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Understanding global mobility

Managing a workforce spread across the globe isn’t a simple task. With employees spread overseas, how are businesses working to protect both their employees, and their investment in international growth?

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Our 2017 research uncovered three major barriers that organisations must address in order to have effective international assignment programmes – motivational, wellbeing, and financial. Three years on, we wanted to understand what’s changed. 

In 2020, we conducted similar research to discover what international working looks like. Now that traditional ways of living and working have transformed, how can businesses adapt to new opportunities and the challenges ahead? What additional complexities has the pandemic created for those undertaking international assignments? Is it still viable for global businesses to send workers abroad for placements – and do employees still want to go?

We commissioned Savanta, an independent market research agency, to speak to HR professionals and globally mobile employees about a range of subjects, including managing mental health issues, how they expect roles to change over the coming years, and which factors decide whether to send an employee on international assignment. You can read the findings in our latest reports.