Instead of packing up and moving abroad for three years, tomorrow's global executive may 'commute' more often, live in a new nation for less than a year or permanently move to a new country, according to a new Cendant Mobility study.

This finding is among several significant trends in global relocation included in New Approaches to Global Mobility: 2002 Worldwide Benchmark Study conducted by Cendant Mobility, the premier provider of global mobility management and workforce development solutions; and co-sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Global Forum, a division of the Society for Human Resource Management, and the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), a trade association that supports international trade.

The study is the first global survey to quantify the shift toward new forms of cross-border transfers and correlate their perceived benefits with human resource demands and organizational goals. More than 180 human resource executives responsible for upwards of 200,000 globally mobile employees in a dozen industries in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific region were surveyed.

Generally speaking, nearly half (45 percent) of those surveyed worldwide expect a decrease in long-term assignments and significant increases in less traditional transfers, such as short-term assignments and frequent international business travel. Long-term assignments currently account for about half of all transfers.

The impact of this trend differs by geography. For example:

• In the Americas, 67 percent of respondents expect the use of short-term assignments, relocating to another country for less than one year, to increase.
• In Europe, the Middle East and African regions, international commutation, where employees work in the assigned nation and frequently commute to their home country, is predicted to increase by 63 percent of respondents.
• 50 percent of respondents from the Asian region feel that localized transfers, a cross-border move in which employees are ultimately moved to permanent local status, will increase.

"The study gave us the first quantitative look at the emerging forms of cross-border activity, as well as the challenges that will arise for corporations as a result," says John Arcario, senior vice president and general manager of Cendant Mobility's international services.

Benefits and Challenges Lie Ahead

The study also found that while there are benefits created by these changes, they also present new challenges. The following summarizes some of these related findings:

• Respondents indicated that short-term assignments and other new forms seem to offer cost savings, yet the majority (58 percent) of respondents fail to conduct cost analysis for short-term assignments and only a handful (10 percent) track costs for international commutation and business travel.
• While the new forms of assignment promise increased flexibility and improve work/life balance - a potential lure in attracting global workforces with a myriad of needs - a top challenge for these new forms centers on assignee burnout.
• As expected, cost control is the main challenge for long-term assignments. Companies strongly prefer to utilize executive leadership (62 percent) and general management/administrative (60 percent) job roles in the form of a long-term assignment instead of new alternatives. IT/technical accounting jobs, however, tend to become short-term assignments and HR professionals use extended business travel (31 percent) more than any other form.
• Developing global competency is the top goal of global HR respondents, superseding cost control, while new transfer types are not perceived to generate global competency. The only form that is currently perceived to do so effectively is the traditional long-term assignment.
• Companies are engaging in cross border activity mainly to transfer skills and knowledge (85 percent), develop global competencies (49 percent) and complete projects (46 percent). Less popular reasons include managerial control (30 percent), start-up operations (22 percent), maintaining corporate culture (19 percent), joint ventures/mergers/divestitures (18 percent), new product introductions (11 percent) and restructuring (5 percent).
• Those responsible for managing international assignments and employee relocation are feeling the pressure to develop formal policies for all globally mobile employees, not just the typical long-term assignee.

"HR professionals are definitely feeling the heat to systematically track and quantify these less traditional forms of global mobility - not always an easy venture when their expenses span across many cost centers," says Brian J. Glade, SPHR, SHRM Vice President, International Programs. "It will be interesting to see how that will be balanced with the need to develop global competency, which traditional long-term assignments help to develop."

Safety and Family Are Significant Concerns

Safety concerns are perceived as more of an obstacle to persuading employees to take assignments in the Americas and the Asia Pacific region than in Europe and the Middle East. "This result may be due to the fact that Europe and the Middle East have already taken precautions and implemented formal measures to alleviate safety concerns," says Bill Sheridan of the NFTC.

From the assignee perspective, challenges and obstacles of the international assignment differed among respondents, primarily based on the region where they were assigned. The following is a sample of those findings:

Half of the respondents cited family/partner issues as the number one obstacle for global mobility in the Middle East.

Published: August 29, 2002

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.