Wherever you go, there you are

Some credit Confucious for this simple and obvious statement, but for sure Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote a mindfulness book with that as the title. But let's drill in a little on this...why did you go there and was it some place you wanted to go...and if you could go somewhere, where would you go?

More and more often, work can be performed from anywhere. Businesses have been more willing to consider allowing people, or even supporting them, to relocate to a desired location and work from there. A few years ago, we identified a trend of "self-initiated" relocations within global mobility programs (we called them "hand-raisers") and they continue to be out there on the talent mobility radar. Many companies have created separate policies or tiers within their policies for these types of moves so that they can keep the talented people they have invested in.

So, where would you move to if you were free to settle into any city around the world? The Harvard Business Review published an article entitled, "The Most Attractive Cities to Move to for Work" that highlighted the research done by AIRINC.

This year's AIRINC Global 150 Cities Index is out. This ranking combines local salary levels, tax rates, living costs and living conditions to assess the attractiveness of each location. Each city is assigned a score based upon the net purchasing power, and this score is used to determine the financial ranking of the cities. The information can be sliced and diced. Let's consider how locations did from a tri-regional perspective.

• APAC perspective: Interestingly, no city within the APAC region cracked the top 10 for "Overall Attractiveness.” The highest placing city for "Lifestyle Rank" in the region was Melbourne, Australia which came in at ninth. And, in the category of "Financial Rank,” Macau came in eighth.
• The Americas perspective: New York in sixth, Toronto in eighth, Calgary in ninth, and San Francisco in 10th all represented the Americas in the "Overall Attractiveness" category. For the "Lifestyle Ranking,” only Toronto placed in the top 10. And as it relates to the "Financial Ranking" for this regions cities, Georgetown came in second, while Seattle was 10th. These were the only two to break into the Top 10.
• EMEA perspective: This region dominated the rankings having six of the top 10 in the "Overall Attractiveness" category: Zurich in first, Geneva in second, Luxembourg in third, Munich in fourth, Vienna in fifth, and Berlin in sixth. In the "Lifestyle Rank" category, eight of the top 10 were listed: Zurich was first, Vienna was second, London was third, Munich was fourth, Berlin was fifth, Copenhagen was sixth, Geneva was seventh, and Dublin came in at 10th. In the "Financial Ranking,” seven of the top 10 were found: Manama was first, Georgetown was second, Zurich was third, Geneva was fourth, Riyadh was fifth, Kuwait City was sixth, Luxembourg was seventh, and Amman came in ninth.

EMEA also dominated the "Happiest Countries in the World" rankings this past year as well. We will have to watch and consider how regional economies and politics impact both of these ratings.

Where would you choose to live?