How the COVID-19 Pandemic Is Going to Impact Global Mobility
‘Global Mobility’ is an organization’s ability to seamlessly cross borders with its people, ideas and operations and set a new base for business wherever they go.
It’s always been a challenge ridden with variables — difference in language, culture, business culture, regulations, the practicalities of operating and managing something from afar and more.
And then, COVID-19 hits us, and adds a whole other level of complexity to this already complex matter.
Managers who were struggling to keep their remote-teams motivated, employees who had ambitiously taken on that promotion, packed their bags and moved to a new city, were now faced with not just those challenges but also the heavy health and economic concerns and consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak.
With our progress as a global mobility facilitator, at Generation Mobility, we had to face the music: How was COVID-19 going to impact global mobility?
The obvious answer was that fewer people will be crossing borders in the short-to-mid-term, of course. But what about the people who had already crossed borders? What about teams and projects that were already underway, and were going to keep moving forward as lockdowns lift?
What new challenges will they face?
Besides, the pandemic sure put the world at somewhat of a standstill, but it wasn’t going to end globalization. Global mobility is still going to be an important ability for growing organizations to nurture and hone — it’s just that they were going to need to do it in a different way.
Here’s what I see is going to change as a result of this experience that we’re all going through now.
Here’s how I think global mobility is going to change as a result of the COVID-19 crisis:
- Health and medical care become even more important benefits
Organizations are going to have to take every measure to ensure that their teams, everywhere in the world, are covered with ample medical insurance cover. For many professionals that choose to move abroad, this could become the make-or-break clause for whether or not they accept a foreign assignment.
Employees moving with their families will seek even higher health benefits and ensure their family is well-protected.
- Companies will have to have global mobility contingency plans for ‘What happens in the face of a pandemic or epidemic’
The reality of living through the COVID-19 pandemic means that any contingency plans that were merely literature before now have to have a practical roll-out strategy.
Ensuring people are safe, healthy and productive even in a situation like this will require careful remote management and global alignment strategy.
I can only imagine how challenging it must be for employees and management alike right now, to orient, manage and help members of their workforce who have just moved to a new city, but are stuck working remotely from home. The first few months are crucial to a good run abroad, and if those first few months are affected by an unprecedented pandemic, then it’s probably causing some unprecedented (and unspoken) adjustment challenges.
- Mental health and well-being will need more attention
Let’s face it — this complete flip of life as we know it has been hard. Working from home and remaining astute and productive, balancing family life and work, managing children that now have to be home-schooled or ‘Zoom-schooled’, and all of that while worrying about potential pay cuts, job cuts and layoffs is not an easy feat.
For professionals working abroad, it’s that whole package of issues plus being away from the familiarity of home, perhaps worrying about parents and other loved ones who are back home and not a simple flight away anymore.
Being an expat in Norway myself, and with elderly parents back home, this constant concern for their well-being and my helplessness at the thought of ‘What if something happens to them?’ is a plight I understand only too well.
Together, all of this adds up to a heavy mental burden.
So, here’s the question I put forward to multi-national organizations: Are global workforces getting the support they need to deal with this new pressure?
Even the best-intentioned organizations might not be able to extend that support because they have to deal with other more pressing matters such as loss of revenue, liquidity challenges, disruptions to operations and more.
I do believe that at a time like this, what comes into play is conscious, empathic leadership and more importantly a solid ‘global’ framework for employee care.
This is human resource management at its deepest, most challenging best.
At Generation Mobility, we’re working hard to support businesses with intuitive tools to support them through this crisis. Beginning with a robust assessment round, we start with identifying the challenges of our clients’ global workforce, and then compile custom programs and solutions to address these challenges.
Global mobility statistics tell us that upto 40% of international assignments fail — and this was pre-COVID-19. The ROI on international expansion efforts has always been a hit or miss, because of the massive ‘human’ variable that no amount of projections and Excel sheets can address.
What are those numbers going to look like now, post-pandemic? Food for thought.
