Handling Crisis in Your Global Mobility Program

A lot of preparation goes into any and every cross-border relocation or assignment. One of the big goals for mobility teams is to minimize potential issues or risks. Some of those are the risk of assignment failure, the risk of non-compliance, the risk of misunderstandings,  the risk of not budgeting properly and encountering financial surprises. And of course, there are always extra elements that are even harder to prepare for, like a medical emergency or another unexpected crisis situation. 

Duty of care is an obligation of an employer to ensure the health, safety, and well-being of their employees and their families when they are traveling or relocating. It's a big pillar of any global mobility program. In a recent AIRINC and International SOS webinar, “A Long Way From Home - Emergency Responses for Internationally Mobile Employees”, the hosts focused on duty of care, and how to plan for the inevitability of emergencies.  

Here were three key points to pay attention to:

1. Emergencies are inevitable for programs. Something, somewhere, at some point is going to happen that will be considered an emergency. Emergencies must be responded to immediately. Companies need to prepare for mass-evacuation events as well as creating crisis processes for individuals. Good planning helps ensure that people understand their roles and responsibilities in order to provide critical support. Companies also need to learn from previous events and situations and identify where improvements can be made.
    
2. Design for efficiencies and effectiveness. Start by understanding all of the key stakeholders that would need to be involved in specific events or incidents. Then, ensure your policies are updated and your support systems have been implemented properly. Then practice and promote so that when something does happen it is not a completely new and unfamiliar process for those involved. 
    
3. Being proactive will better support the business and employees. Consider and select the best partners in advance to help guide and build out a processes for each scenario. Use their expertise to guide you, since your external partners have likely supported other clients in similar crisis experiences. Understand that people are not products and the smallest proactive gestures can make a huge difference.

And finally, the biggest message emphasized by the end of the webinar was the need to engage in proactive planning. You can't account for every situation, but you can consider a wide variety of possibilities to provide a more potent and timely response. 

Mobility programs that fail to prepare and that do not have strong, well documented and practiced plans in place are the ones that will experience the most negative impacts to their business and their employees. International SOS offers a Crisis Management Gap Analysis Solution to help organizations identify and address weak areas within their programs and response plans. 

As we step toward 2025, now might be the right time to get more familiar with what your future risks look like. International SOS also offers their “Risk Outlook Webinar Series” to help you explore key risk trends and provide actionable guidance to help organizations navigate the challenges of the year ahead. 

And if crisis management is something you want to learn even more about, try some of our previous posts on the topic of risks, VUCA, and duty of care:

• Minimizing Your Global Mobility Risks
• How do the risks in a "super VUCA" world impact global mobility programs?
• 5 Tips for Supporting Your Relocating LGBTQ+ Employees
• How at risk are your globally mobile employees? Maybe more than you know!