Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/136276
Relocation Not only the family is at risk—so are the talent objectives of the employer. Laurissa Norwick, vice president of domestic consulting and process management for TheMIGroup, agrees that family dynamics can be complicated, and can backfire into poor job performance. "As a result, we're seeing companies focus on identifying solutions to ease the burden of having the family split up," she says. In this regard, relocation services providers can assist client companies with a range of smart strategies designed to eliminate or soften split-family assignments. Among these concepts is an extended travel programme, explains Viktor Reznicek, vice president at Xerox Relocation and Assignment Services. "We recently set up such a programme for a client, where its executives were spending six months to a year sometimes on overseas assignments," Reznicek says. "The programme we developed provided that the executives could travel back and forth every other week, which created much less strain on the spouse and dependent children." There was a cost benefit to the programme as well. "We saved the client more than $2 million a year," Reznicek recalls. "We documented this down to the penny. Even a split family relocation domestically can be avoided through such programmes, which also provide substantial cost savings." The solution is good one, but it's not for everyone. It can put pressure on the traveling executive, particularly if he or she crosses several time zones during all that back and forth travel. Reznicek also pointed out that there are legal, tax, and regulatory issues in certain countries with regard to commuting individuals who spend more than 50 per cent of their time at the foreign location. When it comes down to it, there is no easy answer. A predecision programme—one in which the total cost of the move is broken down for analysis before committing to the move—can assist clients facing difficult split family SPRING 2013 | www.hroglobal.com [31]