Managing International Assignments: Compensation Approaches
The challenge is to deal with individual assignment complexity, envisage greater policy segmentation, and map each compensation approach to assignment types.
Tracking Your Pay on an International Assignment
An issue that often confuses expatriates is that of “host-location spendable income.” Here we illustrate it through practical examples.
Changes to Cost of Living Allowances: A Closer Look
A longstanding approach to expatriate compensation is the home-based balance sheet methodology. Here we describe the approach and variables that affect it.
Talent Mobility is Key for Business Growth
To optimize their global workforces, leading companies attack the talent mobility issue from several angles.
Measuring Expatriate Quality of Living
Is quality of life affected by air pollution and traffic congestion? Access to good health care or modern sports facilities? Or maybe by all of the above?
Dual Careers and International Assignments - What Employers can do to help
The biggest obstacle to employee mobility is dual-career and family issues, according Mercer’s mobility policies and practices surveys.
Location Specific Premiums - Choosing the right methodology to match your needs
Financial incentives that motivate employees to accept a foreign assignment and compensate them for adverse conditions associated with the assignment location.
What Is the Relationship Between Family Size and Mercer Spendable Income Amounts?
As the size of a household increases, so does money spent on goods and services – but at a decreasing rate. See how that affects spendable income calculations.
HR Challenge: Scarce Local Talent in Emerging Markets
Employers headquartered in North America face significant challenges in staffing their operations in emerging markets, according to Mercer’s research.
Expatriate Management Policy Trends
The more mobility and talent management strategies are integrated, the less vexing traditional problems of expatriate management become.
Utilities - An overlooked piece of the Cost of Living Housing Puzzle
The cost of electricity, gas, and oil for appliances, plus water, garbage collection, and so forth should be factored into allowances.
Cost of Living Housing Exceptions - Policy Flaw or Necessity?
Define the underlying criteria of the housing allowance to ensure fair, consistent treatment while controlling costs.
Inclusive Leadership - Critical for Competitive Advantage
Successful organizations know how to leverage diversity to create a unified and inclusive global culture.
The Role of Human Resources in Expatriate Tax Matters
As expatriate tax matters become increasingly complex, with home and host locations expanding into developing countries, HR professionals face a difficult task.
The Implications of Social Security for International Assignments
Social security can be one of the most significant contributions that employers pay an employee on an international assignment, but it may also be overlooked.
Managing Expatriates in Difficult Locations: Optimizing the Global Mobility Investment
Despite the increase in global talent sourcing, not taking quality of living and cultural adjustment factors into account can doom international assignments.
Minimizing Exceptions to Policy Without Demotivating Expatriates
Practical suggestions for keeping exceptions to company policy from becoming the norm – and creating administrative burden and escalating costs.
Home-Host Housing Options: What Makes Sense and Why
When expatriates face sell/keep and rent/buy decisions for housing, consider the pros and cons within the parameters of the relocation policy.
Warning Signs of a Communication Problem Between HR and Expatriates
How can you know how successful your communication efforts have been? And how can you avoid problems with future communications with expatriates?
Expat Benefits: Update and Trends
Getting benefits right can be a positive contribution to an overseas deployment, but balancing employee expectation with rising costs is a challenge.
How Do You Know It Isn't Broken? Auditing and Benchmarking Your Global Mobility Program
Auditing and benchmarking your mobility program can counter the effects of changes in your company or the business environment on policies and processes.
Cost Projections: The Answer to Budget and Management Mandates
Analyzing and monitoring assignment expenditures can help HR balance budget requirements and expatriate needs, while arming them with data for future planning.
Keeping a Firm Grip on Vendor Activity and Performance
Identify service providers that have the right knowledge and expertise, interview them, then get detailed proposals outlining services and fees.
Repatriation: Avoid Reverse Culture Shock
Expatriates and organizations alike tend to overlook the challenges and risks associated with returning from an international assignment. They shouldn't.
Effective Short-term Assignment Per Diem Calculations
An increasing number of assignments means higher costs, so ensure that the short-term allowances you provide to your employees are calculated smartly.
How Do “Expat Lite” Programs Manage to Cut Costs?
Cost-reductions can be great for a company that has a large expatriate population for which this cheaper alternative to the balance sheet is appropriate.
Localization and Local Plus Packages: An Alternative Deal for Foreign Talent
Both in spite of – and because of – economic uncertainty and uneven growth, multinational companies continue to refine their talent mobility practices.
Local Plus: Focusing on the Practicalities of an Increasingly Popular Concept
Local plus packages have grown ever more prevalent. Learn the key characteristics of successful local plus policies and some of the implementation challenges.