When looking to reduce how much you spend on moving your employees, the first question you might want to ask a relocation partner might be, “How much are your fees?” While that’s a reasonable place to start, if your top concern is making a significant and meaningful impact to your company’s relocation budget, what you need to be asking is, “What’s the right policy for my company and employees?”
The Truth About Fees
There are two things every cost-conscious human resources professional needs to understand about relocation company fees: they’re generally consistent across providers and they tend to be the smallest portion of your relocation budget.
Because the truth is, when you start comparing relocation companies, you’ll find that there isn’t a ton of variation in the fees they charge. Here’s why:
Relocation is a mature industry with streamlined pricing. Most reputable relocation firms have been in the business since its inception, which leads to little difference in operational cost from one company to another. That translates to tighter margins and little room for discounts.
Prices are largely fixed. Every relocation firm works with third-party real estate professionals, movers, and packers – all of whom charge roughly the same for their services. Everyone’s household goods moving process requires the same number of boxes, trucks, and boats across the regions they serve. Because these costs are flat, so are the fees across the industry.
Not only are fees pretty consistent from company to company, they’re also a fairly small slice of a traditional relocation budget. Consider the following chart:
The vast majority of a relocation program’s budget is spent on housing, moving and storing household goods, and taxes. Again, there’s very little to make up in fees.
The Real Savings Are in the Policy
The best way to realize relocation program savings is by creating a policy suited to your company’s unique needs and its people. The moving industry will always be people-centric and largely depend on human intervention to get your employees from point A to point B. Which is why WHR Group starts every relationship by thoroughly understanding each client’s relocation priorities and applying technology thoughtfully. This allows us to create exceptional and compliant programs.
We begin with a clear and accurate understanding of how each of our client’s relocation dollars are spent. Our in-house, proprietary technology is able to analyze the current program against real-world relocation experiences and identify opportunities for potential savings. Whether it’s outdated policies, unnecessary gross-up, or too many exceptions; we tailor the program and our support to actual usage. Allowing our clients to maximize efficiency while minimizing costs.
Better still, while we’re customizing your plan to your company, we can also gauge its competitiveness. Our benchmark reporting stacks your program against your competitors using in-house client and non-client data, so you can see not only any gaps in offerings but also if you’re overspending by providing benefits your industry doesn’t value.
Perhaps the best recommendation for making sure you’re not overpaying for your relocation program is to partner with a company that’s focused exclusively on your specific budget and needs. We’d be happy to talk with you about your program and how we can tailor it to really make it work for you.
