An Insider Look at WHR’s Agent Qualification Process

by | Sep 25, 2018 | News

Ten minutes.

It takes less than ten minutes to qualify a new agent within WHR Group’s Real Estate Partner Network.

That isn’t a lot of time. But, by asking specific, targeted questions, and speaking directly with the agents, WHR’s Vendor Management Department is able to significantly reduce the time spent finding and qualifying agents.

Most importantly, our qualification process allows us to better control the transferee experience during both the home sale and home buying process.

This past summer, I spoke with an agent with 15 years’ experience on the job and over 10 years’ experience handling relocation sales. She said WHR was the first relocation company to ever call her directly to check on her qualifications…in over 10 years! She was very impressed and thought WHR’s intentional approach ensured that each transferee works with knowledgeable agents.

A proactive agent qualification process

Real estate agents are CRITICAL to a smooth corporate relocation. They are the most regular face-to-face vendor contact a transferee will have in both the origin and destination locations. These agents support transferees and guide them through every step, including the stress of repair negotiations, offer escalations, and so much more.

By ensuring the transferee has a kind, experienced guide, we have seen homes sell quicker and transferees score their agent with over 90% satisfaction year over year. The home sale and purchase steps of a relocation are often the first dominoes in the chain that can trigger the move and family assimilation so making sure those get off to a good start is a high priority.

Affiliations shouldn’t matter

Another unique feature of the WHR Real Estate Partner Network is its independence. Many relocation management companies (RMCs) feed leads to real estate companies within the same parent company. This isn’t the case with WHR. We are solely focused on finding brokerages with the experience and quality service to deliver exceptional support for our transferees.

Only the best

WHR strives to work with the best of the best in each industry. We vet, measure, and hold each company that we partner with accountable for the services performed. Whether finding a new agent or working with an agent that has been part of our network for many years, we want our transferees to have confidence in their agents and to find a real connection. Matching an agent and transferee can be as difficult as setting up a blind date, but there are some tested standards that we have seen that make a positive impact on the relocation.

How long has the agent been licensed and how many relocation transactions have they closed? Experience is the greatest teacher and means the agent has both the capability and the network to find a strong offer and help in difficult negotiations. These agents can identify red flags and address property condition, marketing, or title concerns from day one, because they understand how the relocation process is linked together.

How many transactions have they closed in the last 12 months?

This question reveals the amount of time the agent dedicates to their real estate career, as well as the agent’s marketing efforts and ability to close a deal. We compare this value with other data on the market to determine if the agent has built a good reputation in the market, while ensuring they aren’t so busy that the transferee will feel neglected.

Setting the right expectations

Setting clear, measurable expectations early on will ensure that the agent and transferring employee both have a great experience. After reviewing the agent’s qualifications, we communicate next steps and our communication standards. It all comes down to teamwork. At the end of the day, we’re all working towards the same goal of creating a smooth transition for the transferee and their family.

Jenny Blechl

Jenny Blechl

Manager of Strategic Initiatives and Implementations

Jenny has been with WHR Group for the past 8 years and has served as a Relocation Counselor and as a Client Services Manager. Today, Jenny offers a unique perspective on WHR’s operational development and strives to continuously improve the client and transferee experience.

We look for specific culture fits when finding relocation agents, see these essential values here.

Music on the Moving Mind

by | Sep 18, 2018 | News

Even if your transferring employee is excited about their upcoming move, relocation is stressful. Whether they’re cleaning their current home to prepare for listing, finding a new school for the kids, or dealing with movers, all tasks, large and small, quickly become insurmountable mountains. While there are plenty of ways to relieve stress, we decided to turn to music. 

The power of song is incredible. Research at the University of Missouri discovered that listening to upbeat tunes, in coordination with other techniques, can increase overall happiness in a two-week period.

“Our work provides support for what many people already do — listen to music to improve their moods,” said lead author Yuna Ferguson.    

By applying this same methodology to moving, we can determine that music will help the process. With the assistance of music, your mood will improve. By focusing on the lyrics or the melody, your transferees are less likely to get stuck in their own heads. The long “to do” list suddenly floats away with the smooth words from Van Morrison in Brown Eyed Girl.

The Ultimate Playlist 

Knowing that music helps with overall happiness, we’re providing a new resource to share with transferees: the relocation playlist. The playlist is a combination of submissions from our Client Service Managers and Assistant Client Service Managers, as well as a selection of must-have classics.  

Happiness is Key

At the end of the day, the most important goal is happy transferees and their families. We’re dedicated to finding all possible avenues to relieve stress and make the relocation process just a little more enjoyable.

