Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/234597
Relocation and transparency from their internal teams, looking within to identify how to improve and make sure that resources are directed correctly in order to achieve business goals. Monitoring and assessing return on investment (ROI) can be key to ensuring sucess. But how do mobility programs measure ROI, and what does it mean? skills for the job," explains John Papapostolou, manager, remuneration and recognition, Qantas Airways Limited. "As part of developing these policies, we've begun to base these decisions on what type of development experience it would provide that the person could bring back to the organization." And even though the concept is becoming more popular, the fact remains that the vast majority of companies surveyed are not currently measuring ROI in terms of the mobility function: 78 percent of respondents reported that their mobility function did not measure ROI, and a further 18 percent were unsure if this was considered. Keep an eye on post repatriation. Most organizations also come up short in tracking what happens after an assignment ends, such as employee retention, performance rating and career progression. The survey finds that, on average, 16 percent of assignees left the company within the first two years after repatriation, with a further 41 percent simply returning to their pre-assignment position. For those questioning the value of investing company resources in mobility, this is a disconcerting statistic that needs to be addressed. Some raise the more fundamental question as to whether delivering adequate ROI should rest with the mobility team. Perhaps a more important indicator of an effective function would be to assess whether the mobility team gave the business a realistic expectation as to the costs and challenges of a particular assignment. However, the survey revealed that a mere 20 percent of companies currently perform a reconciliation of projected cost versus actual. Solutions: Zeroing in on cost. Mobility professionals are well aware of the substantial costs involved to keep talent moving. It is increasingly true that the wider business questions why the costs of mobility are so high in its focus on the "bottom line." Therefore, to determine ROI, companies need to know what they're intending to achieve through facilitating mobility. In some cases, this can be fairly straightforward: The business decides to send an employee to location X for Y months in order to increase sales there by Z percent. The mobility function is responsible for explaining to the business how much this assignment will cost and actually facilitating the practical aspects. Both the "investment" and the "return" are apparent. Like the mobility teams at many global companies, Qantas faces tremendous pressure to keep the costs of its program under control. Over the past year, the company conducted a major review of all mobility policies and is now limiting international assignments on full expatriate conditions to what it terms strategic moves: senior executives, general managers and senior engineers who need to be stationed overseas for a period of two to three years. The company relies on local talent to fill in immediate needs, will localize people where necessary or will take advantage of its transportation network to fly in people to work on shortterm projects. Given this new emphasis on strategic assignments, Qantas has begun to use international assignments as a way to develop its people for future roles. "In the past, the emphasis was on just making sure the person had the right Final Advice "Mobility as a function—in alignment with HR and overall business objectives—needs to focus on creating metrics from the existing data points that we have and make them useful in order to improve outcome of assignments or mobility events," says AIG's Yeargan. "Organizations should focus less on volume and spend, and focus more on planning assignments ahead of time. That way, the organization can be more productive and effective in moving people for international assignments, and integrate metrics on how the employee performed on the assignment. More targeted metrics will enable a mobility function to generate effective organizational change — and more thoughtful assignment — that will have a greater impact on business objectives." Kevin Cornelius is partner of human capital for EY AG (Switzerland). Leslie Fiorentino is human capital partner and is the Americas head of mobility for EY's human capital practice. The above was excerpted from EY's Global Mobility Effectiveness Survey for 2013. DECEMBER 2013 | www.hrotoday.com [63]