions on budgeting and reducing expenses • Physical: We pulled together resources on staying fit during lockdown, moved fitness classes to a virtual platform, and posted content on healthy eating.

Meeting the wellbeing needs of our people enables our organisation to sustain our energy for the longer-term adjustments we will need to make. By becoming a trusted curator of information, we were able to

limit employees’ stress as they sought information, and inspire healthy action.

Expert tip: A Wellbeing team doesn’t need to be large. It needs to be focused on hearing and addressing the needs of employees quickly.

Lean Into Learning:

Leverage Learning and Development (L&D) to shift the pandemic response mindset from post-traumatic stress to post-traumatic growth.

Many long-held beliefs and behaviours are shifting. We wanted employees to use their time to reflect on those shifts and understand how they are personally impacted. Instead of viewing the pandemic from a limited perspective focused on challenges and obstacles, we shifted our mindset to position it as an opportunity for personal growth. At Steelcase, we launched a weekly Teach Tuesday series called “Unlocking Your Genius”. The series consists of microlearning sessions dedicated to just-in-time topics such as prioritisation, decision-making, productivity and being future fit. We also offered a free learning trial for employees who were ready and able to dedicate time to their professional growth and development. By partnering with a thirdparty content provider, we allowed employees to access high-quality content on a variety of topics, enabling learning opportunities that were fresh, relevant and personalised. Coupled with a supportive social learning community, we were able to maintain a high level of participant engagement throughout the trial, as well as take advantage of peer-to-peer recommendations and key learnings employees could share with their teams. Opening the door for new learning opportunities communicates to your workforce an investment in learning, growth and adaptation that is always necessary in an organisation, particularly during times of uncertainly.

Expert tip: Support new learning offerings with a virtual learning community to build accountability and increase engagement.

recently passed away and that being forced to shelter in place was particularly lonely. In another, an employee talked about the struggle of trying to parent and stay focused on work at the same time.

Others opened up about the loss of a friend or family member to COVID. Each of these discussions brings clarity to the daily experiences and struggles of our employees and builds empathy • Touch points: Our HR Business Partners around the world have been checking in with employees and reporting back weekly. These weekly meetings are a prompt for our on-the-ground HR team to take time to reflect and share useful tools and resources globally • Survey: Our Return to the Workplace team launched an employee sentiment survey to better understand how ready and how urgently our employees want to return to the office. We received nearly 100 pages of open text responses. Many of the comments within the survey were leveraged in designing safe return to workplace experiences and expectations, as well as providing a better picture of how quickly the organisation can expect employees to return.

In each method we’ve used to seek perspectives, we have learned valuable information that has helped us leverage the voice of our employees in the actions we take.

We utilise our internal intranet site to share our findings and how employee feedback has impacted in-the-moment decisions, thus increasing transparency and trust.

Expert tip: Listening well and acting on feedback from your employees is wonderful.

Communicating the summarised feedback and how it’s being used is even better.

Listen Well And Act:

Ask your employees how they are feeling, listen well and act with their input in mind.

Listening well has been a key input into our COVID response strategy. When it comes to crisis, understanding how employees feel is paramount. None of us has been through something of this scale, so none of us can predict (based on past behaviour) how others are feeling. We need to ask. We used a mix of methods to gather perspectives.

• Roundtable: Our CEO holds weekly virtual roundtables to hear directly from employees. In one discussion, a 30-year employee shared that her spouse had

JILL DARK

Director of Learning, Leadership and Talent Transformation www.linkedin.com/in/jilldark/

33

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

Enhancing The Expat Experience A Deep Psychology Approach “Lifestyle Expats” Have Different Challenges

As I explained in previous editions of “The Global Mobility Workbook”, we see a new breed of expats who move from country to country. This is generally because they grew up as Third-Culture Kids already, or their spouse is offered a job in another country and they tag along and still wish to have a career, or they are simply from a generation who feel entitled to an international experience as part of their early-career experience. I call them “Lifestyle Expats,” also sometimes referred to as “Self-Initiated Expats” (SIEs).

