Dive Brief:
- Employees heading for an international assignment likely share some challenges: namely, long wait times to obtain work visas; problems with payroll, and issues with housing, according to a recently released survey.
- Cartus Corporation's "Trends in Global Relocation: 2015 Biggest Challenges" survey of 148 worldwide relocation managers found that the top three challenges for relocation managers were cost control, compliance and compensation issues.
- Waiting times for visas topped the list of annoying issues (63%) in the compliance area, while 51% of respondents say currency fluctuation, which can affect employees' paychecks if mitigating steps are not taken, was the number one problem in the compensation area. For housing, cost was cited by 64% of respondents as the biggest obstacle.
Dive Insight:
Matt Spinolo, executive vice president, Cartus, said senior management of multinational firms typically find that those issues can be challenging to the business, and often very frustrating for the expat and their family.
"These challenges highlight the need for multinational companies to set expat expectations up front, not only in the area of housing quality, but also in the need to be decisive because competition for limited expat-style housing inventory can be stiff,” Spinolo said, adding that multinational employers need to rely on a trusted partner for expert guidance to help them navigate through these issues and more.
