International HR Adviser Spring 2018

SPRING 2018

ISSUE 72

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International HR Adviser The Leading Magazine For International HR Professionals Worldwide

FEATURES INCLUDE: How Effective Shadow Payroll Management Makes A Big Difference To Your Business Crowdsourced Insights On Business Travel: Improving The Business Traveller Experience And Compliance Risk Mitigation The Changing Environment For Share Awards in 2018 • The Future Of Global Mobility Resilience And The International Employee • Avoiding Relocation Meltdowns In The Wake Of Brexit The Five Career Challenges Of The Global Mobility Manager

ADVISORY PANEL FOR THIS ISSUE:

CONTENTS

In This Issue 3

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How Effective Shadow Payroll Management Makes A Big Difference To Your Business Richard McBride, Certino Limited

Crowdsourced Insights On Business Travel: Improving The Business Traveller Experience And Compliance Risk Mitigation Pichaya Jagger & Deepinder Lamba, Deloitte LLP

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Taxation: The Changing Environment For Share Awards In 2018 Andrew Bailey, BDO LLP

Future of Global Mobility: Are You Walking A Tightrope?

Robert Day, Santa Fe Relocation & Karen McGrory, BDO LLP

Global Taxation Andrew Bailey, BDO LLP

Crown World Mobility: Top 10 Global Trends of 2018 Revealed - Workforce Mobility Experts Report What to Expect Lisa Johnson, Global Practice Leader, Consulting Services at Crown World Mobility

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Resilience And The International Employee Ray Leki, International Mobility Expert

Avoiding Relocation Meltdowns In The Wake Of Brexit Sarah-Jane Butler, Parental Choice

The Five Career Challenges of the Global Mobility Manager - Dead End or Highway?

Angie Weinberger, Global People Transitions

Compatibility: Policies, Points, Cafeterias And Their Effects on Mobility Functions Andy King, Global Mobility Manager, Improbable

Serviced Apartments: Purchasing Power …

Jo Layton, The Apartment Service

Travel Risk: Protecting Your Mobile Workforce To Protect Your Business International SOS

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38 Diary Dates

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39 Directory

www.internationalhradviser.com HELEN ELLIOTT • Publisher • T: +44 (0) 20 8661 0186 • E: helen@internationalhradviser.com DAMIAN PORTER • Publishing Director • T: +44 (0) 1737 551506 • E: damian@internationalhradviser.com International HR Adviser, PO Box 921, Sutton, SM1 2WB, UK Cover Design by Chris Duggan In Loving Memory of Assunta Mondello While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of information contained in this issue of “International HR Adviser”, the publishers and Directors of Inkspell Ltd cannot accept responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither the publishers of “International HR Adviser” nor any third parties who provide information for “Expatriate Adviser” magazine, shall have any responsibility for or be liable in respect of the content or the accuracy of the information so provided, or for any errors or omissions therein. “International HR Adviser” does not endorse any products, services or company listings featured in this issue.

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SHADOW PAYROLL

How Effective Shadow Payroll Management Makes A Big Difference To Your Business Managing Mobility: Enabling Today’s Global Workforce

The international employment environment has changed beyond recognition in recent years. Traditionally, it was characterised by periodic and predefined expatriation assignments. ‘Expats’ would move abroad for medium to longterm time lengths to a particular country, and be situated in a specific office working for their chosen company.

However, with the advent of technology and the evolution of multi-national organisations – together with the rise of new economies – the expat culture is giving way to more fluid, fast-moving and far-reaching professional landscape. We are living in an age of total global mobility. There are no barriers to business. Employees work across countries and continents. As they become more readily mobile, the pace of this change accelerates in turn, with shorter-term assignments, greater geographical spread, borderless financial transactions, and so on.

This brave new world of mobility is delivering huge commercial benefits, with even bigger opportunities still to be realised.

However, it has created significant challenges for employee management.

Moving people around the world is a hugely expensive operation. Historically, hiring expats has been vastly much more expensive than employing local people. The same is true today. Uprooting someone and relocating them and their family incurs a wide array of overheads, in packages and relocation costs. But organisations have to maintain freedom of movement to maximise commercial advantage.

As such, as companies continually look to reduce costs, the expat model is giving way to shorter-term, fluid migration. In a world where the relative cost of relocated labour is far higher than using local employees, and the company has to pay considerable associated relocation costs - such as living away from home allowance, relocation allowance, schooling, hardship allowance, air fares and tax equalisation – more enterprise organisations are now reconsidering their 'Buy, Build or Borrow' strategy: where Buy means hiring someone, Build means training someone, and Borrow means outsourcing them.

Reputationally, the consequences of not getting employment tax right are great – and can extend beyond the tax sphere. So, shadow payroll simply has to run on rails.

It can’t be done as an afterthought.

It must be resourced properly, given clear accountability and be completely joined up

at the right time. Moreover, it must achieve this affordably, while always remaining legally and financially compliant. This is a considerable challenge, but when movement of employees across international borders is factored in, it can become a minefield – with the potential to impact the entire organisation.

To be clear: when we refer to an international employee, we are talking about an individual working on a traditional longterm assignment (“expat”), someone partaking in a formal short-term assignment abroad for a specified period of time, or those working on informal assignments (“loaned labour”) – as opposed to short-term business visitors or foreign nationals transferred or hired on local terms and conditions.

Employment Taxes represent one of the largest costs associated with this process – typically around a third of the total employment costs of an international employee. What’s more, international cost management, in the form of payroll and taxes applicable between the relevant countries, is extremely complicated. It’s also scrutinised more closely than ever before.

In a bid to address these demands, many organisations have progressively addressed different aspects of these taxes. In the past, employee experience was the overriding priority when relocating, so all focus was on the relocation process and ensuring the employee settled in well to their new host country.

As a consequence, immigration compliance and taxes were ignored. Today, immigration compliance is far better understood; however, taxes are still relatively ignored. Little time to

Andy Seear, Global Head of Employment Taxes, AIG International Employees: An Expensive Affair

For a business to be successfully globally, it must have the right people in the right place,

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date has been spent proactively managing foreign employment taxes, otherwise known as the ‘shadow payroll’.

This has to change… and fast.

HOW INTERNATIONAL EMPLOYEE TAXES WORK Typically, an International Employee will be responsible for their actual or deemed (“Hypothetical”) Employment Tax in their home country. This liability is limited to the Employment Tax due on their standard “stay at home” remuneration package. Their employer is then responsible for actual taxes in their host location, plus any additional or reduced taxes in the home location which arise as a result of the particular assignment.

Shadow Payroll Explained – And Redefined

Let’s be clear about what we mean by an organisation’s ‘shadow payroll’: Shadow payroll manages the “Employment Tax” liabilities relating to overseas employees when they move to another country on a temporary basis. This includes personal income tax and social security. Functionally, it runs alongside the standard payroll process, so it ‘shadows’ it, as such.

Automating shadow payroll solution reduces your business risk and cost, ensures you report the right information in real-time from day one, and enables you to make better business decisions Damian Walsh, Partner, Savannah Group 4

Traditionally, shadow payroll has been defined as: “A method of maintaining international tax compliance while an employee works abroad. A process in which a US employee working overseas, for example, receives compensation and benefits in the host country that are shadowed, or mirrored, in the US for calculating, reporting and remitting taxes.” Bloomberg BNA In contrast, Certino defines shadow payroll as: “A comprehensive employment tax management system that covers everything from pre-move planning, monthly income tax and social security calculations to intercompany rebilling and posting of transactions in accounts”.

Shadow payroll works by calculating what Employment Taxes are due in respect of each employee based on the corresponding requirements of the country they’re working in, and any other country in which an Employment Tax liability arises by virtue of citizenship or ongoing tax residence.

Once established, the tax payments due are processed in the normal way. This sounds simple enough in theory, but the reality can prove to be very different.

There is a lack of awareness in HR, Payroll and Finance departments regarding shadow payroll best practice. There is no set role or responsibility for it, and as such, no conventional method of calculating it. Rather, it is the elephant in the room: those involved know it needs to be tackled, but are reluctant to do so directly. Many would prefer to pass the task to someone else, or outsource it altogether to a perceived payroll expert.

A Challenging Calculation

There are several challenges with accurately calculating shadow payroll. Probably the biggest lies simply in determining which factors should be calculated, reported and

remitted, as well as how and when to do so. To make things more complicated, these various income sources come from a range of different places.

For example, an employee’s payroll might be managed by one source; their benefits by another; their expenses by another, stock payments by another, location tracking by one more, and so on. Identifying, following and managing this long trail is difficult and time consuming, especially as most organisations’ mobility teams are small in number. It’s also constantly changing due to the large number of data inputs, which makes it complex for most organisations’ existing payroll systems to cope.

Shadow payroll also requires broad familiarity with a number of specific issues which fall outside the remit of the average, domestically-orientated payroll professional.

Issues including “expatriate” tax regimes, split pay, hypothetical tax, tax equalisation and tax protection.

In short, shadow payroll represents an enormous administration burden within the context of a traditional organisation’s payroll set-up, so most simply do the best they can. They believe that the annual tax return process is sufficient to manage everything, not least because they’re not aware of any alternative process. Many outsource shadow payroll to their chosen specialist tax partner, or rely on their local Payroll or Finance functions to manage as best they can.

While this seems logical enough, the lack of shadow payroll specialism often prevents organisations from truly minimising their tax liabilities in this area. Usually, by the time the annual tax return is prepared, it’s too late to comply with monthly withholding and reporting requirements, and unnecessary taxes and fines are paid along the way. There is also the relatively high price of outsourcing in the first place.

Employment taxes represent around 33% of the total cost of moving staff across borders

SHADOW PAYROLL Despite this, organisations struggle on – because they’re not aware of any better way, and they have an obligation to be compliant.

In HR, an industry where value is notoriously difficult to measure, shadow payroll automation provides a tangible way to categorically record the commercial value of what you’re saving the business – day by day Didier Charreton, Chief HR Officer, Anglo American Tax Compliance: A Risky Business

As mobile working increases and compliance demands intensify, governments expect every organisation to manage its payroll activity tightly, regardless of geography. This creates pressure to maintain effective tax systems.

However, many existing HR systems are not inherently designed to cope with the high volumes and fast speed of people moving locations. They cannot track them accurately, or on time. Too often, they simply generate a long list of invoices, a paper trail that attempts to track employees down and that remains one step behind the real-time situation.

Not only can this lead to incorrect tax calculations, but it can have more widereaching implications. Incorrect financial statements may mean that costs are retained on the company’s balance sheet, rather than in its P&L. Valuable resources are tied up and poorly used in managing the whole process, and ultimately these inconsistencies can put the entire company at risk of failure in the

event of tax audits.

This is a headache for shadow payroll compliance. It runs the risk of substantial fines, wasted man hours and resources, a lack of individual accountability and needless additional tax payments in the form of double or multiple taxation. Not to mention potential reputational damage.

Government tax authorities around the world are being urged to maximise revenues to take advantage of today’s global mobile workforce. Naturally they are targeting organisations that move employees across borders, as they offer potential rich pickings with relatively low risk.

The objective is clear: businesses must get shadow payroll right, in real-time.

BEPS – AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR ‘GLOBALLY MOBILE’ ORGANISATIONS Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) aims to tax the profits of companies based on where they are actually conducting their business and creating tangible value, rather than where they choose to file their tax returns.

BEPS is set to majorly impact the way in which organisations manage and report on their globally mobile workforce: and shadow payroll will be a key factor.

As BEPS gains momentum, organisations must (a) know where employees are, what they’re doing, and to be able to report thereon; and (b) make decisions on where tax liabilities arise for employees who cross international borders.

Recommendations For Best Practice

Above all, shadow payroll best practice is about ‘Getting It Right First Time’: through the effective planning, deployment and tracking of employees as they move from place to place. With existing hardware, personnel and processes seemingly lacking, this might seem like a mountain to climb, and even impossible to achieve in the timescales required. But there is good news.

Organisations do not need to invest money in advanced infrastructure, expensive systems and manual processes to make shadow payroll work for them. Instead, they can automate the entire function – removing the chance of human error, reducing internal resources, ensuring compliance in real-time, and saving money.

Ultimately, this automated solution provides peace of mind that you’re paying the right amount of tax in the right place, at the right time. All of which significantly reduces your overall employment costs (including administrative and compliance

Shadow payroll has traditionally been seen as just a compliance process, with no tangible commercial benefit or advantage per se, and zero influence on a positive employee experience. To get shadow payroll right, your compliance must be completely under control, but now there are clear commercial benefits to managing it effectively as well Chris Debner, Founder, Strategic Global Mobility Advisory expenditure, and ‘excess’ taxation).

An automated shadow payroll solution can consolidate your systems and run data on your behalf, scrutinising its accuracy and authenticity to provide reliable oversight for consistency and compliance purposes.

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Because this process is ongoing, you’re never left vulnerable and always enjoy an optimised tax position with minimised tax liabilities.

How It Works

Employment tax is an environment experiencing heavy compliance demands and constant cost cutting. Existing processes are rather fragmented. Policies and processes are managed by HR rather than tax experts; payroll is outsourced (along with shadow payroll); re-billing and accounting procedures are handled by the finance department; and annual tax returns are also outsourced to someone else. Tasks are disparate, and difficult to track and manage as a whole.

Therefore, the ability to automate the entire end-to-end process represents an incredible opportunity to save significant time and money across the board.

Now, at a glance, you get an overview of all your tax liabilities and everything you need to pay in every market you're working in. This information updates as it happens, with changes recorded accurately in a format that’s easy to understand.

When you need to pay tax, this is managed better too. Automation optimises your payment calculation by taking a global perspective of your tax landscape across all active markets you’re operating in, as opposed to a local, market by market approach, which someone based in an individual tax office would usually do.

In Conclusion

Global workforce mobility is creating exciting new possibilities for organisations all over the world. As technology advances and economies evolve, employees are moving faster and further than ever before.

But alongside the substantial commercial benefits, there are increasingly complex challenges for those tasked with managing this migration.

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When someone relocates, the last thing they want to worry about is tax. They’ve got so much else going on – a new job to start, a new property to move into, a different culture and environment, possibly schooling for the kids… but with an automated payroll system, employers don’t have to worry about the tax processes either Simon Rogers, Managing Partner, Talent Mobility Search International employment is vastly expensive. From an HR perspective, there is a wealth of factors to consider. As legislation increases and compliance demands intensify, HR professionals must strike a balance between legal practice and freedom of movement, all while reducing costs. Failing to achieve this can put an organisation at great risk, ethically and financially. With employment taxes representing one of the largest costs associated with employee mobility, innovation in this area can pay large dividends.

Shadow payroll is a great example. But unfortunately, it’s not well understood.

That must change - but how? Above all, organisations need to ‘Get It Right First Time’: by tracking employees accurately and promptly as they move from place to place.

This is hugely time-consuming and expensive using conventional approaches. However, there is a better alternative.

Shadow payroll automation removes human error, reduces man hours, and ensures compliance while saving money. So, you enjoy peace of mind that you’re paying the right amount of tax in the right place, at the right time.

RICHARD MCBRIDE

Richard is the founder and managing director of Certino, which has been formed specifically to help international businesses with complex mobile workforces to address the massive challenge of managing their shadow payroll.

Prior to founding Certino, Richard set up and led the global mobility function at Baker Hughes, one of the world’s largest oil field services companies, where he delivered more than $250 million in employment tax cost savings over eight years (2008 – 2016).

If you would like to discuss any of the issues raised in this article or learn more about Certino, please do not hesitate to contact Richard on +44 (0) 020 7118 1405 or email him at richard.mcbride@certino. com. Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.certino.com for more information.

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

Crowdsourced Insights On Business Travel: Improving The Business Traveller Experience And Compliance Risk Mitigation The number of cross-border business travellers is rising, but awareness of compliance issues isn’t catching up. The consequences facing companies and their employees if they don’t have robust travel policies in place, or if they aren’t followed, can be severe, including hefty fines and lengthy investigations – all of which can put a company’s reputation at risk and impacting their employees’ experience, there may be financial and regulatory implications too.

So How Can You Be Sure Your Business Travel Programme Is Comprehensive?

In order to highlight potential gaps, we crowdsourced insights from a community of business travellers who regularly cross immigration borders. Our aim in undertaking this research is to help global mobility leaders better understand the real challenges faced due to business travellers, and provide practical advice on how to improve compliance.

How We Developed Our Insights?

We partnered with a leading global intelligence platform to take an innovative crowd-based approach that leverages artificial intelligence crowdsourcing to target crossborder business travellers. Our survey covered all aspects of business travellers’ experiences, including difficulties obtaining visas or passing through immigration border controls.

Business travellers working in companies with more than 5,000 employees took part in our survey across nine countries. We captured both quantitative and real-time insight by asking participants to submit photos and videos relating to their experiences. This enabled us to see and hear the issues they faced and gather a deeper level of insight into this group of mobile workers.

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Figure 1: Using an AI-powered crowdsourcing platform to capture rich insights from cross-border business travellers through photo, video and text accounts

Insights Into The Plight Of The Business Traveller

Imagine you’re a business traveller. You’ve just reached border control after your flight – you hand over your passport and visa, only to discover there’s an issue. Your important meeting is due to start shortly but you’re stuck at border control.