Reducing Global Mobility Risks When Relocating Employees

by | Jul 19, 2018 | News

Finding the perfect candidate is just the beginning. You then have to make sure that person is up for the move, because failed relocations can occur, and they are costly. By evaluating and addressing these four risk factors, you’ll give your employees a better chance of success in their new roles. Relocation management companies (RMCs) can also help you examine all the details to limit your global mobility risks.

Employee Assessment

Each employee is different and has unique needs. To determine if your employee is a good match for the transfer, you’ll want to conduct an employee assessment. At a minimum, the following questions should be asked and/or analyzed:

  • Does this employee have the skills necessary for the job?
  • Can they adjust to the new culture?
  • How will this employee manage the stress of the new role?
  • Are there any unique considerations for this employee?

Even if certain issues do arise during the employee assessment, that’s OK. You can offer additional support as needed. By communicating with your employee, you will help immensely because you’ll make it clear that you are there to support them with this big change in their life.

Family Assessment

Families should never be overlooked when discussing a relocation opportunity with an employee because according to our 2018 Global Mobility Benchmark Study, 79% of companies reported family concerns as the biggest reason employees decline relocations.

Just as every employee is unique, the same goes for family. You’ll want to conduct a thorough evaluation and have a plan in place to mitigate the familial challenges that accompany a major job relocation. Familial challenges can include:

  • Inadequate child care accommodations.
  • Quality and/or availability of education options.
  • Children have difficulty adjusting to their new schools and environment.
  • Inability to overcome language barriers.

Additionally, spousal/partner employment is a big factor to consider. An employee’s partner is the second most common reason an employee will decline a relocation. In today’s dual-income society, this is a major factor to consider during the planning process.

It’s likely to be difficult for your employee’s partner to find new employment in another country. Providing spousal support on a professional level will go a long way towards a successful move.

Health and Health Care

One factor often overlooked in the relocation process is health and health care. Prior to an employee taking an assignment, a health assessment is a must, especially if the employee is moving to a less-developed country.

  • Do any family members have a chronic health issue or disability?
  • Will the family have access to pediatric care for their children?
  • What other health care needs do the family currently have?

It’s critical to know beforehand if the employee and their family’s health care needs can be met. You don’t want your employee to end up in a situation where a health issue cannot be addressed by medical facilities in their new environment or have them decide to move back for health reasons. This comes with a heavy cost for both you and your employee.

Cost of living

Preparing and counseling your employees on the culture and region they’ll be living in can make all the difference between a successful or failed transfer. This includes setting expectations on the city/country’s cost of living. It’s important to find out if this is a concern for the employee. If so, you’ll want to consider offering an additional allowance, such as a Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) or mortgage subsidy.

Managing global mobility risks

At the end of the day, we need to remember we are relocating people, families – all with their own unique stories. That’s why we believe communication is the key to a successful relocation. Knowing all of your employee’s concerns upfront means you can address them before the relocation takes place.

Our goal is to help you identify the right people for the right positions, so you can feel confident in your company’s investment. By addressing mobility risk factors before sending your employee overseas or to another state, you’ll greatly reduce the chances of a failed transfer. Our customer-focused approach also ensures that all details are managed before and during your employee’s move.

Overcoming Five Employee Concerns to Relocation

by | Jul 2, 2018 | News

Making any life changing decision requires thought and consideration, especially if that decision is taking you across the country, or even across the globe! It’s easy to forget that even the most excited employees have concerns about the relocation process.
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Frequent communication is paramount to a successful relocation for both the employee and your company. By anticipating and recognizing employee concerns, you’ll be better prepared to alleviate those worries and keep the relocation moving in the right direction.

Here are five of the most common employee concerns to relocation and how you can alleviate them:

1. What if I can’t find a place to live?

The U.S. is now experiencing the lowest inventory levels in a generation. It’s not unusual to find fifteen offers the minute a house hits the market, meaning buyers now face paying more than market value for a home. There’s a real chance your employee could sell their home in a matter of days, and not have a new home to move into in the new location.

How you can help: Timing is everything. It’s important to give your employees the time they need to find a new home and complete the move. Your Relocation Management Company, or RMC, should provide qualified real estate agents that understand the relocation process and the timelines associated with such moves.

However, if you need your employee in the new location quickly, offer them temporary corporate housing. That way, they can be assured they will have a place to stay while they continue their new home search.

2. What if our family can’t move right away?

Employees and their families often have obligations they must fulfill before moving for their new position. They may want their children to finish out the school year, have an ill family member, or a partner that has a career of their own. Regardless of the reason, it’s essential that you and your employee communicate your timelines. You can make the change easier or more difficult depending on how well you communicate deadlines and expectations.

