The role of the mobility professional is changing. Once a largely transactional profession, concerned with on-the-ground issues such as travel and insurance policies, relocation elements and compliance, modern mobility functions are focused on strategic business aims and redeploying talent — and the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating this evolution. Businesses that fail to reskill and reimagine their mobility function risk being left behind.
So, what’s happened? Put simply, businesses have woken up to the fact that moving talent around an organization can provide a competitive advantage when it comes to meeting strategic aims.
For one organization, this might be about allowing it to expand into certain markets, for another it might be about revenue growth. Deploying the right people, into the right teams, at the right time is a key part of this, and c-suite executives need to be partnering with their mobility teams to execute on this strategy. Mobility departments need to find the most streamlined solution to dealing with the transactional side of the function so that they can pivot their time towards supporting executive strategy. Doing so can reduce costs — a key business driver when many organizations are facing falling revenues and reduced business. But more on this later.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is also having a transformative effect on the mobility function. Attracting and retaining talent has become harder, with employees reluctant to move jobs but also expecting greater flexibility and wellbeing programs.
Secondly, social distancing has created a situation where entire workforces are now working remotely. While flexible working is keeping employees safe and business flowing, it is causing all kinds of compliance issues for mobility teams, whose operating systems cannot cope.
According to research by EY and the RES Forum