Employee relocation often makes good business sense. But the relocation process can bring up lots of issues, so you need to know how to solve them, or prevent them from happening in the first place.
Here are five issues you need to consider.
Issues That Arise from Ambiguous Relocation Agreement Details
Without a clear contract in place between your company and your relocating employees, you could end up facing multiple problems.
You could even have to pay a lot more for certain elements of the relocation, such as paying for temporary accommodation or house-finding services if the details are not clearly stipulated in the contract.
The agreement should clearly state who is responsible for each element and set limits for each benefit of the relocation policy.
Make sure easy-to-understand language is used in the agreement, rather than complex jargon.
Shipping Issues
The last thing a relocating employee wants is to find their household goods have not been shipped properly or are lost in transit.
Your relocation package should include covering shipping costs for employees’ belongings. If there is a problem with the shipping, it’s not only your employee that’s affected. You could experience a lot of stress and unexpected high costs.
So, it’s imperative that you go with a reliable shipping company. That’s arguably even more important when employees are relocating overseas.
You can avoid such issues when you select the right relocation company. A professional relocation service will take care of shipping employees’ household goods and other important matters, to ensure no major problems are encountered.
Check out this guide to learn more.
Home Selling Issues
A professional relocation company can also help to sell employees’ homes and find new properties.
Whether you go with an outsourced relocation service or not, the real estate market can have a huge effect on organizations’ relocation programs, because it not only affects the relocation budget. It can also affect an employee’s willingness to move.
Many companies provide help such as covering losses on home sales and paying for temporary accommodation.
To avoid problems from happening, you, or the relocation company, need to consider the real estate market carefully and look at the increased expenses of duplicate housing costs.
You should also consider the options of selling properties to third parties or even buying the employees’ properties yourself to ensure sales go swiftly. In turn, you can secure your top talent for relocation.
Tax Issues
Taxes can be a very complex issue to handle when relocating employees. The best way of solving tax issues is to hire a relocation company that has expertise in handling tax issues and other crucial parts of the relocation process.
Bear in mind that tax considerations for relocations that are temporary and less than one year are different from tax issues related to permanent relocations.
Tax issues vary from one state to another in the U.S. Of course, they also vary from one country to another.
So, whether you’re relocating employees to the same country or internationally, make sure you have appropriate experts on board who can review tax and legal issues and ensure your policies and practices are in line with legal obligations.
Communication Issues
Relocating employees need the support of their employers at every step of the way. If your company is not effective in its communication, it can lead to disgruntled employees. It could even result in them backing out of relocating at the last minute.
Your company needs to show its relocating workers that they are valued by communicating well about every aspect of the relocation process, such as which benefits they are entitled to and what the timetable for moving looks like.
Poor communication can lead to employees experiencing stress. In turn, whether they continue with the relocation or not, that can cause performance issues.
