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Optimize the Global Talent Mobility Program

Focus on repatriation to achieve long term ROI.

  • Organizations are sending more employees abroad, but they are not fully reaping the benefits of global assignments due to the high turnover of repatriating employees.
  • Organizations are not aligning their programs with their strategy and workforce plan, sometimes causing poor matches between employee and assignment, and a lack of long-term vision.
  • Global assignments are expensive, and even more so when an employee returns early or does not perform well. Organizations need to ensure that every global assignment is a success, or they risk wasted resources.

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Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Global talent mobility is no longer about transplanting home office leaders to foreign countries – it’s about stationing the best talent in the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons.
  • Organizations must support the employee before, during, and after their assignment in order to optimize the talent development opportunities associated with a global assignment. Only then will organizations see the cost-benefits of global assignments.

Impact and Result

  • Since repatriation is the biggest challenge for employers, focusing the program with the end in mind is especially important for career planning and retention of global assignees.
  • By creating proactive global talent mobility programs that support the business strategy and the workforce planning needs, and address compliance issues, organizations will foster assignment success and retain repatriating employees who have gained global knowledge.

Optimize the Global Talent Mobility Program Research & Tools

2. Assess the current state of the global talent mobility program

Identify gaps in the organization's current global talent mobility program.

3. Define the global talent mobility program

Document use cases, related metrics, and key components of the global talent mobility program; identify the skills, knowledge, and abilities required for each type of global assignment; and tailor initiatives to support the global assignee and their family before, during, and after the assignment to optimize program success.

Optimize the Global Talent Mobility Program preview picture

About McLean & Company

McLean & Company is an HR research and advisory firm providing practical solutions to human resources challenges via executable research, tools, diagnostics, and advisory services that have a clear and measurable impact on your business.

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A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your HR problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

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Get the help you need in this 7-phase advisory process. You'll receive 10 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Assess the current state of the global talent mobility program
  • Call 1: Discuss the assessment results to determine how to prioritize next steps and manage stakeholders.
  • Call 2: Identify key stakeholders and their respective roles and responsibilities.

Guided Implementation 2: Define the global talent mobility program
  • Call 1: Decide on employee global talent mobility use cases that best support your business and workforce goals.
  • Call 2: Define programming components required to send employees abroad.

Guided Implementation 3: Select the best candidates for global assignments
  • Call 1: Define the characteristics and competencies for each global talent mobility use case to evaluate employees before they are chosen for assignments abroad.

Guided Implementation 4: Optimize the pre-departure process
  • Call 1: Discuss which supporting initiatives work best for each type of global talent mobility use case to support employees before their assignment.

Guided Implementation 5: Optimize the assignment abroad
  • Call 1: Discuss which supporting initiatives work best for each type of global talent mobility use case to support employees during their assignment.

Guided Implementation 6: Optimize the repatriation process
  • Call 1: Discuss which supporting initiatives work best for each type of global talent mobility use case to support employees after their assignment.

Guided Implementation 7: Measure and reflect on global mobility program effectiveness
  • Call 1: Discuss the track of the program against pre-established metrics.
  • Call 2: Discuss the global talent mobility program’s strengths and opportunities for improvement.

Contributors

  • Ann Bomba, HR Generalist, Microstrategy
  • Ann Casanova, Lead Specialist, Leadership and Employee Development Division, InterAmerican Development Bank
  • Dr. David Collings, Professor Dublin City University, and co-author of Global Talent Management
  • Dr. Noeleen Doherty, Senior Fellow at Cranfield University
  • Dr. Mila Lazarova, Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University. Canada Research Chair in Global Workforce Management and co-author of International Human Resource Management: Policy and Practice
  • Jill Morrison, Sr. HR Generalist, Microstrategy
  • Dr. Yongsun Paik, Professor at Loyola Marymount University, and co-author of Managing a Global Workforce: Challenges and Opportunities in International Human Resource Management
  • Aruna Raval, Senior Manager, RBC Capital Markets and Treasury Audit Group
  • Ellie Sullivan SGMS, SCRP, Vice President, Marketing & Consulting Weichert Relocation Resources Inc.
  • Dr. Paula Vexlir, Psychologist, Expat Counselor, and Director at PSI-Online, a counseling service for Spanish-speaking expatriates
  • Joyce Wan, Global Assignee