By Olivier Meier, Mercer
The discussion explores the dilemma of focusing on mobility costs versus measuring its broader value, urging organizations to balance expense control with strategic talent and business outcomes.
Observations
Global mobility discussions are dominated by cost considerations. Finance teams ask for transparency, executives ask for savings, and mobility professionals are once again asked to “do more with less” and to find cheaper alternatives to home-based, long-term assignments. According to Mercer’s 2025 Strategic Mobility Management Survey, more than half of participating organizations cite the high cost of international moves as a major barrier to mobility — a sharp 10-point increase compared to the previous survey, two years ago.
At the same time, nearly every company still affirms that global mobility plays a crucial role in deploying strategic and technical talent. Yet the same survey reveals a sobering truth: most organizations do not measure success — they measure only cost.
A majority of companies capture direct, short-term costs and sometimes a portion of indirect costs. Few go further. They rarely quantify actual total costs (including lost opportunities, repatriation challenges, or risk exposure), and even less frequently do they measure the value of an assignment — whether in terms of talent development, business outcomes, or knowledge transfer. In fact, only 2% of companies can determine ROI, and nearly half track neither cost nor value.
The result is a narrow and incomplete picture. Mobility is often evaluated through spreadsheets, not outcomes. The definition of success is absent — replaced by an accounting of expenses.
The dilemma
The dilemma is not whether costs should be measured — they must — but how they are interpreted, and whether value receives equal attention.
Cost control is legitimate. It is rational to seek efficiency when there is pressure on margins. Yet focusing solely on the visible, immediate cost of an assignment can be misleading. A decision can be a good one in the short term but detrimental in the long term. The short-term cost savings from adopting a local-plus or host approach, for instance, may appear positive on paper but can lead to higher long-term costs. The trend to adopt more host-based compensation approaches and “permanent moves” (without link to the home country) is based on mixed rationale. It could, in some cases, foster equity with local peers and facilitate administration. In other cases, the cost savings of providing no expat allowances in the short term are more than offset by the long-term costs of altering the basic salary. Furthermore, localizing an employee without realizing that this person might move again after a few years could lead to unexpected headaches and significant costs.
The absence of value metrics distorts decision-making. A failed assignment may save money today but generate a deficit tomorrow — in leadership continuity, project delivery, or organizational capability. Even the act of managing risk has both a cost and a value: compliance processes, security measures, or tax planning incur expenses, yet they prevent far greater financial and reputational loss. This is particularly relevant for new forms of mobility like international remote working that can trigger significant liabilities if not properly managed.
Indirect costs — such as the loss of skills and knowledge, failed integrations, or disengaged repatriates — are rarely captured, even though they can outweigh the visible ones.
At the same time, calculating the value of mobility is not a straightforward exercise based on a universally applicable formula. It depends on the type of assignment and its intended outcome. Developmental rotations, project-based deployments, or strategic leadership placements all deliver different forms of benefit that cannot be reduced to a single metric. Furthermore, some of the benefits of mobility, such as leadership development or new market development, may take years to fully materialize.
Without a shared definition of what success looks like, mobility risks being treated as an accounting line rather than a strategic instrument.
The challenge, then, is not to choose between cost and value but to rebalance the vision of both.
Resolving the dilemma
Organizations must go beyond calculating what mobility costs to understanding what it creates and what they risk losing by not acting. The goal is a more balanced, evidence-based, and context-sensitive approach.
1. Establish a clearer definition of success
Before measuring anything, define what “success” means for your mobility program. Is it about business performance, talent development, or operational continuity? The absence of a success definition leaves organizations anchored in cost analysis alone. A success framework should differentiate by assignment type — developmental, project-based, and strategic — recognizing that each carries distinct value drivers.
2. Contextualize cost: short-term versus long-term
Cost reduction in itself is not wrong, but context matters. Savings achieved through simplified packages or policy segmentation can be a smart move. However, if they lead to ongoing payment (for example, the “plus” in a local plus package is not timely discontinued), inflated-based pay, loss of key talent, or market delay, the true cost is higher. A balanced approach looks beyond the immediate expenditure to assess the total cost of mobility ownership, including ongoing costs and long-term talent outcomes.
3. Broaden the cost lens to include indirect and risk-related costs
Most companies capture only what appears on the relocation invoices and in the mobility packages. Few quantify indirect or opportunity costs, such as project disruption, replacement hiring, or disengaged repatriates. Similarly, the valuation of risk should be part of cost analysis: preventing compliance breaches, managing security incidents, or ensuring well-being are investments, not expenses.
4. Evolve from cost reporting to value storytelling
The Mercer survey found that 63% of organizations plan to strengthen analytics and reporting capabilities. This should include pairing cost data with outcome indicators, such as post-assignment retention, internal mobility, leadership pipeline contribution, or business-unit satisfaction. Telling a coherent “cost and value story” resonates far more with business leaders than reporting spend alone.
5. Adopt an agnostic lens
Not all mobility is inherently good, nor is it necessarily costly in the long run. Some assignments are indispensable for business continuity; others may no longer serve a strategic purpose. A mature mobility function evaluates both sides — the cost of action and the cost of inaction — and makes decisions based on data and context, not outdated assumptions or superficial perceptions.
The task now is to rebalance — to refine both our vision of cost and our understanding of value using the language of business. It is about expanding the definition of what matters. True strategic mobility management recognizes that risk mitigation, leadership readiness, and knowledge transfer all have measurable worth.
Find out more:
Join us at the 2026 Talent Mobility Conference in Budapest on April 23-24 to discuss further about the cost and value of mobility with your peers.