Mobility in the digital age

Your global mobility programme may be driven by growth opportunities, mergers and acquisitions, or the implementation of new business strategies.

Regardless of its drivers, any effective mobility solution must consider cultural, legal, political and organisational constraints, while meeting needs like talent retention, regulatory compliance, cost management, effective IT solutions and more.

Thanks to continuous advancements in the field, different forms of technology can help companies do so.

On Friday 9 December, Santa Fe Relocation Services and Lenovo Technology jointly hosted a ground-breaking event at Lenovo’s Beijing Innovation Center where, along with Mercer Consulting, they engaged an audience of HR executives on the topic of Mobility in the Digital Age. Human Resources was the exclusive media partner for this event, which was conducted fully in Mandarin.

Approximately 60 guests from leading global mobility teams in China attended to learn how Santa Fe, Lenovo and Mercer are impacting and implementing technology in the industry.

The event featured presentations on the deployment of technology to support an effective mobility programme, ensuring support to their talent anytime, anywhere. Roundtable discussions were held providing a deeper dive into the topics of talent management, repatriation, localisation and compliance.

Jane Teng, operations manager immigration services Asia, discussed Santa Fe’s launch of the new Business Travel Tracker. The comprehensive solution makes use of the latest technology to provide clients with easy to use self-service tools that can help initiate and manage travel requests. It manages the risks, security concerns, and compliance overhead of immigration, tax, and social security regulations across borders.

The Business Travel Tracker can automate approvals where appropriate, or escalate more challenging requirements to Santa Fe’s skilled local teams as needed. Guests were able to see the solution in action at the event during demonstrations using the latest Lenovo Motorola devices.

On behalf of Lenovo, Hausen Zhang, director employee benefits and global talent mobility, shared the company's best practices in mobility. The Lenovo global mobility team is well known for its strategic contribution to the organisation. Technology is not only their core competency, but also at the foundation of their talent management strategy which must be able to keep up with a fast-paced industry.

Hausen highlighted how each of the internal and external stakeholders interlink to minimise the administrative burden on the mobility teams while also offering the very best support for talent relocating globally. Lenovo has structured its global talent mobility policy to sustain a ready and available talent pool as it predicts a gap between talent supply and demand by 2021.

Reviewing the results of the 2016 Mercer Total Remuneration Survey was Flora Yang, consulting director at Mercer. Yang shared key findings on issues related to locally hired foreigners and Chinese expat returnees, as well as an outlook on the Chinese Companies International Assignment Survey.

She presented the latest global mobility trends, their challenges, and finished by sharing best practices of multi-national and Chinese companies.

The unique gathering of mobility experts and high value of the shared content left guests feeling pleased and the organisers inspired to create similar events in 2017.

For more information on similar future events, click here.

This article is brought to you by Santa Fe Relocation Services.