On Thursday 12th September, members of the K2 UK team were joined by senior mobility professionals from London and the South East, along with presenters from AIRINC and Blick Rothenberg, for K2’s autumn London Mobility Leadership Morning.
Over the course of the morning, attendees had the opportunity to meet with experienced Global Mobility Leaders and hear from expert speakers on some of the critical challenges faced in the mobility and talent arena today.
The event was opened by Haleon’s Head of Global Mobility, Honor Armand-Smith, who spoke to the group about a recent collaborative project delivered in partnership by the GM and Talent teams at Haleon to create a fresh and innovative approach to aligning mobility and talent.
Mike Wincott from AIRINC lead a discussion on optimising assignee experience within GM and shared the findings from their latest Mobility Outlook Survey, the results of which have helped AIRINC to identify the priority areas that contribute to a good assignee experience.
On the topics covered during the discussion, Mike says:
“The success and reputation of mobility programmes hinge on employees having a great experience. Whatever their type of international mobility, a positive employee experience is essential for fostering engagement, productivity, and ultimately, retention. The definition of a good experience varies widely. When something as ephemeral as experience is being considered, it is hard to put your finger on what exactly makes it ‘great’.
Using the benchmark data, we explored the impact and prioritisation of nine factors that are core to a good employee experience. The topics covered everything from career planning to vendor relationships and communication to family support. The findings were thought provoking and stimulated a wide-ranging discussion. We left the session with everyone having learned something through the sharing of insights, experience and war stories!”
The last session of the morning was delivered by Reward Services Partner, Stuart Hyland, and Global Mobility Partner, Rehana Earle, from Blick Rothenberg, and looked at aligning reward frameworks with mobility strategy, with a specific focus on the significant impact of upcoming changes to EU pay transparency regulations for GM teams.
Rehana comments:
“The new EU pay transparency regulations are going to have a seismic impact on all employers across the region, and the communication and management of any resulting changes for globally mobile employees will need to be dealt with sensitively.
Locally specific pay transparency regulations create issues for Global Mobility programmes, and there are a number of potential tensions that may need to be addressed, including the global alignment of roles/grades. Reward Strategy has a key role to play in helping organisations to balance local requirements, globally.
The main message we are trying to put across to GM teams at this stage is to find a way to be a part of internal working-groups now, so that mobility isn’t an afterthought for organisations during this transition.”
After all the presentations were finished, those who were able to stay on were invited to enjoy a networking lunch, with further opportunity to discuss the content of the session and ask any additional questions to presenters, the K2 team and their mobility colleagues.
Reflecting on the event, Global Account Director for K2, Miranda Barras-Smith, says:
“We know that time is precious for senior mobility professionals, so it is important that events like these provide real value and tangible takeaways to those who attend. By working with our network to curate an agenda designed to address of-the-minute issues, provide valuable industry insights, and impart innovative ways of working, the aim is to arm GM leaders with new tools and knowledge that they can take back to their teams and the wider business.”
Miranda continues:
“We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who attended, and to our presenters, for making this Mobility Leadership Morning one of the best yet.”
