Banking and professional services to spearhead growth in global mobility
20 May 2014
Banking and professional services will likely lead the way in a resurgence by companies of moving employees around the world to new assignments in Q3 and Q4 of this year, a global mobility expert has told a London audience.
Tue, 20 May 2014 | By DeeDee DokeBanking and professional services will likely lead the way in a resurgence by companies of moving employees around the world to new assignments in Q3 and Q4 of this year, a global mobility expert has told a London audience.
John Rason, head of Santa Fe Group Consulting Services, predicted “much more growth” occurring in global mobility towards the end of the year than in the last few years. He was speaking on Monday [19 May] at the London Totally Expat show 2014.
According to Santa Fe’s newly launched 2014 Global Mobility Survey Report, the most difficult assignments to fill are presidents/vice presidents/directors (nearly 40% of respondents said), specialists/technical experts (31.1%), and managers (25.5%).
When such roles are hard to fill, there is a strong possibility that the wrong people will be selected because of pressures to get someone in the job, Rason said. Factors such as the ability to adjust culturally and perceived ability to cope with the assignment are given less weight than relevant job experience, existing skillset and the candidate’s potential within the business.
Such issues are among the reasons that global mobility practitioners believe their work needs to be better aligned with their organisation’s talent management function, the survey findings suggest. The report reveals significant interest from global mobility practitioners in spending time on strategic workforce planning (40%) and assignment candidate selection (28%). Currently only 11% of the 1,269 survey respondents are involved in either activity.
“Spending time on strategic workforce planning is a key goal for professionals in the US (52%), Singapore (49%), Australia (48%), Portugal (48%) and the UK (46%),” the report said.
At the same time, 52% of organisations have one to two people supporting mobility programmes.
John Rason, head of Santa Fe Group Consulting Services, predicted “much more growth” occurring in global mobility towards the end of the year than in the last few years. He was speaking on Monday [19 May] at the London Totally Expat show 2014.
According to Santa Fe’s newly launched 2014 Global Mobility Survey Report, the most difficult assignments to fill are presidents/vice presidents/directors (nearly 40% of respondents said), specialists/technical experts (31.1%), and managers (25.5%).
When such roles are hard to fill, there is a strong possibility that the wrong people will be selected because of pressures to get someone in the job, Rason said. Factors such as the ability to adjust culturally and perceived ability to cope with the assignment are given less weight than relevant job experience, existing skillset and the candidate’s potential within the business.
Such issues are among the reasons that global mobility practitioners believe their work needs to be better aligned with their organisation’s talent management function, the survey findings suggest. The report reveals significant interest from global mobility practitioners in spending time on strategic workforce planning (40%) and assignment candidate selection (28%). Currently only 11% of the 1,269 survey respondents are involved in either activity.
“Spending time on strategic workforce planning is a key goal for professionals in the US (52%), Singapore (49%), Australia (48%), Portugal (48%) and the UK (46%),” the report said.
At the same time, 52% of organisations have one to two people supporting mobility programmes.
