Workflows have become a bit of a buzzword in the business community, and no wonder why! With all the redundant tasks that can pop up in a process, workflows not only help your team perform at their best, they emphasize exactly what contributes to the success of a business. 

This, in turn, dramatically improves business operations by minimizing room for errors and increasing overall efficiency through streamlined and automated tasks. Account managers can make quicker, more effective decisions and employees can collaborate in a more productive and efficient way. 

WHR’s unique workflows create the framework of our technology allowing our team to stay proactive and work on a just in time basis. From our vendor management system that creates metric driven scorecards, to our 100% accurate and compliant invoicing processes—everything is completely integrated so clients and their transferees have a positive relocation experience.

Introducing “myWork One”

Designed to keep the high-touch aspect intertwined throughout every relocation process, “myWork One” monitors every transferee experience for key events and critical dates. This allows our staff to remain aware of all relocation dates/deliverables and consolidate key documents/correspondences into our document repository.

Because our system is fully integrated with DocuSign®, we can use the repository to pull together all file details into a single electronic representation that remains available for easy reference. We want your transferee’s relocation process to be as simple as possible, which is why our workflows offer complete transparency, adaptability, and compliance for every national and international move.

Complex compliance issues can create daily challenges for those managing relocation programs, and the consequences of being non-compliant holds large implications for companies. For this reason, we literally build your policy parameters into our technology. Every expense limit and cap lives within our system and is monitored, tracked, and reported to ensure compliance.

How Do Our Workflows Function?

The best thing about our workflows is they optimize key tasks for our employees to be proactive by seeing and addressing issues before your transferee is even affected. 

As every workflow task is completed, our system will monitor key dates and documents to ensure complete compliance to policy and allow maximum utilization of the relocation benefits.    

Service Partners

We take client and transferee satisfaction very seriously, which is exactly why we have spent years building a quality service partner network that can meet your needs with the highest level of quality service. Transferee satisfaction surveys are the backbone of our service partner’s performance measurements. We utilize the responses to quickly address any service issues, and our leadership and management teams receive immediate alerts if a survey is returned with a score lower than 4 out of 5.

We contribute our success to the commitment we have to provide our clients with the best possible service. The workflows we’ve developed facilitate this superior customer service by providing cost-effective and efficient relocation services. We invite you to learn more about our workflows and the high-quality service we provide to our clients. 

WHR Group is in the business of making the complex simple. However, when it comes to the economy, nothing is black and white. To take pulse of the current economy and the Federal Reserve’s sentiment in 2020, WHR attended an economics luncheon in Milwaukee on January 9th, 2020. The featured speaker was Charlie Evans who has been President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago since September of 2007. 

While Evans emphasized he cannot speak on behalf of his colleagues, he is currently happy with the state of the domestic economy and the current Federal Funds Rate of 1.75% (see Federal Funds Rate). In fact, the U.S. unemployment rate of 3.5% is at its lowest rate in the past 50 years, and the U.S. economy has been enjoying a mature 10 year expansion period, the longest on record in the post-WWII era (What is Unemployment?). 

Even in a decade of expansion, there is always room for economic improvement. Addressing the regional economic outlook, Evans stated that the Upper Midwest is dominated by heavy manufacturing which has struggled to attract workers due to the unusually low unemployment rate. Several business leaders in the Midwest have been held back from expansion plans due to the tight labor market. One way businesses are overcoming this labor challenge is by offering flexible work hours and more attractive work environments. 

On the national level, Evans is a member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) which influences federal monetary policy through the purchasing and selling of U.S. Treasury Securities (Open Market Operations). And while Evans may be happy with the current Federal Funds Rate, he would like to see an improvement in the U.S. inflation rate of 1.7%. The Federal Reserve has an explicit target of 2% symmetric inflation to insulate against zero lower bound risk (Why 2%?). The federal funds rate and inflation are negatively correlated (as interest rates are reduced, more consumers borrow and spend money which increases the inflation rate, and vice versa). Therefore, if the economy is in a downturn and the Federal Funds Rate is already at 0%, this may cause a liquidity trap and limit the capacity that the Federal Reserve has to stimulate economic growth by reducing the Federal Funds Rate.

