When you relocate a worker to a new location, they are going through an entirely new process. They are beginning a path of self-discovery that will include cultural, financial, and emotional adjustments. When an employee relocates internationally, these emotions are amplified. This new adventure will not only completely transform their way of living, but the whole procedure of moving their lives to a new place may be too difficult to see past the challenges relocation can bring. This is because moving is a multi-step procedure.

People are motivated to relocate by many things including greater career potential, higher living standards, better educational facilities, and superior healthcare facilities, etc. The long-term advantages of relocation may be appealing, but it is no surprise that moving from one country to another can be a difficult procedure. As an employer, be aware of the challenges your employees may face so that you can help them settle abroad efficiently.

The Procedure for Preparing and Relocating

Many would say that preparing for the move is their least favorite part of the relocation process. We often don’t recognize how much we’ve gathered until we start organizing our belongings! It is advisable to simplify goods before relocating, especially to another country.

The Complicated Paperwork

Shifting from one country to another requires a significant amount of documentation. It’s important to start researching the numerous official procedures needed months before the actual relocation begins. Having a strategy in place will prevent misplacing or forgetting a vital document.

Acclimating to a New Country

When relocating to a new country, one will have to cope with different customs, dialects, and environments based on the new location. All these things can seem overwhelming for anyone to overcome, especially on their own. Having a plan in place for these difficulties and taking the appropriate preparations to reduce the impact will help ease into the unfamiliar environment.

For instance, if one is moving to a country where most of the population does not speak their native language, it is advisable to participate in language classes prior to moving. Likewise, one can use social networks to connect with regional expat clubs and create online friends before arrival.

Compensation Strategy

Some companies may try to complete emigration initiatives for the least amount of money. This is not a long-term solution because it ignores the impact on the worker/family. Incentives such as children’s schooling, transportation, and lodging expenses must be spelled out. This strategy may even aid in the hiring of new personnel initially enticed by a potential expatriation opportunity.

Taxation

Tax compliance is a leading global relocation obstacle. It’s critical that companies have a thorough understanding of the hosting country’s tax regulations.

Challenges During the Shipping Process

1. Shipping Route Mishaps

Only an industry expert can manage the routes when transportation channels are disrupted. Events such as natural disasters, political instability, and transportation strikes are unavoidable, but this does not mean shipping will come to a halt. There are solutions to such problems. A competent shipping department will monitor activities and prevent problems; if a problem arises, they will use their extensive transportation network, relationships, and expertise to reroute items.

1. Broken Goods During Processing and Shipping

One may be concerned about their belongings. While movers take particular care with delicate packages, they may be less careful with other objects in some circumstances. When you add in rough roads and choppy seas, it’s a normal to be worried that one’s belongings could be damaged by the time they arrive at their location.

1. Losing Items

When transferring your employee, the last thing you want is for their belongings to be lost during shipping. Old goods can carry emotional significance for people and serve as a comfort in a new place. A reputable shipping business monitors each product from the time it is loaded until it is delivered to the transferee. Hiring experienced packers and shipping services is the best way to address these issues.

Conclusion

Moving to a new place can be exhilarating while also being daunting. With the assistance of relocation service experts, the procedure will be easy and straightforward for you and your employees.

When undergoing international relocation, your employees may be worried about the incidents mentioned above. It is your responsibility as an employer to ensure that their relocation experience is as seamless as possible. Working with a Relocation Management Company like WHR Group, Inc. (WHR) helps bring together the best partners for any move. WHR manages the anxiety and stress, so you and your transferees don’t have to.

America is a portable society. One in each of five families moves each year, according to an article by Economic Research Institute. A significant number of these moves align with the organization for which one of the family members works. These movements might be to an area significantly past the current driving distance, an alternate state, or a far-off country. The representative might be a fresh recruit or an existing worker at any level, to a top executive. 

Movement Includes Costs, Both Money-Related and Psychological. Money-Related Expenses Include:

• Selling and purchasing houses
• Transporting household goods and personal items
• Temporary lodging
• Immigration and tax expenses

While financial costs are essential in relocation, it is also the interruption and disruption of the employee’s life and their family. The movement from one city to another is life-changing and is one of the top stress producing events in someone’s life. It is imperative that the company supports and assists the employee with the adjustment to their new location. A relocation failure is not only a waste of a company’s money, but it also might mean the loss of a valued employee.