They Underestimate The Effect Of Culture

While we emphasize the importance for expats to learn about Swiss culture and to assimilate with the locals, we need to shoulder some of the responsibility as well.

Granted, we cannot control what sort of neighbours expats will find, nor can we change all neighbours! However, is there any point of expats learning to integrate and still facing issues despite fitting in or blending perfectly, simply because the locals did not join intercultural training?

We need to start with ourselves and raise our “global competency”. “Global Competency” is a model I developed for “The Global Mobility Workbook” as well.

We need to understand the little nuances, for instance how the word “service” has a different expectation for people from China, India or Brazil than for Swiss people or anyone from a European background.

The demographics of Global Mobility are changing. We can expect from diversity of culture and backgrounds from expats - more dual career couples, more female expats, more same sex couples, more patchwork families. Only by learning things like this, can we understand how to serve expats from other backgrounds in a better way.

What Does This Mean For Global Mobility?

Basically, we are moving away from policies and focusing on individual offers and value propositions. The objective here is to provide better service while keeping the cost at the same levels. According to KPMG 2019 GAPP Survey, many organisations are already offering greater flexibility in their assignment policy approaches, allowing expats to benefit from more

34

personalised packages. For example, we could say we have a budget we need to adhere to so we could provide spousal support but maybe the expat does not get support with the move.

Or, we provide expat children with schooling, but they have to tackle housing on their own.

We could also allow the expat more control over what type of service they would like instead of either/or scenarios. Essentially, if we really want to enhance the expat experience (XX), our policies need to be geared more towards the individual. We are expecting that the scope of Global Mobility will be changing as more international hires and more international permanent transfers come in. In the past, the classical departments that took are of international assignments only took care of that “thing”.

When we talk about Global Mobility today, we mean departments that take care of all sorts of international movements, from business travellers to commuters, even digital nomads. In fact, digital nomads bring up interesting challenges. These are people who work through the internet and therefore theoretically could be working from anywhere. What would their home base be? And what implications would this have on their pensions? Digital nomadism seems to be particularly attractive among Millenials, but it is a phenomenon on the rise across generations, and it should therefore be given the right attention.

I feel that we also need to re-evaluate our definition of the word expat. In the Global Mobility Workbook, I talk about the “Lifestyle Expat”. Where is the difference with the term “Migrant” then? I would say migrants move to another country because they want to find work there. Their expectations are of a better lifestyle and better living conditions in the new country, and they often move on a permanent basis while they still care for family members in their home country. The term “Migrant” is considered to be a more general term but has a different connotation than “Expat”.

However, in some countries, the terms “Migrant” and “Expat” are used interchangeably. We should be open to this too, an expat is not someone who is just being moved by a company with a fat package. They could also be migrants or lifestyle expats who move on local contracts.

What we can do as service providers in this situation is to support global recruiting

and talent acquisition. We could improve the experience for lifestyle expats by addressing some of the issues they face, such as issues with the immigration process, medical insurance, employment retention, language barriers and cultural adjustment.

Is Expat Experience (XX) The Same As User Experience (UX)?

A recent survey by AIRINC found that 63% companies are currently working on enhancing the employee experience, ranked top strategic priority by the mobility professionals who took part in a 2019 Deloitte survey, indicating that this is indeed a very prominent topic in Global Mobility.

Let me call it “Expat Experience” for our purposes. “Expat Experience” is more than just a case of user experience. There are several components to it. As we start to develop the idea of the Expat Experience, I think we should focus on five components: 1. The service expats receive at touch points 2. The cultural adjustment process 3. The learning journey 4. The “Deeper Expat Experience” 5. The communication hole.

The Service At Certain Touch Points

While observing the interactions at touch points can help measure service quality, this is only one side of the coin. I think we fail to understand here that global couples aren’t robots. We cannot just send them through a move, open a bank account, help them sign a lease and expect them to be happy.

