Have you thought about how metrics within your relocation program can make you think about your program differently? What data are you tracking? How are you using that data to make decisions to improve your program? And how are you tracking the net result of the metrics you track?  We looked at three metrics that can help identify success for your company.

1. Employee Attraction due to Relocation Benefits
2. Assignment Completion Rate
3. Retention Post Assignment/Relocation

This week we cover the Assignment Completion Rate, in which we look at how important it is to track your employee through the process of their assignment and analyze if assignments are being completed.

While not ideal for any company, employees can determine at any point in their assignment that the job isn’t right for them. The factors that lead into that decision can be a wide variety of reasons – personally or professionally.

Causes of Low Completion Rate

With the new normal in the workforce of being able to work “from wherever in the world” you are, the approach of short-term mor long-term assignments have been put in the spotlight. The need to develop organizational and managerial knowledge, is not a skill that companies value, especially within their leadership positions.  It is proven that over a course of any period of time an employee’s skills seem to develop, no matter what part of the world they are in. The global mentality of “getting experience within all aspects of our company” has made mobility managers rethink what benefits are offered to these transferring employees.

Does your employee feel a lack of support throughout their process of moving to, living in and coming back from their new location?  A successful assignment analyzes the experience of the employee from pre-decision to post assignment integration. If your employee does not feel supported throughout their process of moving to, living in and coming back from their new location there could be cause for concern. This also makes the point that prior to sending any employee off on assignment, the proper audit should be done to understand if the selected employee would be a good candidate for the assignment.

While each employee is different in the way they think, act and approach assignments, some popular reasons for “abandoned assignments” are:

• Company culture – was there a change or distinct difference in the way the new location operates
• New Environment – the lifestyle change was bigger and different than originally expected
• Employee Management – the company doesn’t understand them, care for them, invest in them, and/or lead them well

Next week we will go into more detail on Retention Post Assignment/Relocation, and how the company is affected by a successful relocation program, support, and keeping the employee engaged throughout their assignment.

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