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In this fast-paced digital world, 63% of companies are facing disruption. The biggest companies are spending more money each year on trying to create the ‘next big thing’.
In conditions like these, you need to ensure your company is ready for change, by being open to possibilities. Part of that flexibility means being ready to move where the market is. Or to move where the best company tax benefits or most adept staff are, at a moment’s notice.
To do that, you’ll need a plan for business and employee relocation. It needn’t be as daunting as it sounds. Especially if you prepare well in advance, with an Employee Relocation Toolbox.
Ready to learn how? Read on!
What Is Employee Relocation?
Did you know it costs as much as 1.5 to 2 times an employee’s annual salary to replace them? Costs come from the cost of recruitment itself, and often expensive backfill wages while recruitment is underway. There is also the cost of training and onboarding the new recruit – and there’s no guarantee they’ll work out.
That’s part of the reason you want to think seriously about having healthy relocation packages for your staff. That way, if you need to move your business, or part of it, to another state or country, you can take your highest performers with you.
There’s no promise they’ll accept the offer, as they may have firm roots, family, and kids settled at school already in the local area.
Having an attractive relocation package certainly makes it more likely that they’ll accept. You’ll be more likely to move your top performers to help you open a new location, develop to the next level of management, or fill open positions in other areas of the business.
What Is an Employee Relocation Toolbox?
To stay relevant in the age of digital disruption, you need a business model that can pivot quickly in the face of change. Even better is having a business that moves before the shift, staying ahead of the game. A Relocation Toolbox has all the tools a company will need to be ready for relocation situations, well before they happen.
Industry service providers, like this company, mix a variety of relocation support tools into their relocation toolboxes. There are guides on how to develop watertight relocation policies that are easy for employees to understand and keep the company’s responsibilities in check. The toolkit is likely to have tools for generating a relocation RFP.
The relocation toolkit will also have solutions to help estimate costs and to benchmark your relocation policies against those of similar or similarly sized companies.
In short, it’s a suite of checks and balances to get your relocation policies, budgets, and RFPs up to scratch. Well before you need them.
Possible Relocation Benefits
Now you’re sold on the need for relocation flexibility, and the benefit of having an employee relocation toolbox ready ahead of time. But what sort of things can you offer employees to sweeten the relocation deal?
It’s usually a mix of things that make the move less stressful for them and their families, and bonuses or lifestyle extras that make it economically attractive.
Relocation benefits can include things like counseling – both to help them weigh up the pros and cons, as well as to adapt to the new environment once they’ve moved. If an employee is considering moving their spouse and children, there are a lot of people affected, and counseling is a great way for them to work that through as individuals, as a couple, and as a family.
You can also provide for moving costs, assistance selling their home and finding a new one, and departure and arrival assistance. You might provide for travel accessories and luggage. Some employees will be easier to relocate than others.
In your policy, you might provide more benefits to senior staff and less to junior – since less-experienced employees are often more easily replaced and rehired anyway. You can also choose to have a universal policy with the same level of benefits whether you are married or single, have kids or don’t, and regardless of your rank within the company.
Is It Expensive?
Being risk-safe and prepared for the future is an investment, not an expense. When formulating your relocation package, you do want your CFO in the room to ensure you can afford it. But thinking about it as an outright cost you cannot afford would be a mistake.
As we’ve seen, losing high-performing and high-potential staff is extremely costly for businesses. If you can’t take your best staff with you, your relocation plan is less likely to work. Yet more risky expenses at stake if you don’t have a funded relocation plan in place.
Can You Afford Not to Have One?
Ten years ago, Uber, Airbnb or Spotify didn’t exist. That’s just a few of the multi-billion-dollar companies that exist today which didn’t exist only a few years ago. We are living in an age where innovation competency is king.
To keep your company responsive, and on the front foot, you should consider having an employee relocation toolbox in place. To make sure all your relocation policies, funding, and support services are ready to support your company’s next innovative leap. It’s that, or risk irrelevancy as your competitors shift and adapt quicker than you.
If it’s time for an entire company relocation rather than just an employee or two, it’s time to consider a change management process also. This is to keep staff well-informed and lessen their anxiety around the change.
For advice on writing the perfect memo to inform staff of the change, and lots more business advice, check out the rest of our blog!