Why workforce mobility needs to evolve and challenge old assumptions

Summary: New challenges require mobility functions to evolve with a focus on agility and people experience. Five key drivers can help mobility build resilience and improve business and talent outcomes.

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Workforce mobility functions find themselves at an inflection point of identity and purpose that requires an evolution. On one hand, the seismic changes to how and where organizations work across jurisdictions coupled with defining the “why” of work, has expanded the scope of mobility beyond what legacy models were built for.

On the other hand, economic, geopolitical, immigration and labor trends have left organizations in a constant state of flux. Even as economic recovery in advanced economies through 2025 is projected as “steady but slow” by the IMF, the outlook varies by region. This dynamic environment requires more agility and thoughtfulness around mobility investment, and how the function can measure and deliver clear return on investment for overall talent and business goals. The importance is amplified by organizations needing to look globally to find in-demand skills, and are building models for a knowledge-driven workforce that shows a preference to work remotely at least two days per week.

With this backdrop we’ve launched the EY 2024 Mobility Reimagined Survey to better understand what mobility functions are facing, and identify the drivers of better outcomes for the most evolved functions.

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Evolving mobility for better outcomes

Now in its second year, the EY 2024 Mobility Reimagined Survey builds on trending insights from more than 1,000 mobility professionals and employees across 21 global geographies. Segmenting the results reveals an upper quartile of functions that are the most “evolved,” being more likely to employ key drivers.

• Strategic alignment: Connecting workforce mobility strategy with broader organizational objectives
• Talent linkage: Using mobility for talent attraction, retention, and development
• Digital focus: Extent of automation and digitization of mobility processes
• Flexibility: Agility in the customization of mobility experiences, including options of program types and? benefits
• External expertise: Co-sourcing or outsourcing of select processes

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When comparing findings of the “evolved” group with mobility functions that are just “effective” (the group that employs key drivers the least), there are clearly better reported outcomes: including being 2.3 times more likely to say mobility helps organizational resilience; 2.2 times more likely to say mobility improves their sustainability agenda; 1.5 times more likely to say mobility helps address talent shortages; and 1.3 times more likely to cite positive mobility return on investment (ROI) and response to talent shortages.

Each driver contributes to a higher level of integration and awareness of mobility functions with their broader organization’s health and goals. Mobility professionals (95%) agree that strategic alignment of their function to business and talent strategy has multiple benefits, with a further 89% agreeing mobility helps secure organizational resilience. But most (60%) still believe mobility is isolated or siloed from other functions.

Importantly, the survey shows that “evolved” mobility functions are more likely to proactively build connections: they are not passive observers of organizational strategy, but learners and advisers to human resources and other parts of the business.

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Highlighting people experience and measuring progress

With the increase of hybrid work models, and a return to travel and cross-border assignments, mobility functions represent a powerful contributor to the overall employee value proposition. Of mobile employees, 92% say an international experience can be life-changing, representing the influence a cross-border assignment can have on current employees and prospective ones. Employees cite career growth as the leading reason to seek further mobility experiences, with 64% saying they are more likely to stay with their employer after a long-term mobile assignment. The quality of the experience matters most in the staying power of the mobile assignment.

Recognizing the full potential of mobility relies on being able to measure its impact. Even though nearly all mobility professionals are tracking ROI in some way, there is no universal metric. The largest number of employers (64%) track performance ratings, with cost (56%) and the function’s impact on business revenues and finances (54%) being the next most common.

But seeing mobility’s impact on talent strategy requires metrics attuned to career pathways, or retention rates.

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Five actions to evolve mobility

Maximizing the impact of workforce mobility requires organizations to recognize the interplay of agility and resilience. Using the key drivers as signposts, organizations can begin to reimagine how mobility is aligned with talent and business strategy.

Here are five actions for organizations to take:

1. Act strategically: Break mobility out of a transactional silo, and build tangible connections and data flows between it and other functions. By aligning mobility with wider organizational and talent strategy, teams can improve efficiency and agility.
2. Integrate with talent: By linking the function to talent development goals and processes, and to targets for talent attraction and retention, organizations can add greater value for employees through exceptional experiences, and encourage new workforce models for agile organizations.
3. Focus on digital: Promote the use of new digital tools and ensure people are at the center of transformation. Part of remaining technologically agile is preparing for continued advances with GenAI, bringing with it the potential to transform ways of working and mobile employee experience.
4. Build people-first mobility programs: to respond to what prospective and current employees are seeking, organizations need to remain flexible in how they think about their mobility programs and talent strategy. Mobility functions need to be built for remote, hybrid and physical mobility experiences, without neglecting the advantages or pitfalls of a single configuration. Part of this calculus is prioritizing sustainable and inclusive thinking in evolving mobility.
5. Develop resilient operating models: With added scope, mobility functions will also need to reimagine their operating models to account for better coordination of internal stakeholders and external partners. Leveraging external vendors provides access to know-how, and can relieve pressure on internal resources to focus attention elsewhere. This proactive approach will help manage risks caused by a changing mix of work models and international regulation.

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Past mobility models are not necessarily fit for purpose in a complex and dynamic business climate. This is why organizations should move to evolve workforce mobility into a strategically integrated function that is high-impact, efficient, and cost-effective, while building an exceptional experience for employees.