Case studies
Technology has the power to revolutionize the way global mobility works and collaborates. Follow the journeys of two multinational organizations, Arla Foods and Bühler Group, that have transformed their mobility functions by implementing Mercer's Mobility Management Platform (MMP).
Mobility digitalization journey at Arla Foods
Dairy company Arla Foods is a multinational cooperative owned by around 9,000 farmers. Well known for brands such as Lurpak, it is the fourth-largest dairy company and the largest organic dairy producer in the world.
With 20,000 employees, Arla fields a team of five global mobility colleagues based mainly in Denmark. The team manages around 200 cross-border setups a year, ranging from commuter situations to short-term assignments, local transfers and permanent hires. It also has around 50 long-term assignments, mainly based outside Europe.
Key challenges
Arla identified a number of elements it wanted to improve across its global mobility program: dependence on external vendors, lack of assignment overview and history, lack of awareness from employees outside mobility and inconsistent employee experience.
In making the case for a new mobility tool, Arla stressed to decision makers that the new digital platform was not meant as a cost-saving exercise. Instead, the project was about enabling a complete overview of mobility, creating a good experience for assignees and HR business partners, and helping assignees feel at home when they were far away.
Benefits
Arla decided to deploy Mercer’s Mobility Management Platform, kicking off its project in January 2021. Testing began in August, during which Arla made 45 system enhancements. Starting in October, Arla conducted around 20 training and pop-in sessions to educate stakeholders about the new platform, and the system went live in November.
Despite a drop in assignments caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Arla experienced some clear benefits in just a few months, including easy access to the full picture of active assignments, enhanced user experience across various stakeholder groups and visibility over full assignment history.
Lessons learned
Arla identified the following elements as crucial to a smooth implementation: allocating sufficient resources for the implementation process, aligning on roles and responsibilities from the start, understanding potential IT issues, assigning a dedicated project manager and providing clear and robust communications to all stakeholders.
Mobility digitalization journey at Bühler
Plant equipment group Bühler manufactures technologies for products as diverse as smartphones, solar panels, beer, lipstick, banknotes, food, and vehicles.
Assignments have always played an important role in Bühler’s history. As a multinational company, it is constantly moving employees across the globe. A matrix organization with strong and autonomous regions, it has seven regional hubs with their own global mobility managers, while the Swiss headquarters operates as a center of excellence.
Key challenges
Despite this tradition of global mobility, Bühler faced some challenges including low awareness of global policies and processes, time-consuming manual reporting, lack of global data management and low cost transparency.
Bühler set out to take global mobility to the next level and reposition it within the group. It also needed to satisfy the requirements from both HR and management to manage costs effectively. The company decided to implement Mercer’s Mobility Management Platform to achieve its goals. Before embarking on the project, the company identified hurdles it needed to overcome and laid out the potential benefits to make the necessary business case for its new mobility management tool.
Benefits
Having received the go-ahead to deploy MMP, Bühler implemented the tool in just nine months during the COVID-19 pandemic. It soon saw significant benefits, including improved communication and collaboration, consolidation of processes into a global approach, enhancement in data quality and management, as well as increased cost awareness.
Lessons learned
Bühler had a smooth implementation and believes that building a strong project team, laying the groundwork thoroughly and preparing to adjust the system after the implementation contributed significantly to its project success.
Conclusions
Digitalizing global mobility does not mean fully automating mobility processes, nor can it replace human expertise. The experiences of these two organizations illustrate the importance of considerations such as process documentation, stakeholder buy-in, IT support, and robust project preparation.
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Read the full case studies for more details, including practical recommendations for assignment management digitalization based on the lessons learned by Arla and Bühler during their transformation journeys.