3 Benefits to Offer Your International Assignees

by | Mar 6, 2018 | News

A strong cultural and language training program is one of the most important benefits you can offer employees who are moving abroad. International relocation is stressful on the employee as well as their family, which is why it is so easy for an employee to struggle in a new country, especially if they don’t understand the culture, customs, business culture, and language. This can lead to seclusion, depression, and ultimately, a failed transfer.
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Offering cultural and language assistance will allow your employee to assimilate into the new culture as quickly as possible, providing them with the tools they will need to not only succeed in their new role but thrive in their new environment as well.

International assignments are challenging for all involved: the employee, the spouse, their children, and your company. You can make the transition easier for all by offering these 3 benefits:

1. Cultural Training

Culture shock often occurs when your employees and their families are dropped into a new situation without any knowledge of their new environment. Cultural training isn’t just about learning the host country’s environment and culture, it is also about helping your employee understand their new business culture. Even though your employee may be just transferring offices, the business practices can vary greatly between different countries.

It is also important for you to find and share outside activities that will assist your employees in meeting new people, allowing them to learn the new culture and language in a more social setting. The more they immerse themselves into the culture, the happier they will be in their new position and new lifestyle.

Help and encourage your employees to learn about their new country’s history, common business and social practices, and the local customs. This ensures they truly feel at home in their new location.

2. Language Training

Language training is a benefit that is often overlooked when transferring an employee internationally. Because English is the standard business language, it is just assumed that English is the only language they will need. While this may be true in the sense that they will be able to communicate the essentials at their new office, you also have to consider how they will be able to interact outside of work. Things that were once simple, like going to the grocery store or hosting a dinner party, become daunting.

Language skills are essential to not only help your employees advance in their new positions, but also fully assimilate into their new country. Language training can begin the moment the employee accepts their new position with the use of online tools and/or in person language training sessions, and can continue even after they make the transfer.

3. Spousal and Family Assistance

Spousal and family assistance is another way of ensuring your employees experience success in their new location. The most common reason for failed transfers is family related issues. Often times, the family is forgotten about when it comes to the benefits offered. Spouses and partners leave behind careers and extended family; children leave the schools and friends they’ve come to rely on.

Offering assistance to the families of relocating employees makes the transfer more successful. The employee’s spouse may need help finding a new job or even finding the best stores to shop at. They, too, may need to find social groups to help them engage in their new environment and assistance in learning the new language. Schools are another major consideration when relocating families abroad. Children will need to learn the new culture and language as well, all while acclimating to their new school system.

Spousal and family assistance should include both cultural and language training and should begin as soon as your employee accepts their new role.

Download our Sample International Relocation Letter Today!

Use this sample International Relocation Letter to help move your employees to any location, across the globe. This template includes everything you need to get started!
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How WHR Group Can Help

WHR has global partnerships with industry experts all over the world, allowing us to deliver cultural and language training services to relocating employees and their families. These experts have been evaluated to design flexible training programs based on a professional assessment of the individual’s and family’s needs, including online and/or face-to-face training preferences. We also track and report on training completion, which is provided to ensure the effectiveness of the program for everyone involved.

Contact WHR Group today for more information on our global mobility services and how to implement your culture and language training program: 800-523-3318 or [email protected].

Winners Announced for 2017 Partner in Quality Awards

by | Feb 14, 2018 | Press Release

Bringing attention to vendors with an excellent service and performance record, WHR Group is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2017 Partner in Quality Awards.

The Partner in Quality Awards is an international evaluation of WHR’s Global Partner Network for those with a commitment to exceeding pre-determined service and performance standards. The Partner in Quality Award requires a minimum of 20 transactions over the course of the year, and ranking within the top 1 percentile of the relocation partner’s category.

The 2017 Award winners are:

Tax Assistance and Your Global Mobility Tax Program

by | Feb 6, 2018 | News

Find the updated version of this article here!

In December 2017, the U.S. government passed legislation that directly impacts taxpayers. Under the new law, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, taxpayers will be unable to claim certain deductions, including job-related moving expenses.