A smooth move will result in a more productive employee and make the adaption of the family to the new community seamless. While it’s never easy, there are tips for making your next employee relocation experience straightforward and easier. 

1. Be Clear About Relocation Policies 

Relocation is a significant life event that effects not only the employee but his or her family life as well. Each party should feel the interaction is reasonable, particularly about the relocation policy being provided. Having clear and well communicated policies forestalls false impressions and improves the probability of a successful move. 

Workers need to realize what’s paid for and what is not. They need to learn the organization’s relocation policy and benefits, and they need the data recorded to them in a letter of understanding. This shields you from false impressions that emerge in verbal arrangements, and it provides a prepared reference to representatives. 

2. Manufacture Relocation Partnerships That Add Value 

Develop partnerships with relocation organizations that can help you navigate the relocation process and provide guidance on appropriate policy benefits. 

Banding together with WHR Group, Inc. (WHR) would be advantageous. WHR adds consistency for your employees which provides equity to the relocation process and keeps your relocation budgets to the spending estimates. 

3. Think about Cost-of-Living Differences 

There is an obvious difference in cost living in a city like San Francisco versus a mid-market city like Grand Rapids, MI.  Are you prepared to address such living differentials with either a relocation bonus, COLA (Cost of Living Differential), salary adjustment or a combination of all?  It will be needed if you want a productive and satisfied employee. 

4. Move Employees Who Embrace Change 

What tools are you utilizing to ensure you have an employee that is open to change and wants to make the move.  Have you implemented any testing or evaluations to determine an employee’s appetite for change?  More importantly is the employee’s spouse and/or family interested in a relocation?

5. Make a Solid Plan 

Having a marketable strategy, outlining the course of events, financial planning, and other significant subtleties will assist with saving you significant challenges down the line.

6. Engage Employees with Resources 

 Plan your relocation benefits so they assist employees with feeling enabled and empowered. Share an outline of neighborhoods near the work area or office assists the employees with narrowing their quest for homes or living arrangements. Better yet, provide a look-see visit for the employee and spouse so they can tour the location and picture their family living in the new city. 

7. Have Kindness and Patience 

One of the more practical corporate relocation tips is to have compassion and patience. It is not difficult to fall into the pressure that accompanies a significant move, so make sure you are dealing with empathetic partners that can appreciate the stress an employee is undertaking. 

8. Permit Enough Time 

Lastly, time is something that we never appear to have enough of, so we recommend giving extra for the significant move. While the move will take time, not providing a plan or days to complete the move will make for an unproductive employee and they will end up wasting time at work to complete their personal move. 

Last Words 

Realize that though this won’t be a stroll in the park, it is certainly something that can be cultivated effectively.

WHR can assist with guaranteeing your worker movements are smooth and consistent. As well as applying these corporate movement tips, dive deeper into WHR relocation solutions and how they can help assist in moving your workers.

Relocation expense management can be a complicated and stressful process for a transferring employee. Relocating employees might have a dozen expense reports to submit over the course of their relocation, and that can be difficult for a transferee to self-fund. Having a seamless, efficient relocation expense management process is critical. Here are five simple tips:

Tip 1: Fast Reimbursement Processing
Through WHR Groups’s intricate survey process, we’ve found that there’s a direct correlation between the timeliness of reimbursement and employee satisfaction. We cannot stress enough the importance of quick fund turnaround. Communicate with relocating employees what the timeline is, since this can help them plan accordingly and know when to expect the reimbursement. Hopefully, your Relocation Management Company (RMC) processes expense reimbursements in 3 days from receipt.

Tip 2: Ensure Accuracy with a Dual Review
Accuracy is critical in expense report review, so having more than one set of eyes review is a must before reimbursing. At WHR, one review is completed by the policy expert and another by an accounting team member. This ensures compliance and accuracy.

Tip 3: Provide an Easy and Accessible Employee Interface Tool
Deploy an online expense submission system that can be accessed anywhere, 24/7/365. Give employees the ability to upload receipts via a mobile app or web portal in any currency. This saves time and the hassle of scanning in countless receipts. This is also helpful while employees are traveling.

