How mobility can be the activation hero for hybrid work

11 minute read 9 Jun 2022
Authors
Rachel D’Argenio

EY Americas Mobility Market Leader

Helping clients deliver strategic insights, incremental value, and experience. Loves being creative and enjoys baking with son, going on long walks with family, and traveling.

Maureen Flood

EY Global Mobility Reimagined Leader

Passionate about partnering with clients to enable long-term value from the optimization of global talent strategy and global mobility. Disability mom and advocate.

11 minute read 9 Jun 2022
Related topics Workforce COVID-19

In this video, learn about the future of hybrid work and how the mobility function can support an engaging and productive hybrid work program.

The EY 2021 Work Reimagined Employer Survey reveals 9 out of 10 employees believe that flexibility in where and when they work is critical to establishing a positive work experience. “As we engage with organizations, the flexibility around where and when is the foundation of these new hybrid work programs. Organizations recognize the need for flexibility.” says Maureen Flood, EY Americas Hybrid Work Suite Leader.

While the race for talent has intensified in the recent months, hybrid work has become increasingly crucial. Leaders must discover new ways to both retain and recruit talent. One option for leaders is to provide internal mobility opportunities in order to build future capabilities and accelerate careers. Thus, the future hybrid work model requires support of the mobility function.

When mobility functions enable hybrid work, it creates new opportunities, including:

  1. Access to wider talent pools
  2. Retention and engagement opportunities with teams
  3. Flexibility for families, individuals, and teams
  4. Learning and development opportunities

So, what role does mobility play in a hybrid work program?

When it comes to putting a hybrid work initiative into action, there are various considerations, such as regulatory and legislative challenges that represent risks that must be handled. To mitigate these risks, organizations must align their mobile employee strategy with their talent framework and develop rules that follow a set of guidelines to establish operational norms and controls.

These are the focus areas of the governance framework that should be prioritized:

  1. Employees may unknowingly trigger tax, legal and regulatory compliance risks.
  2. Alternate ways of working can create productivity and performance concerns that need to be balanced with ways to encourage teaming, collaboration, and a consistent approach to employee wellbeing.
  3. Employee safety, health and security need to remain top of mind for organizations.

The following steps will help establish the approach for a successful hybrid work program:

  • Design: Infrastructure, roles and responsibilities and resulting risks
  • Implement: Tracking, guard rails, process and policy
  • Execute: Validate and comply

By taking these actions, the business will be able to set up the workforce of the future, in whatever form that workforce may take. The mobility function, which has access to an abundance of data, is key to a high functioning hybrid program and therefore creating long-term value for their stakeholders.

Summary

The mobility function is crucial in a hybrid work environment. Companies that can leverage the mobility function may be able to obtain a competitive edge by being able to innovate quickly, get products to market faster, and re-engage with customers in new ways that are responsive to changing realities.

About this article

Authors
Rachel D’Argenio

EY Americas Mobility Market Leader

Helping clients deliver strategic insights, incremental value, and experience. Loves being creative and enjoys baking with son, going on long walks with family, and traveling.

Maureen Flood

EY Global Mobility Reimagined Leader

Passionate about partnering with clients to enable long-term value from the optimization of global talent strategy and global mobility. Disability mom and advocate.

Related topics Workforce COVID-19