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Job-related moving expenses now taxable

In accordance with the new legislation, taxpayers must treat any direct payment or reimbursement of moving expenses received from their employer for job-related moving expenses as taxable income. Previously, employees only needed to pass the time and distance test (criteria 50-miles, 39-weeks, and 1 year) to be qualified to deduct moving expenses related to household goods moves, storage, and final moving expenses. Alternatively, an employee paying their own moving expenses could deduct those moving expenses, even if they didn’t itemize.

Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, all moving expenditures will be taxed accordingly, at least until 2025. However, active-duty military members may still deduct moving expenses.

For employers like you, this can have a significant impact because it could be a deterrent to attracting new talent, or current employees may be less inclined to take a promotion that involves moving. One possible solution you can consider is to offer tax assistance.

What is tax assistance?

Tax assistance, often called gross-up assistance, is an approach where an employer “grosses up” an employee’s taxable relocation benefits. This is done to alleviate some tax burden on a portion of the employee’s income. However, there are some benefits and drawbacks with this approach, and it’s important to consider the impact.

Pros and cons of tax assistance

When considering whether to implement tax gross-up, you should carefully examine the advantages and disadvantages.

Pros of offering tax assistance

  • Helps your relocation program remain competitive.
  • Enables you to attract and retain top talent.
  • Alleviates some tax burdens placed on employees.

Drawbacks associated with tax assistance

  • Increasing an employee’s taxable income can change their tax bracket, which may increase the employee’s tax rate and phase out certain tax credits.
  • Increases company relocation expenses.

If your company decides to take the tax assistance approach, it is essential your employees are educated on what gross-up is and how it impacts their taxable income. Relocation management companies can help by explaining how tax assistance works to your staff. RMCs can also manage everything, including ensuring tax assistance is correctly calculated and implemented.

At WHR Global, we are committed to helping our clients hire top talent as well as helping their employees feel comfortable in their new location. We can help your company modify its relocation plans to adjust to the new tax law. We’ll also help you find the best solutions to help alleviate the potential tax burdens associated with moving and relocation for your employees.

For more information on how WHR Global can assist and explain how to incorporate tax assistance, give us a call at +1-800-523-3318 or email [email protected].

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Are Current Immigration Trends Affecting Your Employee Relocation Program?

by | Jan 9, 2018 | News

Current U.S. immigration policy isn’t making things easy for American businesses and their employees, especially when businesses need to bring in talent from all over the world. Uncertainty continues as current immigration trends change and the process works its way through the legal system causing many companies to lose precious time and money in their recruitment efforts.
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From coast to coast, U.S. businesses feel the impact of these restrictions. Back in April, when President Trump stressed the need to “Buy American and Hire American,” an executive order was signed in an effort to put H-1B programs under new scrutiny. Companies that seek people with specialized knowledge and training, typically those in engineering, science, and information technology, can temporarily hire foreign workers though the H-1B programs. With this executive order, U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services was told to more rigorously review every H-1B applicant, resulting in hiring and productivity delays from longer processing times.

Then, in October, USCIS changed a policy that had previously allowed anyone eligible for H-1B to get an extension without major reapplication requirements. Implementing a higher level of scrutiny on extension requests was, the service said, “consistent with policies that protect the interests of U.S. workers.”

Some politicians believe reform will increase employment of U.S. citizens. But others are not so sure.

“What a mistake when we are trying to fuel the innovation economy around the United States,” noted Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Statistics show there aren’t enough qualified American workers to fill openings because not enough American students major in these fields.

The head of an immigration law department representing companies and academic institutions told The Boston Globe that entry-level computer science jobs, “might sound like positions that would be easy to fill with American labor,” but they are often highly specialized.

This change in policy hits Silicon Valley particularly hard because numerous engineers vie for H-1B visas. In 2016, the major technology companies combined applied for more than 30,000 of the 85,000 H-1B visas awarded.

It is not just the tech industry facing difficulties in securing and relocating employees. Experts in oil and gas say recruiting new and younger talent may become more difficult “at a time when oil and gas companies need it most.” Health care facilities, many of them located in medically underserved areas, feel a pinch in their personnel as foreign-born physicians question whether their visas will be renewed. The nation’s nursing shortage grows more dire if foreign-born nurses are not allowed to renew.

