Global mobility affects and impacts on frequent business travellers as well as employees on assignment abroad and is at any time relevant to compliance regulations. Your personnel department may be well staffed by different roles. And doing a remarkable job. Nevertheless, the practice shows that the group of employees hitherto known as frequent flyers in companies is not continuously monitored in their travel pattern and destinations. If at all, monitoring is subjected and limited to sporadic attention to international assignment types.

Whatever the specific reason for business travels, newly erected production sites/ office representations and any thinkable variation and length. Frequent travels need both, a prudent watching and preventive measures: whether due to investigating new markets and hereby associated lengthy international stays abroad, most of travels should be considered further in their repercussions for a variety of reasons. Becoming unwillingly taxable is only a reason among others.

The cause lies in the obvious need to clearly designate or select someone who implements and manages an agenda warding off cross-border effects of employee migrations and frequent travellers.

Highly skilled administrative staff but not in HR advice

Tasks specialising and job repartition within companies unwillingly prevent a proper care of frequent travellers who should be given a proper attention the more they travel. Travel management is not always part of HR departments since it has nothing in common with HR duties. Therefore, addressing enquiries to departments in charge is endorsed in many small and large enterprises, but, as a matter of fact along comes the side effect to it when frequent travellers themselves or administrative staff track down and document their travel arrangements. And through this, disabling and leaving HR clueless over frequencies, countries of destination, country regulation in general and specific provisions, insurances and much more. Although as a last resort, the personnel department would be called upon to work out an alternative.

Global Mobility Manager: Allrounder to those who travel cross-borders (and make money)

All departments within the personnel department have a clearly defined task area. In compensation and benefits, recruitment or talent management. Nevertheless it is the Global Mobility manager who keeps an eye on substantial corporate and legal requirements for  assignments.

A challenging act in practice when staff is scarce at all or a team rather small, with possibly no in-depth knowledge on remuneration and talent management programs extending beyond one´s field of competence in HR services. As a matter of fact, learning topic-related skills in hiring foreigners who are neither naturalized nor permanent residents is a demanding task when venturing into the field of expatriate management.

The bottom line is that: a (cross-border) comprehensive care of „global mobiles“ (frequent travellers and expats) must go beyond the regular HR support. An evident reason for that is that former frequent travellers who are travelling on long or short project-related assignments sooner or later become expatriates and vice versa.

Your international travellers are all over the world for you on the go and deserve a proper administrative support. I work with you as an experienced interim force in administratively supervising your frequent travelers and expatriate staff in providing you and them with carefully researched information. Tax, social security and residence regulations may offer any unexpected surprises, I have been and still do work in close cooperation with specialists, gladly handling this role with your long-term committed partners, drawing up services, especially assignment solutions for lengthy business travels as well as international assignments through optimized conditions to run smoothly.

Through many years of experience in pinpointing and identifying challenges of international assignments, I offer support to your in-house staff in taking care of your international travelling executives and assignees. In many cases, you will be able to benefit from associated services such as tax advice, global mobility policy development, compensation and benefits of my many years of assignment in different companies and close cooperation with appointed experts. Knowledge about the challenges in international HR projects proved a valuable experience to understand expatriates.

Having lived abroad myself, I bring both a unique personal experience and a professional understanding of those challenges the company and employees will face. I serve countries around the globe, to which different industries, e.g. machinery and plant construction, pharmaceutical and chemical products, automotive supply industry and services in the financial and banking sector are strategically important.

I familiarize myself in operational tasks not only particularly in conventionally known countries in the Americas, EMEA and Asia, but in single African countries as well. Each assignment regardless of who gains from it is thoroughly investigated to detect typical pitfalls. Ultimately, expertise in the areas of Immigration Law, Labor Law or in the subject Social Security can be necessary by means of on -site support. In which case my routine to address issues can help changing the course of events through timely communication.

Because Global Mobility needs to consider state-of-art in various disciplines, unfortunately, this is not about the next highly educated expert who will focus on just one major compliance topic, e.g. labor law and / or visa regulations for you and make your day. Instead of the one fixing it, you need a sound expert in HR who navigates between all these disciplines, managing HR issues and eventually outsourcing when usual procedures have failed.