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Remote working has been introduced as a temporary measure during the pandemic, but the debate — whether or not it will be a permanent option for the workforce — is here to stay.
The growing trend towards increased flexibility in global mobility programs has prompted companies to review their policies around international remote working and virtual assignments, reassess their work setup, and weigh the benefits against the considerable challenges and probability of success.
What can you gain?
Many benefits arise from the growing number of virtual assignments
Resilience and risk management
A more agile workforce that includes virtual assignees increases the resilience of organizations and helps maintain business continuity.
Assignment costs
Virtual assignments can reduce costs by eliminating part or all of the traditional assignment package.
Dual career and family issues
Virtual assignments avoid the need to compensate spouses for loss of jobs, detriment to their career advancement, and the stress on children caused by relocation.
Immigration issues
Candidates may be willing to fill overseas roles, but visas, work permit restrictions, quotas, and other legal restrictions may remain impediments.
Widening the talent pool
Families and individuals who were not considering moving might be willing to accept a job if it does not involve a relocation.
Assess feasibility
Determine if virtual assignments are right for your organization
Although virtual assignments may not involve the same relocation issues as traditional expatriate assignments, they may still trigger a host of practical, compliance, and HR questions. Chiefly, organizations may face unexpected cultural issues or hidden costs. Furthermore, not all traditional assignments can be replaced by virtual ones.
To determine when a virtual expatriate can replace a traditional international assignee and what objective factors determine the feasibility and success of remote working, analyze the work characteristics, technology setup, compliance, costs considerations, readiness and acceptance, cultural and inclusion issues, and the value for the organizations and employees.
Contact us to see if virtual assignments can work for your organization.
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Simplify risk assessment and compliance with an innovative plug-and-play platform from our partner, Work From Anywhere.
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Create efficiencies across all aspects of your mobility program
Mercer Mobility Management Platform is a centralized, cloud-based system that helps you integrate all aspects of your mobility program, offering varied degrees of automation and customization capabilities depending on your requirements.
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Personal Income Tax Solution makes determining expat taxes easier by providing everything you need to calculate the tax and social security liability of an international assignment.
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International benefits data and consulting helps protect the health and retirement benefits of your key talent, an important, but complicated, aspect of international working.
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Make well-informed pay decisions for your virtual assignees
Compensation Localizer simplifies setting up the pay package of remote workers localized in a third country.
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Cost-of-living data and accommodation cost information helps maintain the purchasing power of virtual assignees.
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Per diem data and business travel expense information helps manage costs of virtual assignees traveling from their home locations to the destinations benefiting from their work, which may be necessary during a virtual assignment.
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Overcome cultural and inclusion issues that impede success
Organizations might have the right work and technology setup, but they fail to succeed with virtual assignments due to company culture and misunderstandings between assignees and management.
Mercer offers a suite of cross-cultural training tools designed to increase the cultural awareness of virtual expatriates and mobile employees working remotely.
CultureWizardPassport offers complete, country-specific, and affordable online cultural training programs suitable for all your employees.
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Global inclusion course explains why inclusion matters, describes the types of implicit bias, and helps employees be more inclusive as individual contributors, as leaders, and when working with customers.
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Contact us to see if virtual assignments can work for your organization.
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