The Cultural Adjustment Process

Academics usually focus on the cultural adjustment process. They try to understand how expats adjust to their new surroundings and how it relates to their performance. It is commonly known that in the first six months expats generally don’t perform as well as in their home country due to the adjustment period and cultural transition. In the normal adjustment period curve, there is a phase where the adjustment almost always leads to psychological mood swings and symptoms close to depression - this is commonly referred to as “culture shock”.

The Communication Hole

In contrast, what we do in Global Mobility is that we focus on communicating with expats

ENHANCING THE EXPAT EXPERIENCE during the initial phases of the assignment (decision, move and arrival). When they have moved to the country, we sometimes provide intercultural training, help with settling in and then we expect them to handle the next steps on their own. Here, expats often discover the true value of their packages. The spendable income might be eaten up by daily necessities, medical expenses and lunch money. The commute to work might take longer than expected, and

the next person in the grocery line already shouted at them as they did not follow the protocol correctly.

Essentially, right when they need our support to keep them delivering high performance, we leave them alone.

The Learning Journey

That, I believe, is actually an issue we could address quite easily. Why? Assume that an expat has already gone through a tough

The five components of the Expat Experience

phase - the family isn’t happy, they are all experiencing culture shock, the expat’s performance is low. They’re all out of their comfort zone and are in fact in a panic zone.

Simultaneously, they are also experiencing what it means to be alone because of the loss of their support network from back home.

Here we could help by providing support in small, incremental steps and by listening to the expat couple and their needs.

The Deeper Expat Experience

The deeper expat experience that I alluded to earlier is something many of us don’t know about. Perhaps you have heard of the famous Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung?

He talked about how we often reflect our “shadows” in another person. Being in a different culture could also make you reflect yourself in the people of the host culture.

After the “honeymoon phase” for a while your reflection is negative - you will see things in other people you do not like about yourself. And you might not overcome this phase easily if you don’t discuss it with a professional coach. I think we still underestimate the consequences of the Expat Experience on our psyche: Expatriation is a deep experience. You meet your core, the essence of who you are and who you could be, a true journey of self-discovery.

In my view our higher purpose is to bring the human touch back into Global Mobility or as I said in my talk: “The higher purpose of Global Mobility professionals is to help Expat Couples discover themselves, guide them through the challenges and be there for them when they go through the valley of tears.”

Fig. 1 - Nine Phases and Cultural Transitions (The Global Mobility Workbook, 2019)

ANGIE WEINBERGER

Fig. 2 - The Expat’s Feelings in the Process

Angie is the Global Mobility Coach. Angie always worked in International Human Resources specializing in Global Mobility.

She owns a coaching and training company for expats and their spouses. She also works with GM Professionals and teams.

Angie is the author of ‘The Global Career Workbook’, a self-help career guide for internationally mobile professionals and ‘The Global Mobility Workbook’. She is a lecturer in the Global Mobility field.

35

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

How Is The Industry Opening Up Since the pandemic began, EuRA members across the world have been supporting assignees in a time of great uncertainty and fear. I have had the privilege of interviewing relocation service providers across the globe for our YouTube channel and a lot has changed since the end of February. The initial frozen fear we all felt as the world started to shut down passed quickly in our industry as members responded to the challenges facing their assignees. One of the questions I was asking in those early days was ‘how are your teams coping?’, and the answers I got back were unequivocal; they were coping amazingly well with their central concern being supporting their assignees during what is an incredibly difficult life change at the best of times. In the throes of a pandemic, in lockdown, unable to experience any of the highs of an international assignment, the work, collaboration and support of global mobility managers and service providers gave an essential practical and psychological lifeline to people in transition.

So now we find ourselves on the edge of a world opening up and for many countries coming out of lockdown is far more difficult than going into it. Europe is opening its borders again and most countries are relaxing their quarantine rules for new arrivals. However, it looks like global travel is still some way off and the practicalities of the day to day work of providers is hampered by the different rates at which governments are opening offices essential for assignees, such as immigration and social security.

