insideMOBILITY® Singapore 2019 Event Highlights

insideMOBILITY Singapore 2019 took place last week at the Swissôtel The Stamford. Along with personal agendas that included interactive workshops where delegates discussed top industry trends, we welcomed over 60 mobility professionals from 46 companies. The 63 delegates from eight countries gathered once again to meet, share and connect through different programme tracks tailored to the individual priorities of each attendee!

Intra-Asia Relocation Approaches

During the Five Minute Spotlight session ‘Intra-Asia Relocations and Assignments’, attendees participated in interactive polls to further the discussion on the various approaches mobility professionals are using for intra-country and intra-region relocations specifically. Via these live polls, attendees voted Immigration Complexities, Tax Regulations, and Differences to Cost of Living as the main challenges for moves within APAC. These findings then kicked off a panel discussion with Claudia Delgado, Head of Global Mobility at Visa, Ee Leen Khor, Global Mobility Manager at MSD and Shumin Yeo, Global Mobility Manager at Micron, during which these three key elements emerged:

• Agility – Because there are always exceptions to every policy, it is important that policies establish a framework that provides freedom to flex when special circumstances arise. One solution is to create a core programme that allows for national variations as needed.
• Data – Data continues to lead the trends within the mobility industry. As companies become increasingly data driven, business leaders also expect this in the mobility functions. Data is increasingly used in decision making, reporting on movements and activity between specific countries/regions, looking for patterns and supporting broader business objectives.
• Feedback – The mobility function touches many areas of the business and often involves many stakeholders. Understanding how to work with these stakeholders and highlight the value mobility provides to the business is always important. Data points and capturing the voice of the customer, or transferee, help to create flexible policies that can be followed consistently but delivered in a personalized manner.

Interactive Workshops

The day continued with working sessions tailored to hot topics within the mobility industry today. Each attendee selected sessions focused on Policy and Practice, Assignee Experience, and Leadership and Vision depending on the current needs of their mobility programmes. During these interactive workshops, attendees worked with their peers through specific challenges they face in their day-to-day roles to find solutions. These are some of the challenges that were discussed:

• The potential for added policy flexibility to meet the changing demands of the business
• Brainstorming how metrics and data can improve Mobility’s brand with senior leaders and key stakeholders
• Requests to consider extended family members in relocation packages in cultures where it is customary for extended families to live in one household

The session ‘Best Suppliers I Ever Worked With’ was dedicated to defining the qualities and attributes of an ideal suppliers. Attendees agreed that true partners should be an extension of the corporate mobility team and understand the company culture in order to provide excellent relocation experiences for transferees. Open and honest communication coupled with trust and transparency are also important traits in an outstanding supplier. Attendees recommend suppliers use a high touch approach with regular face-to-face meetings and to facilitate better communication and partnership. Similar to the morning’s session on intra-country relocations, agility was identified as an important element in working with partners, especially when an exception to policy is encountered and personalised advice rather than off-the-shelf solutions are needed.

insideMOBILITY Continues

Be sure to join us as the insideMOBILITY event series continues in 2020! We will kick things off in Atlanta, a city that echoes the reenergised spirit of the mobility industry, in February. Be sure to sign up for Graebel communications to receive the latest news on the upcoming insideMOBILITY events and other tools and tricks to continue leading innovation within your mobility programmes!