What is Global Mobility? A Strategic Guide for Employers

At its core, global mobility is the approach a company uses towards the relocation of its employees across local and international borders. The company’s global mobility strategy acts as a bridge between a new career opportunity and a successful relocation process. It includes everything from host country visa requirements to the statutory employment laws of the foreign country.

Without this structured framework, companies leave themselves open to costly risks associated with international assignments and lose opportunities to turn it into a competitive employment strategy.

Key Takeaways

• Global mobility governs how businesses relocate employees internationally and ensures compliance with local regulations.
• Employee relocation is a business strategy that touches on immigration law, tax compliance, payroll, logistical support, and foreign labor laws.
• Businesses often partner with global staffing, relocation, and logistics companies to implement a successful global mobility program.

Why the need for global mobility?

Global mobility refers to the movement of workers to different geographical areas within the same country or to other countries. The topic is more relevant today than it was even five years ago as the world of work evolves, and employees recognize that globalization has made the world more accessible, and employers search for greater opportunities beyond current borders.

There are four main reasons that have forced companies to consider implementing a global mobility strategy, these are:

• An increased number of employees want a remote or hybrid working environment.
• Employees desire to relocate to countries that offer them a higher quality of life and a better cost of living.
• The younger workforce (25-35 years old) wants international experience for their growth and professional development.
• Opportunities in new markets and emerging economies that businesses want to capitalize on.

For businesses to attract top talent, retain highly-skilled employees, and remain competitive, a global workforce mobility program is a gateway to meeting these objectives.

What benefits can your company gain from hiring remote employees? In, Exploring Global Benefits of Hiring Remote Employees, Lucas Botzen discusses how a reduction in operational costs, satisfied employees, and access to a global talent pool are drawing employers to remote working strategies.

What is a global mobility strategy?

A global mobility strategy is a structured business plan that details how a company employs and manages employees across different countries. An effective strategy will involve key stakeholders and provide clarity on each step of the relocation process.

The strategy should align HR, financial, legal, and compliance objectives while preventing ad hoc decisions from being made that can create legal and financial implications later. If global mobility services (such as an Employer of Record) will be used, the role of such partnerships should be clearly outlined in the strategy document.

What to include in your global mobility strategy

Your strategy will be used to craft the mobility program you offer your employees. Therefore, it must be a comprehensive document that touches on key issues pertaining to relocation across international borders. These include:

• How a global mobility strategy will drive business growth in international markets.
• How compliance with international laws will be handled, and by whom.
• Whether a local entity will be established in other countries, or global hiring services will be used.
• Who will be responsible for managing the mobility program and ensuring its success.
• The financial, legal, and compliance risks, and how they will be mitigated.
• The pay structures that will be offered in host countries, and how payroll and tax will be handled.

What is a global mobility program?

A global mobility program is the detailed explanation of your mobility policies and emerges from your mobility strategy. The details include immigration services, permits and visa support, relocation services, cultural training, types of ongoing support for the employee, and compliance with foreign tax and employment regulations.

Mobility programs are drafted to inform employees of the relocation process, as well as the different types of global employment affected, such as:

• Short-term assignments: Employees move to other states, provinces, or countries for 3-6 months. They go for career development, help companies enter foreign markets, or participate in international projects.
• Long-term assignments: A worker relocates to another country for 1-5 years. They go to achieve specific business objectives, for leadership development or to gain deep expertise before returning to their country of origin.
• Permanent relocation: An employee requests (or is asked) to move to another country, either where the company already has a presence or is about to establish a legal entity. The goal of this employee is to gain permanent residence in a new country.
• Remote work: Workers who live in other states, provinces, or countries but don’t need to relocate. They use technology to meet business objectives and to collaborate with local and global teams.

Why does global mobility include scenarios where employees don’t move? Work has become detached from location. With rapid advancements in technology, the barriers that prevented having employees in other countries have been mostly eliminated. Companies can hire employees in other countries, but it still qualifies as an international workforce.

Global mobility solutions, such as an Employer of Record (EOR) have also made this easier for companies to implement. The EOR acts as the legal employer in the host country and handles legal and compliance responsibilities, while the day-to-day employee relationship remains part of the business operations.

