2024 Talent mobility trends

Olivier Meier, Mercer

Disruptive forces are changing the world of work, with geopolitical and economic turmoil creating uncertainties and anxiety for companies and employees alike. Societal and technological transformations are also creating a whole set of new challenges. This makes predicting talent mobility trends a delicate exercise. All too often predictions are based on gut feelings and on the every-day concerns of HR teams.

A better, more strategic starting point is to look at the forces that will influence business.

In 2024, four megatrends will significantly influence the priorities of top management:

1. Talent issues matter more than ever — a shortage of talent and skills is making organizations focus on the attraction, retention and reskilling of talent.
2. The agility and flexibility imperative — the demand for agile and flexible work setups means that companies’ “employer value propositions” must be enhanced to meet the new expectations of the workforce.
3. Well-being at the forefront — this new priority is making companies foster human-centric approaches to productivity and driving them to shine a spotlight on well-being issues.
4. AI and the great technological disruption — this seismic shift is making businesses leverage AI to ensure future success and pushing them to define optimal models to create AI/talent synergies.

These challenges and priorities will ultimately trickle down to all departments, including HR and talent mobility. They will drive new initiatives relating to:

• Talent mobility and management
• Flexible work policies and setups
• The well-being of employees on international assignments
• The implementation of AI solutions to support mobility management

1. Talent issues matter more than ever

New talent priorities and the challenges of employee-driven mobility

Attracting, retaining and upskilling talent in a complex labor market is a priority for many companies. Mobility teams therefore need to take part in this broader talent brokering exercise. This is essential if they are to remain relevant.

The importance of this issue is clear: 87% of mobility professionals rate mobility as important for talent development, 76% rate it as important for talent retention and 74% rate it as important for talent upskilling. However, only 4% report that mobility is totally aligned with talent management.¹

Historically, expatriate management has been largely reactive. It has generally involved managing expatriate relocation to fix business issues, often at short notice. As a result, it has had little interaction with broader talent management considerations. This situation has changed and there is now a move to better leverage the expertise of mobility teams for talent planning and sourcing purposes.

The need for reskilling and redeploying the workforce has also led companies to rely more on developmental and cross-functional international assignments. These involve a strong element of training and career development.

One key aspect of this talent trend is that the lifestyle expectations of employees are fueling the rise of employee-driven moves. Such moves have always existed, and many companies have had policies in place to facilitate them for talent retention purposes. However, in the past few years, the number of employee-driven moves have begun to overtake the number of company-sponsored ones. This change manifests itself in multiple ways:

• Requests for traditional international assignments
• Requests for permanent transfers
• Employees willing to market themselves internationally (international foreign hires and locally hired foreigners)
• An increasing number of international remote workers

This trend has brought a challenge with it. The problem is that the aspirations of employees — in terms of location and work setup — do not always match the business requirements of the companies they work for.

As a result, talent mobility is no longer just about the simple relocation of employees from one country to the other. It is increasingly about managing the geographical mismatch between employees’ aspirations and business requirements.

The shifting role of mobility function: From aspirations to realities

Over the past 20 years, many mobility professionals have aspired to have a strategic impact on the success of the companies they work for. Given the breadth of expertise that exists among this group — and the complexity of the HR issues linked to global mobility — there is definite scope for them to meet this goal.

There are encouraging signs: 61% of respondents² consider that the mobility function is gaining a stronger strategic impact. However, when digging deeper into the day-to-day activities of the mobility teams, a staggering 79% of mobility professionals think that mobility teams spend more than three-quarters of their time on non-strategic tasks.

This disconnection between the strategic aspirations of the mobility function and its daily activities is worrying. It is a particular concern given the expanding purview of mobility, and the importance of bridging the gaps that exist between the mobility function and talent management, recruitment, and business planning.

Being strategic means overcoming several obstacles. It requires:

• A cross-functional mindset and the capacity to participate in strategic debate on issues affecting the business.
• Working to expand the perception of what the mobility function does (beyond being simply involved in transactional relocations).
• Having the time and resources to actively participate in strategic activities (difficult at a time when mobility-management headcounts and budgets are not increasing).
• Overcoming the rigidity of organizational structures and processes. This is challenging as, at present, too many functions are operating in silos.
• Building bridging with other parts of HR. This is a never-ending and time-consuming exercise.
• Making clear choices about the role of mobility. While many mobility professionals aspire to play a strategic role in the broader talent sourcing and matching process, others may retain a distinct attachment to the mobility industry and prefer to focus on relocation management excellence.