The uncertainty of what will happen next continues, especially because the travel ban decisions of lower courts are still in limbo. Because immigration laws constantly change, companies need to be aware of all that is happening and make sure they and their employees abide by regulations. Companies also need to be realistic with timeframes for when employees can start positions in the U.S. It may take months to get the necessary visas due to the additional roadblocks many people now face.

The challenges of employee relocation into the U.S. are extensive, which is why many companies outsource to a relocation management company. Offering immigration benefits allows your employees some peace of mind while going through this very difficult and stressful time.

RMCs keep up to date with everything that occurs in the courts, including what changes go into effect and when. They ensure companies and employees remain compliant and, when necessary, help relocate staff in as little time as possible allowing your business to focus on core personnel decisions.

For more information on how WHR Group can take your relocation program to the next level, call us at 800-523-3318 or email [email protected].

How Relocation Can Solve the Current Global Talent Shortage

by | Dec 26, 2017 | News

If your company has been experiencing a talent shortage, it’s not alone. Technology and increased mobility have combined to shift worker populations across borders, leaving whole industries barren of employees and facing empty candidate pools. The situation, however, has opened the door to national and international recruitment strategies that are proving to be very successful. Establishing a relocation plan for your new employees reduces the stress that they experience during their move to your community.

A Dearth of Workers

Around the world, managers are reporting a global talent shortage, with 40 percent of respondents to a 2016 survey saying they haven’t seen a challenge this great since 2007. The survey polled over 42,000 employers in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas about who they are looking for and the skills they need.

  • Almost half (46 percent) of Asian companies were experiencing hiring difficulties, compared to 36 percent in Europe and the Middle East, and 42 percent in the Americas.
  • Skilled trade positions remained in highest demand, a trend that has continued over the past five years. Traditionally poor opinions about the value of the skilled trade industries remain persistent across the globe, which causes many young people to steer away from those career opportunities. However, the interconnected global economy has generated strong building and manufacturing industries in many countries, many of which struggle to fill their open positions in time to complete their current and future contracts.
  • The second most sought-after worker is the information technology and technical employee. Demand for these highly trained staffers is highest in Asia, and IT jobs are the 10th hardest to fill in the U.S.
  • Engineers, drivers, accountants, managers and operations professionals are all highly sought after in every corner of the world.

Worker Shortage Requires Innovative Recruiting Strategies

The worker shortage has compelled many companies to re-evaluate their hiring strategies, especially if those had traditionally relied on hyperlocal or in-house hiring practices. When there are no “local” candidates, however, corporations must then determine how to canvass a larger, potentially global region for appropriate employee opportunities. Those that include and advertise an attractive relocation incentive in their employment ads can attract a wider, deeper pool of candidates.

For many companies, that new hiring strategy requires intense analysis of what the role is expected to produce and how to best match that need with potential candidates:

  • Does it require comparable experience over foundational education or the opposite?
  • Must the skill base match exactly with the expected position? Or can comparative skill be used to enhance or improve on previous expectations?
  • What are the short-, mid- and long-term goals for the position? Are there advancement opportunities? Will there be additional training expected or offered? How does this specific position factor into the company’s succession planning or future growth activities?

Experts assert that matching the company’s culture with a comparably cultured employee is the best strategy to pursue, to achieve the closest fit with the lowest likelihood of failure. If the worker shares a similar occupationally relevant mindset with the enterprise, then the education and skills background can modify to fit the work.

Finally, when the recruitment team identifies eligible candidates who will have to relocate to take the position, those companies that provide attractive relocation incentives are more likely to secure the hire. WHR Group research roots out the best relocation practices and standards that exist anywhere, not just across the globe but within separate industries, too. With this information, your company will know that its relocation packages are as enticing as any other company in your sector, so you don’t lose top talent because of an insufficient offer of relocation support. In this job-seeker economy, no company can afford to cut corners on this critically important incentive.

At WHR Group, we specialize in helping our clients find the right candidate and helping that employee feel at home in their new location. As more workers relocate to fill the needs of the growing global economy, the last thing they should worry about is how they are going to get their stuff from the old home to the new one. How can we help you find and relocate your next worker?

For more information on how WHR Group can take your relocation program to the next level, call us at 800-523-3318 or email [email protected].