Discover how an EOR can facilitate your global expansion strategy: Global Expansion - Bold Moves with Employers of Record

Benefits and risks of global mobility

As a strategy, global mobility is a compelling case but it isn’t without risks. For a strategy to be worth the financial, time and resource investment, the benefits must outweigh the associated risks. While the risks mentioned here have serious implications, each one has a workable solution that can be proactively implemented by your company.

Benefits of global mobility	Risks of global mobility
Access to a global talent pool, which increases the ability to get key and scarce skills needed for business growth.	Failure to correctly manage a foreign country’s labor and employment laws can lead to fines, penalties, and even legal battles.
Employers can test new markets without committing to large upfront investments. This reduces time to market and execution risk.	Hiring employees in other countries can unintentionally cause unplanned tax obligations. This includes permanent establishment risk and employer taxes.
For early-career and high-performing workers, global mobility acts as a retention strategy. International assignments are appealing for leadership development and highly technical jobs.	Payroll rules, statutory contributions, and benefits entitlement must be closely adhered to in individual countries. If a company has employees in multiple countries, this can become a huge administrative burden.
Mobility provides scalability for companies that want to expand quickly and drive certain markets.	Poorly managed global mobility programs cause employee confusion and dissatisfaction. This causes reputation damage and the risk of losing skilled employees.

Mitigate the risks of a global mobility plan

The goal is to reduce the risks associated with your mobility strategy, and one way to do this is to partner with businesses that offer mobility services. These are companies that come alongside your HR or management team and provide all the necessary expertise to prevent relocation hassles and non-compliance.

For example ,a global Employer of Record (EOR) acts as a legal entity in multiple countries. This means you do not need to establish your own entity in the country where you want to hire workers. They sign a contract with the employee and ensure that all local statutory requirements are taken care of. They manage the payroll and taxes, and also deal with all the administration. This is ideal when you want to test markets or hire employees in a foreign country without establishing a legal entity.

An EOR is really a fast and effective way to enter new markets and scale quickly without any of the hassle associated with trying to manage the process yourself. It is, however, important that you choose an EOR who has been tested in the market and is committed to ensuring a great mobility experience for your employees.

True partnership is about finding an EOR ready to provide answers to real-life challenges and tailor workforce strategies to your needs. Speak directly to one of Rivermate’s global experts. More than 1000 companies have trusted us with their global hiring, including leading tech consulting company, Hightekers.

Conclusion

As we’ve explored, global mobility is a vital component of a competitive business, employee retention, and hiring strategy. Far from being just another catch-phrase, it expresses the intent of employers to provide international working opportunities while expanding into new and emerging markets.

From a well-written and carefully planned strategy emerges a global mobility program. When this is well managed in conjunction with valuable mobility service providers, your company stands to benefit from it now and in the future. In fact, it's no longer a ‘nice-to-have’, it's a necessity for any company that is seeking to adapt to the future world of work.

Next step for you If you’re ready to move beyond the planning phase and start hiring, book a call with Rivermate.

FAQs: What is global mobility?

1. What is global mobility in simple words?

Global mobility is a framework that a company uses to explain how they relocate employees to other locations, either local or international. The term global mobility has evolved from focusing on expat management to a broader context that explains how companies hire and manage remote and global employment relationships.

2. What does a global mobility team do?

A global mobility team is responsible for executing the employee relocation strategy of a company. It is a specialized human resources function that handles immigration compliance, relocation logistics, tax and payroll, compensation packages, and risk mitigation. A global mobility team will consist of professionals in HR, legal, finance, and immigration.

3. Why is global mobility important?

Global mobility is a key strategy enabling companies to move into new and emerging markets and hire the world's top talent. Without a global mobility strategy, companies lose opportunities to expand quickly and seamlessly in other countries. They also miss out on hiring people with skills that they need in their business. Global mobility also helps companies to retain highly-skilled employees who are interested in moving to other countries.

4. What are global mobility services?

Global mobility services are specialized services that facilitate the movement of employees from one country to another. These services include: global hiring firms, immigration and visa processing, logistics, estate agents, and cultural norms training. Without these services, it would not be possible for companies to execute their global mobility policy.