For many people, this is a confusing – and worrying – situation to be in. Would you (or your colleagues) know what to do?

Let’s assume yes. You call your company’s local immigration service provider, asking them to speak with immigration officials and after a few hiccups, you pass border control and make your meeting. The frustration subsides, and the details of the situation become footnotes of your trip.

But that’s not the end of the story. A year

later, your Global Mobility team contact asks you to provide information about business trips you’ve taken over the past 365 days.

They want specific details regarding the nature of your meetings and number of days you spent in each location. Why? Because taxes were due (in the destination locations) on the income relating to your business trips.

You’re also asked to file tax returns, and you aren’t sure if you have to bear the cost of those taxes personally.

This story brings to life a typical issue faced by business travellers and in our research, we’ve looked closely at how such situations arise and how they may be prevented.

To examine the challenges in more detail we’ll look at two touchpoints that follow a typical business traveller’s journey: pre-travel assessment and travelling and arrival.

Figure 2: Business Traveller’s Journey Map

BUSINESS TRAVELLER The Business Traveller’s Journey - Touchpoint 1: Pre-Travel Assessment

As a business traveller, it is not simply a question of turning up at the airport on time. From logistical concerns – researching routes, transport to and from airports at either end – to the necessary admin of visas and check-ins, there’s much more to consider.

Here, we’ll take a look at key factors – from employment tax considerations, to the implications of Brexit – and examine what companies and travellers need to do to help themselves.

Employment Tax Considerations

How familiar are you with your company’s policy on the payroll reporting obligations regarding business travel? It’s often provided in the policy documents before a trip is signed off, but do travellers really know what the implications of these policies are? Our data showed that in all likelihood, the answer would be ‘no’. 40% of frequent business travellers aren’t aware that such policies exist, and that number increases to 52% for those who only travel a few times per year.

As long as the implications associated with these policies remain a mystery to individual travellers, conditions remain perfect for mistakes at a corporate level and that’s before we even enter the minefield that is visa applications.

Visa Applications (And Brexit)

More business trips (54%) need visas than not (46%) and, in many countries, crossing the border for business purposes isn’t a seamless process.

This issue is only set to become more complex. Especially for the 32% of travellers exempt from needing a visa last time they travelled, as a result of having an EU passport.

With Brexit there may be significant increase in the need for visas.

Risk Assessments And Business Travel Policies

Pre-travel risk assessments should help prevent many of the issues a traveller might encounter during business trips. However, despite the heightened security, only 49% of people in our survey said their company completed a pre-travel risk assessment for their most recent business trip.

In addition, when people were asked whether their company had a policy on business travel immigration and tax compliance, over 58% responded ‘No’ or ‘Not that I am aware of’. Both of these points indicate a need to educate business travellers.

So, What Do Travellers And Companies Need To Do?

Over the past five years, there has been a rapid increase in tax authorities auditing companies whose employees travel internationally for business. This is due to

Figure 3: Visa applications (and Brexit)

the relatively high level of perceived noncompliance among large organisations.

There’s an onus on companies to have easy to understand and clearly communicated policies that are accessible by employees.

Business travellers themselves need to request, understand and follow the relevant policies in a timely manner.

Improving business travel compliance requires focus on employee behaviour, the use of sophisticated technology, and robust compliance processes. A holistic approach provides scalable and sustainable improvements.

Improving business travel compliance requires focus on employee behaviour, the use of sophisticated technology and robust compliance processes Defining Policy

Figure 4: Crowdsourced insights on business travel

Having a robust business travel policy in place will help reduce potential compliance issues along the line. Where not already in place, organisations should establish a framework of core business travellers’ policy principles, defining key tax areas like tax reimbursement, preparation and cost recharges, as well as communication and escalation points for relevant stakeholders across jurisdictions. To ensure the policy remains current, regular reviews must be undertaken. This includes developing and enhancing the policy’s structure, and streamlining the compliance process.

Educating Stakeholders

Stakeholders at home and in host locations need support: this includes those within HR Mobility functions, Tax and Payroll teams, and business travellers themselves. Everyone needs to be informed about relevant aspects of non-standard mobility, and understand the challenges of business travel.

Assessing Business Traveller Programmes

Organisations need to assess their business travel programmes to identify potential

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compliance risks. They can achieve this by analysing a snapshot of data, including sample travel and HR data sets. The assessment should include: • Immigration: managing immigration compliance for companies and employees • Group payroll: auditing defence readiness and minimising payroll tax exposures • Mobility: managing mobile employees, policies and process • Tax: managing Permanent Establishment (PE) and state nexus risks and minimising indirect tax costs • Finance: managing recharges of costs to each business unit • Internal audit and risk: understanding the materiality of the risk and readiness for external and regulatory audits, and identifying risk management needs, capabilities and processes • Compliance management: satisfying compliance objectives in the context of business and regulatory environments.

The Business Traveller’s Journey - Touchpoint 2: Travelling & Arrival

So, the travel plans are sorted. Plain sailing from here, right? Well, not quite. Our data showed that for those who completed a pre-travel risk assessment, 71% didn’t have any other problems. But what about the other 29%, who experienced things out of their company’s control like bad weather, lost luggage, delays and so on?

What Did Our Survey Show?

Many of our survey respondents noted that unpredictable issues, like those mentioned above, are easier to handle during personal trips. In a professional context, however, where productivity is threatened, another level of complexity is added to the situation.

The research also highlighted, that one of the most problematic journey stages was border control. “Stress”, and “humiliation” are just a couple of the phrases participants used to describe their experiences at border control, which in some cases turned into head on collision with immigration officials. More real-life experiences follow - in figure 5 below.

How Do You Deal With The Unexpected?

Despite the issues we’ve outlined (and other similar examples) often feeling unexpected to the traveller, pre-travel risk assessments (at an individual level) should help identify the majority of issues. Doing this means it is easier to ensure the traveller will be informed of what to do should any issues occur –for example, who to contact in an emergency, or how to get political and security risk updates.

The business traveller, of course, still has a responsibility to understand all this and other information, like business travel insurance details. There is also opportunity for companies to go further and put in place proactive solutions to help prevent and manage common issues such as a luggage tracking system, which was deemed “essential” by one respondent.

Summary

Our research brought to light the need to treat everyone with an individual level of care, which reflects the fact that no employee’s situation is the same as their colleagues. The key is to have a robust business travel programme in place that is proactively managed and improved.

Further, global mobility leaders have a task to educate their employees regarding risks and compliance obligations associated with business travel, including their company’s policy on taxes, business traveller

Figure 5: Crowdsourced survey findings

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payroll and immigration processes. At the same time, the travellers themselves have a duty to properly digest the information they are given prior to travel.

A holistic approach to managing business travel compliance requires broader awareness among your employees, coupled with a robust framework of policies and compliance management driven by the organisation.

PICHAYA JAGGER

Tax Lead for Crowdsourcing at DeloittePixel™ Pichaya is DeloittePixel’s Tax lead for crowdsourcing and has broad experience across the International taxation and global mobility arena. She has extensive experience of leading on digital transformation projects, specialising in enterprise crowdsourcing and digital innovation. Pichaya is a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), a fully qualified member of the Association of Taxation Technicians, and holds a Masters degree from the University of Oxford.

Pichaya can be contacted at pjagger@deloitte.co.uk or +44 (0)20 70074966.

DEEPINDER LAMBA

Director, Business Travel Services, Global Workforce Deepinder is a Director in our Global Workforce practice and leads Deloitte's Business Travel Services across EMEA supporting organisations address their compliance risks due to business travel. Over the last twenty years, Deepinder has helped many organisations derive value from their global workforce. This support ranges from strategy creation, organisation design, process design to achieving operational effectiveness and implementation of technology. He speaks regularly at our conferences and writes points of view related to Business Travel, Global Workforce, Shared Service Centres and Project Management.

Deepinder can be contacted at dlamba@deloitte.co.uk or +44 20 7007 2689.

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

The Changing Environment For Share Awards In 2018 Taxation of individuals moving across borders can be difficult enough when looking solely at regular employment income, but the complexities multiply when considering share awards, potentially spanning several years and jurisdictions.

Share awards (and for the purpose of this article we will include all share based remuneration such as options, stock units, phantom awards and qualifying and nonqualifying plans), have long formed a vital part of an employee’s total remuneration.

This is especially true for executives and senior employees who often form the core of the Internationally Mobile Employee (IME) workforce. Equity is seen as a way of incentivising them based on the performance of the company, providing a competitive reward and also tying them in long-term. For broader, ‘all employee’ plans, the focus is again on providing competitive reward but also on expanding the culture of share ownership.

Companies are typically using free share plans such as US Restricted Stock Units (RSU), Stock Appreciation Rights (SAR) and Long-Term Incentive Plan (LTIP) awards for executives and share purchase plans such as Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPP) for broader groups of participants.

Many awards have a minimum vesting period which is typically three years. The award is typically treated as earned over the vesting period. For IME, moving country during this period typically means that the income has to be split and allocated to each country. This will be based on where the IME was resident and/or working during the life cycle of an award.

Companies are also looking at minimum share retention policies to encourage executives to hold a significant number of shares relative to seniority. New awards may be subject to malus and clawback provisions.

Under the former, the size of awards can be reduced if certain events occur and under clawback the company can recover some of the shares or cash which has already been delivered (and taxed!).

There has been a focus on tax compliance and reporting for share based income in recent years. The key trends are the movement towards greater reporting obligations and more focus on collecting tax via payroll.

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The rules surrounding the taxation of share awards are complex, even when dealing with local employees. For mobile employees the complexity doubles or trebles because it is necessary to consider the tax and social security treatment in multiple countries and have a robust system for tracking employees.

There are potentially multiple points of taxation (grant, vest, exercise and sale to name the most common). Income and/or capital gains tax (CGT) may apply depending on the type of award. Further information about the treatment of equity awards in over 30 countries can be found in the BDO Global Equity App which can be downloaded for free: www.bdo. co.uk/en-gb/insights/tax/human-capital/ global-employee-share-rewards.

Generally speaking, a non-qualifying award will be subject to income tax and CGT will be payable on a qualifying award.

A qualifying award enables individuals to benefit from lower tax rates applicable. Many countries also have separate rules for social security with rates for non-qualifying awards being significantly higher, and these add an additional layer of complexity. Examples of countries where qualifying plans can deliver significant benefits are the UK, with the Company Share Option Plan for market value share options and all employee Save As You Earn and Share Incentive Plans. In the US, Incentive Share Options can be used, and in France we have the ‘Macron’ free share plan.

Where a parent company operates a share plan on a global basis, it should consider if and how local employing companies pay for the value received by employees. It is sensible to consider the use of recharges from both a transfer pricing and tax optimisation perspective. In a recharge scenario the parent agrees to make share awards to employees of a local subsidiary subject to this company agreeing to make a payment to the parent. In effect, some of the costs of the share plan are recharged to the local, employing company.

If this arrangement is correctly structured the payment is deductible for corporation tax in the employing company and may be tax free in the hands of the parent. A recharge can be an effective way of reflecting the commercial costs of share plans and repatriating profits to the parent. Care is needed when implementing them, ideally before awards are made. In some countries the use of a recharge will change the tax treatment and potentially mean that payroll tax and or social security is payable. Country specific tax advice is therefore required.

The typical approach for a global company launching a new share plan is a ‘one size fits all’ approach. This inevitably leads to compromises and local compliance issues. The plan will almost certainly be non-qualifying and there will be no tax or social security benefits for participants, the employing company and the parent company. It is inevitable that local payroll issues will have to be resolved. For instance, in the UK it is possible to transfer employer’s social security (which is typically payable at 13.8% of the equity income) to employees as a condition of award. This can save a significant cost for the employer, but adds to the employee overall tax cost to give top earners a combined rate of nearly 55%, and raises questions about fairness compared to other countries.

Effective employee communications are key to the success of a share plan and many companies are struggling with how to ensure that equity plans are perceived to be valuable by younger employees in their twenties and thirties. Greater use of technology such as portals, smartphone apps and self-service communications can help with take up and perception.

As mentioned above, for IMEs the waters are muddied even further. The income tax position is typically based on a sourcing approach, dependent on where an employee has been resident and/or working during the life cycle of an award. For example, where an individual has been resident and working in the UK for twelve months during a total award period of thirty-six months, the UK will seek to tax 1/3 of the gain. The social security system may follow this sourcing approach or be based on an entirely different logic. For instance, if a certificate of coverage applies, the employee may continue to pay social security in the home country on the full gain.

It is already imperative to track awards made to cross-border workers. The employer is tasked with ensuring that they withhold the correct amount of withholding tax which can only happen by maintaining accurate records. There are a number of technology solutions to this such as BDO QuickTrip. The use of these tools gives you accurate and real time information on your employees travel.

This not only assists in ensuring the correct reporting of share payments but also helps with wider issues. Areas to consider include business visitor reporting requirements, visa & work permit applications, social security documentation and corporate requirements.

TAXATION Accurate equity reporting is just the tip of the iceberg where IMEs are concerned!

Each country has its own rules on how share awards are taxed, and these are varied and numerous. It is not uncommon for two or more countries to want to tax the same income. Companies and tax advisors alike need to be clear on the amount of the gain liable to tax in each location and the correct way to alleviate any double taxation. This will mostly be set out in the terms of double tax treaties which give guidance on which country has the right to tax the income and how the other country must address this to ensure true double taxation does not occur.

Greater uncertainty is more likely where there is no double tax treaty in place where the approach will be to look at local tax laws and agreement of the competent authorities.

Selected Recent Developments

The tax treatment of equity awards is constantly evolving. We have highlighted developments in two jurisdictions below:

Belgium

Payroll tax must be withheld by a Belgian employer if it has granted the awards or is actively involved in the administration. Social security will be due on a similar basis or if costs are recharged to the local company. If there is no payroll obligation the employees are still required to report and self-assess.

It appears that the Belgian authorities are concerned at the lack of employee reporting and are querying the level of local involvement in share plans. This often results in a determination that the local Belgian employer should have withheld income tax and this can be retrospective going back 5 years. A recent Court decision has suggested that all equity income is subject to social security regardless of the recharge situation.

Companies operating share plans in Belgium should review the payroll and social security position carefully.

France

A new, qualified free share plan, was approved in 2017, and applies to shares granted after 1 January 2018. Under this plan there is a 50% reduction in the rate of income tax payable on gains of up to €300,000 and the rate of employer’s social security is reduced from 30% to 20%. Employers will need to consider employee communications and utilising the new rules for 2018 awards.

Although the planned introduction of company withholding tax obligations has been postponed to 1 January 2019, employers should plan for the impact on equity plans. A ruling of the Constitutional Council may mean that companies can claim refunds of employer social contributions paid in respect of certain free shares awards made before 8 August 2015.

This would apply where awards were made but shares forfeited.

The IME Withholding Maze

Withholding for IMEs is complex. As a company you need to be aware of the type of award, the correct tax & social security treatment in each country and the residence status and working pattern of the individual to ensure you correctly deduct withholding via payroll. We have set out key areas to focus on below: • Keep track of where your IMEs work • Equity taxation is based on location during the ‘earnings’ period, establish if this is based on grant – vest or grant – exercise for each relevant country • Show good faith by using a robust tracking system and taking regular tax advice • Remember to consider impact of exit charges (i.e. when an IME moves country) and corporate recharges • Consider tax and social security treatment and who has a withholding obligation • Prepare in advance for anticipated withholding events • Accept that IMEs may have different tax treatment to local employees and may have a higher tax/social security burden • Consider the impact of ‘over withholding’ on IME remuneration and double tax issues • Consider tax equalisation policy - does this apply to trailing liabilities or only when on secondment • Consider bespoke equity employee communications for IMEs both before secondment and on taxable events • Do not assume that tax and social security treatment will mirror each other • Consider how you will be able to access compensation information from different countries and systems – a central payroll system makes equity withholding easier • Consider ongoing tax and legal compliance.

Share Plan Reporting

Since 2004, there has been mandatory year end reporting in the UK, notifying HMRC of employees receiving, vesting and exercising share awards. From 6 April 2015, this moved to online submission which must be completed using the HMRC interface. The filing deadline for the forms is 6 July following the end of the relevant UK tax year (which is 5 April) and automatic late filing penalties apply of up to £700 per return with daily penalties applying after nine months. Transactions involving internationally mobile employees have to be identified. BDO Equity Reporter is able to automate the reporting process and offers additional services such as payroll verification and calculations of UK corporation tax relief and apprenticeship levy due on equity income.

In 2016, Japan expanded its employer reporting obligations to cover former employees and directors and to increase the level of detail in respect of non-residents receiving Japanese income.

Relevant transactions must be declared on

end of year forms both for local employees and expats. As for the tax and social security liabilities, it is therefore imperative that companies have robust tracking mechanisms in place to keep a handle on where their employees are resident/working, dates of moving between locations and awards made. The table on the next page highlights reporting obligations in selected jurisdictions.

