With economic and labour market uncertainty, Gerard Osei-Bonsu, EY Global People Advisory Services Tax Leader believes a reimagined mobility function is now a key driver to realise business and talent goals.
Q: As we talk about the race for talent and workforce mobility, I think we need to clarify what we’re talking about. For many readers, the mobility function may still seem like a transactional function to manage employee travel. But you clearly think there’s more to it than that.
A: Much more, yes. Mobility functions have been locked in operational silos for too long, and recent years have shown the danger in that. Mobility is often thought of as very compliance and operations based. It’s true there is still a need to manage relocations and travel, but the remit has exponentially increased to meet the market and employees where they are. If your workforce strategy is demanding remote or hybrid working arrangements, you must manage potential cross-jurisdictional tax, legal, compliance and immigration risks. You must manage technological enablement of that workforce and also build a collaborative culture that can thrive in both in-person and in virtual environments. Mobility functions have seen their scope increase to deal with many of these changes, without fuller integration into talent and business strategy. This is risky, and not suited to the realities organisations are facing. Mobility is directly influencing employee experience, and directly influencing the sourcing and cultivation of talent from different places at a time when the half-life of skills continues to shrink. There’s an opportunity here, but many organisations fail to recognise it.
Q: Why do you think that mobility functions haven’t been closer to broader strategies?
A: I think you touched on it in your first question: for many people, workforce mobility may seem like the function of old – it’s about arranging visas, connecting to relocation services, maybe managing tax compliance. In the past, HR has faced some of this outdated thinking as well, putting a people function in a box of just managing processes to hire, fire, and pay employees. We know that doesn’t reflect how the most evolved functions operate. HR is more strategically focused with a more prominent seat at the table because its impact on business and talent outcomes has been better quantified. Whether you’re making widgets or trading bonds, people are essential, and we seek metrics to measure it. In the EY 2024 Mobility Reimagined Survey we identified inconsistent thinking of mobility professionals about the function’s return on investment. Almost all respondents are tracking something, with 64% collecting metrics on performance ratings, and 56% and 54% measuring cost and impact to business revenues, respectively. But less than half of respondents are measuring employee retention rates, and fewer are measuring rates of promotion and career pathways after cross-border assignments.
If organisations are not measuring mobility with their talent goals in mind, then they won’t be able to assess impact and opportunity costs associated with decisions they’re making. The survey shows that some organisations are better in this environment than others.
Q: What distinguishes the leaders from the followers when it comes to this reimagined view of mobility?
A: It’s an important question: How do we know who has ‘got it right’ when it comes to mobility? When analyzing results from the Mobility Reimagined Survey, we mapped five high-impact areas to overall talent and business outcomes and saw how many employers reported focus in these areas. We’ve called these the five drivers of mobility functions that are the most evolved: strategic alignment, talent linkage, digital focus, flexibility and use of external expertise. The more ‘evolved’ functions that focused on these areas were 2.3 times more likely to say mobility helps secure organisational resilience, 1.5 times more likely that the function helps their organisation address talent shortages, and 1.3 times more likely that mobility drives positive ROI. That’s a major impact for a function that some people may dismiss as just ‘transactional’.
Q: How are you connecting the function’s potential impact on talent retention and attraction? Why do you think winning the race for talent is now a space for mobility to help make a difference?
A: Where talent is, and where organisations need that talent, is not an equal sum game. In many cases talent pools don’t exist where people need them. Whether you need skilled employees in a particular place for a week or forever, you need a legal and compliant function that also enhances employee experience. The reason for that is in the data. The Mobility Reimagined Survey showed 64% of employees said they’re more likely to stay with an employer after a long-term cross-border assignment, with an even greater 92% saying an international experience is life-changing. The most important factor to realise that employee retention is the quality of the assignment.
Employers tell us mobility is being used in various ways to cultivate the workforce, be it with assignments for top performers, or as part of developmental programs. Something at the core of what we’re seeing is that organisations need to keep a people-first mindset, by building an exceptional experience while giving employees an opportunity to use and further develop the skills and connections made through assignments. This requires mobility to be part of the broader talent strategy, helping add colour to the bigger workforce picture.
Q: I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask about how GenAI fits into all of this? Does the increased attention on cost pressures and looking for efficiencies from GenAI compete with this reimagined mobility idea?
A: Generative AI’s (GenAI) strength is realised in what humans do with it. The Mobility Reimagined Survey shows most employers (79%) believe GenAI will have a positive impact in areas such as ways of working in the function, ways of working flexibly, employee experience and enabling new job opportunities. It’s part of the future that we’re continuing to shape.
But GenAI can’t be implemented in isolation. Organisations need to account for the needs of their people in a thoughtful way. How are people trained? How are you measuring workforce confidence and sentiment around implementation? Any technological investment should be framed in the context of cultivating an adaptable workforce to thrive in the “next normal,” defined by hybrid working models being the norm, labor market competitiveness keeping focus on total rewards and wellbeing, and a need of both employers and employees to maintain a skills-heavy growth mindset.
GenAI cannot replace human-to-human interactions, nor can it replace the experiences we have that build skills and capabilities through doing. Mobility is a powerful avenue to gain those kinds of experiences alongside GenAI, and not be replaced by it.
The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.