Will the Federal Reserve consider negative interest rates? Per Evans, no, the U.S. is not seriously contemplating negative interest rates, even though there are multiple central banks across the globe with negative rates (e.g. Japan, Switzerland, and Sweden). Negative interest rates are an unconventional monetary policy tool, and drastic measure to prevent a country from falling into a deflationary spiral (Deflationary Spiral). In simple terms, if consumers want to keep their money in banks, the yield on those accounts would be negative which incentivizes consumers to spend instead of save, similar to a fee for keeping your money in the bank. Interestingly enough, if the Federal Reserve followed this policy during the Great Recession, interest rates would have been -4% to -5%.

If you have questions or insights about how the U.S. economy may impact your global mobility, let us know in the comments below.

Since we wanted to put the power of information in your hands, we created two online portals. One for you, our client, and a second portal for your transferees. Our client and transferee portals are designed with one thing in mind—to make the relocation process simple. Simple means stress-free, streamlined, transparent, informed, and functional. 

Your Client Portal

The client portal houses information regarding employee benefits, data integrity, record retention, and information security. Access everything you need in one place, on any device, and at any time including the following:

•  Customized dashboards that include snapshots of key metrics
• Full access to all file information
• Online authorizations
• Real-time reports and invoices
• Employee satisfaction surveys
• Third-party scorecards
• Contact information for your client service manager/counseling teams with secure, live chat
• Document repository and more!

When clicking on an individual employee, you will be shown an “at a glance” summary of activity. All file notes and status updates are available to review in real-time.

Documents and invoices are also digitally stored within each file and available for review 24/7. Our authorization process is designed to ensure every task is executed correctly, regardless of size or scale.

We will build your policy parameters into our system so that your portal is customized to your specific policy, data requirements, and reporting needs. Controls are built into our system preventing duplication of relocation authorizations and providing an audit trail that will identify input, corrections, amendments, and approvals within each transferee file.

Access and review transferee required documentation and expense submissions for a transparent and easy experience that offers all our customers support. We’ll move your top talent to where you need them in a way that is stress-free, compliant, streamlined, and successful.

Your Transferee Portal 

Our transferee portal offers each transferee and their family access to all available tools and resources for a smooth and easy relocation. Similar to the client portal, the transferee portal houses snapshots of important information directly on the landing page.

We believe that your transferees should have the ability to communicate and submit documents based on their individual preferences, which is why the transferee portal includes the following:

• Live instant messaging with the counseling team
• Expense management
• Assigned benefits summary
• Notifications for required tasks/documents
• Document repository
• Resource center for hellpful websites
• Downloadable guides and checklists

Because physical documents are often a hassle with the potential for delays, our eForms feature means no more hefty paperwork or missing information. Your employees can complete all paperwork securely online from their computer, phone, or tablet, and sign all eForms using DocuSign®.

By putting the power of information into your hands, our portals help to make the complex simple. We invite you to learn more about our client and transferee portals to discover how we can improve turn time and visibility in the relocation process.

It’s hard to believe that we just welcomed in a New Year! As we reflect on the great things that happened in 2019, we’re also excited about renewing our commitment to exceptional service, year-over-year savings, and continued growth as we work with our clients to implement exceptional relocation programs. 

As we look toward the future, we are more dedicated than ever in continually moving in the right direction. All of us at WHR Group feel privileged in the work we do. As part of this, we are proud to share a few of our favorite highlights and achievements from the past year.

Our History

In 2020, we will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of WHR Group. When Roger Thrun started WHR in the bedroom of his house, he never imagined we would become a global relocation management company servicing such a vast diversity of clients in countries across the globe. As we begin to kick off our 25th year, we’re also celebrating the consistent ownership and leadership we’ve had over this time as it has provided a bedrock of consistency in an industry of constant ownership changes.

Award-Winning Culture

WHR was named a Top Workplace for the sixth consecutive year by the Journal Sentinel! We’re also very excited that our CFO, Jami Long, was named CFO of the Year by the Milwaukee Business Journal! We are proud of our leadership team and the commitment and loyalty of our employees. With an employee retention rate of 96.5% and NPS score at +76.8, it’s no wonder our clients are so happy with the tenure, experience, and insight our exceptional professionals offer every single day. We continue to invest in every employee by providing ongoing employee development including GMS, CRP, IT Training, Title Training, Cultural Competency, Presentation Skills, and Emotional Intelligence education.

