Relocation Services
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Relocation services, employee relocation, military Permanent Change of Station (PCS) or workforce mobility include a range of internal
business process A business process, business method or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (serves a particular business goal) for a parti ...
es to transfer employees, their families, and/or entire departments of a business to a new location. Like other types of
employee benefit Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any oth ...
s, these processes are usually administered by
human resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include m ...
specialists within a
corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...
. In the military, these processes are administered by the Transportation Management Office (TMO) and Personal Property Shipping Office (PPSO). Such business processes can include domestic residential services where an employee moves within a country or state as well as international relocation services which include planning for
diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...
s, managers, etc. working abroad. An agency providing relocation services directs and manages the process of relocation including arranging necessary documents (
visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...
, long-term stay permissions), finding a new house ( accommodation), finding a
school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...
for children (
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
), finding a job for the partner or "trailing spouse", arranging a teacher for the family (
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
training) and introduce expatriates to the local culture.


International relocations

Dating back to the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
, sending an employee to work in another country (sometimes called a "global assignment" in current HR jargon) has carried considerable costs while theoretically opening the potential for financial returns for the employer. With
tax equalization {{Taxation, expanded=International Tax equalization is a policy applied by some international companies under which employees who are hired in one country and later accept a (temporary) assignment in another country do not have their total after-t ...
, housing allowance, cost-of-living adjustment, and other benefits, the typical expatriate compensation package is two to three times the home-country base salary. For example, an expatriate with a €100,000 annual salary will cost the employer €200,000-300,000 per year incl. the relocation costs. Shorter term assignments have lower costs, especially when they avoid taxation thresholds. Reasons why a company might give an employee a global assignment include filling functional needs, developing the employee for upper management, and developing the company itself. Anne-Wil Harzing of the
University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...
further categorizes these employees as "bears, bumblebees and spiders". Those playing the role of bears are the long arm of headquarters control. The bumblebees transfer (cross-pollinate) their corporate culture. Harzing's spiders weave the informal communication networks so important in connecting far-flung branches,
subsidiaries A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a sa ...
and all
strategic partners FIN: Atlantic International Film Festival (known as The Atlantic International Film Festival until 2017) is a major international film festival held annually in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada since 1980. FIN is the largest Canadian film festival eas ...
. Responding to a 2005 survey of global assignment management practices commissioned by a US-based third-party relocation management company, 31 percent of surveyed employers indicated that they track exceptions on a per-assignment basis for budgetary purposes, 23 percent track exception on an overall basis in order to identify policy components that need review, and 39 percent do not track the cost or type of exceptions granted. (Seven percent were not able to answer the question.) Depending on the size and organization of a company, different departments, such as finance or human resources, may administer the relocation program. Some may lack any formal programs while others have highly structured processes. Moreover, different operating units may administer different aspects of the program. Some may manage and execute all of their relocation processes in-house while others outsource them. This is done to save time, focusing internal resources on company workforce strengths, or for providing better service to each transferee. Of the companies participating in the 2005 Survey of Global Assignment Management Practices, 43 percent indicated that they either outsource or co-source some assignment management services (staffing 1:58 assignees, 7 percent declined to answer).


See also

*
Moving company A moving company, removalist or van line is a company that helps people and businesses move their goods from one place to another. It offers all-inclusive services for relocations, like packing, loading, moving, unloading, unpacking, and a ...
*
Worldwide ERC Worldwide ERC (also known as the Employee Relocation Council) is a relocation services industry trade group. Its membership of 12,000 (as of 2005) relocation professionals -- or global workforce mobility specialists — are concerned with current ...
– Relocation services trade group


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Relocation Service Moving companies Moving and relocation