Mobility & Talent Management – why the two belong together

Mobility & Talent Management – why the two belong together

By Chris Debner, Strategic Global Mobility Advisory

About 10 years ago there was a lot of talk of Global Talent Management being the new trend that organisations need to follow. At the time, I spoke with a lot of Heads of Mobility, who became really nervous about this trend, because they thought they need to do something about it because of the word “global” in it. It’s a myth that Global Talent Management is the job of Mobility.

Nevertheless, Mobility ultimately needs to work together with Talent Management functions to contribute and support their organisations to make their Global Talent Management effort globally successful.

Why is that so, what does it mean and what are the benefits to work with Talent Management?

History and context

Talent management in many companies is an emerging function that comprises a set of integrated organizational HR processes designed to attract, recruit, develop, motivate, engage, deploy and retain employees. Even if not all organisations have such a function as of yet, these processes and activities are typically handled by HR already. In order to generate a better focus on the employees needs and to become more strategic, Talent Management is more and more defined as a standalone function.

Mobility in turn provides a way to attract, deploy, develop and retain Talent, under the umbrella of the much wider Talent management. You can see from the two definitions, that there is a natural fit of the two functions. Being responsible for the international experience of an employee during the employee life cycle, Mobility is also called “a cogwheel in the clockwork of a successful Talent Strategy”.

Historically Mobility has and still is often reporting into the Compensation & Benefits function within HR. This was driven in the past by the focus on compliance in Mobility. Today I witness a shift towards EX - employee experience and towards the more human aspects of Mobility.

I met recently a Global Head of Compensation & Benefits from a US-based Pharma-ceutical company. When I confronted him with the fact that Mobility in the future will start to report to Talent Management rather than to him, he just responded: “Only over my dead body, these soft skill people from Talent Management do not understand compliance.” My conclusion was that depending on the company, its culture and personalities, this might be a longer road for some companies than for others. By no means though should a different reporting line stop Mobility from interacting and cooperating with Talent Management.

There are new innovative ways to structure your Mobility programme. E.g. a large Scandinavian Multinational created a compliance function within their Mobility department that reports to both Compensation & Benefits and Mobility leadership. A more comprehen-sive outsourcing is another means to free up the time to focus again more on the employee experience of your assignees and the interaction with Talent Management.

How an effective cooperation with Talent Management looks like

There are six key interfaces or topics where both Mobility and Talent Management should sit around a table together, in order to benefit from each other. Brief explanations and examples of these topics shall give you some insights into why it should be discussed between the Mobility function and Talent Management.

Talent Strategies which are defined by Talent Management are driving decisions on workforce and employee life cycle which impact the types of policies you need to have in place in Mobility (e.g. graduate rotational programs; early career assignments). Mobility needs to understand the Talent Strategy to devise its own strategy, expressed in policy, operating model and processes.

Attraction and Employer Image: Especially younger generations are increasingly focusing on the opportunity to gain international experience. An attractive Mobility programme, that allows for early career experiences, is playing an important role in how attractive your organisation is perceived as an employer. It is Talent Management that defines the Employer image your organisation wants to have and the strategies to achieve this.

Assignee Selection: The clear majority of Mobility departments are not involved in the selection process of assignees. Surveys and my experience show that they would like to be, because Mobility believes to be able to add value to the selection decisions for assignees. Make this a topic with Talent Management and discuss how you can support to ensure a better assignee selection.

Career & Performance Management is not a process that stops on assignment, but which needs to be continued throughout. Is it already a smooth process or would it makes sense to discuss with Talent Management what can be done to make it more effective and efficient?

Repatriation support is an area where the benefits of a cooperation between Mobility and Talent Management are probably the most obvious. The key factors to retain engaged assignees after their repatriation are claimed to be career planning and the identification of not only suitable positions in time before the repatriation, but also trying to make use of the gained international experience on return. Since “out of sight, out of mind” needs to be avoided, discuss with Talent Management what can be done to improve retention rates after assignments.

KPI’s and RoI’s, often also referred to as data analytics are a topical trend for both Mobility and Talent Management. Many RoIs or KPIs do have a relevance for decisions in both functions. Take for example the RoI “career progression after repatriation”. While it is an indicator for the value of an assignment, it happens after the assignment, when Talent Management takes over again. Mobility and Talent Management should discuss which KPIs and RoIs make sense to be measured going forward.

Why it makes sense

A lot of futurists agree that we will be much more connected, across borders and across companies. But sometimes it’s only a little step out of the silos within your own organisation that can open up opportunities. There are definitely opportunities for a better contribution to your organisations success, when Mobility and Talent Management work closer together.

About the author

Chris Debner is an award-winning Mobility Expert who is providing Strategic Global Mobility Advisory and Coaching Services. He has 20 years of experience in Mobility advisory and worked in over 30 countries across all industries. Chris runs his own consultancy for Strategic Global Mobility Advisory out of Zurich, Switzerland.

Alfa – The Scandinavian Mobility Services Company is teaming up with Chris Debner to bring you Mobility Thought Leadership on a regular basis. You can meet Chris Debner, and Alfa, at corporate events hosted by Alfa across Scandinavia during 2017.