Overall, this is an important strategic challenge to embrace. This is because, in the face of growing automation and outsourcing, the degree of participation of mobility professionals in the broader talent-management process may well determine their future relevance.

2. The agility and flexibility imperative

The current uncertain business environment and the changing expectations of employees have several implications for talent mobility management. Mobility teams must:

• Adapt the types of moves they manage to fit in with the new business realities.
• Adopt and facilitate a more flexible work set-up — especially by integrating remote working.
• Reflect on the mobility policies they implement, and, where necessary, change them to match the new reality.

Facilitating the redeployment of talent

We are witnessing the steady rise of the “glocal” trend. This involves a more local approach to compensation, and an increase in both one-way transfers and locally/internationally hired foreigners.

Research statistics highlight the reality of this change: 82% of respondents³ report having one-way transfers, making them the third most common type of assignment after long-term and short-term assignments. The main drivers behind these permanent transfers are:

• Companies offering career opportunities for employees (71%)
• Companies trying to improve their employer value propositions (53%)
• Company/business unit relocation (52%)⁴

Six out of 10 companies use a pure local/host approach for one-way transfers, relying on local market data. Close to one fifth of companies perform a “net-to-net” calculation to ensure that employees can maintain the same lifestyle as in their previous country of employment.

Work from anywhere: Compromises and normalization

Three years ago, the option of “working from anywhere” was often presented as an alternative. However, it was always bound to be a compromise: the realities of immigration, tax, and duty of care meant that truly working from anywhere would be impossible.

Today expectations and options have changed. Now, working from selected locations under specific circumstances is becoming the norm. Indeed, the issue of international remote working is now omnipresent in mobility policies. Shorter forms of international remote working — the so-called “workcations” (defined as “temporary international remote working”) — are becoming an expected benefit rather than an exception. An impressive 78% of companies now provide workcations either as part of their policies or on an ad-hoc basis.⁵

Pressure is mounting on mobility teams to address a growing number of cross-border issues, and to do more with the same resources. This is straining many HR teams. In particular, the question of working from anywhere (which started as a compliance issue) is turning into a resourcing challenge. Teams are grappling with the question of how to manage international remote working, and the other forms of cross-border working, at scale.

Unfortunately, mobility management processes and technologies are still lagging. For example, 50% of companies still do not have specific tools to track and manage international remote working assignments.⁶

Flexibility 2.0

Over 80% of companies⁷ report that they are reviewing, or plan to review, the flexibility of their policies. New forms of flexibility try to combine the duty of care imperative (seen from a compliance perspective) with a broader effort to meet the needs of employees and their families. This issue is not just about determining what constitutes “core” and “flexible” benefits (for compliance reasons). It is about offering a “care flex” program designed to improve the experience of each assignee and their family.

The following key considerations are emerging for anyone involved in developing or implementing a “care flex” program:

Relevance and personalization: One of the main objectives of a care flex program should be to provide relevant solutions for specific groups of assignees. Such a program should help to address the requirements of different family situations. It should also foster diversity in the mobile workforce.

Cost-neutral approaches: The care flex approach should be about benefits swapping and budget re-allocation, rather than creating new expenses.

The two sides of cash allowances: Cash allowances are popular, especially for employee-driven moves or junior employees. They are also perceived as easier to administer. However, they present their own set of problems:

• They are not always tax effective.
• Their benefits in terms of employee satisfaction are questionable.
• Their purpose is sometimes unclear — this leaves employees feeling they are not supported.

There are no perfect solutions, and it should be kept in mind that, while cash allowances can work for some relocation scenarios, other circumstances may call for a more comprehensive benefits approach.

Informed choice rather than too much choice: Assignees need guidance as they may not be aware of the long-term impact of the decisions they make on their well-being and finances. Flexibility needs to be balanced with pedagogy and safeguards.

Metrics matter: Monitoring adoption and satisfaction rates is important. All too often, a list of benefits and options is presented to employees without a thorough evaluation being made of their impact on the long-term satisfaction of the mobile workforce.

3. Well-being at the forefront

Retaining mobile talent and maintaining employee productivity requires the redefinition of the duty of care, well-being and sustainability. In practice, this should start with the better integration of physical, mental, social and financial issues into mobility support packages.