Pay Reporting

A key global remuneration trend is the ever growing focus on equality and transparency.

Two thirds of OECD countries have introduced new policies on pay equality since 2013, while the UK, Australia, Japan, Germany and Sweden are among a handful of countries that require some employers to publish calculations every year showing the gender pay gap.

A key part of this trend is to identify and reduce the gap in remuneration between male and female employees. This is impacting on all employers, but probably has scope for greater impact on global employers who may have to deal with more adverse publicity and the implications of cross-country comparisons.

The UK has introduced mandatory Gender Pay Reporting (GPR) for every employer who had more than 250 employees or workers on 5 April 2017. This will be an annual reporting requirement and is generating significant media coverage. Under GPR an employer must report six ratios on a government and internal website. This includes an analysis of most forms of pay and bonus. Equity income is potentially included in both calculations and there are complex issues around the calculations for equity and internationally mobile employees.

The likely position for IMEs is to include them if they would see the UK Courts as the appropriate route for employment related claims. If they are included it is also likely that a number of elements in the typical expatriate package such as cost of living allowance would be included.

BDO is able to help clients with GPR, using a secure portal to download confidential data and the BDO Gender Pay Reporter to prepare the calculations.

In Germany, the new Pay Transparency Act came into force in January 2018. Where this applies, employees are able to request information about pay for co-workers in similar positions and the employer is subject to mandatory review and reporting procedures.

US public companies are now required to disclose CEO compensation, median employee total annual compensation and the ratio of CEO pay compared to median employee pay. On 21 September 2017, the SEC issued an interpretive release on the new rule that reinforced the perceived implementation flexibility, including the setting of parameters for statistical sampling methods. This process could potentially cover worldwide median compensation.

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

Share Plan Reporting Summary By Country Country

Report Type

Awards

Due Date

Australia

ESS Statement

All

14 July - employee

Australia

Payroll reconciliation

All

21 July – tax authorities

Australia

ESS Report

All

14 August – tax authorities

China

SAFE

All

31 December & quarterly

France

DSN

All

Monthly – tax authorities

France

Individual certificates

Qualified free shares or optionsfree shares or options

31 March - employee

India

Exchange Control

Awards where funds sent outside India

30 September (suggested)

Ireland

Electronic Form RSS1

Options & ESPP

31 March

Japan

Annual Statement Form 9 (3)

All equity & cash

31 March

Portugal

Form 19

All

30 June – tax authorities

Portugal

Tax Report Form 19

All

20 January – employees

Singapore

Tax Report Form IR8A/IR8E

All

1 March

South Africa

Section 97 Securities Lodgement

All

Within 60 days of fiscal year end

Switzerland

Tax Report

All

After year-end but 15 March suggested

United Kingdom

Employment Related Securities

All

6 July

United Kingdom

Sharesave (SAYE) Company Share Option Plan (CSOP)

Options

6 July

United Kingdom

Share Incentive Plan (SIP)

Free & share purchase

6 July

United Kingdom

Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI)

Options

6 July

United States

Form 3921

ISO

31 January - employees

United States

Form 3921

ISO

28 Feb (paper) or 31 March (electronic) – tax authorities

United States

Form 3922

Employee stock purchase plan (S.423)

31 January - employees

United States

Form 3922

Employee stock purchase plan (S.423)

28 Feb (paper) or 31 March (electronic) – tax authorities

Summary

Authorities have a clear focus on tax compliance for share awards and changes to increase transparency. They want to ensure that the right amount of tax and social security is paid and the onus is very much on companies to track and report awards. With the complexities surrounding share based income this will only add further compliance requirements to internal HR and tax teams.

14

ANDREW BAILEY

Andrew Bailey is global leader for BDO International’s Expatriate Tax Services and National Head of Human Capital at BDO LLP. He has over 30 years’ experience in the field of expatriate taxation. BDO is able to provide global assistance for all your international assignments. He is indebted to David Gardner for his immense contribution to this article.

If you would like to discuss any of the issues raised in this article or any other expatriate matters, please do not hesitate to contact Andrew Bailey on +44 (0) 20 7893 2946, email Andrew.bailey@bdo.co.uk or David Gardner on +44 (0) 118 925 4468, email David.Gardner@bdo.co.uk

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

Are You Walking A Tightrope?

The balancing act of global growth while maintaining compliance, worldwide.

Organisations continuously adapt to the new norm of competing and remaining agile despite complex shifting global socio-economic variables, crippling cyberattacks, and geopolitical tensions such as ‘America First’ policies and the ongoing Brexit negotiations. Plus, adapting to longterm structural implications of artificial intelligence in today’s digital world.

For every challenge an opportunity exists and organisations need to take advantage to sustain and grow. This is evidenced by the international deployment of large numbers of talented employees, who possess a wide spectrum of business skills, from business development, technical, to managerial capabilities. How do challenges become opportunities?

International business travellers are front line ambassadors for organisations. For most employees, this is exciting, stimulating and challenging. Before buying currency, finding the passport and packing a suitcase, there are serious risk implications. In this paper,

we explore the application of consistent due diligence and compliance protocols to mitigate risk.

The pitfalls of international business travel in a complex and regulated world

The following chart illustrates that managing business expansion and delivering international projects are top priorities for business leaders and their global mobility counterparts.

Our research shows 96% of business leaders and 95% of global mobility professionals said, overwhelmingly, that it was important to have an internationally mobile workforce to meet strategic objectives. Almost 40% of both groups responding to the 2017 Santa Fe Global Mobility survey said it was mission critical.

What defines an international business traveller?

There is no one common definition as it depends on an organisation’s global mobility, taxation and business philosophy.

International business travel can range from one day to up to six months. 183 days is often seen as a tax trigger (90 days for immigration), but organisations need to take a broader view of their travellers’ circumstances and intended duties. Other considerations include the rules of the home and host locations, the existence of a relevant double tax treaty, recharge of costs, which entity benefits from the business travellers’ work, and the frequency (and volume) of travel.

Dependent upon the size and scope of an organisation, the international business traveller population can be from ten to more than a thousand. An existing customer with a total workforce of 150,000, for example, has 20,000 (13%) on international business travel.

Tracking their compliance is more complex than simply asking a corporate travel agent for information on flight bookings (assuming too that all employees adhere to booking protocols). Can you accurately determine the total number of international business travellers in your organisation, and compliance with the tax, immigration and employment laws of the countries that they are visiting?

Growth trends support global expansion

Despite a challenging twelve months for globalisation and international business, the new norm for business travel should be reviewed in context of the following latest trends.

The current outlook confirms that compliance, with its many complexities and challenges, continues to be increasingly important. The topic is high on the agenda for many governments who are effectively outsourcing elements of immigration control back to business – by placing increasing penalties for non-compliance on business travellers and their employers.

Managing business travellers represents the biggest change expected in global mobility over the next five years (42%) – a continuation of the trend that our research showed last year. With increasing use of commuter and short-term assignments this trend is unlikely to slow down.

While short-term assignments may not always be the panacea to achieve host country business objectives, they are nevertheless of growing importance to businesses. Particularly as companies seek to manage diverse issues such as costs, dual career families and reintegration of long-term assignees. If these are poorly managed and not established with the host country business teams, they can potentially be more disruptive to those teams than longer-term assignments. While

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THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL MOBILITY bringing with them corporate cultural values, fresh ideas and skills, the assignee should be supported through cultural orientation and briefings – to integrate them into the local team and its structures.

The following chart highlights that our research shows short-term assignments and short-term business travellers, and interestingly graduate programmes, are set to continue their growth trajectory next year and beyond.

Ultimately, investment in internationally mobile employees should be valued based on robust evaluation, especially if global mobility is to truly help an organisation achieve its objectives. The value of the expected return on investment that international mobile employees achieve for the business is, for example, a better indicator than the absolute cost to the business.

Furthermore, the increased use of shortterm assignments will inevitably lead to ever more risk, so there is a need to increase focus on compliance. Often business travellers are left to make all travel arrangements on their own and immigration requirements can be overlooked. This places both the individual and organisation at significant personal and corporate compliance risk. It’s reported that while HR departments expect a significant ongoing increase in business travel, only a third believe that they have the right tools to support them. No surprise then, that risk and compliance are such important factors to be considered when setting a travel policy.

Our research shows that 25% do not have a programme in place to ensure business travel is compliant. Of the 75% who responded that they do have a programme in place, 62% do so through technology.

Examples on how organisations often track a business traveller population, include: • Travel agent or travel authorisation records (most frequent method) • Expense claims and finance systems • Global mobility systems (used by internal Global Mobility teams) • External third party partners There are significant numbers of Global Mobility teams already resource constrained, and now find themselves the focal point of this new category of international mobility – which was previously managed by business units and functions. Who has accountability for tracking compliance, advising on immigration, visa and work authorisations, employment and corporate PE tax requirements? Global Mobility teams, generalist HR or tax teams, or external providers and partners? Often a mixed approach is used to manage the whole process, rather than being integrated. Surely, a business case for investment cannot wait for a situation of corporate non-compliance.

Irrespective of an industry sector or size of an organisation, the area of compliance

and risk will not disappear. There are companies that understand the potential risks and address them – often on a project management or situational basis – and indeed those who are unaware of the potential risks.

The following chart shows the main challenges to achieving global mobility objectives over the next five years.

Risk associated with business travel – immigration and taxation

A major issue for employers is that business travel typically falls outside of existing risk monitoring. Global Mobility is responsible for managing compliance of employees within their programmes. If an employee travels outside the programme, monitoring may be non-existent. Inadvertent non-compliance is on the rise for employees who are taking extended business trips, especially when extended to effectively become shortterm assignments. In many countries the authorities and enforcement agencies are now using sophisticated technology to monitor all types of travel and take a firm stand on a local compliance breach.

Best practice demands that organisations have a robust policy for all types of business travel, to ensure compliance and demonstrate that best efforts are being made. Authorities do not accept ignorance as a defence. Penalties and fines can be imposed, or even prosecuted in exceptional circumstances. In addition to the risk of prosecution, the possible consequences relevant to all destination countries range from budgetary and business reputation risk, through to employee dissatisfaction.

While typically the process for work and residency permission is well documented and clear, the process of compliance for business travel is not always straightforward.

To complicate matters further, there are no

set rules about what tasks and activities each country considers to constitute ‘business travel’. Also, some divisions within a company may perform tasks that don’t require one, whereas others do. A sales person may sell a machine in a country while on a business trip, whereas the engineer who installs it may be working under local regulations – especially if they stay on for a month to train users.

Any review therefore cannot only look at the duration, it must also look at the task being performed. It is critical to understand the specific rules of the destination country to ensure full compliance.

In addition to the immigration risk is the risk of taxation. However, as tax returns are led in arrears, and tax authorities have several years to conduct an audit, a tax risk may therefore not be immediately apparent. How do you know if there is a tax liability?

For example, Short-Term Business Visitors (STBVs) were top of the list in the United Kingdom (UK) when HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) recently highlighted some of the main risk areas that they saw with PAYE (employer withholding) compliance for UK employers. Most other tax authorities hold a similar view. STBVs and the associated employer tax compliance obligations are an ever-increasing area of focus; especially given the recent and ongoing changes in international taxation being led by the OECD. The focus is likely to continue. From a UK perspective, this means that managing the UK payroll and tax obligations for visitors to the UK is no longer as simple as “she’s only in the UK for four months” or “we won’t be recharging salary costs”. Instead, HMRC will expect that every individual or group of individuals are considered separately, on their own merits.

To help manage overall employer compliance risk, it can often be helpful to shift the mind-set. First, assume that the business traveller in question is likely to create a tax liability in the location visited.

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

Then, look for options to exempt from taxation of their salary relating to the business visits. Relying on a minimal number of days before asking these questions is something to be avoided, since what works in one location may well not apply in another location. The views of tax authorities are also constantly and rapidly evolving.

The starting point is to assess whether the host location will ignore certain types of business travel. For example, in the UK a concept of “incidental duties” exists. This covers areas such as training, reporting back to head of ce, arranging meetings and reading generic business emails. Where duties are incidental they will be ignored for UK tax purposes; however, HMRC has significantly tightened up on this concept in recent years.

If the duties are not “incidental”, the next step would be to examine the employment income article of the relevant double tax treaty to explore whether it is still possible to claim exemption from tax in the host location.

Exemption from host country taxation will be available where certain conditions are met.

However, these conditions are often the cause of many misconceptions. Interpretation of the conditions can differ between tax authorities too.

Here is a reminder of these often used but commonly misunderstood conditions (wording can differ from treaty to treaty): • The recipient is present in the other State for a period or periods not exceeding in the aggregate 183 days in any twelvemonth period commencing or ending in the fiscal year concerned • The remuneration is paid by, or on behalf of, an employer who is not a resident of the other State; and • The remuneration is not borne by a permanent establishment which the employer has in the other State.

It is easy to see where the ‘183 day rule’ combined with ‘no recharge of salary costs’ misconceptions arise. Taking these conditions at face value is fraught with risk, since the interpretation of these conditions is not as straightforward as would first appear. An individual, or HR, are not always aware what has been recharged, or how. The employment income article must also be read in the wider context of the treaty and in particular with the residence article.

The second condition requires more scrutiny as the definition of “employer” is not clear. Historically, many countries looked at the legal employer - the entity with whom the employee has their contract.

In recent years, more countries have started to look beyond the employment contract, and assess which entity is the “economic” employer – the one who bears the risks or benefits from the work of the employee. If these factors suggest that the host entity effectively employs the individual (i.e. is

18

considered their economic employer), then no exemption is available even if the 183 day limit has not been exceeded.

There is also a question of recharge of salary costs. With increased attention on Transfer Pricing and the introduction of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) provisions, costs are likely to be recharged for corporate tax purposes. Avoiding making a recharge solely to secure tax exemption may no longer be possible.

A recharge of costs may not always result in exemption under the treaty being denied.

In certain circumstances, exemption from tax in the host location will still be available even where there is a recharge of costs. Of course, if no double taxation treaty exists between the home and host country, then it is likely that no exemption would be available in the host country.

A treaty exemption also requires there to be no permanent establishment in the host location i.e. a tax presence in the host country for the home country employer.

Again, a simple review could conclude whether this is the case.

An individual who is not working for the host country entity, is not directed by that host country entity, and does not have salary costs recharged to the host country entity, and remains below the relevant day limits, can still create a PE for their home country employer by virtue of the fact that they are carrying out activities in the host location for the overseas employer. This has corporate tax implications and consequently employment tax obligations.

Often, this applies where one division of a multinational executes on a project in a country completely independently – with no knowledge of their local subsidiary. The rules around what activities create a PE are evolving and do vary by country. Do not rely

Scenario 1

A New Zealand Company with New Zealand employees working for one week in the Netherlands The company has a permanent establishment in the Netherlands and there is a bilateral social security agreement in place between the Netherlands and New Zealand.

What does this company need to think about?

• Permanent Establishment in NL • Cost of employees sent to NL to be borne

by NL Permanent Establishment • Employees are taxable in NL from day 1?

• Withholding obligation for NZ company in NL from day 1 • Social security obligations in NL/NZ? • What does the bilateral social security agreement say? One-way only • Work permit less than 90 days (“Kennismigrantenregeling/Highly Skilled Migrant Rule”)

on a historic practice, especially if reviewed prior to the BEPS legislation.

The following scenarios show how rules can vary from country to country and their possible implications: (see below).

Conclusions

Organisations need to address the compliance and risk associated with business travellers and short-term assignments.

With countries adopting an increasingly nationalistic position on organisations’ activities within their borders, the opportunity for national authorities to generate revenue through substantial fines for noncompliance for fiscal, immigration and employment transgressions, is becoming a reality. Waiting for a situation to occur, to be audited, before addressing the noncompliance, is walking a tightrope. Many global organisations are actively assessing their risk and compliance profile in this area.

Important points to consider in such an assessment, include: • Ownership – who in the organisation is to be accountable?

• Enhanced real-time tracking • Education and communication – proactively communicating with the internal Tax and Finance teams to ensure they understand the circumstances of business traveller and short-term assignees – do key decision makers understand the risk?

• Systems – will one system provide the solution?

There is no one size fits all solution. While there are travel management and employee security systems that can provide a crossborder employee mobility footprint that can be combined with data sheets, these typically provide historical data. Our paper highlights the need for organisations to embed and normalise a different due diligence – even if there is an

Scenario 2

A UK Construction company with a project in the Netherlands The UK company has Irish employees on the payroll who are sent to the Netherlands for 3 months.

What does this company need to think about?

• Building project in NL – Permanent Establishment • Cost of employees sent to NL – borne by NL Permanent Establishment • Employees are taxable in NL from day 1 – how to optimise this?

• Withholding obligation for UK company in NL from day 1 • Social security obligations in IRL/UK? Where were the employees active before?

• A1 Social Security Certificate of Coverage to be requested in either IRL or UK Plus European Health Insurance Card

THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL MOBILITY urgent need to take a flight to address a crisis.

Simply doing nothing and taking a chance is not an option. A clearly de ned process for managing business travellers, across multiple functions (Sales, HR, Finance, etc.), so that there are clear lines of communication and responsibilities is an imperative.