How you can help: By regularly discussing your company needs and understanding the individual employee’s circumstances, you greatly increase the chances of retaining your top employees. If the family needs to stay in the old location longer than anticipated, offer the employee temporary housing or pay for travel expenses to and from the new location. They can then meet your expectations for the new position without uprooting their family before they’re ready.

3. What if I don’t know anyone in the new location?

Moving is stressful, but not knowing anyone in the new location makes it even more challenging. Kids especially find it difficult to move from friends, family, and schools. Your employee and their family has built a well-established network – from their favorite grocery store to the gym they frequent – it’s difficult to leave them behind. They will need to build a new network for the relocation to be successful.

How you can help: Provide information on their new city, neighborhoods, and schools. Set up an area orientation so they can familiarize themselves with their new surroundings. Help them find a new gym, daycare, or whatever else they may need to feel at home. There are websites that can help as well, such as MeetUp or Next Door, where they can find others in the area with similar interests.

4. What about my spouse and my kids?

According to our recent benchmark study, 79% of respondents state that family is the reason for declining a relocation. Their partner may have a career. Their kids may be in school and have their own friends to say goodbye to. They may have family there. Your employee cannot focus 100% on their new position when they are focused on the needs of their family.

How you can help: Spousal and family assistance is crucial. When you take the family’s needs into consideration, you are showing your employee you truly care about making this a positive experience for them. Help your employee’s spouse/partner build a resume and find a new job. Help them find a great school for their kids. Anything that you can do to show that you care about their personal life will go a long way to ease their stress and concerns.

5. What if I can’t afford to live in my new neighborhood?

Packing up and moving from rural Iowa to Manhattan would be a shock to anyone’s wallet. The cost of living can be drastically different depending on where your employee is moving from and where they are moving to. Buying a new home or renting an apartment can be difficult due to upfront costs such as security deposits, finder’s fees, and down payments. The cost of homes, taxes, even groceries, may be significantly more than what your employees are used to.

How you can help: Offer your employee a cost of living allowance (COLA) or mortgage differential assistance. Both options ease your employees into the cost of the new location. Many companies choose to taper off these benefits over the course of a few years. You can make the transition to a new city less costly and more affordable for your best employees.

Cultivating a Culture of Teamwork

by | Jun 27, 2018 | News

Cultural training for employees who will be working internationally is perhaps more important today than ever before.  For many companies, there has been a significant paradigm shift away from the strictly bi-cultural focus of such training, opting instead for an approach that prepares the employee for working within a multi-cultural environment.  Ideally, such training is the first step in cultivating a culture of teamwork within an organization.

In so doing, companies are able to set themselves and their employees up for greater success, while mitigating the risk of assignment failure and/or employee attrition.

Why is multi-cultural training essential today?

Given the backdrop of the global business landscape, an employee who embarks on an overseas assignment will not necessarily merely be working with a local team.  Instead, it is far more likely that the employee will be part of a global team.  That means that he or she will be working side-by-side with people of many different nationalities, cultures and backgrounds.

In putting together a global team, an organization needs to ensure that each member of that team is able to effectively work with the other members.  To accomplish that, each member of the team needs to be able to communicate with one another, and to understand some of the key differences in their cultural backgrounds.

Setting the team up for success

That’s where cultural or multi-cultural training comes in.  In many cases, it’s the best insurance policy that an organization has for setting a global team up for success.

In a nutshell, cultural training is designed to set the employee up for success prior to the assignment, by setting expectations about life in the host country, and providing coping strategies, tools and resources to help make that happen.

From a talent mobility and talent management perspective, sending employees overseas is often a critical component for achieving an organization’s business goals.  But, it is also an increasingly expensive undertaking.  Not only is the physical move itself costly, but it can also cost an organization considerably in the loss of talent.

Thus, the investment in cultural training is vital from an employee retention standpoint. Without that support and commitment to the employee’s career success, an organization could end up losing a valuable employee altogether.

Communication is the key

Communication is obviously a fundamental factor for global teams to be able to effectively work together.  But, communication across cultures can be very tricky.  Speaking the same language is great, but communication and cultural understanding requires much more than the ability to speak a language.

Through cultural training, employees also learn how to be more tolerant of each other, and they have an opportunity to gain greater insight into the cultural nuances that typically exist.  So, it’s important to recognize the key role that communication (which can be verbal and nonverbal), plays in the process.

A win-win for the employee and organization

The idea is to bring members of a global team together in a way that fosters good communication, collaboration and interaction.  If done properly, it can be a real win-win for both the employee and the organization.  To best achieve such mutual success, cultural training has to go beyond the traditional model of preparing employees to live and thrive in a new country.