This is vital, as the more tangible and visible well-being benefits an employee receives, the more likely the employee is to report that they are thriving in their role.⁸

Organizations are increasingly revisiting the main pillars of well-being and introducing new features:

• Health: Reviewing current coverage, and leveraging the benefits of preventive medicine and telemedicine.
• Mental health: Adopting stress-awareness and support programs.
• Social well-being: Fostering integration in the host location (building professional networks) and developing family integration programs.
• Financial well-being: Going beyond just paying a cost-of-living allowance by providing information and support relating to the personal financial situation of assignees and their living standards.

Benefits coverage: Mind the gaps

When reviewing benefit programs for mobile employees, two types of gaps often appear: gaps related to mobility management, and gaps related to coverage.

Gaps related to mobility management: In two thirds of companies, many well-being benefits are managed by a benefits team rather than by the mobility team. This is usually not a problem as it ensures that the basics are covered. However, a debate about improving the mobile employee experience and personalizing benefits options will require closer coordination. HR and mobility teams will need to work together to deliver a unified experience for mobile employees.

Gaps related to coverage: Most organizations provide good benefits coverage for traditional international assignments. However, new forms of mobility (such as international remote working and various forms of international hires) can challenge existing benefit plans or even constitute a grey area in terms of duty of care. For example, some companies, who are trying to limit international remote working, take risks by assuming that their employees are responsible for their own insurance when on workcation. It must be recognized that, ultimately, companies have a duty of care for employees that extends across all the new forms of mobility.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues: Going beyond the obvious and superficial

Implementing ESG considerations at the talent mobility level is a difficult exercise for HR teams. Commendable efforts have been made to limit carbon emissions and make mobility greener. However, these issues are complex, and solutions need to be discussed and developed further. That said, one area where mobility professionals can make a decisive contribution is to foster “circular mobility”.

Circular mobility is a reference to the circular economy: an approach that attempts to eliminate waste and which favors recycling and sustainable practices. When viewed through this lens, mobility practices have historically sometimes led to wasted opportunities.

The problem is that many traditional forms of expatriate management have created situations where an expatriate is sent on assignment and does a good job for a few years, but ultimately fails to transfer skills and knowledge. The host business has therefore not benefitted from the move and a new assignee must be sent to ensure business continuity. Subsequently, the former assignee may leave the company (perhaps due to a lack of opportunity upon repatriation) or they may not leverage their newly acquired skills in an effective way. Additional missed opportunities and difficulties may arise for the employee’s family and for the local receiving community in which they worked.

Given these concerns, it is becoming imperative that actions are taken so that the benefits of mobility are not wasted, for:

• The assignees (benefits: skills, career post-repatriation)
• The families (benefits: experience)
• The receiving business countries (benefits: skills transfer, long-term impact)
• The broader communities (benefits: indirect business impact)

However, it is not all doom and gloom in the world of talent mobility from an ESG perspective. Some moves do deliver tremendous benefits for individuals, new enriching opportunities for families, and growth for local businesses and communities. The problem is that the outcome of most moves is uncertain and not adequately measured. Indeed, the most common measure of success is just completing the assignment.

Metrics and outcomes that matter for people and multi-stakeholder feedback are required. These include:

• Mobile talent retention and progression
• Assignee learning objectives
• Receiving unit skills progression
• Receiving unit/local peer satisfaction
• Spouse/family satisfaction
• Receiving unit business results post-assignments

Such precise metrics can help answer the crucial question about international moves — whether they have a positive or negative impact.

4. AI and the great technological disruption

HR teams are under pressure from both top management and end users to adopt AI. Half of top executives expect that investing in AI will deliver substantial business growth this coming year. They anticipate that AI will increase productivity by between 21% and 35%.⁹ A quarter of them also foresee that AI will drive significant changes to their businesses. These issues bring with them a range of threats and anxiety: 53% of executive believe that their companies will not survive beyond 2030 without AI. Some employees are concerned they might lose their jobs.

At a time when resources and budgets are limited, technology is increasingly seen by HR as an effective way to manage mobility at scale. 60% of HR managers plan to use generative AI in their work, and 57% of mobility managers want to accelerate the digitalization of mobility.

Even if not all HR teams rush to implement AI solutions, it will be difficult to stay unaffected by the issue due to its growing ubiquity. Already, 80% of employees report exposing their company’s proprietary data using AI.¹⁰ In other words, they have entered information in one of the many AI tools freely available on the internet to complete their daily tasks. Most of the time, they have done this in good faith in order to work more efficiently. However, it shows that employees — both HR and assignees — will be using AI tools in the future, no matter what their companies say.

