ECA Global Perspectives – Benefits for mobile employees

Few people would be willing to relocate to another country without assurances about the standard of healthcare, housing and education that they and their family can expect. A well-designed benefits policy for globally mobile employees can ease their concerns and enable them to focus on the objectives of their international assignment.

Yet the costs involved can be significant. The chart opposite shows how a benefits package covering housing, education for one child, a car and utilities contributes to the net value of an assignee’s remuneration package in a selection of countries. As you can see, the value of assignment benefits can easily amount to over 60% of the package, even before tax is taken into account (and benefits are usually considered taxable).

Despite continuing pressure on organisations to reduce the costs of their mobility programmes, ECA statistics show that in recent years there have been no major changes in the core benefits that they provide to their assignees. More than three-quarters of respondents to ECA’s latest Benefits for International Assignments survey assist with the costs of home leave flights, medical insurance, housing, children’s education and company cars, for example.

While cost control is a priority for these companies, they clearly view benefits as essential for ensuring the success of their mobility programmes. There is therefore a clear advantage in being able to predict and communicate to all stakeholders the likely cost of potential assignments before they are approved. Global mobility professionals who can demonstrate a strong grip on costs and understand when it is appropriate to provide certain benefits will be able to demonstrate the viability of individual assignments and the value of the mobility programme to the business

ECA researches and reports on the costs of key expatriate benefits in over 170 countries each year. This report takes a detailed look at the costs of some of the core benefits included in many mobility policies, best practices regarding their provision, and how these should be combined with salary and tax data to produce detailed cost estimates.