Tip 4: Utilize Custom Expense Reports
To streamline expense report review, build custom reports for each relocation policy. This ensures employees stay compliant with policy benefits and it also helps your organization during the internal review. If you’re using an online technology, be sure the system has your policy parameters built into it. WHR can customize reports on over 3,000 different data points, at no additional charge.

Tip 5: Ensure Security of Payment Information
Make sure your RMC utilizes technology that implements security measures:

• Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, and other private data encrypted and masked within the technology when the user is not updating those fields.
• Each personal data field is masked with ********** until the user selects a specific field to view. If the user has access based on his or her role, the data can be viewed and updated only when the field is selected.
• Firewalls are in place to isolate website traffic from the internal network and security has been implemented to control client/server communications from the web portals.
• Protection is used on all internal workstations and servers for anti-virus, spyware, and zero-day threats. Web content is filtered by an on-site application to protect users from accessing risky websites.

Take a hard look at your current expense management process and see if these tips are being followed. A well-run relocation expense management process can make or break the relocation. If you’d like additional help managing your expense reimbursement process or your relocation program, contact WHR Group.

We firmly believe that for an organization to be successful in today’s world, you have to have the right people doing the right things in the right location. That said, the decision to relocate an employee is not to be taken lightly – it’s a major commitment for both the organization and the employee who’s moving. If done poorly, you risk more than the money spent on relocating – your organization can suffer a severe reputational and talent hit as well.

That’s why it’s essential that your relocation program is carried out by caring professionals who are committed to creating a great experience for your organization and its employees. We’d like to share with you what our relocation process is like, both before the move and after employee settles into their new location.

Before the Move

The relocation experience begins once you authorize an employee for a relocation. Within 24-hours, your employee’s dedicated WHR Group counselor will reach out to introduce themselves as the main point of contact and schedule a time for an initial phone call. At this point, we find most employees are somewhere between excited and apprehensive ¬– they typically understand that this move is good for their career, but they might have concerns about leaving their familiar environment for their new life somewhere else.

Our counselors are looking to accomplish three goals during this initial outreach: to conduct an initial needs assessment (Are we moving a car? A pet? A piano?), to level-set expectations as to what is and isn’t covered in the relocation package, and most importantly to reassure your employee that their move is in good hands. Our counselors will also go over the benefits included in your relocation program, which could include:

• Homesale assistance or breaking a lease
• The physical moving of household goods, be it domestically or internationally
• Destination services such as home purchase assistance, temporary housing, and language training
• A cost of living adjustment
• Expense reimbursement or tax assistance

During the Move

The transition itself is often when stakes are the highest – and not just for the relocating employee. There’s a lot to arrange that require third-party vendors (like real estate agents and moving companies) and timing is paramount. Fair or not, your employees and their families will evaluate your company on how well their physical move is managed. This is a perfect opportunity for you to show how much your employees welfare means to you. Being able to quickly adapt with empathy around logistics like what happens when the move is scheduled during inclement weather can make the difference between your employees feeling like their experience is being handled competently…or like they’ve been left out of the loop and in the lurch.

We appreciate how critical it is that the move be handled with care, efficiency, and compassion. That’s why we make sure your employees and your company have online access to all the information you need to stay on top of the move. We also have two-person teams serving as your employees’ advocates: setting appointments, confirming status updates, ready at all times to step in at the slightest indication of a concern.

And all throughout the move, the relocating employee can rest easy, secure that their moving needs are being expertly tended to.

After the Move

Even after the relocation is complete and your employee has moved into their new environment, they may still have lingering concerns. Our counselors continue to work with them well after the transition to make sure they are completely satisfied with the entire relocation process. Questions at this stage might include:

• How to submit receipts for expenses incurred during the move
• Which expenses are covered under the company’s relocation program
• What are the tax implications of certain relocation-related expenses

Our founding values statement reads: “We value hard work, empathy, proactiveness, and trustworthiness in everything we do and from everyone we employ.” We believe the only way to create a great relocation experience for your company and its associates is to be proactive and to really commit to the best interests of the relocating employee. And that can only be accomplished by forging a genuine relationship between the counselor and employee.

Does this relocation process sound like the one your company offers? We invite you to benchmark your current relocation program against those of your competitors using our free Relocation Benchmark Comparison tool. Check it out and see where you stand!