Tracking your business travellers is the start of the compliance process. Understand who your business travellers are, and where they are travelling. Possible solutions include tracking the use of access cards, computers access to networks, or using the corporate travel bookings process. None of these are usually enough.

Typically, the tracking and managing of compliance and tax risk of the business traveller employee population is completed in-house or via an external pre-built solution and provider(s). Employees enter details of their business travel to review and compare data (about the individual and country) and identify risks that may arise.

Then, you will need to assess how to effectively use the data to manage the compliance risks that arise from your business traveller population.

Take time to evaluate the best way forward, for you and your company, to ensure compliance is proactively managed.

Mitigate your risk around the business traveller population with a robust policy and programme.

ROBERT DAY

Head of Global Immigration Operations at Santa Fe Relocation, specialises in global immigration services with a background in corporate and professional services. Experience includes leadership of immigration practices for various organisations across Europe as well as a global mobility programme for a large blue chip company.

KAREN MCGRORY

Partner BDO LLP for Expatriate Tax Services/Human Capital Services, has over 20 years’ experience advising employers on the tax and social security issues that arise when sending employees on international assignment.

We enable people and organisations to work, live and thrive in new places around the world.

About Us Santa Fe Relocation is a global mobility company specialising in managing and delivering highquality relocation services worldwide. Our core competence is providing services that help corporations and their employees relocate and settle in a new country. These are services that are delivered to a consistently high standard, locally and globally, and managed through our own operations around the world. Santa Fe Relocation is wholly owned by the Santa Fe Group, which is listed on NASDAQ in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Assignment Management Our relocation and assignment management solutions is an extended arm of your global mobility function managing employees, and their family, relocate. We execute your services during pre-assignment, acceptance, preparation, move, arrival, settle in, plus the whole time while on assignment, through to repatriation or successive assignment. As part of the service, we implement industry best-in-class processes, including travel management, tax and medical co-ordination, as well as compensation and payroll.

For more information, visit us at www.santaferelo.com.

19

GLOBAL TAXATION

Global Tax Update FRANCE

Withholding tax system The French parliament has adopted the 2018 finance law which confirms that the withholding tax at source will be implemented with effect from 1 January 2019.

The withholding tax system will apply to French source compensation whether paid by French or foreign entities. French employers are responsible for withholding on a monthly basis the tax on the amounts of salaries they pay. For compensation paid by non-French employers, monthly or quarterly income tax prepayments will be required.

The withholding tax rate will be based on the average income tax rate that applied for the individual taxpayer in the previous year.

However, individual taxpayers will be able to elect to apply a ‘neutral rate’ that is based only on the compensation paid to them by their employers. Individual taxpayers will be required to remit to the tax collector monthly prepayments of income tax with respect to income such as rental income, business profits, etc.

Taxpayers will still be required to file an income tax return, and pay any additional amounts due or seek a refund of any excess tax paid.

‘White Year’ Mechanism Up to now, individual income tax was due with a one-year lag so income tax on 2018 is due in 2019. As of 1 January 2019, the French government will put in place a withholding tax operated by the employer in order to withhold income tax directly on wages. There is an actual risk of double contribution during 2019, which would create a cash flow issues for tax payers.

In order to avoid this issue, French authorities have set up a mechanism of tax credit on ordinary 2018 income so that during 2019, income tax will be due on current wages received during 2019 and exceptional income received during 2018 only.

So strictly speaking, French taxpayers will have to pay income tax in both 2018 (on 2017 income), and in 2019 (on 2019 income + exceptional 2018 income), but from an economic perspective most of the 2018 tax theoretically due on income for that year will not be effectively recovered. This has been named ‘the White Year’ in France.

Replacement Of The Wealth Tax By A Real Estate Property Tax Until 2018, taxpayers with net assets above €1.3 M were liable to a wealth tax through a progressive tax scale based on the value of their net assets.

Every item of assets was included, such

as real-estate properties, balance on bank accounts, shares, vehicles etc.

The new tax follows the same mechanism as the previous one, but the tax is only assessed on real estate properties (and shares of real estate companies) assets above €1.3M. Others assets of the taxpayers are no longer subject to this tax.

The tax scale remains the same and is as follows: Part of the taxable net assets

Rate applicable

Up to 800 000 €

0%

From 800 001 € to 1 300 000 €

0.5%

From 1300 001 € to 2 570 000 €

0.7%

From 2 570 001 € to 5 000 000 €

1%

From 5 000 001 € to 10 000 000 €

1.25%

Above 10 000 000 €

1.5%

BDO Comment The switch to regular withholding at source will be a major change to taxation in France and requires organisations and taxpayers to consider how they will be impacted and to plan ahead.

Odd scenarios can arise as a result of the new rules, for example, consider the interaction with US taxpayers. Since there will essentially be no 2018 French income tax liability with respect to 2018 ordinary income, and because US persons continue to be taxed on worldwide income regardless of physical residence, it is critical that US citizens and green card holders living and working in France review their 2017 taxes and consider their 2018 US Federal income tax withholdings if they are paid on a US payroll, or make 2018 US Federal estimated tax payments to cover their expected 2018 US Federal income tax liability.

While French PAYE withholding will not be implemented until 1 January 2019, there are many things that US citizens, green card holders, French nationals working as local hires in the US and programme managers with US assignees in France and/or French nationals on an equalised assignment in the US should be thinking about and addressing during 2018.

IRELAND

Key changes to PAYE rules in Finance Act 2017 Revenue Given Powers To Gross Up Finance Act 2017, has given the Revenue

a statutory basis for the re-grossing of emoluments where an employer makes a payment of emoluments to an employee but fails to operate PAYE on any of the emoluments, or where the employer has disguised or omitted the emoluments in its books or records. In such cases, the employer is liable for the tax that would have been deductible from the employee, on the basis that the amount paid to the employee was the net amount of emoluments after deduction of tax i.e. income tax is calculated on a re-grossed figure.

Where an employee receives emoluments without the deduction of tax and the relevant provisions apply, the employer is liable for the tax that would have been deductible from the employee. The amount paid to the employee is treated as the net amount of emoluments after deduction of tax. This amount is re-grossed, and tax is calculated on the re-grossed figure.

Emoluments To Be Assessed On A Paid Basis PAYE income is to be assessable on a paid basis, rather than an earnings basis for 2018 onwards. However, this does not apply to directors holding 15% or more of the shares in their employer or to emoluments where an exclusion order is in place.

Transitional rules apply with respect to emoluments earned in 2017 but paid in 2018. Where emoluments fall chargeable to tax for the year 2017, (on the earnings basis of assessment), but also fall chargeable to tax in the year 2018 or a subsequent year (on the receipts basis of assessment), an individual can apply to Revenue to have the emoluments for the year 2017 charged to tax on the basis of the actual emoluments paid to the individual in 2017 (i.e. on the receipts basis of assessment).

BDO Comment As ever, employers should ensure they withhold where required to do so, to avoid the grossing up of income and the increased tax liabilities that then arise. Don’t forget you can generally get a refund of excess withholding from tax authorities.

SRI LANKA

Key changes to expatriate taxation The taxation of expatriates in Sri Lanka is to be revised within the Tax Framework following the introduction of the Sri Lankan Inland Revenue Act No. 24 of 2017 (“NEW Act”). As a result, the tax treatment of expatriates has undergone a number of

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

significant changes which take effect from 1 April 2018.

As per the Sri Lankan Inland Revenue Act No. 10 of 2006 (“CURRENT Act”), all profits or income that are earned within Sri Lanka are subject to Income Tax. Thus, an expatriate who comes to Sri Lanka on a casual basis would also be captured in this system during every Year of Assessment. This is principally by way of the PAYE scheme, where all payments to expatriate employees including wages, salaries and other benefits are taxed.

However, under the CURRENT Act, an expatriate who does not maintain a physical presence in Sri Lanka for at least 183 days in a year of assessment (i.e. a twelve-month period from 1 April to 31 March), is deemed to be a non-resident. Under the NEW Act, the 183 days to constitute residency does not refer to a year of assessment and could even cut across two such years, making the expatriate liable in Sri Lanka as a resident for both periods.

The CURRENT Act provided a worthwhile exemption for expatriates employed in Sri Lanka through Section 13 (zz). The relevant Section provides that, profits and income of any individual who is not a citizen of Sri Lanka and who is employed in Sri Lanka in any undertaking, being profits and income arising or derived from outside Sri Lanka during the period commencing from 1 April 2008, and ending on the date of cessation of such employment, would be exempted from being taxed in Sri Lanka. This exemption, that was exclusively provided for expatriates, is not followed by the NEW Act. Consequently, any expatriate employed in Sri Lanka as a resident for more than 183 days will be liable to pay income tax in Sri Lanka on their global income. Double Tax Avoidance Agreements however, will come into play to assess the eligibility of that specific employee to be taxed in Sri Lanka instead of the jurisdiction in which the citizenship is held or the respective income is earned.

Additionally, with regard to the procedural aspect of the CURRENT Act, the overall obligation of compliance of an expatriate’s tax liability is with the employer of the expatriate. The employer shall deduct the Income Tax as PAYE from the overall remuneration of the expatriate and remit such sums in the Commissioner General’s favour. The NEW Act maintains the same outcome, where the tax on employment income is deducted by the employer as withholding tax.

A comparative analysis on the tax rates is as above.

A special mention should be made about qualifying payments on employment income currently available to all employees as these are not available for non-citizens, nonresident employees of Sri Lanka under the new law.

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CURRENT Act

NEW Act

Taxable Income (LKR)

Tax Percentage

Taxable Income (LKR)

Tax Percentage

On the first 500,000/-

4%

On the first 600,000/-

4%

On the next 500,000/-

8%

On the next 600,000/-

8%

On the next 500,000/-

12%

On the next 600,000/-

12%

On the balance thereafter

16% (max rate for employment income)

On the next 600,000/-

16%

On the next 600,000/-

20%

On the next 600,000/-

24%

BDO Comment The new rules are likely to increase expatriates’ liability to tax in Sri Lanka. Do review the position for any assignees to understand the impending impact of the changing rules.

SWEDEN

New exit tax for Swedish residents The Swedish Tax Agency has put forward a proposed bill to introduce an exit tax for unrealised capital gains for Swedish residents leaving Sweden. The bill has been submitted to the Swedish Finance Ministry and it has been suggested that it should come into force by 1 January 2020.

The Proposal The proposal from the Swedish Tax Agency recommends the introduction of an exit tax for residents who are moving from Sweden.

The proposal suggests a tax on unrealised capital assets on the move from Sweden.

There would be no time limit to the Swedish claim for the exit tax. Capital losses on assets would be credited against the capital gains that would be taxed as a result of the new law.

The new legislation would only be applicable to individuals that have been resident in Sweden for 5 of the 10 years prior to the move from Sweden. The capital assets that will fall within the new legislation are shares and equities in Swedish partnership companies, where the capital assets exceed SEK 100 000.

Individuals moving to a state within the EEA or to a state which Sweden has a tax treaty with, may claim a deferral of the exit tax payment until the assets are sold and the gain is realised. If the asset value has decreased between the exit from Sweden and the eventual sale, this could be taken into account when the assets are realised.

Once the new exit tax is introduced, it is suggested that the current Swedish ten-year rule would be abolished. The ten-year rule states that Sweden may tax the sale of shares and equities deriving from the individual’s time in Sweden or from a Swedish source, up to ten years after an individual has left Sweden. The domestic ten-year rule may be limited by double tax treaties.

Background, Reception And Future Introduction The purpose of the new legislation is to protect the Swedish tax base and prevent tax avoidance. The Swedish Tax Agency estimate that the new rule would have affected between 1,000 to 2,000 individuals in previous years and that the future yield is estimated to be 1 billion SEK per year.

The proposal has received a positive response from the Swedish Minister of Finance.

BDO Comment The proposal from the Swedish Tax Agency is in accordance with recent Swedish discussions regarding tax avoidance. The new legislation could be in conflict with the EU principals of free movement for individuals.

We will follow the future progress of the proposal with great interest.

UK

Immigration Health Surcharge set to Double The UK Government has announced they intend doubling the charge to temporary migrants in the UK later this year, although they have not yet set a date for the change. This will increase the fee for most immigration categories to £400 per year.

Students and individuals applying for a Tier 5 (Youth Mobility) visa currently pay £150 per year - this cost is also set to double.

GLOBAL TAXATION Who Is Liable To The Immigration Health Surcharge?

Nationals of a country outside the European Economic Area (EEA), applying for a visa or leave to remain to work, study or join their family in the UK for more than 6 months (but not those applying to remain in the UK permanently).

BDO Comment Employer’s should be aware of the extra cost of bringing non EEA nationals to work in the UK. It also remains to be seen whether these charges will extend to nationals of EEA countries following Brexit. Advance planning is recommended to minimise the impact of the increased fees on individuals coming to the UK. Scottish Income Tax Rates – A Variation From The Rest Of The UK The introduction of the Scottish income tax rates and rate bands was effective from 2016/17, but in that tax year, the rates and rate bands were not varied by the Scottish Government and so are exactly the same as for the rest of the UK. The ability to vary the rates and bandings came into legislation on 6 April 2016, but the first tax year where there are different rate bands from the rest of the UK is 2017/18.

An added complication is that the Scottish bands only apply to non-savings income, so

dividends, interest, capital gains etc., are all taxed as they would be in the rest of the UK.

Employer’s should be aware of the extra cost of bringing non EEA nationals to work in the UK To be liable for the Scottish tax, you must be a UK resident for tax purposes and ‘live in’ Scotland, so any non-resident individual that has a correspondence address in Scotland may have been flagged as liable for the Scottish rate by HMRC. This is because all taxpayers with a Scottish address were

automatically flagged for it without any consideration made of their residence status.

The easiest way to fix this would be for the address at HMRC to be changed to the overseas address, but if that is not practical, a ‘white space’ note should be added to the tax return (2017/18 onwards) to make sure that HMRC is aware of the taxpayers’ nonresident status. As many non-residents only have rental and savings income, this might not have a great impact, but if there are any self-employed or employed earnings subject to UK tax, HMRC may recalculate that tax when they process the tax return.

The HMRC web page on Scottish income tax is confusing, as it states that the Scottish rate of income tax is effective 2016/17, and shows a table of rates and bands at the foot of the page. The rates shown at the bottom are 2017/18 rates, not 2016/17.

BDO Comment Failure to recognise Scottish residents correctly, or to account for the extra tax that will now be due, could give rise to unexpected extra – Scottish - tax liabilities.

Prepared by BDO LLP. For further information please contact Andrew Bailey on 0207 893 2946 or at andrew.bailey@bdo.co.uk

If you would like extra copies of the enclosed

to pass on to your expatriate employees who are relocating to the UK, then please email the quantity you would like to damian@internationalhradviser.com The Guides are free, but there is a small charge for postage and packaging.

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

Crown World Mobility: Top 10 Global Trends of 2018 Revealed Workforce Mobility Experts Report What to Expect

As the world becomes more and more connected through the power of mobility, industries of all kinds are discovering new ways to enhance and speed up workforce relocation processes – without cutting into their bottom lines. In a time when geopolitical events are shaping the way countries and companies take in new employees, it has never been more important to understand the gamechanging value of modern mobility.

Crown World Mobility (CWM), hosted its quarterly Perspectives Live webinar on February 27, for attendees interested in the latest in the field. Titled 2018 Global Mobility Trends, this event spotlighted CWM’s annual list of topics identified as significant industry shifts or innovations. In addition, the webinar offered helpful tips that can be applied to current policies and programmes, practical next steps and strategies.

Below are the CWM’s top ten trends businesses may need to consider in order to stay competitive in today’s 24/7, mobiledigital atmosphere:

1. New Focus On The Accompanying Partner

Unlike the days of the “trailing spouse” – an antiquated reference to a housewife joining her husband on his occupational journey – the accompanying partner demographic has now grown to include both career-focused men and women, and same-sex partners. In order to secure the best possible talent, organisations are creating mobile heavy solutions to help the accompanying partner ease into a new life of opportunity with tools to best adapt financially, emotionally and culturally.

Talent-hungry companies are developing platform-based programmes focused on partner career search support, intercultural training, local job opportunities and diverse peer networking, along with policy and communication updates to ensure a nonpresumptuous, politically correct process.

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2. Mobility ROI

This year, we reported that businesses are going to see more debate and movement around mobility return-on-investment (ROI).

There is still little agreement regarding how to best define and gauge mobility ROI. While a few companies have established specific measurements under an ROI equation – it has not led to an industry-wide norm.

The reality is that the industry is ready to hit the reset button, which may start to pop up in the form of a dashboard of measurements, showcasing company data on recruitment and retention, cost management, employee goals met and beyond. With such a vast landscape of companies with a different combination of priorities, the ROI equation is set to be flexible and to continue evolving.

3. Offering Lump Sums And Cash Allowances

The 2018 changes to US tax laws – eliminating tax advantages for companies that provide relocation travel and shipping benefits – will potentially increase the lesscomplicated lump sum strategy for mobileforward organisations moving employees domestically or in/out of the US. In looking towards this approach, we expect more discussions focused on pinpointing the right sums and finding the right balance of technology and human support.

