The Connection Between Recruiting, Retention And World-Class Relocation

A company’s relocation policy should be viewed as a statement about its culture. If the company culture is supportive of its people, and wants to create an environment where their people can be successful and have a positive attitude toward the company, then the relocation policy has to reflect that.

Too often, attempts to minimize relocation costs in the short term can have a severe negative impact on transferees’ morale, loyalty and performance. However, if a company can begin to balance the costs of relocation against the revenue production and /or cost center accountability for which an employee is responsible, then a clearer picture of the benefits of providing substantial relocation support for a new or transferring employee emerges.

Considering the high demand for talent across every sector of the economy, the added benefit  of a relocation policy that provides a substantial degree of support is clear – it becomes an effective and necessary recruiting and retention tool.

Making The Connection

The company that connects recruiting and retention to relocation policy says, “We want to do everything we can for our people.  We don’t want a relocation to affect our workforce retention abilities negatively.”

A well-known company conducted a two-year study of their relocation program and discovered that 50% of the people they had moved during that period had left the company.  This represented a huge cost, not only in terms of the money they spent to move those departed employees, but even more in terms of the talent they lost and had to replace.

The problem was how they conceived and implemented their relocation policy. This company’s H.R. department and line directors believed that, outside of a nominal allowance, relocation costs should be the responsibility of the transferee. At the same time, they expected the people to be on the job and productive from the first day, even though they were dealing with the two of the three most stressful conditions in a person’s life, which are moving and changing jobs.

As a result, the relocation experience was difficult for their people. When the company asked us for our advice, all we could tell them was that they had to rethink their relocation policy. Before they could do that, they had to change their approach to reflect a genuine concern for what relocation represents to an employee and it’s effect on productivity. It was an adjustment they were not prepared to make; so they are continuing to struggle to attract and retain talented people.  They are saving money, but losing people.  This is a scenario that plays it self out in far too many otherwise successful companies, large and small, all across the country.

Applying Feedback Mechanisms

There’s no official system in place to track how long transferees stay with an organization after they’ve been deployed to a new position.   However, best-practice relocation policies build in processes that solicit and act on transferee feedback throughout the relocation process. Integrating this process into the policy from the beginning allows companies to build, relocation-by-relocation, a database that will not only improve quality control short-term but also yield the accumulated data that will tell when and why transferees left the company one, two and eventually three or more years after a move.

This tracking process will allow them to identify where their relocation policies are supporting the objectives of the company and where they are failing it. Armed with this information, it becomes possible to gauge more accurately whether or not the investment in relocation is paying off.

The Challenge Of Relocating A New Employee

In almost every case, recruiting top talent is much more difficult if relocation is involved.  A recruit’s key concerns are moving their family, maintaining or improving their lifestyle, minimizing disruption and managing any cost of living differentiation.  The question any recruit asks is,  “Is this job good enough to justify the improvement in my position and pay in spite of all the negatives of family, cost, and lifestyle adjustment?” 

If the job is worth the trouble, the next thing a recruit looks at is what the company will do to support the relocation.  The recruit wants to know if the company understands what’s involved and whether they are willing to step up with the financial aid to support them.

Companies who want to attract top talent realize that making the relocation as stress-free as possible has an enormously positive impact on the recruit’s first impression of their new company.  If meaningful support is not there, the recruit will understandably begin to question how committed the company is to him or her. And that distrust never goes away, it’s always there.  Ask anyone who has gone through a relocation when they’ve been recruited to a new organization.  They will tell you that if the company stepped up and helped reduce the pain and stress of relocation, their perception of that company was positive and that perception endured.  If the experience was negative, it had the opposite effect.

Poor relocation policy sends a clear message. When recruits or employees have to reach in their pockets and pay the expenses of relocation, it breeds discontent, especially since the move is benefiting the company.  Another manifestation of a poor relocation policy is when the company does not provide the correct work mechanisms to allow a successful transition. The employees have to do things on their own -- They have to go find their own temporary living, they have to make their own travel plans, they have to find their own real estate agent, and they have to find their own mortgage.  When the company is not providing these kinds of support services or has not taken the time to identify a resource that the employee can rely on to do those things, it eats into the transferee’s time and increases stress (personal, professional, and family) which decreases productivity.

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