So how are mobility providers working now to support the globally mobile community in a new climate of social distancing and travel restrictions?

At the end of May we published a Guidance Document for EuRA members looking at best practice when working with assignees as well as best practice for the teams themselves. “Doing Business with

36

Many people I’ve spoken to have had to have long strategy meetings with their teams to figure out who is comfortable with what processes fitting into governmental rules COVID-19” highlights the risk management mitigations our industry faces and helps members to develop their own policy to assure global mobility managers and their assignees that they are working with their very best interests at heart. But is the necessity of doing business so differently changing the landscape of our high touch, human industry?

Klaus Kremers’ from Palladium Mobility operates across Germany and the rules are being implemented very differently from state to state. This is making rules across the operation hard to implement so best practice is key; “There are two former East German states, Saxony and Thurigia, whose Prime Ministers’ want to liberate everything from early June as they do not have so many infections.

Every states’ Prime Minister can set their own rules, they can say ‘we close the schools, we don’t allow hotels and restaurants to open’ whereas in Bavaria for example, there is pressure to re-open the beer gardens, but how do you do that while keeping a distance

of 1.5 meters? This lack of political unity is what makes it so difficult”.

Many people I’ve spoken to have had to have long strategy meetings with their teams to figure out who is comfortable with what processes fitting into governmental rules.

Erika Strohmeyer serves her clients moving people into Austria; ‘We have regular team meetings and the topic of people now being able to come into Austria from Germany came up, and we therefore had to find out if the team were comfortable with our clients sitting in their car. After long, long discussions we decided no, it is a company decision that we will not have people in our cars, they will accompany by taxi, or rental car or some other alternative which is in line with government guidelines. But then the government changed the rules and now four people who are not from the same household can be in the same car, so now we are re-writing the policy and this is how it works at the moment!”.

Spain implemented one of the toughest lockdowns in Europe and as different regions start to open up again, so providers are balancing the different rules with best practice for clients and teams. Christine Martin of Olympic Advisors works across the country and has implemented a single set of rules; “Across our remote teams we have had lots of group calls to establish the processes we will be working with, and that collective work was critical. We think we will play safe, for the client and the transferee, but also for our teams. We have worked on different protocols for different situations that we intend to apply until the end of 2020. Obviously things can change at any time, but we’re all very flexible now! We will communicate remotely and face to face but visits will be carried out in a different way. Transportation will be individual and consultants will pre-visit all accommodation options and film them to be sent in advance to the transferee. There will less of an orientation as such, but we will be sure the transferee has all the information they need so they can do the visits by themselves, but at the same time be on a call with the consultant to answer questions. After, there will be second face to face meeting with the transferee to be sure they have made a decision they’re happy with, and to go over the next steps”.

Over the past few years, in response to making service portfolios more diverse within their operations, many EuRA members

DSP’S AND COVID-19 have implemented new virtual ways of working with transferees to streamline particular programmes to fit their clients.

Jennipher Christensen of IPR Consulting in the US has seen the advantages of her flexible programmes really come into force during the pandemic; “We want to be really careful about everybody’s health and safety. Our area consultants are so critical to what we do, we want to be respectful of them and we’re asking them what they’re comfortable with.

Some of them are taking care of elderly parents and they’re loving the idea of virtual services. As to the relocating employee themselves, we want to be really respectful of their health and safety. First of all, they’re in a new country. We want to keep them safe so we’re really dealing with everyone’s needs on a case by case basis. We certainly have processes in place, but we’re looking at every individual situation and working out what will work best. It can be structuring an area tour in separate cars connected with phones on bluetooth to the area consultant doing a video tour with folks who may be in quarantine for the first 14 days. There are options and we’re keeping an open mind for what will work best for everyone”. Åse Löfgren Gunsten of Nordic Relocation Relocation operates across

Sweden and given the different approach the government took in terms of lockdown, is working closely with her clients and teams to work out how best to move forward as assignees are coming into the country; “Because there are a few of us who have had COVID-19, we decided as a team to get tested last week and 50% of the Stockholm office are immune now, they have the anti-bodies. This means that what we can do is knowing the team members who have had it, any concerns from clients can be lessened knowing they can work with someone who is less likely to be a risk.