Also up for healthy debate, is offering structured policies with more flexibility, as it relates to an employee’s lifestyle. While some companies are using a multi-tiered approach, others have a “menu” with similarly valued options to select from. Both are seeing positive responses from employees, who greatly value the freedom to choose how to live.

4. Diversity Mobility 2.0

In 2018, we predict a rise in the focus on diversity in global mobility candidates, especially within progressive brands that already have a strong commitment to D&I strategies. In recent years, there has been a slow but steady rise in female assignees in organisations around the world. Today,

D&I strategies are found amongst the more mature global companies; as a result, unconscious bias training has become more commonplace and is now being adjusted to include global mobility and assignee selection as part of the focus. In line with our research in this area, there will be a great number of emerging best practices expected in the diversity mobility area.

5. Duty Of Care, Risk Management And Assignee Wellbeing

Our reporting found that almost half of companies made recent changes to their global mobility duty of care programmes in light of current geopolitical events. Forming stakeholder groups, putting new security procedures in place and implementing technology to track employees are all cited as risk management steps. While there is not one universal set of laws to define the actions to be taken as part of the moral and legal obligations for the safety of business travellers and international assignees, there has been an increasing awareness of the need to better address mobility duty of care.

Meanwhile, road accidents, medical and health problems, and petty crime are far more common than terrorism, despite many business travellers’ perceptions. As a result, safety technology and DIY mobility are both being implemented to trigger alerts, track employees and provide emergency assistance.

Finally, global companies increasingly acknowledge that their bottom line can benefit from healthier employees, which is why incentives that promote mental health and exercise are on the rise. This year, we will see a discussion emerge within Global Mobility programmes that includes assignment-related medical exams, cross-cultural and language training, partner support, settling-in services and assignee mentoring.

6. Smart Mobility

Thanks to the growing ability to harness data, we are certain to see an increase in using data analytics to refine global mobility and meet the employee and business needs head on.

GLOBAL MOBILITY TRENDS With so much information at the fingertips of any analyst, companies can now determine how to better connect and stay on track by looking at programme stats on a single platform, which can include anything, from global mobility team member skills and competencies to knowing which assignments are ending each month, to visibility of information requested from the employee to create process efficiencies.

Temporary housing, real estate firms, settling-in services and language training are all examples of areas quickly adopting mobile technology to customise experiences – with high-tech concepts like ePacking, eSignatures and virtual home surveys already in play in the mobility space.

We also reported that chat bots are going to become the new normal as part of the employee experience in global mobility support, especially for policy and FAQ advice. Finally, facial recognition and fingerprint technology will expand to meet mobile payment solutions for relocation expenses.

7. Impact Of US Tax Code Changes

In 2018, it is likely that changes to policy – as a result of US tax code revisions – will be a big trend in the coming months and significantly impact relocating employees and their companies.

First, the removal of relocation-related household goods shipment deduction under the new tax code will increase the cost of providing that assistance to employees. As a result, companies may look to alternatives, such as the previously cited lump sums – in order to purchase furnishings in the destination location and store furnishings in the home location.

Unfortunately, this could have a negative impact on productivity, due to the extended amount of time it will take for the employee to organise the move and the potential for things to go badly when they are not managed professionally. Therefore, we are likely to see new service approaches in 2018 in response to the new tax code, while continuing to provide important support to employees.

Second, the repeal of deductibility for certain moving expenses may also lead companies to consider additional policy changes. Under the new law, an employee can no longer exclude qualified moving expenses, or deduct certain expenses that are not reimbursed, from personal income.

Unsurprisingly, this change will increase the cost for employers, who will need to factor in the taxes paid on these expenses as part of employee salary. In the next 10 months, companies are likely to be looking for ways to change policy and mitigate or prepare to absorb these costs.

8. Employee-Requested Moves

While facing a growing number of permanent transfer requests as alternatives to traditional temporary assignments, companies are also developing more low-cost, low-touch opportunities to help early-career employees gain short-term international opportunities.

By aligning global mobility with talent strategies, organisations are responding to the growing millennial workforce population, which is famously hungry for international experiences and adventurous lifestyles. Crown’s recent study shows 52% of companies adding an employee-initiated move policy to their Talent programmes.

The major 2018 trends in global mobility are truly inspiring innovative thinking and creative solutions across industries and geographies.

10. Repatriation: The Discussion Continues

Our 2018 Policy and Practices survey shows that 87 percent of companies have repatriation support written into their policies, up from 82 percent in 2015. For those companies with “out-and-back” international assignments, repatriation needs to be addressed from an assignment ROI perspective, i.e. setting objectives at the start of the assignment, preparing for repatriation during the assignment and including repatriation integration briefings in policies and programmes. The same study shows that only 9% of companies’ policies include ROI strategies for Repatriation policy.

For companies with less focus on temporary assignments and more focus on global career mobility, where consecutive assignments, open global recruitment policies or one-way moves are more the norm, repatriation support may simply remain tactical.

What does it all mean?

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

- Andy Warhol The major 2018 trends in global mobility are truly inspiring innovative thinking and creative solutions across industries and geographies. In any business, in order to survive, we must be adaptable to change and take matters into our own hands. In the coming months, trend followers can expect a deeper response to demographic shifts, ever changing technology, and smarter ways of connecting and retaining world class talent.

9. Cost Savings: Where Are They Coming From Now?

After a number of years of diligently looking for and implementing cost savings initiatives, many companies report that they are somewhat satisfied with where they are overall regarding mobility programme costs. In 2018, we can expect a further development of policies based on short-term assignments or one-way transfers, and alternative approaches to the shipment of household goods for temporary assignments. As mentioned earlier, the two most popular trends are to provide furnished accommodations in the host location, or to offer a lump sum for the purpose of purchasing items in the host location in lieu of shipping.

Both of these approaches offer savings on expatriation and repatriation.

It also seems like the trend in core-flex style policies will be even bigger in 2018. The core benefits ensure compliance mandates are met and minimum standards apply to all employees; the flex benefits include customisation of business and personal needs, and the ability to minimise the need for exception requests, both of which offer cost savings to the company.

LISA JOHNSON

Crown World Mobility's Global Practice Leader for Consulting Services, Lisa Johnson. Lisa has been with Crown for 5 years now and she is responsible for our Perspectives articles and Crown’s industry research. She supports CWM’s clients with their mobility policies and programme strategies and is a leader in addressing innovations and shifts impacting the relocation industry. Lisa has been in the global mobility area for more than 20 years and is one of the early thought leaders in assignment related Return on Investment and in the Talent Mobility area.

Visit www.crownworldmobility.com.

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Resilience And The International Employee Why do professionals seek international opportunities and the relocations that come with them?

Many would respond with a range of reasons, including an interest in other languages, cultures, and peoples, adventure, experiencing difference, and opportunity to learn, grow, and diversify one’s experience. The reasons vary with the individual, but the enthusiasm and excitement a new expatriate feels is more universal.

Why then, do so many of our longterm expat assignees succumb to the performance dampening ennui of “one-too-many” assignments abroad? Why do international assignees sometimes lose the original eagerness later in their careers?

“We love to travel and I just love learning a new language!” turns into “Why does everything have to be so difficult here?”

It is only in aggregate, looking at systems of people over years, that reliable patterns emerge. From a longitudinal perspective, it becomes obvious that international weariness isn’t a character flaw in an individual expatriate and/or their family members: it is a predictable outcome of a career spent too focused on tasks and performance and not enough on enjoying the ride. It can be predictably hard for a 50-something senior manager to unwind from the din of work and the dust of

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all of the relocations and re-instill a youthful vigour for travel and living abroad. And if the fire is no longer in the belly of the expatriate, human resource practitioners will be hard pressed to re-inspire that same drive. From an organisational point of view, it is far more effective to be proactive and begin early in supporting the personal, professional, familial and organisational resilience of the employee and family starting before the first international assignment and continuing throughout the career span. How can that be accomplished?

Resilience as a professional field is just emerging, but this hybrid interdisciplinary concept already has broad support and an international research base that spans psychiatry, psychology, organisational development, leadership, social work, and performance improvement, to name a few. In the last decade, conferences have sprung up around the world as the value and efficacy of a focus on resilience continues to prove its worth across a wide variety of professions – athletes, warriors, executives, medical professionals, emergency responders and disaster relief personnel have represented early adopters of resilience strategies. So what do these people do differently, and what can those who support them do to train and inculcate more resilient approaches?

First, read up on it. There are scores of terrific books that span the resilience waterfront from personal discovery narratives through very hard science documented texts. Steven Southwick and Dennis Charney’s “Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges”, is an excellent entry point – well written, easy to understand and follow, but based on solid science by two very serious researchers (Charney is the Dean of Medicine at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in NYC where he oversees the academic and research efforts of over 5,000 doctors and medical professionals; Southwick, also a psychiatrist, is a prominent fixture at Yale’s University’s Medical School). Understanding the basic premises will allow you to then focus more specifically on your own needs and those of your clients – and yes, resilience like most medicines is only as good for the patient as it is for the doctor, and resilience practice can help inform and improve your own career.

A good follow up step is to consult – through surveys, focus groups, or individual interviews, with experienced expatriates within your community – both employees

and family members. And don’t limit your conversations with spartners (spouses/ partners – a phrase I coined some years ago to describe the evolving reality of our client base to allow broader inclusion). It can be helpful to use a resilience framework – without using or overusing the word itself – to inquire about the sojourner’s self-perception of ongoing curiosity and energy for international work. Ask simple questions in terms of wellbeing, willingness to enthusiastically confront the obstacles and frustrations faced in a highly mobile career path, successful strategies used, and perceptions of impact on the immediate and extended family members.

So what are we really talking about with resilience? On a personal level, it represents the emotionally intelligent processes that allow an individual to understand at any point in a career that the patterns of behaviour, perceptions, attitudes, and attention to re-framing experiences with a strong bias towards learning and away from judgement.

Southwick and Charney, for example, identify some 10 factors in resilience. Other researchers have arrived at slightly different formulation and terminology and have aggregated some factors into smaller numbers, but there is conceptual cohesion across most of the serious researchers in the field. A quick listing is provided below: Realistic Optimism

Resilient role models

Facing fear

Physical fitness

Moral compass

Brain fitness

Spirituality

Cognitive & emotional flexibility

Social Support

Meaning and purpose

Adapting Southwick and Charney’s resilience model to the internationally mobile employee – the serial expatriate who will have a career of several overseas, multi-year duration assignments, requires an acknowledgment of the very characteristics of a sojourn that make it both exciting and challenging. For example, encountering different ways of doing business, personnel practices and leadership ideas may well create

INTERNATIONAL EMPLOYEES moral and ethical dilemmas and conflicts with the traveller’s own moral compass that can unconsciously sap his/her resilience and energy without any apparent explanation or seeming need for examination. Social support, in the form of long-term friendships and extended familial relationships will most often be absent, or difficult to access during an assignment overseas. It is incumbent, then, on the sojourners to create, de novo, those social support entities in culturally appropriate ways. But creating supportive relationships across cultural boundaries can be exceedingly difficult, ambiguous, frustrating, and occasionally dangerous.

Nonetheless, the long-term wellbeing of the traveller is at stake, and adhering to this construct almost invariably leads to greater satisfaction, understanding, and enjoyment of assignments. Similarly, thought must be given to adapting the other factors in order to international mobility.

While personal resilience provides insight into how one can live one’s own life toward long-term advantage, professional resilience speaks to the organisational savvy and maturity one brings within the career context.

Professional resilience integrates realistic aspirations and ambitions with a broader, more patient view of professional development and satisfaction. Every assignment can be viewed as a tradeoff between immediate and longer-

term personal, financial, organisational, and developmental rewards. Consciously and strategically analysing the cost/benefit on a personal level provides a rational basis for individuals to evaluate their own choices, actively integrate learning, and return to a place of satisfaction. Doing so frees the traveller from the resilience-sabotaging practice of blaming self or others. (Why did I agree to come here? These people are impossible! Getting anything done here is ridiculously difficult!).

Of course, in the real world, it is easier to commit to one’s own long-term resilience, satisfaction and wellbeing when all of the choices are under one’s immediate control.

But we all work for organisations, and with and for people who may have very different ideas about the best expenditures of our time and energies. And sometimes we work in locations where it is indeed extraordinarily difficult to get seemingly simple tasks resolved. But that’s the whole point of adopting a more resilient lifestyle: focusing on one’s own resilience returns some large measure of control to the individual so that as the years and assignments roll on, the curiosity, eagerness, and enthusiasm one should bring to international work isn’t compromised and replaced by an expatriate syndrome of cultural and professional ennui, dissatisfaction and world-weariness.

RAY LEKI

Ray Leki is the author of Travel Wise: How to Stay Safe, Savvy, and Secure Abroad and is a Professorial Lecturer of Intercultural Management at American University’s School of International Service. For over thirty years, he has been involved in global expatriation and repatriation and continues to serve as the director of the Foreign Service Institute’s Transition Center at the United States Department of State. In 2016, he opened the Center of Excellence in Foreign Affairs Resilience within his office. Leki is a long-time speaker at international mobility, cross-cultural/ intercultural, security, and resilience conferences and welcomes comments and dialogue at rsleki@msn.com.

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

Avoiding Relocation Meltdowns In The Wake Of Brexit There’s a reason it’s called the nuclear family, and although it’s actually about the nucleus as a core rather than the use of atomic weapons, the possibility of runaway and disastrous chain reactions in the high-pressure situation of an international relocation is very real. Get it wrong and you may have set in motion a chain of events that will have a negative impact on not only the employee’s company, but also one may argue, more vitally, that of the employee’s family.

Individuals are inherently flexible; such that younger employees have fewer responsibilities or ties to their home country and are therefore easier to relocate. However, as younger employees gain experience, skills, contacts and seniority, they are more than likely to have also gained a partner and a family. It is those employees that are key to new developments, fresh opportunities and taking advantage of changes in the political, financial and commercial landscape. As such, they are the most likely to be considered to first weather and then hopefully thrive in the settling of an international assignment.

Those assignments are on the rise – particularly in Europe. As shocked as many were by the results of the Brexit referendum, even the staunchest of Remainers has come to accept that Brexit is going to happen.

And despite the uncertainty around what kind of Brexit we’ll see, despite seemingly deadlocked negotiations, conflicting promises from Cabinet Ministers and tough talk on both sides of the Channel, companies too have accepted the seemingly inevitable. If the run-up to the referendum was characterised by corporate caution (for instance slowing recruitment) and a ‘wait and see’ attitude, the resultant market turmoil has now given way to a grim pragmatism.

London is the financial heart of Europe, so that pragmatism has had to assume a worst-case ‘Hard Brexit’ scenario: it’s better to be over prepared than under prepared.

Many big banks’ senior spokespeople are talking about large relocations to Frankfurt, Paris, Luxembourg or Dublin, and whether it’s JP Morgan warning that 1,000-4,000 jobs could go overseas, or Goldman’s, Lloyd Blankfein, tweeting about great meetings in Frankfurt, it was Morgan Stanley that hit the

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nail on the head by remarking that: “What the politicians don’t understand is these are people”. Brexit will have consequences for everyone, most of all for the individuals doing the relocating. If a family’s involved, it becomes doubly complicated.

Pragmatism has had to assume a worst-case ‘Hard Brexit’ scenario: it’s better to be over prepared than under prepared Relocation and Global Mobility

Moving a job from A to B has never been easy because it’s not just a job: it’s a person with their own plans and desires, family and friends, furniture, mortgages and other commitments.

Indeed, the complexity of the relocation process has spawned a whole industry of dedicated global mobility and relocation firms to help with the logistics. Then there’s the position itself: most jobs have to be assessed through a formal job evaluation system in order for a specialist to decide what the same, or another position, is worth in the host country.

This is followed by potential adjustments to salary to take into account cost of living and tax, questions as to who will pay how much for the host country housing, schooling, utilities or flights home. The first two are often the biggest financial costs of an international assignment, and usually companies will pay for this, at least for a year or two.

But financial costs are only one element to be considered when relocating. Often those dedicated firms stop at this basecamp whilst employees are left to tackle the rest of the mountain alone. Factors like the language and culture of the new country may be considered in a location allowance but often, hands on help for the more practical issues is not given. For

example; where to source medical care? How to open bank accounts and how to convert their driving licences? The list goes on and on.

Much of this can be managed with a carefully thought-out information pack, but in some areas the personal touch is definitely required.

Relocating Families

All of that represents just a singlestatus assignment – probably the most straightforward kind. But given the seniority of the individuals involved a lot of assignments today are for at least a couple, if not an entire family. The complications thus multiply exponentially: marriage status can make a difference to tax. In some countries, you may technically not be allowed to live together if you’re not married. Ditto for same-sex couples. What of the job status of the ‘trailing spouse’? Will they find work in the host country, or will they suddenly find themselves the main carer for their children? This can be a huge and stressful change for families, particularly where one parent has quit a successful job to follow their partner abroad.

Next, there’s the children to consider: if both parents are working, who will take care of the children? How will they adapt to their new country? Will they attend nursery or need home support? How easily will they adopt the new culture and language?