Today, cultural training also needs to provide the skills necessary for employees to work with people from many cultures and countries.  It is no longer a one-on-one relationship, but rather a one-to-many relationship.

How WHR Group can help

Our company has global partnerships with industry experts across the globe, enabling us to provide cultural and language training services to help expats and their families prepare for relocation abroad. For more information on how WHR Group can assist your employees with their international move and new assignment, give us a call at 800-523-3318 or email contactus@whrg.com.

WRITTEN BY: MICHELLE SANDLIN, SCRP, GMS-T

Michelle Sandlin, SCRP, GMS-T is an award-winning freelance writer and weekly columnist for the Houston Chronicle. She is also a frequent contributor to Mobility Magazine, as well as other publications, corporate blogs and white papers. She can be reached at 281.831.3112 or michelle.sandlin@me.com.

What’s Trending: Global Mobility GOOOAAAALS!

by | Jun 13, 2018 | News

Whether you’re a fan or not, I’m sure you’ve seen that the 2018 FIFA World Cup begins this week. In many ways, soccer (or football, depending on where you’re located!) is a complex game of techniques, rules (aka the Laws of the Game), and controversies. However, when you get down to brass tacks, the objective of the game is to simply kick the ball into a net, thus scoring a GOAL!

via GIPHY

You might be thinking:

“Hey, WHR Group… Why are you talking about soccer? You’re a relocation company!”

Yes, that’s true. But really, there are a lot of similarities between soccer and global mobility. We’ve picked out just a few:

 

Soccer Global Mobility
Terminology

They may have different names, but they mean the same thing.
 Soccer or Football Employee Relocation, Global Mobility, Corporate Relocation, or Workforce Mobility
Gameplay Complex game of techniques, rules, and controversies. The object of the game is to score a goal. Complex industry with a multitude of policies for each company, technologies, service approach, and more. The objective is simply to move a new or existing employee from one location to another.
Team Each team consists of eleven players, supported by a manager and a crew of assistant coaches. At WHR, each team consists of a Counselor and an Associate, supported by a Client Services Manager.
World Cup Held every four years, with host countries vying for a chance to participate in the selection process. Each host country must submit a Bidding Agreement, confirming compliance with bid requirements. FIFA evaluates the bids and identifies and recommends a host for the event. Upon selection, the host country must begin months of preparations to physically host the event. Many companies choose to select their relocation provider thought a “Request for Proposal” (RFP) process. Each relocation company must submit a proposal, confirming compliance with the requestors requirements. The company then evaluates the proposals and identifies and recommends a relocation company. Upon selection, the relocation company must begin an implementation process to ensure the guidelines and controls are in place to provide relocating employees consistent and top-quality relocation services.

The timeline for this process varies by company but can occur anywhere between every 2-5 years.
Goals Occurs when a player kicks the ball into the net. The team scores a point every time this happens. In mobility, each company tends to mark success differently. However, our recent benchmark study revealed that 87% of companies’ main priority is employee satisfaction.

We’ve done the research. Ready for the results?

Show me the numbers!

As we prepare to listen to announcers excitedly call “GOOOOAAAAL,” we wanted to look at key relocation goals and how to best achieve them so that you can mimic that excitement. We’ve rounded up the best guidance and insights, which combines a variety of resources from WHR Group as well as other industry professionals to help you get started.
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  1.   5 Simple Ways to Cut Relocation Costs
    It’s no secret that employee relocations are expensive. While we’ve spent the last 24 years finding ways to save our clients tens of millions of dollars on their relocation programs, there are other things you can be doing right now to save on your program.
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  2.   The Pros and Cons of Going Out to Bid for a Relocation Supplier
    Choosing a Relocation Management Company (RMC) that best fits your workplace culture, employee needs, company budget, and more can be a daunting task. With so many RMCs to choose from, the question becomes how do you find the right one?
    BONUS: Check out our white paper on sample RFP questions!
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  3.   U.S. Treasury & IRS to Address State Tax Deduction ‘Workarounds’
    Organizations with employees in high tax states are left in a state of uncertainty until the issue surrounding the new limitations on deductions for state taxes are resolved. In a Notice issued May 23, 2018, the IRS announced their intent to issue regulations.
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  4.   The H-1B Visa Lottery is Over. Now What?
    Immigration attorney, Andrew Lerner, answers employers’ most common questions surrounding the annual H-1B visa petition lottery.
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  5.   4 Steps for Developing a Talent Pool
    Talent pools are groups of employees who are being trained and developed to assume greater responsibilities within their organization. Often, but not always, they have been identified as high-performing and high-potential individuals.
relocation request for proposal