Global Mobility in the next decade; hold on tight it's going to be a wild ride!

We’ve been doing some reading about Global Mobility this week inspired by a news report about PwC’s report “Talent Mobility: 2020 and Beyond”. Since we, and the people that we work with, are all part of the globally mobile population, the future of global mobility is near and dear to our hearts. The PwC study left us with some questions so we did some digging and found reports by the Hydrogen Group  “Global professionals on the move – 2013” and Cartus  “Talent Management and the Changing Assignee Profile”. None of the reports answered all of our questions but they’ve got us thinking about how global mobility is going to change in the future.  Here’s what’s been on our minds

The non-controversial stuff  -  change is happening.

All three studies were clear that global mobility is set to rise substantially over the next decade and luckily they also both agreed that more and more people would consider an overseas move (91% according to Hydrogen) or expect to move overseas during their career (PwC says 71%) and all three agree that more and more assignees are viewing international experience as an essential and positive part of their career development.

They agreed that the number of female assignees would continue to increase.  Good news for male accompanying partners whose greater numbers will create a greater impetus to address their unique set of challenges. Hydrogen did, however, find that women typically accept overseas assignments when they are younger and at an earlier point in their careers.

The Millennial Generation (or GenY) has fundamentally different ideas about global mobility than previous generations.  More Gen Y’s want to move abroad but for them it’s more about the experience than the career opportunities or the money (We do wonder how that will change as Gen Y starts thinking about educating children, but perhaps their impetus for change will fundamentally alter the way globally mobile children are educated too.)

The flows of globally mobile employees are changing.  The flow of assignees to emerging markets will no longer be one way as assignees from those markets spend time in other markets to develop skills and bring their specific experiences and skills to other countries.

The issues that are not so clear - we're intrigued.

Several findings left us wondering what the implications will be for Global Mobility as they make it evident that there will be challenges that will require creative resolution.

PwC and Hydrogen are very clear that growth of opportunity will be in emerging markets with emerging markets expected to contribute 50% of the world’s GDP by 2020 BUT assignees want to go the US, UK and Australia.  (Notable aside - PwC states that the number of assignees willing to relocate to China is 2%; the same as the number willing to relocate to Iran!)  As Hydrogen point out, the companies are clearly going to have to be creative in finding the right incentives and providing the right support for employees and families once they are there.  Particularly since, as Hydrogen points out, family reasons continue to be the single most prevalent reason for turning down assignments.

PwC talks about the decline of the duration based (2-5 year) assignment and the increase in other forms of mobility such as short-term assignments and extended business travel (“mobility without relocating”).  These concepts that sound great from a company cost perspective but we know that, although they avoid some of the stresses and challenges of longer-term relocation, they impose their own set of costs and compromises on families.

However, Hydrogen points out that, once assignees are overseas, they often like to stay there longer than they originally intended, particularly in certain locations that afford an experience that is personally, professionally and financially rewarding.  Cartus also talk about the expected increase in the number of assignees accepting sequential assignments.  How will this affect career planning and the way that skills gained internationally are utilised when employees are repatriated?

Moreover, the demographic shift that will occur in the US (and reflected elsewhere) as 80 million baby boomers retire and only 40 million GenY’s take their place means that companies will be in fierce competition to develop and retain employees.  Adding an extra dimension to this “war for global talent” is Gen Y practice of job-hopping (particularly common in Asia) to achieve lifestyle goals and rapid advancement.  Will this mean that companies will look harder at the wasted talent pool among accompanying partners and help to find creative and flexible ways of breaking down the myriad barriers that prevent accompanying partners from working. (You can learn more about those in this article about our Career Choice and the Accompanying Partner Survey report)

Clearly there are some major challenges ahead!  Perhaps in addressing these changes and creating a link between Global Mobility and Talent management, the Global Mobility function will be able to shift away from its largely transactional focus and take a seat at the strategic table as a part of the talent management conversation.

“The only thing constant is change”  Greek philosopher Heraclitis, 6th Century

Reading the reports made one thing abundantly clear to us – that the Global Mobility industry in experiencing rapid change, huge challenges and exciting opportunities over the next 10 years as it deals with:

• shifts in world economic power and opportunity
• the demographic shift of retiring GenX and the changes that the much smaller GenY will bring
• the need to incentivise people to go where they are needed and to come back again once they’ve been overseas.
• the attendant pressure that shift will put on talent availability and the competing pressure on costs
• the pressure that increased global mobility will put on countries to remove or lessen the bureaucratic barriers to mobility

Most of all though, these reports leave us feeling excited about rising to the challenge of supporting accompanying partners and globally mobile families in an exciting and rapidly changing environment.  To learn more about how we are contributing to the changing Global Mobility landscape click here