Every parent will want their children to be happy in the host country, and in many cases this will start with making friends and thereby integrating into the host country.

With very young children, a nanny or an au pair may be sought – someone who knows the local playgroups and parks, who speaks the language and can help the children learn. Or perhaps a nursery or a childminder is a better bet. But childcare systems are different in every country: in the whirlwind of emotions and practicalities that surround any relocation, how can an employee even know what options are available, let alone which is best, what the rules are, how to go about finding places, understanding waiting lists and application procedures? In a foreign language?

When also possibly working at the same time?

Whilst smaller children will generally adapt much faster to a new environment; schoolage children tend to be quite attached to their schools and their circle of friends, and it can be a real worry for parents and child alike to take them out of that environment – especially if they have special educational needs. The curriculum and

RELOCATION language of instruction is another worry: should they look for a place at an international school rather than a local one? If so, is there a waiting list? How long is it? How many spaces have already been reserved by companies that have, in the wake of Brexit, started reserving places for their potential assignees already?

These are only part of the myriad of questions that arise when a family is asked to relocate. A company’s HR teams will be busy managing all the administrative tasks around the assignment, which is no small feat in and of itself. But whilst relocation companies will take care of shipping the assignee’s goods, who is taking care of the needs of the family? Because if you ask an employee to make what essentially boils down to a decision between their job and their family, the result may cost the company dearly in experience walking out the door.

Here’s an oft-overlooked fact to consider: the fit of the family with its new life is the most commonly quoted reason for an assignment to fail. Get the personal side of relocations right and you’ll see a stronger family unit – whatever its makeup, and a more loyal, dedicated employee. And a stronger family unit is far more able to provide itself with mutual support and reassurance, to tough it out and weather whatever financial, commercial or political explosions may arise. Brexit may cause a few heated exchanges but with tailored bespoke care and attention, relocation meltdowns for key employees can be avoided.

SARAH-JANE BUTLER

CEO and Founder of Parental Choice Parental Choice provides childcare and family support to corporate and other employers in the UK and internationally. Working closely with global mobility, Parental Choice’s services specifically support families relocating into and out of the UK to Europe and Asia.

Sarah-Jane set up Parental Choice to ensure that employers, being those closest to employees who were parents, were in the best position to support them, not only in terms of information but also practical advice and search and selection services, as well as handholding upon arrival in the host country.

Aside from running Parental Choice, Sarah-Jane is also a Trustee of the Family and Childcare Trust and a Changemaker supporting Working Families. She is on the CIPD Policy Forum and has been involved with Government consultations on childcare as well as speaking publicly at Government policy briefings on topics such as “Bridging the Gender Equality Gap The Future Role of Women” and the “Back to Work for Women” programme. She has attended several HR summits in her role as director of Parental Choice, including speaking at the Institute of Director’s “Women in Business” conference.

In 2014, Sarah-Jane was recognised by Brummell Magazine as one of the City’s Top Inspirational Entrepreneurs, whilst Parental Choice was short-listed for the SME Employer of the Year Award

by WorkingMums. More recently Parental Choice was named one of the Top 10 Small Employers for Working Families 2015 and was highly commended in the annual Mumandworking Awards 2016. October 2015 also saw the company receive Family Friendly UK Employer accreditation from the Family and Childcare Trust in recognition of its commitment to placing the needs of families at the centre of its vision as a company.

Telephone +44 (0)20 8979 6453 Email info@parentalchoice.co.uk Website: www.parentalchoice.co.uk

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

The Five Career Challenges of the Global Mobility Manager Dead End or Highway?

Do you know how it feels when you drive and the handbrake is still on?

This is how I sometimes felt in Global Mobility. Despite the long-standing optimistic outlook on where the profession is heading by consultants and researchers in the field of International Human Resources, I have not seen a clear career path for Global Mobility Professionals. Some of my colleagues currently proclaim that in high labour cost countries such as Switzerland, Global Mobility is an administrative payroll-based function without any chance of ever getting out of the dust.

Some feel their career is soon to be dead.

The job was outsourced or offshored, their expertise no longer needed. Late 40's and unemployed. Ridiculous.

Global Mobility is not yet a “profession”.

We start to recognise it as being involved in the process of expatriation, international business travel and qualified migration.

Global Mobility is still in the realm of Human Resources, sometimes it’s a Centre of Expertise in Compensation, sometimes in Talent, sometimes in Shared Services.

Global Mobility seems to be everywhere and nowhere. It is forgotten in restructuring or not touched because it is “too complex”.

In 2018, we still see a lack of clarity on how the career of global mobility professionals develop: what are fundamental skills to develop, what is trending in the industry, and what are the long-term plans? There is little exchange between global mobility and other areas - it is unusual to see lateral moves from other subject matter areas in HR. Many colleagues across the world are rather negative right now about their future in Global Mobility. Still, I would like to encourage you to get into this field or upgrade your skill set if you are an experienced or unemployed Global Mobility Manager.

Through different conversations with several professionals in the industry and my long-standing experience in coaching and teaching in the field, these five challenges seem to emerge: 1) There is a line of control preventing professionals from moving from the

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service provider side to the corporate side 2) There is no clear development plan that allows professionals to develop different sets of skills 3) We have not managed to have a unified approach to education in Global Mobility which waters down the requirements for role profiles and makes role profiles too diverse 4) Lack of international assignments for GM Managers: Oddly enough, while global mobility seems to be the work of an international workforce, very little is done in order to encourage employees to have international careers or secondments 5) The Global Mobility brand is not understood in the same way throughout companies.

Since 1999, I have worked in the Global Mobility and International HR arena. Every day I learn something new! There is really not a lot of good advice out there for International HR professionals, and if you say you work in “Global Mobility” a lot of people think you are doing relocation only, or they do not understand what it is at all. And still on LinkedIn I see many different labels for the professionals. Some even changed from Global Mobility back to “Global or International Assignment Managers”. I think this is limiting your scope my friends.

When talking to other HR Professionals and senior managers they often underestimate the complexity of Global Mobility, and one of the remarks that still makes me angry is when Global Mobility Professionals are called “admin or payroll”, because what we do requires an enormous knowledge and skill set. Which does not mean that we cannot instruct and oversee payroll, but heck this is too challenging to do in over 100 countries.

So you always need local support for payroll.

If you are one of my colleagues you probably share my view that Global Mobility Professional have to be: • Analytical, as you are a compensation, cost-of-living, fix-rate and cost expert • Knowledgeable, as you need to understand tax, social security, immigration and international employment law • Reflective and experiential, as you have to have moved 200 expats to know your job • Sensitive, as you work with talents and their families through phases of high stress

• Interculturally competent, as you speak at least four languages and deal with numerous cultures.

For the Global Mobility Workbook, I developed a global competency model that I found very helpful for Global Mobility Professionals. I use it to coach my internationally mobile clients too. Here is my take on how we can tackle the five challenges together.

Challenge 1: Let’s break down the artificial Line of Control between Providers and “Inhouse” GM staff

Please stop drawing artificial lines between us. We are not working in a hierarchical relationship with each other anymore. We need a seamless process that feels to the expat and spouse as if we are one team.

Vendors work as GM Specialists and a lot of the processes that used to be “in-house” tasks are now performed by large relocation companies and other subject matter experts in the field. We should see any work experience in Global Mobility as relevant and valid, and embrace fluid moves from one end to the other of our staff. We should support each other in getting better at what we do.

Expats and spouses need to trust their employers again. You can only achieve this trust in a team effort of all the players in the process.

Challenge 2: Develop a general understanding of a Global Mobility Career Plan in your Company

Life could be simple in Global Mobility, but we tend to make it complex by changing the terminology all the time. If we could all agree that there are approximately three levels of development from Specialist via Manager to Leader, we would have a simple yet concise model for developing our careers. And yes, it all depends on company size, internationalisation stage, and expat population, and maybe your titles are not comparable, but they hardly are in any industry. Have you ever noticed that a Vice President is the same across companies or a Director? In our case I use the three stages to show experience level and expertise, but this does not say anything about quality.

CAREER CHALLENGES Typical GM career path

I know many GM Managers who know and understand a lot more about Global Mobility than their GM Leader. The GM Leader is sometimes chosen because of other skills such as the ability to speak to senior management or to represent the team.

Challenge 3: Take a Certification Programme for Global Mobility Professionals

In my view, we need to build up our own professional standard and education, while we need to learn to work in line with the businesses we serve.

There are hardly any standard educational programmes for beginners in Global Mobility.

Most seminars are very technical and focus on very specific tax, social security or immigration issues. Providers of these seminars sell their services at the same time so they often pick out exceptions rather than standards. Due to the nature of GM, the cases are often complex and different, and depend on the corporate structure and level of internationalisation of the company.

GM Professionals need to understand

patterns and principles without assuming that their policy, processes and handling of cases fit to other companies as well.

the brand we need to have our basics in order. Then we can run and expand our scope (include International Business Travellers, international permanent hires and other in-company migration). I think we need to get out of HR and into an area that is aligned with International Business Development if we really would like to make a strategic contribution to the businesses we serve. We probably also need to develop a common understanding of what differentiates “Global Mobility” from “International Assignment Management”.

We could write a manifesto together and see if we can find a common ground for all Global Mobility Professionals across the world. I also think that we need a guild house for our profession, and a place where we feel at home. This, in my view, cannot be a commercial undertaking.

Challenge 4: Take every chance for an international assignment experience you can get, even if it is just a business trip

You also need to go through the experience yourself once in a while. You will feel some of your clients’ stress already when you undertake a business trip once in a while, because the little things that make a difference can pull down your productivity.

It’s very rewarding to go on an international assignment or transfer to another location for yourself and your family. If you cannot move because of dual career concerns or schooling issues, you might be able to relate better to your expats. Speak to your partner about the option and give it a shot.

Challenge 5: Let’s build the Global Mobility brand together

You cannot talk strategy if you do not have your house in order. Before we build

ANGIE WEINBERGER

Angie is the Global Mobility Coach and Founder of Global People Transitions.

She lectures on Global Mobility topics and works with professionals and teams in the field.

She is the author of The Global Mobility Workbook (2014) E: angela@globalpeopletransitions.com

If you would like to receive complimentary invitations to the

Global HR Conferences FOR GLOBAL HR PROFESSIONALS ONLY

please email helen@internationalhradviser.com who will add you to the invitation list

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

Policies, Points, Cafeterias And Their Effects on Mobility Functions In the last year, there has been an increasing trend at mobility conferences to discuss the future of mobility and how technology may disrupt our industry. One of the topics that comes up as a result of these discussions is the management of policies in the current climate.

Globalisation/technology seems to be the main cause for the view that management of policies needs to change, but when you peel back the layers of globalisation/technology what has actually changed?

Realistically we have seen the driving factors for assignments evolve. Traditionally the drivers were business focused with growth of a new market or ensuring subject matter experts were available in specific locations being the major justification. However, as technology has improved and people are able to understand more about the wider world, we have seen employees start to look to broaden their horizons and try to develop themselves more. Attraction and retention of talent has become critical to businesses and the number of employees asking for assignments has increased. As a result, the traditional approach to policy management has been forced to evolve. Employees no longer fit into one or two options. and with technology facilitating instant gratification, other approaches have been developed to serve these needs. The aim of this article is to look at the options available within policy management and see where they add value and where they depreciate the role of the policy in Mobility functions.

Fixed Policies

The traditional model for policies dealing with relocation and assignments, are either negatively or positively focused. It seems that in recent years the positive spin has taken the forefront of most mobility policies with the idea that the policy in question does not mention what you are not allowed, but what is available to the employee. The negatively framed policy, although easier to govern, does mean that employees can feel less an asset and more a burden to the business. From a business perspective they are useful to confirm that duty of care has been covered, the ability to forecast costs and budget due to consistent services being provided in addition to being fair and

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consistent. Talent wise, employees know where they stand, they don’t have to think about what is needed as it is all taken care of (depending on the policy), and normally in these sorts of policies they are more generous due to having to cover a variety of assignee types. Unfortunately, these policies seem to generate large number of exceptions mainly due to the variety of needs of assignees. In turn, (especially if the exceptions are denied), do not make the employees feel special or looked after and can mean that it reduces the interest of the employee to go on assignment (not always a bad thing!). Essentially, this type of system works well for businesses where the assignment needs a considerable amount of support (hardship locations especially), and the majority of the assignments are business focused. This type of system is also not heavily dependent on technology, as things can be actioned directly with service providers as standard.

Globalisation/ technology seems to be the main cause for the view that management of policies needs to change, but when you peel back the layers of globalisation/ technology what has actually changed?

Core/Flex Policies

The core/flex approach has gained traction over the last few years as mobility has tried to deal with the need to administer more types of assignments as well as nonbusiness driven cases. The Core deals with the minimum standard for duty of care to ensure the assignee is safe and in the case of simple policies nothing else is added. The Flex are the peripheral services that may or may not be used based on individual needs.

The positives here are again budgeting focused (finance can budget for the most expensive scenario from the options), and assurance that duty of care is covered.

Additionally, the reduction in the number of exceptions requested due to the employee having choice, ability to scale up the amount of options selectable to assignees based on the business needs are the major reasons this has become popular in businesses. From an assignee perspective, they still know they are being looked after with the Core part but have some freedom to ensure their personal situation is covered. Looking at the downside, even with the increase in flexibility not everyone will be catered for, so exceptions will still be requested. Some assignees try to negotiate the removal of Core services to be replaced by peripherals due to lack of understanding, which means mobility potentially may need to spend additional time educating assignees. This additional time spent with assignees is also likely to increase by the need to track the selections made by assignees, and in turn has meant a need for a tech solution which can mean larger overheads to mobility functions.

From an assignee side it is never enough, the ability to choose means that people want more and can be disappointed when told no.

This also ties in with the fact that assignees will still feel like this is an illusion, and that options are only cosmetic and real choices have been done in the Core part. Ideally, the type of company that would be looking into this method of policy management is not adverse to the use of technology in their mobility space, as this is preferred when looking at tracking the Flex side to the policy. Normally companies with nonbusiness driven assignments might also look to implement this due to the ability to use the Core part of the policy as a “lite� policy for employees, and use the Flex side of the policy to scale as necessary to the variety of other business driven assignments.

COMPATIBILITY Cafeteria/Points system

As the name suggests this is a self service system that allows assignees to pick from certain options based on the need of the assignment or level of the assignee. Points normally relate to the cost of the services listed, and the assignee has a limit to the amount of points they are able to ‘spend’.

This was originally used to reduce exceptions and as a cost savings exercise. The business wins with a reduction of exceptions, time spent having to educate assignees on why services are offered as well as making the employee feel empowered.

This also works for the employee as they have flexibility in the truest form, feel special, and also get exactly what they want. Unfortunately, this can mean difficulty for the finance team in terms of budgeting as well as additional cost to ensure the right tech solution is in place to facilitate this service. The other main factor that puts this system at a disadvantage is that duty of care cannot be confirmed without imposing limitations on the system, or using a core/flex method which defies the point of the system.

For employees that are not seasoned assignees, this method can leave them overwhelmed and needing assistance, and although flexibility is important, this method does not always mean you will have more than if you had a hard policy, as the choices selected might mean less overall.

This method really works for companies with high tech integration, an educated employee

group, and a workforce that expects the company to be flexible with their work situation and location.

So what's best for you?

The short answer is it depends on your mobility functions needs, the company’s willingness to use technology solutions, the types of assignments that you mainly facilitate, as well as the talent you need to hire and retain. The long answer is that all the methods can be used as a portfolio of techniques instead of picking

just one to manage a variety of policies that can be built around your specific company’s needs. Hard policies for hardship locations, and business driven assignments that need to have structure. Core and Flex for the employee driven assignments or assignments with talent development motives, and cafeteria for the graduates and millennials that want options but are worried about specific services. To really answer this, like all things in mobility, you have to know where the business is going, and constantly iterate based on assignee feedback.

ANDY KING

Global Mobility Manager at Improbable, one of the fastest growing tech startups in London and is relatively new to the world of Mobility. He joined Improbable from Google as a technical recruiter and proceeded to set up the Global Mobility Function due to the company’s need to have access to the global talent pool. This has given Andy the opportunity to set up all relocation, immigration and tax services for the company in a short period of time, while trying to continue to help the company grow.

At the FEM EMMAs, Andy has won the Global Mobility Rising Star of the Year in 2016 and the best Small Mobility Programme of the Year in 2017.

Improbable is dedicated to building technology to enable powerful virtual worlds and simulations designed to help solve previously intractable problems. In gaming and entertainment, this enables the creation of richer, more immersive and persistent virtual worlds.

Improbable has its headquarters in London.

Founded in 2012, Improbable received $20m in Series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz in March 2015. Horizons Ventures led a $30m follow-on Series A in July 2015, which included Temasek Holdings. In May 2017 Improbable announced a $502m Series B funding round, led by SoftBank.

Andreessen Horowitz and Horizons Ventures also joined this round with follow-on investments.

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

Purchasing Power…

Brexit is around the corner – how will the UK fare in this separation?