Year-Over-Year Savings

We’re at it again this year helping our clients save time, effort, energy…and money! Through our policy reviews, expert program recommendations, and partner network utilization, our clients are creating workflow efficiencies, deepening employee engagement, and leveraging their budgets to provide the greatest value.

We Work in Our Client’s Best Interest

Our clients’ relocation requirements reach beyond U.S. borders, and while we have been offering international relocation services on a global scale, it was imperative to look beyond. In order to provide the level of customer service our clients need, we laid the groundwork to open two international offices in 2020. Operations will launch this year in Zurich, Switzerland, and Singapore, to support our global clients.

Technology You Can Rely On

Since compliance is so important, our NIST 800-53 alone features 262 controls. Our information security program is in accordance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Additionally, our technology works to help the planet and your bottom line. Paper-based processes don’t just cost you time—they can have a significant environmental impact as well. We’re committed to helping both and by moving to DocuSign®, we’ve helped save the following:

• 3,716 lbs. of wood
• 9,939 gallons of water
• 8,360 lbs. of CO2
• 549 lbs. of waste

The Best Service You Will Ever Receive

This past year, we continued to enhance the user experience by enabling push notifications, SMS, and videos with upgrades to the transferee and client portals. This has allowed real-time information exchange to correct and improve service issues on the spot. We also enabled a household goods virtual surveying tool to help reduce the number of contacts a transferee needs to engage with throughout the relocation supply chain.

Throughout the coming year, we look forward to building on our strong foundation and achieving even greater heights of accomplishment. Whether you are an employee, client, or service partner, our goal is to advance lives forward. We want to provide an impact directly to you as we help people move to new places and experience new opportunities every day.

How are you managing your domestic and international employee relocations? If you’re using an outside relocation partner, are they providing you with a secure and customizable technology tool? 

We understand that every organization’s relocation program is unique. To address that need, we developed our own proprietary employee relocation technology.

Cue CARICS

WHR knew that to meet the requirements of a complex industry and provide solutions that supported our clients, we needed a tool that would be agile, flexible, customizable, and offer the strongest possible security features.

CARICS (Counseling, Appraisals, Referrals, International, and Closing System), our all-inclusive program is designed to address your daily tasks and relocation needs. Whether it’s service execution, workflow tracking, vendor management, or a document repository, CARICS plays a large role in the success of happy and positive relocation experiences.

Built in-house, CARICS manages every aspect of our client’s relocation needs. From file initiation through operational execution and customer billing, CARICS handles multiple core services and is supported by a sophisticated task management operational system.

All Data is Secure

Safeguarding the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your company and transferee data is essential. To ensure this, we maintain an information security program in accordance with the following:

• Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)
• Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Also, CARICS is regularly audited and continually backed-up, guaranteeing you always have secure and immediate access to your company and transferee information.

Customizable and Agile

With CARICS, you can access the reports you need when you need them—and in a format that works best for your organization. Since our technology is agile, you get customized, ad-hoc reporting at any time and at no additional cost. Whether you require filters based on cost centers or subsidiaries, or need a column reordered in an Excel export, our system is flexible enough to meet all your needs.

During implementation, we build your relocation program, policies, and individual benefits into our system. Every parameter, every expense limit, and every cap lives within the system. By customizing our technology to meet your unique requirements, we ensure 100% compliance.

Invoicing Designed for You

We know there is not a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to global mobility, so CARICS was designed with the capability to track and support all financial transactions including:

• Employee equity
• Mortgage payoff
• Resale closing
• Vendor payments
• Client invoicing
• Immigration processing and tracking
• Compensation tracking, and more

Whether you require individual billing, offset billing, or group billing, CARICS can format requests and provide you with the invoices you need for the efficient processing you deserve. CARICS can also support bi-weekly, monthly, or case-by-case basis billing.