We still limit the numbers of people in car, so we have a family coming in next week, parents and two teenagers, and we will organise the orientation to be done twice, with just two family members in each and not all four”.

Across the world, relocation providers are facing starting up again with the same concern and dedication to serving their clients that they have always had, but with a new level of care. At the start of EuRA’s interview series on YouTube I spoke with Beverly Sunn, CEO of Asia Pacific Properties in Hong Kong, who summed the people of our industry up perfectly; “In mobility what we do isn’t a matter of work, it’s a matter of passion and compassion".

DOM TIDEY

Dom Tidey is the COO of EuRA with specific responsibility for new projects, conferences and education programmes.

Dom has worked with EuRA since 1998 having studied law at university and working in social services. In 2003 he completed his masters degree and returned to EuRA spearheading the development of the EARP and later, the EuRA Global Quality Seal and most recently, the MIM certification online training programmes. Dom works closely with EuRA’s Board and Strategic Consultants to manage EuRA’s key programmes in legal, quality, education, research and member services.

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DIRECTORY

INSURANCE AND FINANCIAL SERVICES ZURICH INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE SOLUTIONS

Tricentre One, New Bridge Square, Swindon SN1 1HN Contact: Adele Cox Telephone: +44 (0) 1793 506775 E-mail: adele.cox@zurich.com Website: www.zurich.com Zurich International Life is a global provider of life insurance, investment and protection products. Our corporate range offers flexible, portable solutions, designed to suit multinational organisations with an internationally mobile workforce. The International pension plan offers a cost effective, bundled retirement benefits solution comprising of trust services, investment funds and online administration.

International group protection is designed to protect an employers’ most important asset – their employees – and offers a range of life and disability protection.

With a local presence in key global business hubs and over 30 years experience of implementing and administering plans world wide, we’ve developed our knowledge and understanding of key markets to meet the needs of our customers and business partners.

INTERNATIONAL HR CONSULTANTS DELOITTE LLP

Stonecutter Court, 1 Stonecutter Street, London, EC4A 4TR Contact: Robert Hodkinson, Partner Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7007 1832 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7007 1060 E-mail: rhodkinson@deloitte.co.uk Website: www.deloitte.co.uk Whether you are creating your first international mobility programme for employees or addressing fundamental changes to an existing programme, our International Human Resources team can help. Deloitte provides consulting support that has an appreciation for each company’s size, background and unique cultural environment, aligning your international programme goals with corporate business strategies. Our consultants have developed deep expertise in many fields based on first hand experience with many of the world’s leading organisations: international assignment policy and process design, benchmarking, service delivery modelling, improving vendor management and helping our clients become more compliant and their administration more cost-effective.

INTERNATIONAL MOVING GOSSELIN

49 Wates Way, Mitcham, Greater London, CR4 4HR Contact: Tim Daniells

Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7622 4393 Email: london@gosselin-moving.co.uk Website: www.gosselin-moving.co.uk Gosselin is a world-leading provider, serving corporate customers all over the globe with an award-winning* move management and destination services programme.

Through our London headquarters and unrivalled footprint of 56 global offices we help clients achieve their workforce mobility goals.

Every employee we relocate is appointed a dedicated move manager, who is a central point of coordination, support and advice to ensure every part of the relocation runs smoothly. Our goal is your complete satisfaction, and with a 97% customer satisfaction rating for 2019, we offer unrivalled quality at competitive rates. *Awarded 14 global awards since 2010.

RELOCATION SANTA FE RELOCATION SERVICES

Central Way, Park Royal, London, NW10 7XW Telephone: +44 (0)208 961 4141 Website: www.santaferelo.com Santa Fe Relocation Services is a global mobility company specialising in managing and delivering high-quality relocation services worldwide.

