Are you looking for a quick win for your global mobility program? A small change with a positive impact on your mobility program? This is the sixth post in our “Quick Wins” series. Each quick-win blog will offer ideas of straightforward changes that can be made to support your organization’s mobility principles. No one solution is going to fit everyone’s purposes, so in each post of the series, we hope you find at least one thing that can be a quick win for you. And if these quick wins are already part of your program, we hope you already see the benefits.
In this Quick Wins edition, we will focus on identifying hidden cost savings in your mobility program. Cost savings can generally be achieved by relocating a fewer amount of people or reducing support in some way. For example, lowering a lump sum allowance or removing any other paid expense will decrease costs. But how will that impact your ability to attract talent? The balance of cost and talent demands leads most companies to seek a middle ground. It is important to make sure that cost savings initiatives don’t reduce benefits so much that the relocation offer is no longer enticing to candidates.
If you are looking for alternative ways to lower costs without directly cutting support, you may ask yourself the following questions to find hidden opportunities for cost savings.
- Are there services or expenses being used infrequently? This is an easy starting point. Eliminating a benefit that is rarely or never used can support cost savings, albeit mostly on paper. Still, these potential savings should not be overlooked as this can be helpful for companies with budgetary constraints.
- Are the right employees in the right policy tier? There may not be an easy answer to this question, but it’s important to know the costs of your mobility program inside and out. Once you do, then you can ask yourself:
- Are we providing the right support for the types of employees we relocate?
- Could an adjustment of who’s eligible for each policy tier make an impact?
- Could one policy tier be incorporated into another?
- Could we create a new package that falls between two others?
Answers to these questions will be unique to each organization and may present the potential for cost savings.
- Are there expenses that could be incorporated into a cash allowance? The more expenses are scrutinized with constraints, the more likely there are to be instances that fall outside of those constraints (e.g., extending temporary living from the original authorized period, approving expenses that exceeded a daily meal limit, etc.) Perhaps those and other similar expenses may be better covered by a cash allowance. Offering a cash allowance for things that are the employee’s choice anyway (e.g., how and when they travel, what they eat, where they stay), can not only be more cost effective, but can also reduce time spent dealing with exceptions (a win-win)!
- Could the answer have been “no”? For some companies, exception requests are frequent, and for others, few-and-far in between. For some, exceptions are always or mostly approved, for others, hardly ever. Wherever you may fall with exceptions, approving them generally adds to your total cost. For some exception requests, the answer will always be “yes.” However, are there requests that warrant a stronger stance? Knowing what you are approving or not approving tells a story. Use available data to understand the root causes of exceptions and any actions that might prevent them. You can read more about managing exceptions by reading Mobility Quick Wins Volume 5: Managing Exceptions.
Exploring each of the questions above can present options for your company to adjust or realign your program to be more cost-effective without significantly reducing benefits. As a bonus, you might also find process improvements that could create administrative cost savings.
We hope at least one of these questions helps you identify hidden cost savings in your mobility program. For more information, please contact your Aires representative.