And how will the world measure the success? And importantly - what can we all learn in business from this incredible experience?

The main skill required by the UK representatives in Europe (and globally) is the ability to negotiate, and to negotiate well.

What are we learning from watching the politicians go through this process, and does the UK have the ability and confidence to purchase powerfully?

Is the ability to negotiate or barter becoming a dying art? And what impact has ‘online purchasing’ contributed to the possible decline of this skill?

In the world of travel, the act of going to RFI or RFP for the best ‘negotiated’ rate for a product or service has been historically how corporate and global mobility buyers have procured their products. Today, however, the RFI/RFP is just the starting block.

For a large buyer, the process of choosing ‘the right’ solution can take up to 2 years.

Even after the contract has been awarded, the time needed to confirm the contract terms, review legal requirements including insurances and HSSE, and create the local/ global SOW’s can take the procurement and buying teams a further year.

These points considered, the time that’s been allocated for the Brexit negotiations somehow seems a little challenging, even if you have the strongest and most experienced negotiators at the table.

Instant Gratification

It is important to consider that the general public’s experience of ‘buying’ products has changed immensely over the last 25 years. The online world has made it quick and easy to ‘instantly’ purchase almost anything online, with a credit card and on a mobile device. Welcome to the heady world of instant gratification.

Has the general population become unaccustomed to the vital steps of a full procurement process?

Knowing how to qualify, how to question the features and benefits, how to listen to (and respond to) objections, barter and know when to put the value add propositions on the table, is key to a successful purchase.

‘Online’ buying has taken the majority of the ‘negotiation’ out of our everyday world.

Even with ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (A.I.) and sophisticated personal profiles being built from our shopping habits, we risk becoming faceless buyers and transactional sales people.

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Patience Is A Virtue

The need for steady, patient negotiators to build and develop trusting two-way relationships ‘pre’ a big purchase is key, after all, everyone knows how it feels to have buyer’s remorse.

An area to consider (and not underestimate), is that even after the purchase has been made and terms agreed, you need excellent implementation of the contract, and caring, knowledgeable aftersales service and operations teams to ensure the on-going success of the contract – it’s not just about the success of the sale or the contract, it’s about the implementation, the on-boarding, the socialising and the performance. The senior teams need to keep everyone true to what was promised by both sides during negotiations, along with relevant changes in law, data management, and HSSE, that ensures compliance is always delivered.

Professional negotiators, in any line of work, will advise that communication, patience and compromise is necessary for a win/win situation. Staying at the table and keeping communication open is key.

Core Skills

Has the way we now buy and sell in our personal lives impacted on the core trading skills that were historically very strong in the UK? It is interesting to review the skillsets we have in 2018 (as individuals and professionals) that will help us to navigate these unchartered waters.

Social media and the online revolution took the world by storm - what core skills may have been impacted? – either positively or negatively?

Could the ease of online purchasing in 2018 have encouraged complacency and comfort in transactional buying and selling – knowing that you can return almost anything gives us confidence to purchase without fear. Most day to day buying decisions can be reversed.

Individuals and companies ‘buy’ online and ‘compare’ online, and we are happy to accept the apparent ‘lowest’ rates online.

The nearest the general population (online especially) comes to negotiating, is shopping through comparison sites that ‘compare’ for us. Our brains do not have to ‘do the math’ anymore, we have stopped bartering, and most of us are looking for ‘instant gratification’ for every transaction.

We do however, know how to auction – eBay has taught us that you can win or lose in the last 60 seconds – and the price that a product started at, will increase with the

more demand there is for it. So, we buy without negotiation, and we are used to auctioning ‘upwards’ for what we want.

Enter The Corporate And Global Mobility Buyers…

Savvy corporate buyers have an outline of what they are looking for – they’ve ‘researched’ the need within their business, and they’ve had a few offline ‘chats’ with other experienced buyers of the same products. They know what’s currently available on the market, and they know generally what’s being paid for it.

Good buyers understand their company demand and what it’s worth, they understand the needs of their ‘population’, and they know what’s important to the majority of their stakeholders.

Successful buyers keep some of their sweeteners in their back pockets – things that can be ‘thrown’ in to the mix to help them get a better deal – maybe an extension to the contract, a future contract or a recommendation. The plus side is that savvy buyers or procurement teams fully understand the ‘cost’ of a service or product, and they fully understand there is a price to pay for both – they are not looking for ‘free’.

The Best Buyers Qualify Before Negotiating On Price

Qualifying is a great benchmarking exercise and one that can save a great deal of time if you do not have the resource or time to ‘go to RFP’.

A buyer doesn’t need to go to market if the perfect solution is sitting in front of them, especially if the solution is best in class and the product or service is not replicated anywhere else.

Price (for a savvy buyer) is not the starting point - value, on-going service, security and ‘fit for purpose’ easily pips price.

In the world of serviced apartments, the negotiated rate or city cap for a global programme has quickly become the ‘rack’ (highest) rate that the corporate will pay.

The online revolution helped this in ‘accommodation’ purchasing, allowing fast ‘shopping’ of available rates in markets – and ensuring that ‘distressed’ inventory rates are available to view for corporates as an effective benchmark of market forces.

The negotiations, and contracting after the RFI/RFP or proposal, sets the parameters and ticks the boxes. This is quickly and effectively supplemented with dynamic pricing.

SERVICED APARTMENTS Switched On Sales People Know When To Listen

Qualifying the needs means listening. No one can solve a problem well that they don’t understand.

The best sales people know inherently that features and benefits of their products or services have a value and never underestimate them.

The sales role in the purchasing process is to connect the buyer to the product/service - and the most successful sales people are the ones that ensure that their product/ service is what the buyer needs.

The action of understanding what the buyer needs, and delivering on it, builds trust.

It also ensures that even when something slightly more ‘sexy’ is presented to the buyer from a competitor that promises more, is fresh, new and marketed (or packaged) better – the buyer will still refer back to their original sales person to ‘check out’ the new product for them - now that’s called a relationship,

The Impact Of Powerful Purchasing In The Relocation And Global Mobility Industry

Buying at a senior level in the majority of organisations is completed confidently, carefully and with excellent due diligence.

How these decisions cascade through the organisation (both from the buyer’s side and

the seller’s) can be slightly more challenging.

Even with the best will in the world, ensuring then that the decision that was made in the boardroom (and during hours of negotiation), is the solution that is provided to the buyer at grassroots level, is where the connection can be lost in translation (or slightly misinterpreted).

Communication, implementation, pullthrough, and socialising are all key elements to the success of the process. They are as important as the initial sale.

The open and transparent communication of all key stakeholders at every level of the business and the sharing of anticipated challenges and potential areas of concern with the implementation and operational teams will create the most durable, lasting and successful sustainable solutions and relationships.

Closing The Loop – Measuring Success Of ‘Purchasing Power’

Understanding that the ‘instant gratification’ of buying quickly and efficiently, (especially when the actual act of buying is at grassroots level), can undermine the initial goals of the programme, especially if it is not aligned with the agreed targets and needs of the buyer. A key area of focus for the negotiation teams of Brexit.

Setting quality time aside to audit and measure progress, i.e. ‘viewing and reviewing’

the point of sale activity, ensures that it is in the majority of transactions the ‘best option’ that’s purchased versus the ‘quick and easy’ one.

Continuously closing the loop through auditing, viewing and reviewing buying habits at point of sale, and keeping teams and leaders accountable to the results everyday, ensures that the positive buying (and selling) DNA cascades through every level of stakeholder involved , and is the true key to ongoing sustainable relationships and ultimately powerful purchasing.

JO LAYTON

MD Group Commercial Sales, The Apartment Service.

Jo Layton is MD Group Commercial Sales at The Apartment Service.

She has successfully established The Apartment Service’s new Alliance brand as part of her overall remit to develop the company’s successful agency, network and Roomspace brands. Layton joined from BridgeStreet where she was responsible for sales and marketing throughout EMEA and APAC.

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INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

Protecting Your Mobile Workforce To Protect Your Business The actions and attitudes of business decision-makers when it comes to the health, safety and security of their global mobile workforce are changing. From impacts of recent events, including hurricanes, terror attacks and disease outbreaks, the need to provide protection for a rapidly growing mobile workforce is clear. Increasingly, this protection is also recognised as a critical aspect of maintaining business resilience and sustainability, regardless of industry – if you have people travelling for business, there are business objectives and brand reputation at risk, as well as the impact on personnel in the event of an incident to consider.

Recently we carried out our Global Business Resilience Trends Watch 2018 survey, which reveals that the perception of risk remains elevated. While organisations are increasingly implementing prevention and mitigation measures, we found there are still opportunities for improvement as major strategic aspects are being missed.

A key aspect of providing a robust programme, and successfully protecting employees, is access to information. Anyone with responsibility for a travelling workforce, or even a single traveller, need to have access to time sensitive information pre, during and post trip. They also need to empower travellers with insight on their destination, access to appropriate preparation and access to around the clock global support and assistance. For instance, risk rating indicators supported by additional destination insight and advice, combined with travel security and medical alerts relating to destinations, both on the ground and remote support, provides a good basis for a robust travel risk mitigation programme.

Understanding the risks are key to keeping the travelling workforce travelling and able to fulfil their business aims. The survey found that travel plans were changed, predominantly, due to concerns over security threats (58%), followed by natural disasters (43%). This was consistent across the globe, apart from the Americas where natural disasters was first and security threats second. At a global level these are followed by country risk ratings (42%) and civil unrest (34%).

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Perception of Risk Remains at an Elevated Level

63% of business decision-makers perceive travel risks to have increased in the past year, reflecting a global softening from 72% in the previous year. However, the Americas and Australasia regions stand out with 78% and 72% respectively reporting increased risk in 2017. Risk rating changes on the latest edition of the Travel Risk Map include increase risk in some areas of the Caribbean and Puerto Rico due to the effects of the hurricanes and a decrease in risk in some European countries thanks to improved standards of medical care. These types of insight can be critical to both planning a trip and keeping the workforce safe.

Striving for Business Resilience

While the preventative agenda in medical and travel risk mitigation is clearly on the rise, the survey reveals that a strategic and far-reaching view may currently be a missed opportunity by many organisations.

Only 9% of organisations updated their sustainability programme to include their travel risk policy and just 10% introduced a wellbeing policy, falling at the bottom of the risk mitigation techniques implemented in 2017.

Dr Doug Quarry, Group Medical Director of Health Intelligence for International SOS, says “A staggering 91% of organisations have potentially not included their travel risk programme in their overall business sustainability programme and 90% are seemingly ignoring the impact a wellbeing policy could have on their travelling workforce.

This is despite an increasing understanding of how these techniques can impact within the context of the GRI Index” (i).

James Wood, security expert at International SOS & Control Risks, comments, “Success in future global mobility programmes will be those that include consideration of the changing demographic of the mobile workforce

and new marketplace dynamics, including the increase in use of shared economy services. The immediate obvious risks, such as the recent hurricanes and unforeseeable security incidents, will see organisations scrutinised in terms of preventative measures and recovery”.

Risk Response & Challenges

Organisations continue to introduce risk mitigation techniques. The most frequent step taken in response to travel health and security concerns is the introduction of pre-trip and during trip emails, with 39% of decision makers reporting to have introduced this in 2017.

However, organisations still face barriers in ensuring the health and security of travellers, with educating employees about travel risk (53%), the most common challenge in ensuring the health and security of travellers, followed by communicating with employees in a crisis, and ensuring they have read pre-travel information (both 44%).

Dr Quarry, continues, “As threats, such as the recent plague in Madagascar, can be fast moving, timely insight is critical to travellers and organisations to avoid potentially disastrous consequences”.

“It is promising to see that risk mitigation techniques are being prioritised, including annual health check up’s, which can be key to spotting any potential health issues that need managing prior to travel or assignments. As organisations continue to review and enhance their processes, it is important that new actions to promote a safe, healthy and well workforce are taken into account to help support and strengthen business resilience”.

For more information on how to protect your mobile workforce, visit www. internationalsos.com View the Travel Risk Map at www.travelriskmap.com.

Global Business Resilience Trends Watch is an Ipsos Mori research study conducted

Top 6 techniques introduced in response to medical and security risk concerns 1) Introduced pre-trip and during trip advisory emails

39%

2) Included travel risk assessment in travel approval process

37%

3) Implemented travel safety training and security training

33%

4) Provided annual health check-up’s

32%

5) Updated travel risk policy (excluding diversity related issues)

31%

6) Implemented programmes to locate travellers

28%

TRAVEL RISK

Opportunities for future business resilience through a robust travel risk mitigation programme 9%

Updated sustainability programme to include travel risk programme

10%

Introduced a wellbeing policy

13%

Monitored the number of road traffic incidents

14%

Updated travel risk policy to include diversity-related issues (e.g. LGBT, female travellers, travellers with disabilities)

16%

Implemented a programme for people to understand existing health issues while away on business

Group Medical Director of Health Intelligence for International SOS

JAMES WOOD

Top 5 Challenges in securing the safety and security of the mobile workforce 1) Educating employees about travel risks

53%

2) Confirming employees have read pre-travel information

44%

3) Communicating with employees during a crisis

44%

4) Tracking employee travel

39%

5) Having adequate resources to manage health and security efforts

35%

among 667 business decision-makers, across all types of organisations which have had previous contact relating to business travel health and security with International SOS, across 69 countries.

Research was conducted online in the period October 4th to October 20th 2017.

Respondents were those who organise, influence or are responsible for their organisation’s travel and risk mitigation policies. Security professionals accounted

DR DOUG QUARRY

for 17% of the sample, with HSE and HR staffers comprising the next biggest segments, on 15% each.

Reference: (i) Sancroft and International SOS Foundation ‘Occupational Health & Safety and Workplace Wellness Reporting Guidelines for a Global Workforce: A Practical Guide for Internationally Operating Employers’.

Security Expert at International SOS & Control Risks

All the articles featured in this issue of International HR Adviser, and previous issues of the magazine, are available to share, view and download on www.internationalhradviser.com

Join our LinkedIn Group for International HR professionals.

Search for International HR Adviser and join now for updates, articles and events.

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DIARY DATES

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

April 2018

International HR Conference

5 - 6 April 2018, Vienna, Austria We are hosting our International HR Conference on the 5th - 6th April 2018 in Vienna, Austria.

This is a two days of high quality presentations along with Q +A Session and Panel Discussions and we are expecting to host between 80-100 Senior Level HR Executives from across Europe.

Participants can expect to hear about upcoming HR regulations, listen to the presentations of Human Resources experts and understand more about what’s happening currently within the industry. The Key takeaways include: The Impact of GDPR with HR, Digitalisation, Generation X, Y & Z, Employee engagement, Robotic Process Automation, HR Transformation & Innovation, etc.

Join our event to meet professionals from BBC, IBM and other leading companies from within the HR industry. For more information, visit our website: ict-solutions-hu.com/Events/hr-forum/ If you have any questions, contact us at info@ictsolutions-hu.com

US Immigration Law: Where Are We Now and What’s to Come?

10 April – 14:00 ET Free Webinar, sponsored by TRC Global Mobility Learn more and register at WorldwideERC.org/ Webinars

Geopolitical Upheaval and Duty of Care: What Mobility Managers Need to Know

24 April, 2018 – 11:00 ET Free Webinar, sponsored by Cartus Learn more and register at WorldwideERC.org/ Webinars

GloMo Training – Intermediate Course

25 April, 2018 – 10am to 4pm, London This one-day technical course for in-house Global Mobility professionals with a minimum of three years’ experience covers immigration, tax, employment law and assignee compensation methodology. Using numerous case studies, you will have the opportunity to delve into each area to build on your global mobility knowledge.

Cost: £600 + VAT (COMPLIMENTARY TO EXPAT ACADEMY MEMBERS) Visit www.expatacademy.com

May 2018

Worldwide ERC® Global Mobility Specialist (GMS)® Programme - Module 3

16 May, 2018, Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Centre - 1501 Gaylord Trl, Grapevine, Texas, USA 76051 Earn your GMS® in 2018 by taking Modules 1 and 2 online, and participating in an in-person session of Module 3 - The Intercultural Challenge: Supporting Successful International Assignments – with your peers, just prior to the Americas Mobility Conference. Register at www.worldwideerc.org/ amc18/events/Pages/AMC18-GMS.aspx

Americas Mobility Conference 16-18 May, 2018, Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Centre - 1501 Gaylord Trl,

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Grapevine, Texas, USA 76051 From Canada’s Global Skills Strategy, to Brazil’s Migration Law, to the United States’ transitioning jobs initiatives, there is much potential in the Americas region for enterprising mobility professionals. Join us as we take a look at the total workforce landscape and what the future holds. Learn more and register at https://www.

WorldwideERC.org/AMC18

21st Annual Financial Sector Compensation and Benefits

23-24 May 2018, London, United Kingdom This marcus evans conference will enable you to learn practical solutions to effectively create policies based on regulation. Furthermore, you will hear different strategies to best manage variable pay and create a balanced bonus system. Finally, you will gain practical insights on how to ensure fair and equal pay, and strategies on how to attract and retain top talent within the organisation.

