Dive Brief:

• Many employers still have not adopted practices that create a tighter alignment between employee mobility and talent management objectives, according to a new survey.
• The Brookfield Global Relocation Services 2016 Global Mobility Trends Survey polled global mobility and HR leaders from 163 multinational employers and found that for 90% of them, fully aligning global mobility with talent management – and maximizing investments in the two – is a work in progress, at best.
• Other results include: only 51% of employers surveyed track actual total costs of international assignments, yet 69% percent say there is an effort to reduce mobility program costs; only 23% have a specific process for career planning from the time an international assignment is accepted, and 33% do not have a formal means for individuals to designate themselves as a potential candidate for international assignments.

Dive Insight:

Diane Douiyssi, director of Brookfield GRS’ Global Consulting Services practice, and co-author of the survey report, explained that cross-border employee mobility can be a key contributor to an overall human capital plan by enabling efforts to attract, develop and retain talent to help organizations navigate the increasingly complex global business landscape.

Brookfield GRS experts offer some thoughts on what employers can do to get that alignment in place, including integrating global mobility into employees’ overall career planning, tracking and measuring mobility program performance, leveraging the data for more insightful conversation with business leaders, and maintaining a candidate pool for future international assignments.