Quality of Living – Location Reports

Factors such as climate, disease and sanitation standards, ease of communications, and physical remoteness can often affect the success of a foreign assignment. Moreover, the local political and social environment, political violence, and crime may give rise to potentially uncomfortable, inconvenient, or even dangerous situations. To encourage mobility, reliable information is needed to help calculate fair, consistent expatriate compensation for hardship locations. 

The Benefit of Two Approaches

Mercer offers two ways to compensate mobile employees fairly for going to a host site with a lower quality of living than that in their home location. Quality of Living Reports (QOL) recommend a point-to-point comparison assignment premium in order to recognize differences in home and host conditions. Location Evaluation Reports (LER) assess living conditions against generally accepted standards, providing a single premium recommendation for all assignees, regardless where they come from.

Quality of Living Reports

Mercer’s Quality of Living Reports contain all the key elements you need to calculate hardship allowances based on a home-host combination for transfers to 489 cities worldwide.

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Location Evaluation Reports

Location Evaluation Reports assess 140 locations worldwide on 14 factors that make up daily life for expatriates and their families.

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Expatriate Management Conference Join your peers and global mobility experts in Brussels on 6-7 June as we focus on the practical steps that will help you prepare for the Future of Work: process optimization, policy flexibility, upskilling mobility professionals, revisiting cost drivers, and leveraging technology. Register early to secure the best conference rates.

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QUALITY OF LIVING CITY RANKINGS See how more than 200 cities compare for quality of living as an international assignee, plus highlights from our research.

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City Consulting Interested in making your city more attractive to international business investment? See how Mercer can help, and sign up to take part in our best practices survey.

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Expatriate Compensation

Determining the proper compensation approach can be challenging. Written by Mercer experts, our guide to compensation approaches will provide a detailed analysis of the three main compensation methods to help you choose the right solution based on your specific needs

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Policy Flexibility

As mobility programs grow and new situations arise, companies may need to be flexible on their approach to compensation. Our whitepaper outlines the considerations, benefits, and drawbacks involved.

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