This situation mirrors what we have seen with international remote working: Even if companies don’t offer remote working options, employees will be tempted to work remotely across borders, and will do this under the radar.

The take-home message is that the use of AI, just like international remote working, needs to be addressed in policies and processes, even if this is just to put clarification and restrictions in place.

Possible applications of AI for mobility

Generative AI lends itself to many applications that will support mobility management, including:

• Automation of daily tasks: The use of AI “co-pilots” will support HR’s productivity and optimize tasks.
• Simplification: AI will allow the elimination of superfluous pages, portals and intranet sites. This will result in less time being wasted searching for the right tools or the most recent data. 
• Automation of compliance and tracking: Automation will enable compliance at scale when dealing with a growing number of requests and with complex mobility scenarios.
• Cost management: AI cost-management systems will bring cost clarity and avoid the duplication of effort and reduce the waste of resources.
• Interactions with employees: The use of AI chatbots will enable a better user experience.
• Enabling personalization at scale: AI systems will help ensure that employees receive exactly the experience that is most relevant and appropriate for them. From mobility journeys and total rewards to the overall work environment, every aspect will be tailored to meet the specific needs of each individual (this will be especially important in the moments that matter most).
• Analytics 2.0: AI analytic systems will put new and deeper insights into the hands of managers and employees. This will help them to make better talent decisions for themselves and their teams. This is an opportunity to democratize and finally deliver on the promise of talent mobility analytics. Until now, most mobility teams have struggled to find the time and expertise (e.g., support from IT departments, especially for coding) to produce detailed and relevant analytics.

Defining an AI implementation roadmap

The successful implementation of AI requires a structured approach. The following steps are recommended:

Reflecting on the desired interactions and outcomes

The first question is not, “What tool do we need?” but, “What outcome/type of interaction do we want?”

The interactions with mobility stakeholders can be evaluated in terms of speed/urgency, accuracy, knowledge/data and empathy. This will help determine whether the setup should rely on an AI system, human interactions or both.

Determining the right model and strategy

Most companies will already have IT systems in place. It is essential to determining which old systems to retain, upgrade or discard, and which new AI systems you need to acquire. Different starting points will lead to different approaches, these might include:

• Implementing AI from scratch (e.g., deriving solutions from ChatGPT).
• Combining legacy technology and AI tools (e.g., working with mobility management tool plus AI-driven chatbots).
• Upgrading legacy technology (e.g., adding AI functionality to existing systems and platforms).

Processes and data preparation

Research shows that 67% of organizations adopt new technology without transforming the way they work.¹¹ However, implementing new technologies based on old processes is often a poor solution. Indeed, optimizing the adoption of AI tools can require rethinking not just workflows but also the whole logic behind existing processes. It can also require significant work on the data side, both to ensure consistency of data labeling and to facilitate data exchange between legacy and new systems.

Roles and responsibilities

When it comes to the digital experience, it is clear that actions haven’t caught up to intentions: Only 24% of respondents said that a clear priority has been given to the digital experience, and only 26% report that there is clear ownership of this issue.¹² Moving forward, the implementation of AI solutions will require better coordination between HR teams. It will also require clear ownership of the whole process and effective management of all relevant day-to-day operations. As AI evolves, a growing number of tasks will be automatized, but oversight and compliance priorities will still require that people monitor, understand and ultimately are responsible for every AI-driven action.

Skills and user usage

One key priority is upskilling mobility teams to ensure that they can effectively use AI tools, for both basic tasks and more advanced analytics. This is not so much about coding or hard skills — it is primarily about understanding the logic of the new generative AI tools.

Communication

Employees’ uninformed perceptions of AI, data privacy issues and skills issues could slow down the adoption of AI. There are a lot of preconceptions about what AI can or cannot do. As a result, HR teams need to understand what the new technology is to be used for and how it will be implemented. This will require support from top management. In this context, transparency can go a long way to assuage users’ concerns.

In conclusion …

The trends influencing talent mobility affect a range of different topics but they are deeply interrelated and cannot be considered in isolation.

The issues relating to talent sourcing and employees’ expectations are driving the need for greater flexibility and for companies to place a greater focus on well-being. In turn, these new requirements are stressing the limited resources of mobility teams and are challenging them to re-explore their role with HR.
Embracing the potential of new technology and AI may allow mobility teams to address the evolving set of new challenges they face, meet the new requirements that are being set, and deliver a better experience at scale for all mobility stakeholders.