The right relocation management tool will provide efficiency, agility, security, and customization. Most relocation management companies opt to use technology that’s designed for the average user, but we know you’re not just average.

To learn more about how CARICS can help your organization, contact us today!

At WHR Group, we know your relocation program is unique and deserves more than the typical cookie-cutter platform, which is why we went ahead and created our own proprietary technology. We own and maintain our relocation technologies using in-house developers so that all your needs can be met, not just most.

As an independent company founded on the industry need to offer cost-effective relocation benefits without compromising on empathy, ethics, or service, our high-tech, high-touch model is a blend of modern relocation technology and highly trained, dedicated individuals driven to provide the best service possible. 

Phase One: Our Foundation

The foundation of our technology starts with a safe and secure experience. Security is a top priority for our clients, which means it’s a top priority for us. Our information security program not only complies with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST); but is also regularly audited and continually backed-up. Ensuring you always have secure and immediate access to your companies and transferee’s information.

Safeguarding the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your companies and transferee’s data is essential. But so is getting you the reports you need when you need them—and in a format that works best for your organization. During implementation, we build your relocation program, policies, and individual benefits into our system. Every parameter, every expense limit, and every cap lives within the system. By customizing our technology to meet your unique requirements, we ensure 100% compliance. Since our technology is agile, you get customized, ad-hoc reporting at any time at no additional cost. Whether you require filters based on cost centers or subsidiaries, or need a column reordered in an Excel export, our system is flexible to meet your needs.

The foundation of our technology is built on security and flexibility. Our clients rely on us every day to keep their information secure and provide sophisticated customization so their relocation program runs seamlessly.

Phase Two: Our Workflows

Our workflows create the framework of our technology that allows everyone at WHR Group to stay proactive and work on a minute-by-minute basis. Everything—from our vendor management system which creates metric driven scorecards, to our 100% accurate and compliant invoicing processes—is completely integrated so that our clients and their transferees receive a happy and positive relocation experience every time.

The technology behind our workflows is CARICs (Counseling, Appraisals, Referrals, International, and Closing System), an all-inclusive program used for service execution, workflow tracking, vendor management, client invoicing and as a document repository. This system was developed and built internally by our own talented and highly tenured experts.    

To get a feel for our technology, consider our “myWork One” workflow. This workflow monitors more than 300 mission-critical tasks, key events, and critical dates every 15-minutes and allows our staff to stay proactive across the complex and ever-evolving relocation deliverables. 

Our workflow is also constantly monitoring our survey responses. Transferee satisfaction surveys are the backbone of our vendor performance measurement and we use the responses to quickly address any service issues early in the relocation process. Our leadership and management teams receive an immediate alert if a survey is returned with any score lower than 4 out of 5. This workflow allows our teams to quickly address any issue same day or within one business day. 

Phase Three: Our Portals

Our portals were designed with one mission in mind: to make the relocation process simple for our clients and their transferees. Everything we do—from our mobile apps, customized reporting, and exception management—was developed to facilitate an easy and streamlined experience.

Our client portal offers everything you need to run your relocation program successfully in one place. With customized dashboards that include snapshots of key metrics and full access to files and documentation, your portal can be accessed on any device at any time. It also offers you the ability to complete online authorizations, access real-time reports and invoices, completed employee satisfaction surveys, and view third-party scorecards. Sounds super easy and convenient, right? It gets better! The client portal also includes all the contact information you need and instant messaging so you can communicate with your team in a secure live chat setting from anywhere in the world. 

Our transferee portal provides each transferee and their family access to all our available tools and resources for a smooth and easy relocation. Similar to the client portal, the transferee portal houses snapshots of important information directly on the main page. We believe that your transferees should have the ability to communicate and submit documents based on their individual preferences. They can easily view key dates, chat with a counselor, or enter expenses and other information pertinent to the relocation process—based on how they like to use technology best. Through the live chat feature, they can communicate 24/7 with their counseling team.

Technology plays a large role in a company’s success, and while ours is no exception, a key differentiator is our technology is created and fueled by our people. Our industry experts designed every facet of our processes and systems to be better and do more for our clients; and our three-phased approach helps us boost employee productivity and overall positive feelings throughout the relocation process.