Special discounts for International HR Adviser readers when registering for this conference: • 2-day conference: £200 – Discount code: CM408-IHRA200 • 2-day conference & 1 workshop: £250 - Discount code: CM408-IHRA250 (Special offers are applicable for delegates only, not for solution providers and consultants) Interested? If you feel that you are a good fit for this conference please visit the event website: www.marcusevans-conferences-paneuropean. com For more information email melinih@ marcusevanscy.com

Pride and Prejudice 2018

24 May, 2018, Hong Kong - London - New York The Economist launched Pride and Prejudice two years ago to highlight the business case for LGBT inclusion. In its 3rd year, we will capture the expectation that good business isn’t just about revenue and reputation, it’s about people. Join us at Pride and Prejudice on May 24th, 2018 to draw lessons from the experiences of individuals, businesses and governments across the world and translate them into recommendations.

Confirmed London speakers include: • Matt Brittin, president, EMEA business and operations, Google • Nick Clegg, former deputy prime minister, United Kingdom • Moya Greene, chief executive officer, Royal Mail • Jayne-Anne Gadhia, chief executive officer, Virgin Money • Gina Miller, transparency and ethics activist • Bruce Daisley, vice-president, EMEA, Twitter • Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general, CBI • Kari Mugo, operations manager, National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Kenya • Maxim Eristavi, research, fellow, Atlantic Council Save 20% with code INTHR/DC & register here: http://prideandprejudice.economist.com/ london/ For any query email us at emeaevents@ economist.com.

3rd Corporate Learning and Development Summit

24-25 May 2018, Barcelona, Spain 3rd Corporate Learning and Development summit provides a platform for top experts in leading industries to get together and exchange knowledge on key issues affecting new learning trends, L&D digitalisation and its benefits for

business as well as to develop learning strategies for future success through active networking.

The Summit will feature 12 expert speakers from major influencers from diverse industries (LG, Ernst & Young, Danone, Schneider Electric, Credit Suisse, Lidl, PA Consulting Group, Caixa Bank, etc.). Besides numerous individual case studies and interactive sessions the summit is a great opportunity to network, meet valuable people and enjoy a few days in charming Barcelona.

Find out more information and request the event brochure visit www.luxatiainternational. com/Events/3rd-annual-corporate-learningdevelopment-summit

FEM Americas Summit & EMMAs – San Diego

23-24 May, 2018, Loews Coronado Bay, San Diego, CA Don’t miss the opportunity to attend the FEM Americas Summit & EMMAs (Expatriate Management & Mobility Awards) in San Diego and hear from leading global mobility professionals.

Join us to share best practice and network with your peers while coming away with valuable insights and ideas for your own programme. Find out more information at americas.forum-expatmanagement.com

June 2018

Expat Academy Bite Size Briefing

11 June, 2018 – 10am to 5pm, London A training day for the Expat Academy community.

A chance to listen and learn about the latest trends, get technical updates and industry insights from the team and their technical training partners. The main aim of the day is to provide intellectually challenging content which will enhance your professional development and maintain your specialist GM knowledge.

MEMBERS ONLY Visit www.expatacademy.com

HR360 European Summit

20 – 21 June, 2018 Imperial Riding School Renaissance, Vienna How would you like to tap into some of the best minds in HR today to learn how they are getting ready for the increasingly digital new world of work?

HR360 European Summit is the only event for HR leaders with global and pan-European responsibility at the world’s biggest companies.

Only at HR360 will you meet 200 of the innovators and pace-setters that are taking HR transformation to new frontiers – reinventing organisational structures, redefining the employee experience and driving greater use of real time analytics.

If you’re serious about building an HR division that adds greater value to the business bottom line, don’t miss this opportunity to benchmark your people, processes and technology with those leading the way. Get tour tickets to attend HR360 European Summit here: https:// hr360.wbresearch.com

If you would like to advertise a conference or exhibition on our Diary Dates and on www.internationalhradviser.com please email damian@internationalhradviser.com

DIRECTORY

BANKING SERVICES LLOYDS BANK INTERNATIONAL LIMITED

Telephone: From the UK, call: 0808 169 6411 Outside the UK, call: 033 3014 5287 Mon-Fri 8am-6pm and Sat. 9.30am-1.30pm UK time. Calls may be monitored/recorded Email: GlobalPartnerships@Lloydsbanking.com Website: www.lloydsbank.com MOVING ABROAD? Your trusted service for UK and International banking.

If your moving abroad to live or work our range of solutions can help guide you through important financial decisions so you are organised, well before your luggage is packed.

Everyday banking – a range of accounts and services in a choice of currencies for your dayto-day banking needs.

Whilst our services will be available to many customers, there are countries where, due to legal or regulatory restraints, we cannot provide them.

NATWEST GLOBAL EMPLOYEE BANKING

Eastwood House, Glebe Road, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 1RS, UK Contact: Craig Boe, Manager, NatWest Global Employee Banking Telephone: +44 (0)1245 355628 Email: craig.boe@natwestglobal.com Website: www.natwestglobal.com NatWest Global Employee Banking is a specialised department within NatWest who work with Company HR functions/ Relocation agencies to offer a streamlined account opening service for relocating employees.

One of the main benefits of the service is that employees can apply for their account before they arrive in the UK so their account is ready when they arrive. This may also help if they want to transfer funds to their new account in preparation for relocation.

INSURANCE AND FINANCIAL SERVICES ZURICH INTERNATIONAL CORPORATE SOLUTIONS

Tricentre One, New Bridge Square, Swindon SN1 1HN Contact: Adele Cox Telephone: +44 (0) 1793 506775 E-mail: adele.cox@zurich.com Website: www.zurich.com Zurich International Life is a global provider of life insurance, investment and protection products. Our corporate range offers flexible, portable solutions, designed to suit multinational organisations with an internationally mobile workforce. The International pension plan offers a cost effective, bundled retirement benefits solution comprising of trust services, investment funds and online administration.

International group protection is designed to protect an employers’ most important asset – their employees – and offers a range of life and disability protection.

With a local presence in key global business hubs and over 30 years experience of implementing and administering plans world wide, we’ve developed our knowledge and understanding of key markets to meet the needs of our customers and business partners.

INTERNATIONAL HR CONSULTANTS DELOITTE LLP

Stonecutter Court, 1 Stonecutter Street, London, EC4A 4TR Contact: Robert Hodkinson, Partner Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7007 1832 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7007 1060 E-mail: rhodkinson@deloitte.co.uk Website: www.deloitte.co.uk Whether you are creating your first international mobility programme for employees or addressing fundamental changes to an existing programme, our International Human Resources team can help.

Deloitte provides consulting support that has an appreciation for each company’s size, background and unique cultural environment, aligning your international programme goals with corporate business strategies. Our consultants have developed deep expertise in many fields based on first hand experience with many of the world’s leading organisations: international assignment policy and process design, benchmarking, service delivery modelling, improving vendor management and helping our clients become more compliant and their administration more cost-effective.

INTERNATIONAL MOVING DT MOVING (A GOSSELIN MOBILITY GROUP COMPANY)

49 Wates Way, Mitcham Greater London, CR4 4HR Contact: Tim Daniells Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7622 4393 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7720 3897 Email: london@dtmoving.com Website: www.dtmoving.com DT Moving (a Gosselin Mobility Group company) is a world leading international relocation company. Founded in 1870, we serve corporate customers all over the globe with an award-winning* move management and destination services programme.

Through our London headquarters and unrivalled footprint of 56 global offices we help clients achieve their workforce mobility goals.

Every employee we relocate is appointed a dedicated DT Moving move manager, who is a central point of coordination, support and advice to ensure every part of the relocation runs smoothly.

Our goal is your complete satisfaction, and with a 97% customer satisfaction rating for 2017, we offer unrivalled quality at competitive rates. *Awarded 11 global relocation awards since 2010.

RELOCATION SANTA FE RELOCATION SERVICES

Central Way, Park Royal, London, NW10 7XW Contact: John Beck Telephone: +44 (0) 208 963 2520 Mobile: +44 (0)7500 091 708 Email: John.Beck@SantaFerelo.com Website: www.santaferelo.com Santa Fe Relocation Services is a global mobility company specialising in managing and delivering high-quality relocation services worldwide.

We enable people and organisations to work, live and thrive around the world.

With ‘enabling people and organisations’, we want to make it possible for people to be where they need or want to be - enabling people and organisations.

Our core competence is relocation services that support corporations and their employees relocate and settle in a new country, assisting them with immigration, home and school, language and cultural training, managing property rentals, delivering domestic and international moving of household goods.

We provide these services to a consistent high standard, locally and globally. A key aspect is being able to manage our service delivery through Santa Fe operations across six continents.

TEAM RELOCATIONS

54 Queen Anne Street, Marylebone, London, W1G 8HN Contact: Tony Thurlow Telephone: +44 (0) 20 8955 1364 Email: Tony.Thurlow@teamrelocations.com Website: www.teamrelocations.com Twitter: @TeamRelocations LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/teamrelocations/ Team Relocations is an independent company specialising in delivering fully integrated relocation, moving and other associated services primarily within the corporate market.

For over four decades, we have been delivering these services on a global, national and regional basis to many of the world’s leading multinational organisations and government agencies. Our strong reputation for high quality service and proven track record put us among the leaders in the mobility industry.

RELOCATION ASSOCIATIONS ASSOCIATION OF RELOCATION PROFESSIONALS (ARP)

9&10 Diss Business Centre, Dark Lane, Diss, Norfolk, IP21 4ND Contact: Tad Zurlinden Telephone: +44 (0)1379 651 671 Fax: +44 (0)1379 641 940 Email: enquiries@arp-relocation.com Website: www.arp-relocation.com The ARP is the professional association for the relocation industry in the UK. The ARP’s activities include seminars throughout the year, an annual conference, the publication of an annual Directory of Members and a website, which is updated regularly.

39

40

INTERNATIONAL HR ADVISER SPRING

THE EUROPEAN RELOCATION ASSOCIATION (EuRA)

9&10 Diss Business Centre, Dark Lane, Diss, Norfolk, IP21 4ND Telephone +44 (0)1379 651 671 Fax: +44(0)1379 641 940 E-mail: enquiries@eura-relocation.com Website: www.eura-relocation.com EuRA is an industry body for Relocation Professionals in both Europe and Worldwide.

EuRa have launched The EuRA Quality Seal, the world’s first accreditation programme for relocation providers. This pioneering initiative provides a straight forward, cost effective audit to reflect your company’s excellence in providing relocation services.

SCHOOLS ISL GROUP OF SCHOOLS ISL SURREY

Old Woking Road, Woking, Surrey GU22 8HY Contact: Admissions Telephone: +44 (0)1483 750 409

ISL LONDON

139 Gunnersbury Avenue, London W3 8LG Contact: Yoel Gordon Telephone: +44 (0)20 8992 5823

ISL QATAR

PO Box 18511, North Duhail, Qatar Contact: Nivin El Aawar Telephone: +974 4433 8600 Website: www.islschools.org The International School of London (ISL) Group has schools in London, Surrey, and Qatar. The internationally recognised primary and secondary curricula have embedded language programmes (mother tongue, English as an Additional Language, and second language) which continue throughout the student’s stay in the school. A team of experienced and qualified teachers and administrators provides every student with the opportunity to grow and learn in an environment that respects diversity and promotes identity, understanding, and a passion for learning.

MARYMOUNT INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL LONDON

George Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT2 7PE Contact: Mrs Cheryl Eysele Telephone: +44 (0)20 8949 0571 Email: admissions@marymountlondon.com Website: www.marymountlondon.com With an outstanding record teaching the respected International Baccalaureate for over 30 years, Marymount offers day and boarding to girls aged 11-18 who gain places at the world’s best universities.

Consistently ranked within the top 5% globally, Marymount also offers the pre-IB Middle Years Programme; this stretches students without the need for incessant testing. The nurturing, supportive Catholic Community welcomes all faiths and achieves a shared purpose for girls of more than 40 nationalities.

TASIS THE AMERICAN SCHOOL IN ENGLAND Coldharbour Lane, Thorpe, Surrey, TW20 8TE Contact: Karen House

40

Telephone: +44 (0)1932 582316 Email: ukadmissions@tasisengland.org Website: www.tasisengland.org TASIS England offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma, an American college preparatory curriculum, and AP courses to its diverse community of coed day (3-18) and boarding (14-18) students from 50 nations. The excellent academic programme, including ESL, is taught in small classes, allowing the individualised attention needed to encourage every student to reach their potential. Outstanding opportunities in art, drama, music, and athletics provide a balanced education. Extensive summer opportunities are also offered. Located close to London on a beautiful and historic 46-acre estate.

SERVICED APARTMENTS THE ASSOCIATION OF SERVICED APARTMENT PROVIDERS (ASAP)

Suite 3, The Business Centre, Innsworth Tech Park, Innsworth Lane, Gloucestershire GL3 1DL Contact: ASAP Office Telephone: +44 (0)1452 730452 Email: admin@theasap.org.uk Website: www.theasap.org.uk Twitter: @ASAPThe LinkedIn: The Association of Serviced Apartment Providers ASAP is in the industry association representing, promoting and improving the serviced apartment sector. Our 124 members including serviced apartment operators and agents represent in excess of 25,000 serviced apartments in the UK, Europe, USA and Canada.

When booking your serviced apartment, look for our Quality Accreditation kitemark which confirms the operator is fully compliant with all the core legal, health and safety practices and means you can book with confidence.

THE APARTMENT SERVICE

5-6 Francis Grove, London SW19 4DT Contact: Bard Vos Telephone: +44 (0)20 8944 1444 Email: bard.vos@apartmentservice.com Website: www.apartmentservice.com Twitter: @theaptmtservice LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company-beta/107760/ The Apartment Service is the world’s leading global serviced apartment booking agency.

With 36 years of experience in the serviced apartment industry, we provide a 100% service for sourcing, booking and managing reservations into corporate housing and serviced apartments worldwide from our 7 global offices in New York, London, Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Frankfurt and Singapore. In February 2014, The Apartment Service launched the TAS Alliance bringing together serviced apartments operators across the globe under a single representation, distribution and marketing strategy, all powered by a common technology platform. The primary goal of The Apartment Service is to provide consistency in quality and efficiency in booking serviced apartments for clients. For more information, visit www.apartmentservice.com and www.thetasalliance.com

TAXATION BDO LLP

55 Baker Street, London, W1U 7EU Contact: Andrew Bailey Telephone: 020 7893 2946 Fax: 020 7893 2418 E-mail: andrew.bailey@bdo.co.uk Website: www.bdo.co.uk BDO LLP is the award-winning, UK Member Firm of BDO International, the world's fifth largest accountancy network with more than 600 offices in 100 countries.

We have a partner-led approach, which delivers the highest quality of service by using short, functional chains of communication to aid decision-making. Clients benefit from our fresh thinking, constructive challenge and practical understanding of the issues they face. Developing strong, personal relationships with our clients is at the forefront of our service approach.

Tax advice is just one of our award-winning services and our expatriate team give practical and direct advice, delivering solutions which suit your needs.

GLOBAL TAX NETWORK LTD

Norwich House, 14-15 North Street, Guildford, GU1 4AF Contact: Richard Watts-Joyce CTA Telephone: +44(0)20 7100 2126 Email: rwattsjoyce@gtn.uk Website: www.GTN.uk Twitter: @GTN_Tax LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/globaltax-network Global Tax Network Ltd is the UK member of Global Tax Network (GTN), an international affiliation of professional firms in over 100 countries specialising in global mobility tax consulting. We provide assistance to employers with the tax administration of international assignment programs and private client services to high net worth individuals, non-domiciles, professional sportspersons and entertainers. Our consultants include members of the Association of Taxation Technicians, Chartered Institute of Taxation, and US Enrolled Agents.

To advertise your services to our Global HR readers in this Directory please email damian@internationalhradviser.com for further information.

To reach key decision makers in International HR management in order to promote your services or products in International HR Adviser magazine, please contact Damian Porter on +44 (0)1737 551 506, or email damian@internationalhradviser.com to request a 2018 Media Guide or discuss opportunities.

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Global Tax International Assignment Policies – Mobilising Talent: The Global Mobility Challenge ADVISORY THIS ISSUE: PANEL FOR PANEL FOR How Amazon Operations Hired Thousands Of Staff Across Europe • Immigration: The Talent Within THIS ISSUE: ADVISORY So We Know It Is A Problem – So How Do You Implement A Programme To Manage Your Business Travellers?

ADVISORY PANEL FOR THIS ISSUE:

Visit our website www.internationalhradviser.com and complete the online registration.

International HR Adviser is the leading, quarterly magazine for International HR professionals globally. It has been publishing for 13 years and covers topics such as International HR Strategy, Benefits, Tax, Global Tax, Technology, Compensation, Trends in International Assignments, Healthcare, Insurance, Surveys, Country Profiles, Immigration, Moving & Relocation, Spousal Support, Education, Property, Cross-Cultural Issues, Case Studies, and more.

For further information please call Helen Elliott on +44 (0) 208 661 0186 Email: helen@internationalhradviser.com Website: www.internationalhradviser.com