We enable people and organisations to work, live and thrive around the world.

With ‘enabling people and organisations’, we want to make it possible for people to be where they need or want to be - enabling people and organisations.

Our core competence is relocation services that support corporations and their employees relocate and settle in a new country, assisting them with immigration, home and school, language and cultural training, managing property rentals, delivering domestic and international moving of household goods.

We provide these services to a consistent high standard, locally and globally. A key aspect is being able to manage our service delivery through Santa Fe operations across six continents.

RELOCATION ASSOCIATIONS ASSOCIATION OF RELOCATION PROFESSIONALS (ARP)

9&10 Diss Business Centre, Dark Lane, Diss, Norfolk, IP21 4ND Contact: Tad Zurlinden Telephone: +44 (0)1379 651 671 Fax: +44 (0)1379 641 940 Email: enquiries@arp-relocation.com Website: www.arp-relocation.com The ARP is the professional association for the relocation industry in the UK. The ARP’s activities include seminars throughout the year, an annual conference, the publication of an annual Directory of Members and a website, which is updated regularly.

THE EUROPEAN RELOCATION ASSOCIATION (EuRA)

9&10 Diss Business Centre, Dark Lane, Diss, Norfolk, IP21 4ND Telephone +44 (0)1379 651 671 Fax: +44(0)1379 641 940 E-mail: enquiries@eura-relocation.com Website: www.eura-relocation.com EuRA is an industry body for Relocation Professionals in both Europe and Worldwide.

EuRa have launched The EuRA Quality Seal, the world’s first accreditation programme for relocation providers. This pioneering initiative provides a straight forward, cost effective audit to reflect your company’s excellence in providing relocation services.

SCHOOLS ACS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS ACS International School Cobham Heywood, Portsmouth Road, Cobham Surrey, KT11 1BL, England ACS International School Egham London Road (A30) Egham, Surrey, TW20 0HS, England ACS International School Hillingdon Hillingdon Court, 108 Vine Lane Hillingdon, Middlesex UB10 0BE, England ACS International School Doha Al Oyoun Street, Al Gharrafa PO Box 200568, Doha, Qatar Telephone: 01932 869 744 Email: cobhamadmissions@acs-schools.com Website: www.acs-schools.com Contact: Dean of Admissions ACS International Schools were founded in 1967 to serve international and local communities. The schools are non-sectarian and co-educational (day and boarding), enrolling students aged 2 to 18 years. The UK based schools have over 30 years’ experience of teaching the International Baccalaureate, and ACS Doha offers an international and American curriculum.

TASIS THE AMERICAN SCHOOL IN ENGLAND

Coldharbour Lane, Thorpe, Surrey TW20 8TE Contact: Sarah Travis Telephone: 01932 582316 Email: ukadmissions@tasisengland.org Website www.tasisengland.org TASIS England's diverse student body includes over 50 nationalities and many in the school community have experienced the challenges of relocation. Along with well-established welcoming programs, families receive ongoing support as they cope with the practical and emotional aspects of their transition to life in the UK. Taught in small classes, students (ages 3–18) benefit from a balance of academics, arts, athletics, activities, and service leadership. Excellent exam results and oneto-one college counselling enable 97% of TASIS graduates to gain acceptance to their first- or second-choice university in the UK, the US, and worldwide.

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SUMMER

SERVICED APARTMENTS THE ASSOCIATION OF SERVICED APARTMENT PROVIDERS (ASAP)

Suite 3, The Business Centre, Innsworth Tech Park, Innsworth Lane, Gloucestershire GL3 1DL Contact: ASAP Office Telephone: +44 (0)1452 730452 Email: admin@theasap.org.uk Website: www.theasap.org.uk Twitter: @ASAPThe LinkedIn: The Association of Serviced Apartment Providers ASAP is in the industry association representing, promoting and improving the serviced apartment sector. Our 124 members including serviced apartment operators and agents represent in excess of 25,000 serviced apartments in the UK, Europe, USA and Canada.

