Are emotions impacting your global mobility program?

About a year ago, we wrote about how increased stress was impacting mobility programs. Coming into 2022, the aggregate of the stress, sadness, anger, worry and physical pain that people feel every day reached a new record in the history of Gallup’s tracking. Many won't be surprised by this with a war in Ukraine, an ongoing global pandemic, inflation, and so many other events we see occurring in the world around us. According to the "Gallup Global Emotions 2022" report:

"Many things make people unhappy, but there are five significant contributors to the rise of global unhappiness: poverty, bad communities, hunger, loneliness and the scarcity of good work. Two billion people live on insufficient incomes and another 2 billion are so unhappy with where they live, they wouldn’t recommend it to anyone they know."

The negative experience index measures people level of experiencing physical pain, worry, sadness, stress and anger and it has risen 10 points since 2007.

Further support for what is fueling the level of stress felt across the world is a new report out this last week from OnSolve, which analyzed a database of more than 14 million events over the last two years, puts some numbers on the change. From 2020 to mid-2022, the company calculates that:

• Shooting risks are up 193%
• Transportation-related risks are up 146%
• Crime risks are up 141%
• Fire risks are up 118%
• Infrastructure and technology risks are up 111%
• National security events are up 48%
• Extreme weather events are up 47%
• Civil unrest is up 9%

Maybe you are wondering which locations are faring the best within the craziness we're seeing? Gallup did find the places with the highest levels of positive experience. Here are the top 10 countries where positive experiences were being reported:

1. Panama
2. Indonesia
3. Paraguay
4. El Salvador
5. Honduras
6. Nicaragua
7. Iceland
8. Philippines
9. Senegal
10. Denmark & South Africa (tied)

At the other end of the spectrum, the locations with the lowest levels of positive experiences were Afghanistan, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, and Nepal. Overall the world is less rested, more stressed and overall less happy than ever. People had more negative experiences and fewer positive ones. Sadness and worry increased. Visit the Global Happiness Center to learn more about why and how Gallup measures global wellbeing and to see the world's hot spots with our Global Emotions Interactive page. 

But what does this mean for global mobility programs?

It likely means that supporting people through relocation is more challenging than ever! While most of the people coming through global mobility programs are not worried about their next meal or having a job, there is more to navigate these days than ever. The reality is that the past two years has been incredibly challenging for people around the world. If 4 in 10 people coming through your mobility program are unhappy, what do you do to provide an experience that "moves" them? (pun intended!) According to Oracle's Happiness Report, people (88%) are searching for new experiences to make them smile, laugh and they will reward brands that embrace humor with loyalty, advocacy and repeated business. In other words, adding humor to the CX/EX is appreciated. We actually spoke about this idea in a post not too long ago: Improving your mobility program is no joking matter — or maybe it is! We know that stress is ingrained into the relocation experience so tapping into humor might be the next thing to add to the experience, assuming you are already providing a great supply chain, great technology tools, and efficient processes!