All You Need to Know About Employee Relocation

How to Handle Employee Relocation and Expenses

Asking someone to relocate for the company’s benefit may not always be met with enthusiasm. There are many factors that go into the mobility of an employee. People have lives built in an environment, kids go to schools, there are mortgages to pay. So, you have to ensure the employer offers them something tangible in return. A lump-sum allowance or bonuses may not always be enough for them to make such a decision, so you need to amp up the benefits. As the relocation process is a stressful and costly activity, they may reconsider if left alone to deal with it. So, make sure that you include in your offer guidance and additional cash for the expenses.

Packing is another risky business, as belongings can get lost, damaged or delivered with a lot of delays. This is also a step to get involved in as a firm and offer links to reputable and reliable movers. The following problem is finding adequate homes to move in, especially when going to an unknown city. So, you need to offer them advice about the neighborhood they should opt for, whether to buy or rent and at what prices, commuting possibilities and so on. To avoid such problems from affecting the work, companies usually cover the costs of temporary housing or hotel accommodation for a period of time.

Review Employee Relocation Services

These benefits are stated in the corporate relocation policy of each company, which helps keep the consistency in all the individual cases. 

When relocating within the US, these policies usually offer:

• counseling about departure and destination 
• coordination of the group move
• assistance in selling current homes 
• closing services 
• searching for new houses and tours around the area 
• lump sum management
• inventory management and appraisal 
• assistance with renting, mortgage, temporary accommodation, financial administration 
• discard and donation services 
• pet transportation and household transfer 
• dual-career assistance and calculation of taxes

When relocating internationally, you may expect: 

• cost estimate and cost-of-living adjustment 
• storage costs
• candidate assessment
• lease cancellation services and home sale management 
• coordinating tax and immigration issues 
• transporting household items 
• services regarding area orientation and destination 
• global compensation, temporary accommodation, language training, and cultural education 
• dual-career assistance, repatriation support, reimbursement in local currency

Offer Employee Relocation Packages

Based on available research so far, depending on the options included, these packages range from $3,000 to $100,000. The average package would cost about $21,000 or even more today, as this study was based on research from five years ago and US tax law has changed since. To create proper packages, an employer needs to assess specific issues, such as the rank, the property to move, family members, etc. 

What to Offer in Your Package

Generally, you can determine the basics of your package, but, as mentioned above, it also depends on the employees and their needs. Usually, an employer would pay for transportation costs, orientation trip to get acquainted with the destination before moving (including hotels, meals, and transport), costs deriving from a home sale or lease, assistance for the spouse in finding a new job or establishing a new business.

Relocating Your Global Headquarters to EMEA or APAC

Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are part of the global network of markets which offers the exchange of talented employees around the world, starting from the accountancy and finance, supply chain, procurement, operations, HR and ending with data analysis. 

Asia-Pacific (APAC) today is the home of the most competitive economies in the world, even though there is a certain slowdown in the region’s leader, China. Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong are still preferred hotspots for moving.

There Are Services That Can Help Your Company and Employees With Relocation

There are specialized companies dealing with recruitment to help ease the process of moving. Their customer services offer assistance with pricing, overseas transit protection, forwarding logistics, and documentation requirements. Move managers help coordinate shipments, including ground transportation, international transportation, the port of exit, the port of entry, customs clearance and final delivery, as well as obtaining the appropriate documentation. 

Long-Term Business Relocations

Long-term relocations demand cultural training both for the employees and their families, especially if the corporation is relocating to a remote part of Asia where there is a huge gap in the living conditions as compared to the original destination. This can be resolved by accommodating the families in nearby cities, where the families have access to the living standards they are used to, such as schools, transport networks, and the expected level of accommodation.

Meanwhile, an employee can work and live at the company’s location during the week and transfer to the city for the weekends. Go over goods and bads as a team. Learn about workers’ motivation, there are plenty of careers they can chase, but they choose your enterprise, so make that they don’t regret it. 

Moving to distant locations by air or international moving by sea certainly needs to be planned several months in advance, especially with immigration regulations changing frequently. Learn about those regulations, talk it through as a team, and everything will go without a hitch. 

Stay in the United States or Consider Moving to Canada?

What are the best benefits of moving to Canada? Generally, Canada has a great reputation when it comes to safety, public policy, the efficacy of government and the quality of life. According to some research, their health care policy is better than in the US as they pay less and they live longer than Americans. The number of people with high school diplomas is similar. Canadian air is said to be less polluted, the water is clean and life there is considered to be tension-free.

However, the salaries may be better and the tax system is more liberal in the US. Also, the roads are better in the US, which is an important factor for business. Weather is somewhat colder because summers are shorter and winters are longer in Canada and this can also present a problem for some employees.

But, at the end of the day, proper research and marketing study should be prevalent factors when deciding to relocate your business. So, do not spare time and money to explore the possibilities first.