When booking your serviced apartment, look for our Quality Accreditation kitemark which confirms the operator is fully compliant with all the core legal, health and safety practices and means you can book with confidence.

TAXATION AMERICAN TAX PARTNERS

Website: Amtaxpartners.com Telephone: +44 330 808 7539 Contact: John Carlos Sabates Email: john@amtaxpartners.com American Tax Partners provides bespoke tax compliance services to American expats, US

investors, and global entrepreneurs with US activities. The company offers transparent, flatrate pricing while delivering unique solutions that address the filing obligations you face as a global taxpayer.

for American expatriates and foreign nationals with financial interests in the United States. We leverage a suite of modern technology solutions that enable us to bring our international expertise directly to you no matter where in the world you might be living.

BDO LLP

GLOBAL TAX NETWORK LTD

55 Baker Street, London, W1U 7EU Contact: Andrew Bailey Telephone: 020 7893 2946 Fax: 020 7893 2418 E-mail: andrew.bailey@bdo.co.uk Website: www.bdo.co.uk BDO LLP is the award-winning, UK Member Firm of BDO International, the world’s fifth largest accountancy network with more than 1500 offices in 162 countries.

We have a partner-led approach, which delivers the highest quality of service by using short, functional chains of communication to aid decision-making. Clients benefit from our fresh thinking, constructive challenge and practical understanding of the issues they face. Developing strong, personal relationships with our clients is at the forefront of our service approach.

Tax advice is just one of our award-winning services and our expatriate team give practical and direct advice, delivering solutions which suit your needs.

EXPAT LEGAL SERVICES GROUP

Website: Expatlegal.com Telephone: 1.888.502.8579 Contact: Roland Sabates Email: roland@expatlegal.com Expat Legal Services Group, with its background in international taxation, offers unique legal services

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AMERICAN IN BRITAIN

for Your American Employees in Britain

Norwich House, 14-15 North Street, Guildford, GU1 4AF Contact: Richard Watts-Joyce CTA Telephone: +44(0)20 7100 2126 Email: rwattsjoyce@gtn.uk Website: www.GTN.uk Twitter: @GTN_Tax LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/globaltax-network Global Tax Network Ltd is the UK member of Global Tax Network (GTN), an international affiliation of professional firms in over 100 countries specialising in global mobility tax consulting. We provide assistance to employers with the tax administration of international assignment programs and private client services to high net worth individuals, non-domiciles, professional sportspersons and entertainers. Our consultants include members of the Association of Taxation Technicians, Chartered Institute of Taxation, and US Enrolled Agents.

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FEATURES INCLU American Expatr DE iate Club News DE • Arts & Embassy Corner FEATURES INCLU Antiques • Eating • Electio Management ns • Hotel Review Out Weight Loss Taxing Issues • • Proper Matters • Wealth • Intelligent ty • Take Five Eating In • Tax Theatre • Wealth & Antiques Management Corner Theatre • Arts • Embassy • Travel • Clubs News Legal Issues • American Reader’s Lives

Our quarterly, glossy magazine is for American expatriates living and working in Britain, and features a number of regular articles including Tax Advice, Wealth Management, Travel, Theatre, Healthcare, Restaurant Reviews, Arts & Antiques, Legal Matters, Days Out With The Family, Sports, Hotel Reviews, International Schools & Education, Expatriate & Women’s Clubs News, US Embassy Corner and other specialist features relevant to this community.

We offer Americans a free annual subscription, or we can deliver a bulk quantity to your office for you to distribute to your American employees as part of a benefits package. For information, please email helen@theamericanhour.com, or ask your American employees to email Helen directly.

We also send out a monthly email newsletter and organise events and parties for Americans living in the UK. If you would like further information, please email helen@theamericanhour.com, and feel free to ask your employees to contact Helen directly.

Help your American expatriate employees in the UK, by sharing information about these services now!

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